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April 16, 2004
The Dalai Lama's horn blower
Mordehai Wosk uses his shofar to create a sacred time or place.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
Music speaks not only to the ear, but to the spirit as well. That's
why, when various religious traditions come together, it is often
music or sacred chanting that proves the most effective tool for
creating a shared sacred space.
That will be the case this weekend, when the Dalai Lama visits Vancouver
and people of many faiths, including a number of Jewish British
Columbians, participate in spiritual activities with the Tibetan
Buddhist leader. For Mordehai Wosk, a Vancouver psychologist and
educator who is on the steering committee for the Dalai Lama's visit
and will blow the shofar as part of a multifaith event, it will
not be the first time he has welcomed the revered Tibetan leader
by blowing the traditional Jewish ram's horn.
Last fall, Wosk, along with his wife Hana and their son, visited
India, where the Dalai Lama has lived in exile since China occupied
Tibet in 1959. At a three-day Festival of Sacred Chanting and Singing,
Wosk and his shofar escorted the Dalai Lama into the main staging
area. In addition to Wosk, who represented the Jewish tradition
along with a group from Israel and others, the event included representatives
of Sikh, Vedic, Indonesian, Hindi, Zoroastrian, Baha'i, Jain, Islamic,
various African and other traditions, each of which employs chanting
as part of religious expression. Jewish participants offered chants
of Yom Kippur.
The major international conference taking place to mark the Dalai
Lama's visit coincides with the launch of the University of British
Columbia's new contemporary Tibetan studies program. The conference
will involve top scholars in the field, but sacred music will play
an important part, too.
"Music is immediately understandable," said Wosk. "That
allows for the mind to be receptive to inspirational thoughts and
feelings."
Growing up, Wosk said he was moved by the shofar each Jewish New
Year and wondered why it wasn't incorporated into a broader variety
of Jewish practices. Though that annual use has become traditional
to recent generations of Jews, Wosk said ancient Israelites probably
used the horn far more frequently, marking sacred times like the
beginning of Shabbat, a new moon, funerals, festivals and the jubilee
year. That ancient tradition appealed to Wosk.
"Something in me said this should be more moving, more powerful,
more direct," he told the Bulletin in an interview at
his home hours before Pesach.
Wosk has revived some of those traditions, blowing the shofar at
appropriate times to mark the creation of a sacred time or space.
The wailing blast of the ram's horn, like the repeated sounds of
a chant or the stillness of meditation, are intended to help people
lose themselves in the ocean of creation, Wosk said; to leave the
confines of thought and physicality, to immerse oneself in the simplicity
and wonder of existence. Stripping away the superfluous details
of daily life and even political or ideological preconceptions,
base spiritual practices like music, meditation and chanting allow
the practitioner to experience their base nature.
"One of the main points is that we are people of the earth,"
he said. "We are dust given a breath of life and what we do
with that life is our responsibility."
The Dalai Lama is an international advocate for intercultural understanding.
Meetings like the ones he will attend this weekend in Vancouver
are meant to bring people together to explore areas of commonality,
such as the necessity to preserve the earth and find goodness in
other peoples' traditions. Music, chanting and meditation are among
the practices shared by almost all religions on earth, in one form
or another, and can prove an ideal starting point for intercultural
communication.
For Wosk, the shofar is a symbol of the basic tenets of faith.
"Who gives breath to the blower?" Wosk asked. "That's
a gift from God. You want the sound of the breath of Hashem to blow
through you. That's the power that you see in the shofar."
The stewardship of the fragile earth – and our part in hurting
and healing it – is an important aspect of both the Dalai Lama's
philosophy and the purpose of multifaith events like those taking
place next week.
"If you realize that you're part of the earth, you'll respect
it and sustain it," Wosk said.
Traditionally, the shofar is made of a ram's horn, though it is
increasingly common to use horns of the north African kudu, a member
of the antelope family. Wosk has a collection of shofarim, one of
which he reserves solely for the traditional Rosh Hashanah service.
Though sacred events are generally monumental and moving, they are
not without their humor as well. Wosk noted that, on one occasion,
organizers slotted him in for 15 minutes, apparently not understanding
that a shofar is not an instrument one plays for long intervals.
Anything more than a few sharp blasts of the sacred horn and the
blower would likely pass out from the exertion.
Wosk notes that many people who were born Jewish have been drawn
to "eastern" spiritualities, like Buddhism, because of
the philosophy and beautiful practices. But he said practices such
as meditation and chanting have existed for centuries in Jewish
tradition, albeit primarily in the mystical traditions of kabbalism
and Chassidism. There are other parallels Wosk sees between his
Jewish tradition and the Buddhism of the Dalai Lama. Judaism defines
love in terms of action – feeding the hungry, clothing the
naked, befriending the stranger – which is the same as Buddhism.
Also, like the Jews, Buddhists do not blindly accept dogma, but
seek enlightenment through spiritual and intellectual exploration.
"They question and search and don't just accept," Wosk
said.
The example of the Dalai Lama is one of tolerance and curiosity,
not doctrinaire fundamentalism, Wosk said.
"We can recognize that there's one source of life for the world,
but there are different people and styles and languages and religions,"
Wosk said.
Pat Johnson is a native Vancouverite, a journalist and
commentator.
For more on Jewish participation in the Dalai Lama's visit, see
last week's Bulletin (Archives April 9, Spirituality), visit www.dalailamavancouver.org
or www.multifaithaction.org.
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