JxHH - Fall Quarter 2020

Week 1 - Civilizations & Icebergs
what is judaism? what is hip hop?
what's under the surface?

Judaism as Civilization
Judaism [is] something far more comprehensive than Jewish religion. It includes that nexus of a history, literature, language, social organization, folk sanctions, standards of conduct, social and spiritual ideals, esthetic values, which in their totality form a civilization.
Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan

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Week 2 - Sampling
is sampling lazy or essential?
is civilization built on sampling?

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Week 3 - Authentic Self
on borrowing & authenticity
what does it mean to be made in the image of God?

Excerpts from FIND YOUR WINGS by Tyler, the Creator
Find your wings (You're supposed to fly)
Find your wings (Find your wings)
Hey you, whatcha doin' and why you runnin'?
Supposed to fly and take control cause you're the pilot
You can't swim, you're gonna drown, the sharks are comin'
The sky's your home, there's no limit, you know you gotta
Find your wings (Fly)
Find your wings (Find your wings)


We can go down to the rainbows
Don't let your high keep your brain low
You're a bird
You're supposed to fly away
The way you stand there
Don't let your wings go to waste (Go to waste)
The sky is your home, be free
Be free

Excerpts from Wanna Be Cool by Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment
I was dropping fifties man to look like 50
Rocking pink Polo's, man, sh*t ain't even fit me
Looking for the inspiration that's already in me
All the confidence I was tryin' to buy myself
If you don't like me, f*** it, I'll be by myself
Spend all this time for you to say I'm fine
I really should have spent it tryin' to find myself

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Is being cool that cool? (Really?)
Is being a tool that big of a tool? (Is it?)
It doesn't matter if a n***a is wearing Supreme
If a cool guy sh*ts his sh*t's still gonna stink
If a cool guy's cool in the middle of the forest
Man nobody f***ing cares
So why don't you just be the you that you know you are
You know, when nobody else is there?
Don't be weird, it's easy, and it's so important
Being cool shouldn't cost a fortune
Baby got her jeans from Goodwill
But I bet that ass look good still
Okay let's remember that shopping at Payless
It just means you pay less, it don't make you bae-less
If you don't get re-tweets, it don't mean you say less, okay?
So I'mma post this sh**ty-ass selfie on IG
And I don't care if anybody likes it or likes me, it's cool

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Week 4 - Politics
on politics in art & religion
is religion political? is art political?

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Week 5 - Mental Health
on mental health in hip hop & judaism
Excerpts from I by Kendrick Lamar
I done been through a whole lot
Trial, tribulation, but I know God
Satan wanna put me in a bow tie
Pray that the holy water don't go dry, yeah yeah
As I look around me
So many motherf***ers wanna down me
But an enemigo never drown me
In front of a dirty double-mirror they found me
And I love myself
(The world is a ghetto with big guns and picket signs)
I love myself
(But it can do what it want whenever it want, I don't mind)
I love myself
(He said I gotta get up, life is more than suicide)
I love myself
(One day at a time, sun gon' shine)
Everybody lookin' at you crazy (crazy!)
What you gonna do? (what you gonna do?)
Lift up your head and keep moving (keep moving)
Or let the paranoia haunt you (haunt you)?
Peace to fashion police, I wear my heart
On my sleeve, let the runway start
You know the miserable do love company
What do you want from me and my scars?
Everybody lack confidence, everybody lack confidence
How many times my potential was anonymous?
How many times the city making me promises?
So I promise this
I love myself

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I went to war last night
With an automatic weapon, don't nobody call a medic
I'ma do it 'til I get it right
I went to war last night
I've been dealing with depression ever since an adolescent
Duckin' every other blessin' I can never see the message
I could never take the lead, I could never bob and weave
From a negative and letting them annihilate me
And it's evident I'm moving at a meteor speed
Finna run into a building, lay my body in the street
Keep my money in the ceiling, let my mama know I'm free
Give my story to the children and a lesson they can read
And the glory to the feeling of the holy unseen
Seen enough, make a motherf***er scream, "I love myself!"
I lost my head
I must've misread what the good book said
Oh woes keep me, it's a jungle inside
Give myself again 'til the well runs dry

Moses Maimonides’ Regimen of Health was written in 1198 for the Egyptian sultan Afdal Nur al-Din Ali who suffered from attacks of depression accompanied by physical symptoms. Maimonides teaches that physical convalescence is dependent on psychological well-being and rest. [Source by Avi Solomon]

• If emotional stress is maintained for a long period, one will definitely become ill.
  
• Constant anxiety damages the body.
  
