Earlier today, I listened to remarks that Secretary of State Antony Blinken made during a press conference in Israel. In those remarks he referenced a text written by his stepfather, Samuel Pisar, to be performed as part of Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3 more commonly known as the monumental “Kaddish Symphony.”

The Kaddish Symphony is a dramatic portrayal, through the powerful interaction of words and music of humanity’s crisis of faith and the disorientation it provokes in our contemporary world. Before Bernstein’s death, he turned to his friend, Samuel Pisar and asked him to write the definitive narrative for “Kaddish,” based on the Holocaust – one of the worst catastrophes perpetrated by one group of people over another under the eyes of a seemingly uncaring God. Having been a holocaust survivor himself, Pisar felt unable to produce a text equal to the grandeur of Bernstein’s music. It would also mean a revisiting of his own lifelong struggle with reason and faith. But soon after the horror s of September 11, 2001, Pisar was convinced it was time to fulfill Bernstein’s request and write his aching and eloquent “Dialogue with God.”

The section of the dialogue from which Secretary Blinken quoted today is worth reading in light of the overwhelming tragedies we are witnessing in Israel and Gaza and indeed in so many places within our world today. I admire Pisar’s  fierce honesty with God, his “Job-like” arguments, and the urgency of his warning to turn from depravity and cherish the sanctity of human life.

I have posted a link to the entire text and the “Kaddish Symphony” below.

Majestic deity:
Whoever You are, wherever You are,
Your omnipresence in our midst
Is so old, so immense, so ingrained,
That I dare not even ask myself
If You are reality or illusion.
Either way, for us mortals,
You are an indispensable source of hope.

Still, my Kaddish is not a confession
Of sudden religious reawakening.
Like most of my fellow-men,
I remain torn between belief and doubt,
Revelation and enlightenment
Tradition and modernity.

Since my return from the valleys of death,
A rage to live and learn has pushed me
Toward the summits of existence.
Yes, providence has smiled upon me,
And today my cup truly runneth over.

But in the end, what am I,
If not a humble messenger
From a world that once collapsed,
Alarmed to see our world headed
For another collapse?

And what entitles me
To claim Your attention,
If not a duty to bear witness
To the martyrdom and rebirth of my people;
Of all peoples exposed to
Existential danger?

And what is my message,
If not that man,
Though created in Your image,
And endowed with freedom to choose
Between good and evil,
Remains capable of the worst,
As of the best,
Of hatred as of love,
Of madness as of genius.

That unless we curb our predatory instincts,
Cherish the sanctity and dignity of human life,
And espouse the core moral values
Common to all great creeds
-Sacred and secular-
The horrors of the past will return
To darken our future.

Complete Text of “Dialogue with God” by Samuel Pisar
John Axelrod and Luzerner Orchestra on Spotify

The gifted oboist and conductor, Michael Helmrath, once asked a student the following question:

“Where is the music?”
“In the CD when you started playing it?”
“No the CD is a photo. But it isn’t the music.”
“Then is it in the score, when you write it?”
“No the music only exists in the moment when it is played. Therefore, don’t be afraid. Just play.”