The Cool Breeze of Hope
Israel, Iran, and Tales of a Cantorial Firefighter
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves
Or lose our ventures.
—William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar IV.3
Something is shifting in the wind.
Like blustering gales of salt sea air, the news these days whips at us from many a side, blowing where it will. Little tornados of tragedy touch down more and more frequently as our cultural climate heats up and our society’s emotional temperature vacillates between painful extremes.
Yet in the Middle East, now filled with billowing clouds of smoke and fire, the sounds of emergency vehicles, and terrifying midnight sprints to bomb shelters, one can nevertheless feel the cool touch of a thin yet unmistakeable breeze of hope.
I have no idea how the Iran-Israel war will ultimately resolve. The conflict concerns the vested interests of all of the world’s major powers, and each are likely backing their respective ponies in countless seen and unseen ways. Yet I cannot help but feel pride and inspiration from Israel’s courageous resolve and ingenuity in standing up to Iran — one of the world’s most dangerous and noxious sponsors of global terrorism.
This moment reminds me of another great country which once stood alone against the onslaught of fearsome and terrible enemy. Following the surrender of France in the summer of 1940, the British Empire stood alone against the terrible advances of Nazi Germany. Britain endured eight months of terrifying bombing of its civilian population, known as “The Blitz,” which the Germans hoped would demoralize the British public. Yet the Brits remained stoic, gradually improving their defense tactics and showing remarkable resolve in the face of a brutal, civilian-targeted campaign.
One unsung hero of this story came from London’s own Jewish community, and happens to be my favorite cantor from among the four Koussevitsky brothers.
I first heard a recording of Cantor Simcha Koussevitsky (1905-1998) in the seminar of my late teacher and friend, Cantor Robert Kieval z’’l. Simcha’s voice was not as electrifying as Moshe’s, nor as dramatic as David’s, nor as expressive as Jacob’s, but had a certain dignity and sweetness which I found endearing. It helped that we had listened to him sing Yossele Rosenblatt’s Ad Heina, a very Rossini-esque piece of chazonus which well lent itself to his semi-classical vocalism.
But what I didn’t know then was that Simcha was also a firefighter during the Blitz.
Appointed as First Reader at the Great Synagogue in 1935, Simcha Koussevitsky served one of London’s most prominent synagogues to great popular acclaim. As Geoffrey Shisler reports, the difficult conditions during World War II caused him to send his wife and children away to the country. According to his successor, Cantor Phillip Copperman (1931-2015), Simcha remained on at the synagogue during the Blitz, heroically serving as a wartime fire warden. This was “a terrible job working in a sea of devastation, serious casualties, and fatalites,” all while guiding people to shelters, providing first aid, and reporting fire and bomb damage.1 In this way, Simcha fulfilled the Talmudic passage which speaks of Jacob our ancestor as a hazzan d’mata — a city watchman, providing extra protection to his brethren.2
Tragically, the Germans bombed the Great Synagogue on May 10, 1941, just one day before the Blitz’s conclusion. Yet a crowd of three-thousand strong reconvened in its ruins the following September to hold a “National Day of Intercession and Prayer.” Leading this service were Cantors Simcha Koussevitsky and Herman Meyerowitsch, the Great Synagogue Choir, and the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Dr. Joseph H. Hertz (yes, the man who wrote that famous pew packer, the Hertz Chumash).
Speaking in the midst of destruction during a war that was far from won, Rabbi Hertz conjured the breeze of hope to refresh the faith and determination of his listeners. He helped meet their grief, and to soldier on with assurance that G-d is the True Judge — “who will vindicate the cause of Justice and Righteousness on earth, [and] who will cause every political system to vanish that is built on tyranny and race-hatred; on lies, blood-lust, and the deification of force.”
These final words from his sermon still echo today, expounding the comforts of Isaiah:
My friends, the Rabbis, in selecting the words barukh dayan ha’emet to be recited when beholding a ruined Synagogue, indicated such a sight to be a source of personal grief to each Israelite. We shall, therefore, conclude this service with the prophetic words of comfort that are spoken on occasions of personal grief, and they are:
3בלע המות לנצח—”He will destroy death for ever” i.e., God will cause death and destruction as methods of governing human societies to vanish for ever from among the children of man. ומחה ה׳ אלקים דמעה מעל כל פנים “And the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces"; i.e. earth's children shall not for ever live in fear; and savage oppression shall no longer overshadow the future of humanity. And, lastly, וחרפת עמו יסיר מעל כל הארץ “And the disgrace of his people "— i.e., the persecution and degradation of Israel, the hounding and harrying of the Jew— “shall He cause to pass away in all the earth.” כי פי ה׳ דיבר — “For the Lord has spoken it.”
Unshakable, therefore, is our confidence that a new day of freedom will dawn for all men; that God will comfort Zion, and rebuild all her wasted places; that victory will crown the righteous cause of Britain, and the Great Synagogue will rise again.
There is no reason to know which way the wind blows in war. Yet Rabbi Hertz and Cantor Koussevitsky could feel the winds of hope, invisible but blowing inexorably towards a vision of the world worth fighting for.
I cannot read the news these days without a brokenheartedly saying barukh dayan ha’emet, Tragically, this morning is no different. But if we have learned anything, it is that the spirit of Israel is unshakeable, and, G-d willing, we must fight for a world in which savage oppression and the harrying of Jews no longer overshadow the future of humanity. A world in which tears are wiped from all faces. A world in which hope refreshes the soul like a cool breeze.
May the wasted places soon be rebuilt, and a new freedom soon dawn for all.
My thanks to chazonus maven David Prager for this piece of lore from Cantor Copperman.
Cf. Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 93b; Another fulfiller of this passage is my colleague, Cantor Aviya Nachshon, who served in the liberation of Kibbutz Be’eri.
Isaiah 25:8