Unbridled Joy!
Tisha B'av flows into Tu B'av. Suffering to salvation. Rebuke to comfort. "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." Can you feel the love? We've had a peaceful, delicious summer here in LA. That must mean that heat waves are around the corner. Then fires and mudslides. But for now, the weather is sublime. Good vibes, good music, BBQ and blue skies.
Below is a new essay for your reading pleasure that has nothing to do with birth control but everything to do with Jewish continuity. I also want to share with you a "bunk note," the almost daily communication that we send our kids in the form of an email that gets delivered to their bunks at summer camp. A few new YouTube videos await and of course the shameless plug for you to invest in Jewish music.
As we approach the month of Elul, may spread a little more love and add a mitzvah or two to our days. Start to think about why you deserve another year so that you can campaign fervently when you get to the synagogue on Rosh Hashana. Any resolutions from last year that are still on the "to do" list? I know. Me too.
Thanks for reading and thanks for replying!
With love,
Sam
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Do You Own The Songs We Sing Volume Two?
Sam has just completed his 21st CD...the follow up to the ever popular Songs We Sing released in 2000.  Volume Two features twenty-eight lovingly recorded "greatest hits of the Jewish People" by Sam and his eight-piece band and an array of guest vocalists. This double album squeezed on one CD breathes new life into these classic "common denominator" hit songs that unite the Jewish world. Order it now!
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Now Booking The CHAI TOUR 2010/2011
The year, not the tea! Be a part of Sam's 18th year on the road! Get your organization signed up on this special tour while the best dates are still available through December 2011! Click here for the concert options and click here for the full schedule; dates are added weekly.
Coming up:
Vancouver, BC
La Jolla, CA
New Orleans, LA
Miami, FL
Baltimore, MD
Howard County, MD
Princeton, NJ
Pittsburgh, PA
Scottsdale, AZ
Event programmers: Uplifting contemporary Jewish music will bring all ages in your community together like no other activity. As always, we discount significantly for midweek shows and when Sam is already in your area. Seize the date!
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The Best Form of Birth Control
By Sam Glaser
 Jewish parents that care about bringing up a generation of
Jewishly connected kids usually choose to send their offspring to day
school. In fact, for many parents
it's not even optional. It is the
ultimate weapon to fight ignorance and assimilation and create a powerful,
informed Jewish identity. The
schools ease you in: preschool is cheap, kindergarten a few grand more, and
then you are on the ride of a lifetime. Tuition is like an additional mortgage payment every month, and that's
before the school trips, books, scrip, volunteer hours, banquets and
registrations fees. The best form
of birth control in the Jewish world? Why, it's day school!
The Chicago community has the right idea. They have created a "Superfund" to
supplement the budgets of struggling area day schools of all denominations,
making the Jewish day school concept a no-brainer for parents. High net worth individuals and
charitable corporations have jumped on the benefactor bandwagon, not wanting to
be left out of the nachas. These
Superfund kids become the Jewishly involved parents that send their children to day
schools...entire generations of windy city Jews have been transformed by this remarkable
undertaking.
Short of moving to Skokie, what's an LA family supposed to
do? The public school alternatives
are not so bad if you don't mind a growing percentage of the student body stoned, tatooed and pierced,
or at worse, armed gangbangers. Significant financial
aid is reserved for the destitute, leaving those above the poverty line with a
$13-30,000 per kid millstone around one's neck. Home schoolers abound, but the kids spend their learning
hours in front of a computer, without healthy peer-to-peer interactions.
Our local situation is so dire that many parents opt out
of the senior year. Their kids
take a GED (General Education Test) to qualify for early graduation and the
parents save 90% by sending the child to a local community college. Parents with healthy incomes laugh at
the idea of savings accounts, retirement plans and family vacations. Those crucial years needed to compound
investments into a viable nest egg disappear as tuition is automatically
deducted from one's bank account. Day school tuition is largely responsible for the uptick in North
American aliyah to Israel...perhaps this debacle is God's way of imposing aliyah
on all but the most financially independent.
We live in a community blessed with fabulous wealth. The majority of homes west of Downtown LA
are worth more than a million dollars. We have the Broads, Sterlings and Resnicks building art galleries and
concert halls. Mega malls and new
home communities built by Jewish developers line our freeways, Jewish hedge
fund managers, doctors and lawyers dominate the professional scene. Who will be the one to light the fire
of a nationwide Superfund? Who
will go down in history as the savior of Diaspora Judaism?