• Emotional experiences produce distinct changes in the body... Emotions also
  have an effect on the circulation of the blood and the functioning of one’s organs...They affect the body and they in turn are affected by the constitution of the body.
  
• Contemplation alone reduces bad thoughts, anxiety and distress. Most thoughts that cause distress, sorrow, sadness or grief, occurs from one of two things:
  
  • Either one thinks of the past like the loss of money or a beloved one
    
  • Or one thinks of something that may occur in the future like a possible loss or injury and one fears their coming.
    

Excerpts from Coconut Oil by Lizzo
I remember back, back in school when I wasn't cool
Sh*t, I still ain't cool, but you better make some room for me
I'm comin' through with my crew at the rendezvous
Yeah, it's a party over here now
If I knew then what I know now
I'd give myself a souvenir for old times' sake
'Cause I got all that I need here and I'm good yeah
I thought I needed to run and find somebody to love
But all I needed was some coconut oil
Don't worry 'bout the small things, I know I can do all things
Mama always told me it would be alright

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When I look at you, I see me, so I do unto
You as I would do someone livin' in my two story
We got different stories, we under one roof
So when it spring a leak, we both got work to do

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Week 6 - Sexism & Misogyny
on gender in hip hop & judaism

Excerpt of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED Talk
featured in Flawless by Beyonce
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller
We say to girls: "You can have ambition, but not too much
You should aim to be successful, but not too successful
Otherwise, you will threaten the man"
Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage
I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important
Now, marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support
But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don't teach boys the same?
We raise girls to see each other as competitors
Not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing
But for the attention of men
We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are
Feminist: A person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes

Excerpts from A Bride for One Night by Ruth Calderon
This is a story about sisterhood. Although it was written when the Sotah ceremony was no longer performed (if indeed it ever was), it served as a warning to women who might be tempted to collude against male power. The narrator of the story warns anyone who tries to circumvent the law will pay with her life and that the final kiss will be a kiss of death...
I took the liberty of freezing the end of the story one moment prior to the sister's arrival, just before the sisterly kiss turns into a kiss of death...This story features sisters in solidarity and a God who is accepting, assisting, winking at the woman from behind the back of her jealous husband, like a mother who smiles at her eldest son from behind the back of his grumbling younger brother. Like an accomplice.
Sisterly solidarity in this story, as in the discourse of feminism, is a force that is stronger than just blood ties, a force that cannot be overcome: the force of women who would not hesitate to violate the law for the sake of one another. The solidarity of the downtrodden...
The narrator of this story, from his masculine perspective, failed to appreciate the complexity of the relationship between the sisters. He regards their solidarity as a threat to the social order.

We All Stood Together by Merle Feld
My brother and I were at Sinai He kept a journal
of what he saw
of what he heard
of what it all meant to him
I wish I had such a record
of what happened to me there
It seems like every time I want to write
I can’t
I’m always holding a baby
one of my own
or one for a friend
always holding a baby
so my hands are never free
to write things down
And then
As time passes
The particulars
The hard data
The who what when where why
Slip away from me
And all I’m left with is
The feeling
But feelings are just sounds
The vowel barking of a mute
My brother is so sure of what he heard After all he’s got a record of it
Consonant after consonant after consonant If we remembered it together
We could recreate holy time
Sparks flying

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Week 7 - God
on God in hip hop & judaism

Excerpts from God is Love by Common
The unconditional, critical mission, listen to
The indivisible, mystical, it was meant for you
And meant for me, infinitely
Even been to prisons to visit you
Ask, "What would Christians do?"
Well some are harassing Native Americans
If God is love, why is hate in the air again?
Search for Samaritans in the hood, misunderstood
A savior comes, will he only come for the good?
The lost tribe of Shabazz and the second class
God, I see you in the streets where the checks is cashed
Hear you in the heartbeat, hopin' that love'll last
I know you in the words, "Where the first is last"
They try to use math to quantify you
In 2005, you saved lives by the Bayou
I know you in the mouth of the spouse singing, "I do"
The most vital is how I describe you

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Even when the hard times come
I'll be standing in your love
Grateful, grateful for this life
You turned on the light (Hey, hey)
Even when the hard times come
I'll be standing in your love
Grateful, grateful for this life
You turned on the light

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We were Buffalo Soldiers, dreadlocked Rastas
Praying to Jehovah, Rafa, in the back of cop cars
Even then we knew that love was not far
It's in the passion of the teachers and the rockstars
The muslim sisters singing "allāhu akbar"
It's coming from where Maya and Pop are
It's in the grandchild's stare up at Papa
"Love is love" became the mantra
The montage for creation, we need it in relation
When two ships pass, one love is the flotation
It's what God used to put the planet in rotation
It's what the culture used to build a hip hop nation
From the basement to the attic, where cookie show for magic
It's what we told the world when we said our lives matter
Turn the student to a master, hustler to a pastor
That's why I'm a rapper, it's all that I'm after

