the sound is very faint!!!!!!!

indeed

M kind of soul music!

I turned up my volume and it is fine now.

My thought exactly - So soulful!

Makes us want to dance!

Truly speaks directly to the Neshamah!

In this case, the neshome

oh, how amazing a musician. true to the klezmer music and it's lilt. thanks so so much for adding Merlin to your class.

Bravo!

I LoveIt!!

Bravo!!

Wow, fabulous!,,

Martin, your music is gorgeous!

I think the translation of “la’chekh” is “to the palate,” not “pallet.”😌

Susie is right

Could Pitomaim be twice suddenly ??

Bear dancing in the market…bread and circuses for the commoner?

Even his loyalty to women, is dual... 2 women!

In Invitation au Voyage, Baudelaire opens his poem with Mon enfant, ma soeur… My child, my sister

Wow Rachel What a lesson!

The Hebrew structure and rhythms and rhymes of "Song to the Wife..." is very much like a piyut (medieval liturgical poetry).

Like time, it goes on! Beautiful clarinet skill--trills, the subtly changing breath vibrating outwards. What lamentation holding onto notes about to evaporate,

such soulful music! Thanks you, Merlin!

Beautiful! I loved it! The class and the music!

hauntingly beautiful

You’ve touched my heart, Merlin! The perfect accompaniment to Rachel’s teaching.

Truly moving and original musical expression. Thank you!

Thank you Merlin for such soulful and poignant music.

Another great musician who adds such beautiful soul music for us. Thank you.

amazing

left me breathless

Beautiful! So moving.

can you please, Merlin, tell us what style of music you just performed?

Indeed haunting music!

thank you all for your comments. I am so glad to be here playing for you all. The style of music is somewhere between taxis and doina. Taxim from Turkey and doing from east European Ashkenazi

Oh my God! What words!

Avi Avi from the Akedah

Rabbi Strassfeld’s eulogy of my father, and my brother’s were all about hearing his voice

he is saying Poetry of Blake

Merlin, a magician with a clarinet!

Usually I find klezmer music rather raucous and manic, but Merlin Shepherd’s music is sensitive and beautiful, and a perfect accompaniment for the Alterman poems.

I love the buzz below the melody

Rachel, in this class you have enriched us not only in Alterman's poetry, but Tanach class as well. thanks for that.

A whole orchestra in one musician! Beautiful

The subtle colors and patterns in his shirt echo his playing, and vice versa. Nice unity in the end

Amazing!

👏👏👏🙏🙏

Beautiful music! Beautiful playing! Bravo!!

Stunningly magnificent!!

Certainly wonderful!

Merlin, such beauty in your clarinet playing - thank you!

WOnderful. Contrapuntal…

Amazing and beautiful. Thank you!

Thank you for the beautiful music.

Amazing class and music! So full of meaning and emotion…thank you!

Glad you all liked him. He is indeed wonderful.

Thank you for another wonderful class.

It’s been a real pleasure Rachel!

Another great session…with perfect music to accompany the poetry.

Beautiful class, from the “excess” of human love to the consoltataion of music.

Do the survivors, the living EVER let go?

I don’t think letting go is the point. We don’t “get over” a loss like that.

my question was rhetorical.

There is a difference between letting go off the embodied person and letting go of their soul and our relationship to them. I was at the bedside of both of my parents, as well as my mother in law and in all cases, urged them to let go and assured them we would be OK with their going. This did not diminish the pain that marks the last period in the last chapter of one’s life.

Kol Hakavod Michael !

Yeshar Kochakha, Michael!

Rachel, another amazing session! I am so grateful for the teaching, the translations, the understanding of the nuances, the music…so much depth!

Thank you all---so good to be together to share all of this powerful poetry. Honest and painful and beautiful as well.

Thank you once more, Rachel, for your luminous teaching. L'hitra'ot!

Humans share so many things regardless of cultural perspectives!

Jon, thanks for sharing. In my experience it depends upon the person you are accompanying. Some need privacy in order to die - others need companionship…

I’ve experienced it both ways - My Abba waited until we left the room to go, and we stayed with my father-in-law who I adored, until he breathed his last breath…I was the one to tell him that he could let go - that we would take care of each other…He was thankfully given the option of choosing when to end his life. and I was given the privilege of reciting Psalms over his body until the Hevre Kadisha arrived.

And yet there is the concept of doing a mitzvah can actually help the Neshama have an Aliyah

Many thanks Rachel