Right now we are pondering which of our kids to take out
of day school. Sophie's Choice
2010. It's a tough economy in
general, the Jewish world is reeling, and the music business is bankrupt. Thank God the synagogues and JCCs
around the country still value what I do. It's just that they can't pay for it and many of the gigs we get are
significantly discounted. I'm fine
with that. I just want to work and continue to bring light and spirit to the
fifty or so cities I visit each year. But then there's the bottom line. When our overall income is down, when the banks won't offer
credit and we get 25% tuition increases because the schools are in trouble,
something has got to give.
I know we're not alone. Jewish newspapers across the country frequently speak of
parent's struggles to give their kids Jewish lives. That day school education is out of reach of the middle
class. We also see the reports of day school education as the best insurance of
future support for Israel, raising moral and ethical kids, and nurturing a
generation of Jewish leaders. A
less discussed attribute is the "trickle up" effect. Parents denied a good Jewish education get the benefit of
those words of Torah on the kids lips each Shabbat, they pick up Hebrew when
assisting kids with homework and get drawn into text study to keep up with
their older children. I'd like to
argue that the best reason for day school education is that being Jewish is a
full time, super cool celebration. It's not an "add on" onto our busy lives like soccer practice and
favorite TV shows. It IS "our
lives and the length of our days." Ki heym chayeynu! Relegating Jewish education to an afternoon or two a week emphasizes the
"add on" aspect. It is certainly better than nothing and those programs deserve ample support but I speak from experience that many kids are turned off rather than turned on.
When I ask my kids how school was, the usual replay is "great!" My daughter is regularly awarded best davener and truly guides her class with heartfelt kavanah. My middle son has a tight knit chevra of considerate friends who patrol the 'hood with kippot stapled to their hyperactive heads. My oldest has long surpassed me in his ability to take apart a text; he's reading Homer's Odessy AND tractate kiddushin. This is nachas that is priceless.
I write this essay with reluctance. I publish these monthly newsletters to uplift
and inspire my readers. Expressing vulnerability and fear is not my strong point. The fact
is that my wife and I are so distressed about this that WE need
inspiration.
I am an eternal
optimist. I truly believe that God
will rally for us, that God loves the fact that our three kids love their
Judaism and it's as natural for them as the air they breathe. Call me crazy but I really do believe
that those miracle gigs will materialize and everything's going to be
fine. But what about those parents with fixed salaries? What about my
many friends out of work? What
about the thousands of kids in my Pico-Robertson shtetl that are being
pulled out because their parents can't sign this year's tuition contract?
I leave you with a selection of quotes about the efficacy
of a day school education. For those parents on the fence about whether day
school is worth it, IT IS!! For
those forced to do the public or home school thing, join me in my quest to
raise awareness of our plight by circulating this essay to your local paper and expressing your frustrations to your community leaders. If you're a benefactor motivated to donate, operators are standing by at the Bureau for Jewish Education! Innovate, take on that extra job and pray for God's
help. As Whitney Houston says, "I
believe the children are our future...teach them well and let them lead the way!"
"Education is the
salvation of the American Jewry, even though it's a slower salvation than all
the other salvations we're used to." -Rabbi David Wolpe,
Sinai Temple, Los Angeles
"The day school is
the best place for a young Jewish person to gain Jewish cultural literacy.
There are lots of places where you can gain a Jewish identity, but in terms of
cultural literacy - reading, writing, developing a comfort with Jewish texts -
Jewish day schools are the best places." -
Carol Ingall, Forward
"Day school education
is still the most effective way to create serious, committed Jews. There is a
categorical difference between a child who has been educated through twelfth
grade in a Jewish day school and one who has not. Every Jewish educator and
honest layperson sees this immediately. The leaders of the future American
Jewish community will emerge from those who have been blessed with this
schooling." -Eugene Korn, adjunct
professor of Jewish thought at Seton Hall University
"With more Jewish kids being left behind, that's
the greatest scandal I know of in Jewish life. The question is, what are we
prepared to do about it?" -Jonathan S. Tobin,
executive editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger
"80%
of adults with 6 or more years of day school training are married within the
faith to another Jewish adult" -Kohelet Foundation
"These extra hours of Jewish studies
means that students in Jewish day schools receive extra mental stimulation,
including using one's brain in a variety of additional ways such as analyzing
texts, discussing ethics, studying a second or third language, and developing
organizational skills." �-Joel Hoffman
"Being Jewish
Very Important? A 'yes' response: Day School (7-12 years) 64%, no Jewish
education 36%." -UJC Report Series
on the National Jewish Population Survey 2000-2001
"70% of participants at
Hillel events at Northwestern University were graduates of Jewish day schools"-PEJE Website
"Communal funding of education is an obligation
based on Jewish law. Furthermore, it is moral responsibility of the
greatest urgency. In Talmudic times, the great sage, Yehoshua Ben Gamla
instituted a system of communal funding for Jewish day schools, and every
Jewish community since that time has sustained a communal education system. It
is only today, in the most prosperous Jewish community of all time, that Jewish
families lack the communal support to education their children." -Chicago
Superfund Website
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Thank you!
