Sukkot is the moment in the Jewish calendar when we consider the meaning of home. It’s not just about discussing, but about acting. By building a temporary structure, we create a tangible connection to our ancestors and traditions. The walls and decorations prompt us to dig deeper: What really constitutes home? Is it the structure? The decor? The people we share it with? The food? Our values? And in these tense social and political times, how do we prioritize shalom bayit, peace in the home?
As I think about shalom bayit, and how much I struggle with what that means today, I’m drawn to a video by Israeli artists, dancer Stav Marin and Neta Weiner, a founder of the Jaffa-based hip-hop band System Ali. Their music is founded in defining and understanding home through the lens of many voices. By singing and spitting together across languages and beliefs, the arguments lead to lyrics and the music leads to cohesion.
In 2023, husband and wife creative team Neta and Stav arrived in the U.S. for a residency in Boston just weeks before the events of Oct. 7. As if it weren’t already complicated enough arriving in a new country to teach and perform, with a 2-year-old in tow, the uncertainty and fear around their home added complexities they could not have imagined.
“I Wrote You This Song” is their love song to Jaffa—a song they translated from Margalit Tsanani and added the Arabic, Yiddish, Hebrew and English text to before Oct. 7. Honed in Boston, filmed in the historic Vilna Shul in Boston’s Beacon Hill and developed with fellow Israeli musician Yuval Gur during his time in the CJP x JArts Community Creative Fellowship, the song has taken on layers of new meaning.
This art video, a distillation of 75 minutes into two minutes by HalfAsian Lens, represents so many layers of history and politics, and gives a sound a feel to what it looks like to struggle with shalom bayit.
As they sing, “That’s not what I’m here for, this isn’t for me,” I think about how we struggle to keep peace in the home, across our actual homes, communities and in the land of Israel.
This Sukkot, whether or not you find yourself able to dwell under the temporary structure that is a sukkah, I hope Neta and Stav will prompt you to consider the meaning of home and the value of shalom bayit in 5785.
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