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Even when the hard times come
Yeah I know that
I'll be standing in your love (Yeah)
Oh, that's why I am
Grateful, (So) grateful for this life
You turned on the light (Hey, hey)
God your love has taught me that
Even when the hard times come
Oh, I know that I'll
I'll be standing in your love (Hey, and I am)
Grateful, grateful for this life (Grateful)
You turned on the light
You turned on the light, yes you did

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When it's hard (Yeah)
I know you're right there
Tell me where would I be?
Placed it all
Without your love
At your feet
Where would I be?
I don't know
Without your light
What tomorrow brings
Tell me where would I be?
Without your grace
What I know is
I am so grateful, I am so grateful
Oh oh, oh I know (Oh-oh)
Ooh, ooh, yeah, yeah
'Cause you are the light
Mm-mm-hmm

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God.
1 John 4:8 He that does not love, does not know God; for God is love.

Two Feminist Views of Goddess and God
For Carol, divinity is omnipresent, not omnipotent: Goddess is the love and understanding immanent in the joy and suffering of all individuals in the world, calling them to love and understand more deeply and more fully. Judith also rejects the omnipotent God of traditional theologies. For her, God is inclusive of good and evil, the power of creativity that undergirds all life processes; this God is not personal or solely good, but rather is the power undergirding everything.
Judith Plaskow & Carol P. Christ

Jewish love is covenantal. Covenants are not necessarily restricted to equal parties. Kings and vassals are not equal, yet they provide the sociopolitical context for the biblical covenant. God and the Jewish People do not claim to be equal. But they do insist on the ability to bridge the chasm of disparity with relationship, and in relationship one may stand as a partner even with someone who is not your equal. Love that it spans that gulf, and un-equals are able to stand in partnership and in dignity together, despite their differences; perhaps because of their distinctiveness. Our entire tradition is a recurrent outpouring of covenantal love, so that God creates the world, we are told, in order to have an object to love. As if that isn’t enough, God rises up against Pharaoh and brings us to freedom, because God so loves our ancestors. And then as if that isn’t enough, God brings us to the foot of Mt. Sinai, and there offers us a covenantal contract, which the rabbis tell us is a Ketubah, a wedding contract.
The wedding contract sealing the relationship between the Jewish people and God is the very Sefer Torah, the Torah scrolls, we read from. Ours is an ancient tradition of covenantal love. And strikingly, covenantal love is very different than popular culture’s portrayal of love, in which love is the pitter-patter of a heart, but that pitter-patter only lasts as long as it takes to cook a pop tart. Five minutes later, our attention drifts to some other infatuation. So we live in a culture with all these romances, passionate beginnings and frequent flammable finales. We read about the various stars and their love affairs, and we can read about their breakups and their new love affairs. That superficial, provisional appetite is not Covenantal love. Covenantal love, we are told, nurtures understanding and generosity; seeing the best in your lover; seeing the best in your children; in your community; in humanity; in the world; and then with similar generosity, sharing in their struggles; sharing in their efforts.
The Jewish Covenant of Love, Rabbi Bradley Artson​​​​​​​

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Week 8 - Paths of Rhythm
on evolving inheritance