Thank you for reading, for listening, for your support and friendship.
Glaser MusicWorks
800-972-6694
Outside of the US 310-204-6111
[email protected]
1941 Livonia Av.
Los Angeles, California 90034
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New Videos for August!
It's not in the heavens! A great new jewishfan video version of Lo Bashamayim from A Day in the Life.
Sam and Sharone jam on Ka Ribon while rehearsing for Edge of Light 2
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SPECIAL NEWS BULLETIN:
Sam Does Simchas!
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The Mother of All Bunk Notes!
Dear Max and Jesse,
Hope you are having a rockin' good time in Wisconsin. We miss you sooooo much. Max, it was so good to hear your
voice. Sounds like you have very
little voice left...don't blow it out!
Paintballing sounds like it was a blast. Jesse...I'm concerned about your broken braces. Do they have an orthodontist they can
take you to? Please borrow a phone and give us and update. I've been crazy
busy...I'm currently producing 6 CDs for clients at the same time, baruch
Hashem! As long as I'm working on
my client's stuff I've been sneaking in some of my own songs and I'm stoked at
how they are coming out. It looks
like my next CD will not be overtly Jewish but will be spiritual anthems about
life. Max, maybe you'll lay some
guitar tracks down??
Sarah is doing great...she is thriving being the only child
and I've been doing my best to take the time to do fun stuff with her. Yesterday we rode bikes in Venice
beach. Everyone that we met was
Jewish or told us about their love of the Jewish People. At one point Sarah said, "Dad, isn't it
weird that everyone we meet is Jewish?"
I told her that it must mean that Mashiach is coming soon. I had a helmet on so they couldn't see
my kippah. Then I realized she was
wearing her Gan Israel camp shirt...no wonder everyone was calling out to
us! She loves to ride bikes but as
you know she loves shopping at the street vendors more.
Mom is spending her time taking care of business and looking
at your pictures on the camp website.
Every time I come into the room she's online searching for you guys in
pictures. I think that means she
misses you A LOT! I think she
loves not having to worry about school and homework. Sorry I've been blowing it regarding sending bunk notes. This will be a long one so you can
catch up with all our
wall-to-wall simchas this week
Your absence was felt intensely. Especially by me.
It's more than you guys missing the family group pictures or not seeing your
cousins. We're just incomplete
without you! Last Shabbat we
celebrated Uncle Herb's Bar Mitzvah.
It's not often that you can go to your uncle's Bar Mitzvah! But Uncle Herb turned 83 and there is a
custom to call someone up to the Torah who has lived 13 years past the allotted
70 years that the Talmud states we typically live. All our cousins were honored with Aliyot, Herb did the
Haftorah and I led Mussaf at Beth Jacob.
We then had lunch downstairs, danced and everyone gave speeches. Herbs kids pitched in to buy him a
fountain pen. One of our
discussions was what to do with the Glaser family flag when old folks have
their second Bar/Bat Mitzvahs. Do
we squeeze their names in with the kids?
Give them their own flag? I
suggested that we make a special Bar Mitzvah Sheni flag and use old, wrinkled
fabric. That got a good laugh.
On Sunday we had two family reunions. The first was for my dad's side of the
family out at our cousin's place in Malibu. It was a long drive but boy was it worth it. When we walked into this amazing home Sarah said, "Dad, this looks like a hotel!" It was great to see long
lost cousins and thankfully they were sensitive to our kosher needs. The house is on a bluff overlooking the
ocean and they have their own private pathway in a steep ravine. I brought my board and got to enjoy
head high, great shape waves with only one other guy out there! Too much fun. On the way back up the trail I got stabbed by a spiky Dr.
