Jewish Life through Music

Mondays at 7 p.m. via Zoom

led by Rabbi Sacks

Am HaYam’s Lifelong Learning Program is proud to present this year-long course that will help us to think more deeply about the American Jewish experience, and our own relationship to Judaism and Jewishness through stories of the evolving nature of Jewish music. This course will be based on the Stories of Music Project of UCLA and the Center for Music of American Jewish Experience. Rabbi Sacks is a co-author of that curriculum.

Rabbi Sacks is now in a unit called Tzedek, Tzedek (Tashir v’) Tirdof–Music in Doing Justice. Over the course of a number of weeks, this unit will explore three facets of doing social justice work–and the music that propels it:

• Rallying and protesting against injustice in real time: The Power of Protest
• Teaching and mobilizing against injustice: The Power of Ritual
• Advocating and galvanizing against injustice: The Power of Performance

We will highlight:

• several key protests against injustice in American history, music that propelled and sustained them, and Jewish involvement in both;(especially) the era of the civil rights movement, with other eras explored as well;
• how the Passover seder serves as an example of and model for the revisioning, refocusing and utilization of rituals/liturgical moments in service of social justice values and concerns;
• Jewish involvement in many aspects of most entertainment genres and moments that served to reflect and/or forward the work of justice.
• several key moments in the history of musical performance, especially in the era of the Civil Rights Movement, and how music served them or responded to them;
• how Jewish creativity continues to draw from and motivate the call to social justice.

Please come prepared to learn, grow, and appreciate your own connection to the richness of Jewish life through our music. This course is to savor and enjoy!

If you are joining us for the first time, please contact president@CongregationAmHayam.com to receive the link to join a Zoom class. Visitors are invited and appreciated!