L’dor Vador, Again?

One last time, thank you for your support of L’dor Vador, the concert was absolutely great! Basya Schecter and her band, Pharaoh’s Daughter played their hearts out for us, they treated us to an extraordinary journey of Jewish soul, jazz music.

I have already started to plan next year’s musical programs and I’m hopeful that we will be able to have a variety of events in a variety of styles, both musical and inspirational. Thank you Cindy and David Teicher for your continued support of L’dor Vador, I’m sure your parents Claire and Irving Teicher, are smiling as you honor their legacy in such a meaningful way.

Israel

Now its time to get ready for the summer, the Rockmans, including Stacey, Bashe and Rafi are headed back to Israel. As you may remember, last year’s conflict in Gaza made it untenable for my family to join me. We had one year to use the airline tickets that we purchased for last summer. Isn’t it nice that United Airlines is honoring those tickets now, well that’s one way to look at it!

Just as last year, I plan to keep you updated with my pictures, impressions and with the perspective of the entire family. This year in Jerusalem, with shalom, peace.

Prayer

The foundation of my calling as a cantor is clearly prayer and teaching. I’ve written to you in the past about my understanding of the prayer experience and I’ve tried to find a way to make prayer more meaningful, for me and for you. I’ve written about minyan and about finding our personal paths to God through prayer. Reaching into our souls and understanding prayer is difficult to accomplish, some times it feels impossible and I would like to try harder, I need your help to get there.

This past year, I started to share some prayers on line for daily inspiration; I’d like to attempt this again, but this time I need more input from you, I’m going to blog about prayer and ask you to join me in my exploration. There are a variety of Jewish prayer communities with a variety of nontraditional approaches, particularly in major cities throughout the country and Israel. In New York City, one is example of a non traditional synagogue is “Romamu”. Basya Schechter of Pharaoh’s Daughter is the musical director and she is soon to be ordained as their cantor. It would be great to learn about this community and possibly visit them. There are many opportunities on our doorsteps, but it requires dedication and introspection,I hope this appeals to you.

There are numerous resources but the only source that counts is our actions. Let’s get together and talk, I would like to learn about your journey and share mine with you.

L’dor Vador, we share our very rich tradition from generation to generation,

With Joy!
Cantor Bruce Rockman