A Song for the Moment

Bonfires have a gravitational pull. It's not solely that radiant orange warmth on a cool mountain evening or light after the sky surrenders to twilight. It's not even their talent for roasting undeniably delicious marshmallows. Their magic lies in the dance of the flames, those blues, oranges, and whites burning bright while peacefully submitting to the will of the breeze. 

I found myself at a moment of peaceful submission, surrounded by community and warmed by fire when I first heard the song. An extraordinary musician named Jared Stein sang words I knew intimately to a tune with which I was unfamiliar, written, he said, by someone named Yosef Goldman: 

Kol ha'olam kulo gesher tzar me'od 
ve-ha'ikar lo lefacheid klal. 

The world is a very narrow bridge. 
The essence is not to be afraid. 

The mellifluous syllables contoured to the music as only prayer can. This was not the raucous, table banging energy of Camp Harlam Shabbats in the Poconos. I closed my eyes as the song gained momentum spinning faster and stronger around the fire, singing and swaying and transcending, for just a moment, to somewhere higher. The song slowed into extended silence, as the fire's gravity pulled us back to earth. 

I instinctively pulled out my phone to search for a recording, anticipating the need to quench a future thirst. No luck, just a cavernous YouTube recording. So I did the next best, completely rational thing: I friended the songwriter on Facebook. Not awkward! He accepted!

For months, the tune returned to me in fragments and transported me back to the bonfire. Until, on a Tuesday in November, Gesher was released.

The recording was even more beautiful than I remembered. It wrings as it lifts, pierces as it hugs, ebbing from the individual and flowing to the communal. It begins quiet and timid, fearful and unsure of the path ahead. As the song journeys forward, intimate voices slide in and fade out, guiding one foot in front of the other. At times erupting in power, in others sinking into doubt, ultimately landing in a peaceful submission to circumstance

Gesher by Yosef Goldman is a musical roadmap as we traverse the narrow bridge in front of us: give fear room to process, but do not let it take root; humbly accept the unnatural and urgent circumstances before us; and then, put one foot in front of the other, sing with gusto, and digitally embrace your people. 

Soon we'll be singing together around another bonfire.

This piece originally appeared at ReformJudaism.org.