One of the ways we become aware of the passing of time is when we remember that someone has died, and we are shocked when we realize how long ago it happened.
This unsettled feeling overcame me last week, when I recited Kaddish for Phil Ochs (which I do every year), a singer and activist from the 1960s and 1970s, whose thoughts and wit helped shape both my view of the world and my understanding of humanity’s role as partners with the Divine in turning the world that is into the world that should be.
Phil Ochs passed away 40 years ago. How could it possibly be that long ago?
Phil Ochs staunchly denied that he was influenced by his Jewish heritage. Yet, the more he protested, the more we could see how Judaism shaped his music and his writings. Martin Buber dealt with why God did nothing to stop the Shoah by describing God as going into eclipse. Ochs, certainly no philosopher, simplified it: God, he said, was not dead; God was just missing in action. As times got uglier, Ochs taught that the only way to change the world was for us to fill it with beauty. Violence only begets more violence. Hatred only begets more hatred. Only love and beauty, Ochs said, can change the course of humanity.
But perhaps that one statement Ochs uttered that most mirrored his Judaism sounded like it came straight out of the Talmud: Talmud teaches us that we are not required to complete the task, but neither are we free from trying.
Even though we can’t expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, we must make the attempt. That is morality. That is religion. That is art. That is life.
Thank you, Phil Ochs, for your reminder.
B’Shalom
Rabbi Stanley Halpern