Hearing a familiar tune carries us back in time to a special moment, to our childhood realms and to the innermost chambers of our heart. Jewish mystics wrote that our souls are violins playing the music of creation; when we play these violins, the divine realms reverberate with it and are fine tuned according to it.
When the Republicans are in power in Washington, the Jewish political world is usually on the outside looking in, except in matters regarding Israel. With the exception of Israel, the Jewish political orientation (pro-science, pro-choice, favoring economic equality and internationalism) is completely at odds with the contemporary Republican agenda in national politics.
The Agoura Eruv, a project conceived by a small group of local Chabad congregants, covered portions of Agoura Hills and Oak Park, as well as a small sliver of Westlake Village. The Oak Park segment of the eruv had been taken down prior to the Jan. 23 meeting, and on Jan. 25 the Eruv Committee officially ordered the elements in Agoura Hills and Westlake Village dismantled.
Etzioni-Halevy has focused her attention on reworking popular biblical stories, making the characters, particularly women, more alive and personable for modern readers.
It was unclear who was there for the punk and who was there for the Judaism, but everyone seemed to be there for the music.
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