BLUE JEW: Can you give me an example of exile?

BROOKLYN SEPHARD: I remember one time I was on tour in Europe and we were getting ready to play and I was sitting in this club in Spain and jazz was playing through the stereo. The music felt totally foreign and totally familiar at the same time, even though it was mainstream jazz. I was hearing the sense of exile in the music, it was moving something in me that it could not have moved had I heard the same song in its ‘place of birth’. Later it hit me that exile applies to everything that has left its place of birth. It applies to people, music, even words after they’re spoken.

BLUE JEW: A kind of microcosm of the Jewish exile as jazz understood in Spain

BROOKLYN SEPHARD: There was an added nostalgic element to this music now. It was doing something to the listener that was particular to being away from its homeland. A certain beauty that could not have been experienced while listening to the same piece in a club in New York. As Jews in exile we have to understand the nature of nostalgia and the yearning that comes with being in exile.

BLUE JEW: The exile cultivates a Jew?

BROOKLYN SEPHARD: The Almighty placed us in exile for a reason. The exile is essential to the Jewish experience. One of the first things that G-D told Abraham to do was to leave his place of birth. It’s so much harder to define one’s purpose when we’ve remained in a place that we know well and where we belong.

BLUE JEW: How do you think that yearning develops consciousness?

BROOKLYN SEPHARD: It’s about how the physical interfaces with the spiritual and vice versa. We generally have specific ideas about how a certain experience is going to feel or how it will transform us. As we deepen our knowledge of Torah it becomes clear that since the Almighty looked into Torah to create the world, it is not possible to have a realistic perspective or definition of action and consequence that is outside of Torah.

BLUE JEW: Can you give me an example of being in New York and being confronted by something that causes you pain and yearning, and then after approaching Torah you see the goodness of that situation?

BROOKLYN SEPHARD: Well, it’s about gaining the perspective that we were just talking about. If I’m able, as a Jew, to build a bridge through Torah study and living a Jewish lifestyle, that will help me establish a deep connection and understanding of our purpose as Jews, then everything becomes infused with true meaning, as opposed to subjective meaning.

BLUE JEW: Would you rather have been exposed to a different time slot of exile or do you feel that this is the right exile for you?

BROOKLYN SEPHARD: We are told that the Rabbis from previous generations would not have wanted to live during the times that directly precede the redemption. They explain that this was to be the most spiritually challenging time for a Jew. I think that it’s much easier for us to lose sight of the goal. When one is leading a relatively comfortable life, one develops a natural aversion for deep spiritual practices that we come to think of as requiring serious physical sacrifice. 

BLUE JEW: Do you think that New York City is playing a specific role in the exile?

BROOKLYN SEPHARD: Yes, in fact a friend of mine heard from a well-known Rabbi that Mashiach is in New York, or that Mashiach will emerge from New York. This city is probably the quintessential symbol for the exile. You can find everything here, it’s a melting point for cultures and peoples, most of whom are in exile. Even Americans who grew up all over the country come to New York to be in exile. Though we perceive the exile as a force that separates creations, New York shows us that G-d’s reason for creating the concept of exile is purely as a unifying force. A state that brings us to appreciate what we had, have, and hope to have. This is why we have to be immersed in Torah study. The great Tzadikim that preceded us exemplify the harmony of that union. The union of physical and spiritual.

BLUE JEW: What’s the difference between this large concentration of Jews in New York and in Israel?

BROOKLYN SEPHARD: First of all Israel possesses an inherent holiness. At this point in time we are also in exile in Israel, but the Holy Forces that apply to the Holy Land do not apply to the rest of the world. The Holy Land still exerts a certain force on its inhabitants.

BLUE JEW: When you enter this concentrated gathering of New York Jews and feel all their varying forms of exile in that intensity can you sense how far they can go in the opposite direction?

BROOKLYN SEPHARD: You have to understand the extent of the exile so you can understand the extent of the redemption, that way you can start to wrap your arms around the magnitude of the whole thing. In Hebrew the word for exile ‘Galut’ and redemption ‘Geulah’ are very similar, the only letters that they don’t share in common are Aleph, Taf, and Heh, in that order. They spell out the word ‘ATA’ which means ‘You’. When our sense of self becomes transparent and taken out of the equation we’re able to understand how exile and redemption lead us to realize the oneness and unity of the Almighty. May we experience the final redemption speedily in our days. Amen.

The Brooklyn Sephard is an Orthodox Jewish New York based musician studying the application of Torah and its omni-spiritual-cognitive paradigms in creative musical expression, and the resultant resonances in everyday life.