Nancy plant. It injected some
toxin into my legs, which are now a scary poison oak-like infected mess. Our cousin who lives at this house also
has 13 and 15 year old boys and I will definitely take you up there after our
camping trip in Leo Cabrillo at the end of the month. We'll avoid that spiky plant.
Then we went to Uncle Danny's where my mom's side of the
family had gathered. Another
several hours in the pool, amazing Ahi tuna on the grill and jamming on Danny's
perfectly maintained piano. Yael
and the girls were in town from Israel, Marcy and Michael from New York, Monica
and Steve, Joey and Jennifer; in other words, lots of kids to throw around in
the pool. That night I started a
four-day session with drums and bass that lasted until Wednesday night. It was very intense and we got a lot
done.
I was so wiped out after my recording session on Monday that
mom had to drag me to the wedding of Rabbi Heller's son Moshe. Once I arrived I suddenly remembered
the circumstances. Moshe's bride
is Dr. Joel Schwartz's daughter.
If you remember, Joel, who was the president of our shul, died last year
of a massive heart attack during the first dance of his oldest daughter's
wedding. I truly felt Joel's
presence during the chuppah and was overwhelmed by tears. Can you imagine how gevalt the dancing
was? I was totally unprepared and
surprised by the simple holiness and sublime joy of the event. It made me realize that one of the best
things about having become Shomer Shabbat is belonging to a close knit
community connected by holiness and love of Torah rather than by status,
finances or hobbies.
Wednesday night, after the last day of my recording binge, I
went to see Squeeze and the English Beat at the Gibson Ampitheater. I got six of my friends to go with
me...all guys my age that can appreciate good 80's rock. These bands were the soundtrack to my
freshman year in college. I knew just about every tune and danced for three
hours straight. On the way back to
the car we wandered around Citywalk and stopped into Howling at the Moon for a
beer. This is a dueling piano
joint and lots of drunk people were singing along to classic rock songs. At one point they got this young bride
who had just gotten married up on the stage. They sat her on the piano and humiliated her with a totally
inappropriate song. I turned to my
friends and said, "can't they just do Siman Tov?!"
Thursday night...even more dancing! We took Sarah to the Perluss wedding. It was SOOOO much fun. My brother Aharon flew into town for it
and totally surprised me. Ahava
looked gorgeous and her parents were flying! The wedding took place at the Park Plaza, a huge 1925 art
deco building downtown. It's a
grand place for a simcha but WAY too loud since all the walls in the huge hall
are marble. Aharon and I literally
danced for two solid hours. I was
dripping with sweat from head to toe.
We were RUNNING as much as we were dancing. Even my tie was drenched. I
didn't see much of mom or Sarah because the mechitza was pretty severe and the
seating was separate. That doesn't
make for much of a date night.
Not to sound like a crybaby but in the middle of the
ceremony I looked over to the other side of the aisle and saw mom, Sarah and bubbie sitting together. I thought,
"wow...there are my girls! The three
most important women in the world to me."
Then Sarah gave me one of her looks. You know...the big eyes, sweet smile, "hi dad" kind of look
and I suddenly realized that before I know it, I'll be walking her down the
aisle. Well, that did it. The wedding was already so sweet and
moving...I know Ahava since she was a little girl. But now I was sobbing!
After the ceremony I took a walk across the street and saw that a hispanic
techno-jam band was playing in MacArthur Park. Of course I went over to check it out and danced for a while
to the groove of a DJ, four percussionists, bass and two keyboardists. You would have loved it.
I am so glad you are in camp and having the time of your
lives. Jesse, you look
overwhelmingly happy and like you are surrounded by great friends. Max, you need to get in more
pictures! Please try to call on
Friday so that I can give you both your brachas. Tonight I'll have my 8-piece band doing a wedding with me at
Nessah. Yes, another
wedding! Next weekend I'll be in Vancouver, BC for a gig. I love it up there and will be staying
two extra days to do some mountain biking and hiking in the Canadian
Rockies. I got to take you there
sometime. It's so green, the
mountains so awesome and savage and pour right into the deepest blue of the
Pacific. My beloved sons, make the
most of your camp experience and your lives. I love you. |
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