When I was making my feeble attempt to learn German, I bought a book of poetry, in German, at a used bookstore. Something the editor wrote (in English) in his introduction has stuck with me ever since.
I don't remember the exact wording, but the gist was: Poetry is best enjoyed when it is not fully understood. I took this to mean that, when you leave certain things to your imagination, when you don't look for exact meaning, but take some time to just revel in the beauty of language, even if you don't understand every word, and if you can get some idea of the sentiment it is trying to express, you are getting a fuller appreciation of a poem than you would if you assiduously tried to assign a certain meaning to every word, every line, every verse.
It's the same, I think, with music. Music is man's attempt to express what is ineffable, what can't necessarily be expressed in a simple explanation, as careful as you might be in trying to choose the right words. It communicates on a deeper level than we can reach with reason or logic.
I thought about this while watching, for the umpteenth time, the video above, which was recorded in the Old City of Jerusalem. If you wander through the Old City, you realize that, besides those who are dressed according to the dictates of their faith -- Orthodox Jews, for example, with wide-brimmed black hats, or Muslim women in burkas -- it's not always easy to tell, at a glance, who is an Arab, who is Jewish, who is Christian, who is Muslim. (Tourists like myself, of course, are easy to identify).
When I watched this video today, again, for the umpteenth time, I focused on the young boy who seems to be taking such joy in the music. Is he Arab? Is he Jewish? Who knows? Who cares? He's caught up in the music, and it's a joy to watch him be carried away by it. My guess is that, whatever his ethnicity or faith, he didn't care much whether the musicians were Jewish, or Muslim, or Christian, or Druze, or completely secular. He was experiencing the pleasure of watching and listening to people create something that took them beyond themselves; creating rather than destroying. The recognition of that creative force is embedded in all of us, I think, deep in our souls.
I'm certainly not proposing an easy, utopian solution to intractable problems. Politics matter; ideology matters. People die, and are oppressed, and suffer every day because of such things. I know exactly how I feel about those who subscribe to wrong-headed and misbegotten ideologies, and those who believe that their political stances represent truth with a capital "T". But music, poetry, and art are capable of taking us outside the human realm and into the Divine. It's a realm we all live in, and maybe we don't take the time to recognize or acknowledge it.
Mark Helprin once wrote, "The greatest substance of the world is immaterial, the province of the heart, and its study cannot be forced or reasoned. Merely to touch upon the edge of things in praising their mechanics is to forswear their fullness, for the entry to this fullness lies not in science but in art. I cannot prove this, for it cannot be proven, but I claim, assert, and have seen it." I have seen it, and my guess is that we all can see it too, if we look and listen carefully enough. I've said it before, and while I can't prove it, because it can't be proven, I claim it and assert it: Music trumps politics and ideology every time, because it has a unique ability to touch our hearts. Thank God for that.
