October 6, 2005

• A Voice

  In memory of Harold Leventhal,
    folk-music concert producer,
  who died on Tuesday
  (Rosh Hashana, 2005)

  Leventhal recently appeared in the American Masters Bob Dylan documentary on PBS.  According to today’s NYT obituary, “Mr. Leventhal was… widely, if tacitly, acknowledged to have been
  the inspiration for Irving Steinbloom, the folk impresario whose
  memorial concert sets in motion the plot of the 2003 film comedy ‘A
  Mighty Wind.’”

  From a Rosh Hashana sermon by Devra Felder Noily:

  “Throughout these Holy Days we will chant Unetaneh Tokef, a liturgical poem
  more than a thousand years old. In it we find the words:

  U-ve shofar gadol yi-ta-ka. V’ kol d’ma-ma da-kah yi-shama. The great shofar
  is sounded. And a still small voice is heard….

  The prayer quotes from the book of Kings. There, the prophet Elijah has
  reached his breaking point, and God reaches out to him. The text tells us:

  Then the Eternal passed by. There was a great and mighty wind,
  splitting mountains and shattering rocks by the power of God, but God was not in
  the wind. After the wind, an earthquake– but God was not in the earthquake. After
  the earthquake, fire– but God was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still
  small voice.”

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