Job at 120 dB
Job’s story is one of the first biblical accounts I took seriously. Not from reading it, but because I heard it set to music, almost word for word. It’s one of two biblical portions that have followed me around my entire life, tapping me on the shoulder at milestone moments. It started in my early teens when scripture meant little to me other than as a relic of my Jewish heritage, closed up in synagogue Ark and prayerbooks to see the light of day to mark occasions. This being a moment when, as for Job, even friends have become accusers and Zionism turns into seemingly universal rejection, the story takes on a new and unexpected life exploring condemnation of those who seemed to be friends and the bright future beyond it.
I first heard “The Tale of Job” told in electrified 120-decibel amplification at a rock concert fifty-three years ago. It was a triple bill but my friends and I had gone to see just the middle act, a group called “Seatrain” with a jazz-rock-country fusion sound.
The opening act was Jessie Collin Young and “The Youngbloods”, mostly known for their Summer of Love anthem, “Together Now” with lyrics “C’mon people now, smile on your brothers, everybody get together try to love one another right now” celebrating a communally hopeful but morally rudderless hippie generation. A newspaper review of the concert confirmed my memory that The Youngbloods sang too long but ended smartly with “Together Now”. Richie Haven's sandpapery singing was interspersed with astral plane gibberish he mumbled unintelligibly then sang, strummed hard and energetically. Bracketed between those two performances was a remarkable set by Seatrain that a newspaper music critic gushed over, unimpressed with Havens and the Youngbloods.
With the smell of pot hanging in the air, a jarring notion to me as a still staid high school junior in the early spring of 1971, “The Song of Job” concludes with the verse below, amplified through a wall of Marshall amplifiers behind the group, loud enough to vibrate my teeth up in the cheap seats.
The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemimah ימימה … Job 42:12-14
New Beginnings
God has blessings for new chapters and new endeavors that are even richer than the former troubles. Job's later life was BETTER than what came before.
It is fascinating to me that Job’s daughters are called out by name but his sons aren't. I find that Scripture makes special mention of women of significance and influence. His first daughter’s name ימימה “Yahmimah”, which means “day by day”. Job wanted that to be the hallmark of his new life and her legacy.
In English, her name is “Jemimah”, was for a nearly a hundred years, one of the most familiar brand names in the food industry. "Aunt Jemimah" was a succession of accomplished African American women who acted as the "Aunt Jemimah" brand ambassadors. But "Jemimah" was purged as a perceived racial offense. The brand name was changed to one I doubt you can name, an example of tossing the invaluable for the ephemeral, in my view. “Coke” has also had a one hundred plus year brand name with an unsavory connotation as well: the original Coke recipe did indeed include a dash of cocaine. Rebranding and renaming it would be unthinkable.
Day By Day
But this newness of life, where “day by day” each dawn was precious, each sunset richer than the last was the mark of Job’s new beginning, and the former things are not brought to mind is a repeated theme in Scripture:
“Behold, the former things have come to pass,
Now I declare new things;
Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.”
Isaiah 42:9
Jobs' daughters must have been remarkable in so many ways. They are referred to this way “Nowhere were women found more beautiful than Jobs daughters” Job 42:15. I believe this to be on many levels, and Jobs affection for them had no limits. They gained a status that would have been foreign to the pagan world he lived in that treated women as property. “He gave them lands/inheritances along with their brothers” Job 42:15. Job lived four more generations, so these remarkable daughters' mention was indicative of their lasting distinction, not of beauty that fades.
Times change. Every generation tries on a new set of values. Not to pick a fight with the Music-Industiral-Complex with its corporate mega-titans like Taylor Swift who command tickets at $7000, but we had our world rocked that early spring evening in 1971 for FOUR DOLLARS at a major rock concert venue. That was about the cost of half a tank of gas at the time. An upgrade of two bucks would have gotten us in the front section.
Seatrain’s song and the biblical Book of Job ends with a phrase that kindles hopes and aspirations and made me wonder what it meant then. And it still does.
וימת איוב זקן ושבע ימים
And Job died old and full of days. (or you might say “fulfilled with days”).
What does it mean to be FULL OF DAYS? It still seems to me now, as then, like the very best of questions.
The Song
So that you can ask yourself that question, here is a link to the 1970 recording from an album that included another song written by Andy Kulberg called “Waiting for Elijah” about the Passover Seder, not your typical ‘70s rock subject either.
Times change, but Seatrain's telling of Job's story, his vindication, and his blessings still chokes me up fifty-three years later.
You may have never heard of Seatrain. They were fully formed in 1970 and went their separate ways by 1973. It was also the first album by a music producer named George Martin. If you don't recognize that name, Sir George Martin's Seatrain production was his first since producing all twelve albums of another musical group you probably have heard of: The Beatles.
as you can see this is not a parashah study. I posted it here for convenience.
Comments
Post a Comment