The Paths of Rhythm by Hanif Abdurraqib
In the beginning, from somewhere south of anywhere I come from, lips pressed the edge of a horn, and a horn was blown. In the beginning before the beginning, there were drums, and hymns, and a people carried here from another here, and a language stripped and a new one learned, with the songs to go with it. When slaves were carried to America, stolen from places like West Africa and the greater Congo River, with them came a musical tradition. The tradition, generally rooted in one-line melodies and call-and-response, existed to allow the rhythms within the music to reflect African speech patterns—in part so that everyone who had a voice could join in on the music making, which made music a community act instead of an exclusive one.
Once in America, where the slaves were sent to work in America’s South, this ethos was blended with the harmonic style of the Baptist church. Black slaves learned hymns, blended them with their own musical stylings that had been passed down through generations, and thus, the spiritual was born. In the early nineteenth century, free black musicians began picking up and playing European stringed instruments, particularly violin. It started as a joke—to mimic European dance music during black cakewalk dances.
But even the mimicry sounded sweet, and so the children of slaves made what sweet sounds they could and stole a small and precious thing after having a large and precious history stolen from them. But before this, when slaves were first brought to North America in the early 1600s, slaves from the West African coast would use drums to communicate with each other, sending rhythmic messages that could not be decoded by Europeans. In this way, slaves, whose family members were often held captive in different spaces, could still enter into distant but meaningful conversations with one another. In 1740, the slave codes were enacted, first in South Carolina. Among other things, drums were outlawed for all slaves. Slave Code of South Carolina, Article 36 reads: “And . . . it is absolutely necessary to the safety of this Province, that all due care be taken to restrain . . . Negroes and other slaves . . . [from the] using or keeping of drums, horns, or other loud instruments, which may call together or give sign or notice to one another of their wicked designs and purposes.”
The slave codes spread across plantations, first to the Carolinas, and then Georgia, and then the rest of the United States. Wherever there were slaves or their descendants, drums were torn from the spaces they occupied.
The thing about percussion, which remains true today as children still pound fists on lunch tables to stretch a simple beat into something greater, is that all it takes is a surface and rhythm—a closed fist or an open palm and something merciful enough to be trampled upon. Without drums, slaves would make beats on washboards, available furniture, even their own bodies, finding the hollow and forgiving spots with the most echo. They would stomp and holler. The voice, too, is its own type of percussion—particularly when it is used to rattle the sky on a hot day, when there is endless work resting at your feet. The work is also an instrument—the way the wood can be chopped is a percussion and the march to the work is a percussion and the weary chants, when laid close enough to one another, can be a percussion.
When they took the drums of slaves, the slaves simply found new drums in everything, and this is how African rhythms were retained and passed down, held close by those who knew what it was to have a culture ripped from them.
Jazz, then, is a music born out of necessity. When slavery was abolished in 1865, many former slaves went into entertainment with all they had: the music knowledge they’d kept as a means of staying alive, blended with what other black musicians had learned along the way. By the end of the nineteenth century, ragtime was born, and from ragtime sprang the blues, and somewhere in the middle appeared Charles “Buddy” Bolden, who played what would become jazz, who mixed ragtime and the blues together and improvised with his band in the early 1900s down south in New Orleans before he got drunk and fell unconscious at the New Orleans Labor Day Parade in 1906 and never recovered.
Buddy Bolden, a cornet player from New Orleans, is as much a myth as anything. He built his band by learning how to mix instruments from local New Orleans bands that played blues and ragtime separately but never together. From 1900 to 1906, he was the king of a new sound, before alcohol rendered him largely incapable of keeping up with the demand to make new music. No sound recording of Buddy Bolden exists. In 1907, he was overtaken by what is now known as schizophrenia. Buddy Bolden heard voices and was locked away in a New Orleans asylum for twenty-four years until he died, buried in an unmarked grave in a pauper’s graveyard.
It can be said that the entire story of jazz is actually a story about what can urgently be passed down to someone else before a person expires. Jazz was created by a people obsessed with their survival in a time that did not want them to survive, and so it is a genre of myths—of fantasy and dreaming, of drumming on whatever you must and making noise in any way you can, before the ability to make noise is taken from you, or until the noise is an echo in your own head that won’t rest.

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This is the thing about history and people who come from a people who have had it taken from them. They know if they don’t protect what they can, there will be nothing to pass on to their children.

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What made A Tribe Called Quest special is that if one looks closely enough, it is possible to believe that they were sent here directly by some wild-dreaming ancestors, straight from another era...The Tribe was one of the first groups to repurpose a long line of sound that our parents, and perhaps their parents, were in love with. There is a type of mercy in this honoring: a long reach backward toward something magical, in hopes that an unspeakable distance, perhaps between a parent and a child, can slowly become closer.

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A Tribe Called Quest made rap music for our parents and theirs but left the door open wide enough for anyone to sneak through. Anyone with rhythm or anyone who knew how to find it before the bass high-stepped itself across a dance floor. Q-Tip, in the first verse of “Jazz,” sums it up evenly: “I don’t really mind if it’s over your head / ’Cause the job of resurrectors is to wake up the dead.”

Once I was sitting on the steps near the gate at David's citadel and I put down my two heavy baskets beside me. A group of tourists stood there around their guide, and I became their point of reference. "You see that man over there with the baskets? A little to the right of his head there’s an arch from the Roman period. A little to the right of his head." "But he’s moving, he’s moving!" I said to myself: redemption will only come when they were told, "do you see that arch over there from the Roman period? It doesn’t matter, but near it, a little to the left and then down a bit, there's a man who has just bought fruit and vegetables for his family."
Tourists, Yehuda Amichai