John Williams – the soundtrack of our lives

John Williams, the music composer, received the American Film Institute lifetime award the other day, but it was an award that did not meet the criteria required.  For the criteria states that "the recipient should be one whose talent has in a fundamental way advanced the film art.”  

But John Williams simply didn’t do that.  He didn’t change the movie world – he changed the entire world.

Like many people, I grew up enthralled by the movies of my youth.  I watched aliens visit our planet.  I watched impossible space battles that took place in galaxies far far away.  I watched a man in a fedora and a bullwhip unearth the greatest treasures in history.  I watched a boy wizard find his true calling.  I watched as a man, once selfish end up giving everything he owned to bestow the greatest gift of life to 1200 desperate souls.

And at each one of those experiences, John Williams was there breathing life into my turbulent feelings.  He gave sound to my silent tears, a heart-stopping beat to my nerves, a tender harmony to my quiet moments of reflection, a rousing crescendo to my triumphs, and a quiet sensitivity to my sadness.  He gave voice to my emotions.

I don’t know much about music, but whether I listen to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter or Schindler’s List, I’m not listening to the music – I’m feeling it in the deepness in my soul.   The ability of John Williams is that he doesn’t provide sound to pictures – he provides sound to feelings.  You don’t actually listen to a John Williams soundtrack – you experience it.  And you feel it on levels that you didn’t know existed.  He touches you emotionally.

From every interview I’ve ever seen with John Williams he comes across as a humble person whose joy of making music carries through to his compositions.  He’s not a superman, and yet he makes everyone feel like they can be.

Movies can truly be a phenomenal delight as they take you on impossible journeys to places far from where you are, across time and across space and across dimensions.  They thrill the mind and tease the senses of your eyes and ears, and with music they also take you on that emotional journey too.

John Williams has provided the soundtrack to our lives, because in his music the little boy you once were who sought adventure lives on. The old man reflecting on his life will continue to stare out into the distance.

But more important than anything else, he does something that society will tell you can’t be done.  He makes the impossible possible. He makes the dreams of youth live on. He makes the hope that is all too easily extinguished burn forever.

Buildings may rise stretching into the heavens before falling down to earth in piles of dust and decay. Countries may grow powerful and strong…then slowly fall away to become small and weak.  Wealth may come in waves of abundance and just as easily disappear in trickles of sparseness. But music… music lives on, because as long as people have the ability to feel with their hearts and with the souls, it will remain immortal.

John Williams, the man, may pass on one day, but his gift will live on forever inside us.

Jerusalem – where the stones talk to you

The first time I entered the Old City of Jerusalem, I truly felt like I was taking a step back in time.  It is an awe inspiring feeling knowing that each step you take connects you with your ancestors from thousands of years ago.  It’s as if the walls are whispering to you in hushed and hallowed tones.  You are somewhere special now.  

The smooth cobbled stones beneath your feet seem to carry you automatically, almost as if you are merely a passenger, being guided by forces far more powerful than yourself, drawing you further and further inside a world so different to your own.    The intoxicating smells of the Armenian restaurants danced and tickled my nostrils as I passed them, weaving my way down small, narrow roads, where you have to push yourself tightly against walls whenever a car passes.

The Tower of David stands proudly on your right, as if it’s guarding and watching over those who pass it.  As I made my way along the roads that twisted and turned, it felt as if I was in a maze, not quite knowing where I was going, yet never feeling lost.  I passed ancient Christian churches.   I passed markets where the Romans once ruled.  I passed yeshivas where Jewish students learnt.  I passed small shops selling their wares.  I passed eateries.  I passed peoples’ homes, hidden within the beautiful stones.  It felt as if I was drifting between the present and the past – yet being in both places at once. 

But among all the charms that were appearing around me, there was one that was pulling me ever closer, one that was drawing me in, one that was beckoning to me.  As I rounded one last corner, I saw it appear before me – one of the holiest place of the Jewish people – the Western Wall.  It is a special moment in one’s life when you look deep into the heart and soul of your nation, yet that’s how it felt to me.  Staring at that wall that glistened so beautifully in the sunlight, the same way it had for thousands of years, reminded me of how special that place was.  And I did feel special.  And lucky.  And honoured.  Because it was as if I was honouring the millions of Jews who had passed before me, throughout the ages and throughout the lands, who always faced Jerusalem in their prayers.  Who beat their chests, eyes closed with angst, praying for the peace of Jerusalem.  Who, in their darkest days on earth, dreamt of walking among these ancient and holy stones.  Who always concluded each seder with the eternal words “Next year in Jerusalem”. 

And yet here I was, standing there, representing all those who dreamt before but were unable to make it come true.

Jerusalem is truly the heart that beats for the Jewish people.  Its roads and paths and laneways are the vessels that pump the blood that makes it beat.  It has always been this way, from the moment King David first made Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish people 3000 years ago until now.  Since then, it has never been the capital of any other people.

And yet there are those who believe that tearing this city in half will lead to peace.  I don’t see it like that.  I don’t see how taking a dagger and driving it deep in the heart of the Jewish people can ever bring peace.  History has already proven that.

Between 1948 and 1967, Jordan controlled all of this area I walked through.  And in Article VIII of the Israel Jordan Armistice agreement, it called for “free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives.”  But that didn’t happen.  Despite requests and pleas from Israeli officials and Jewish groups to the UN, the US and others to try to get them to enforce the agreement Jordan signed, Jews were denied access to the Western Wall, the Jewish cemetery and all religious sites in Jerusalem.  But that was only part of it.  Because when the Jordanians captured the Old City, they destroyed the Jewish Quarter and expelled its residents.  They destroyed fifty eight synagogues, looted their contents and desecrated them.  They turned Jewish religious sites into chicken coops and animal stalls.  They ransacked the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, where Jews had been buried for thousands of years.  They desecrated the graves and smashed the tombstones, using them as building material.  They turned this holy Jewish site into a slum.

The Temple Mount, on which the Dome of the Rock now stands is a site holy to both Jews and Muslims.  It has always been Judaism's holliest site, while for Muslims it only become holy in far more recent history.  But it is also the focal point of violence which the world is currently watching.  But in 1967, when Israel succeeded in capturing the Old City, I believe they made one fatal judgement.  Instead of asserting their full sovereignty, or at the very least allowing some kind of joint control of the area by Jews and Muslims, they decided to give control of access to the Islamic Waqf.  And ever since then, Jews are not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount.  That intolerance by the Muslim and Arab authorities, who continue to fan the flames of hatred, is what fuels the violence that we are witnessing. 

When I look at this beautiful city – this city full of memories, of history, of pain, of triumph and of tragedy, I see more than just the pale limestones lingering in the last fading rays of sunset.  I see a city of life, where people breathe and laugh and love together respectful of each other and their ways of life. 

Perhaps it is a pipe dream, but as Theodor Herzl once said, “If you will it, it is no dream.”

See original article here

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/jerusalem-where-the-stones-talk-to-you/