Sam Glaser
Issue No. 43
February 2013

Happy Purim!

Purim is this Saturday night! What are you going to be? I've dressed as a cowboy the past few years and I'm ready to hang up my badge. I'm leaning heavily towards Luke Skywalker or Obi Wan. You can catch me with my lightsaber jamming at Temple Beth Am in LA at 7:15pm; my band is coming as a wookie, hockey player and a zombie. Should be pretty ugly.

 

I have enjoyed a very busy month featuring a 12 concert weekend in Cleveland where I performed for Shaarey Tikvah, Park Synagogue and the Agnon School. When people warned me about the Ohio cold I laughed at them...I'm a skier, after all. But sure enough, they were right. There's a difference between 30 and zero degrees. It's hard for us LA folks to wrap our brains around the concept of wind chill. Suffice it to say that I spent that Shabbat walking around with ski goggles and scarf over my face. Scaring small children was a small price to pay for avoiding frostbite.

 

Then I headed back to LA for my debut leading the Possible You seminar. Thankfully I had an amazing group of brave attendees that worked with me for over twenty hours on achieving greatness in our lives. This workshop was founded by my brother Yom Tov in Jerusalem and now has over 2000 alumni. I recommend it highly and am looking forward to the next opportunity in Los Angeles on March 17-19. If you are able to assemble 20 participants, I'll get on a plane to anywhere in the US and bring this incredible program with me. Please visit the Possible You website to learn about it and call with any questions.

 

This past weekend I travelled to Houston where I offered a Mastering the Secrets of Prayer workshop and gave a concert at the annual Yom Limmud. Over 600 learners assembled to enjoy a broad array of classes and then a gala show that featured my Texas-based band and a great group of local singers. The room was rockin! I then watched the NBA All Star game from the airport lounge (it was in Houston that night) and returned to party at the NFTY International Convention at the LA Airport Hilton featuring 900 Reform teens in a dancing frenzy and their outnumbered staff. 

 

Enjoy my essay on the minor league lifecycle events, check out our charity of the month and feast your eyes on some fun Purim videos.   Stay in touch!

 

Shalom, 

 

Sam

The Promise Tour 2013!
The Promise Tour is off and running!  Now serving ultimate weekends of Jewish celebration.  Sam is featuring the music from his new CD in feel good, Israel-focused concerts for all ages.  Guaranteed peak experiences for your community from one of the veteran performers of Jewish music.  Make it a fundraiser and use our know-how to help you make the event a win-win, profitable smash hit!  Save by taking advantage of discounted shows when Sam is in your area: SamJeans

Long Beach, CA
LA, CA
Naples, FL
Las Vegas, NV
Berkshires, MA
New York, NY 
Nashville, TN 
 
Purim is still available!
 
Click here for a list of Sam's performance and workshop options and click here for the full schedule; dates are added weekly. 
Praise for The Promise!
Promise CD
Sam's The Promise CD is out!  This all new release is a celebration of the connection of the Jewish People with the Israel. Nearly two years in the making, these moving, rocking, inspiring songs feature Sam's amazing band and an array of guest vocalists. Now available online for $9.99 and CDs only $14.99.  Support the cause!  You'll love it!
 
"Sam, I have all of your albums and keep them in heavy rotation on my Sunday SImcha show.  I think The Promise is the best yet.  Cutting edge and so powerful."
Kevin Frye, WMNF-88.5 FM Tampa, FL
 
"Yashar koach on the album - it's amazing!"
-Miriam Van Raalte
 

"I'm not sure how you do it. The Promise is a work of art. Every song touches my deepest feelings about Israel. There is so much wisdom in your lyrics. I know this sounds clich� but I am getting chills every time I listen."

-Fred Warner

 
"The Promise is awesome (as usual!)  It will make a perfect gift to just about everyone I know."
-Cantor Risa Askin
 
"I can't begin to find the words to express how much I totally enjoy your work.  Your voice, songs and arrangements are all just amazing.  What a gift."
-Piper Lori

Bumps Along the Road:

The Other Lifecycle Events

by Sam Glaser

 

Everybody knows about the famous ones: bris, baby naming, bar/bat mitzvah, marriage and funerals.  This month's column is a segue from last month's report on the miraculous nature of the bris and is dedicated to certain overlooked milestones that are equally a part of life.  All cultures celebrate rites of passage. In the US we have graduations, sweet 16's, getting a driver's license, and the holy grail, reaching drinking age.  As a parent I've noticed that once you have kids there are a few other significant transitions that are rarely discussed.

 

The first is when your kids start nursery school. For some parents this is a tremendous relief...you have a few hours of the day to go back to sleep or get some errands done.  For me it was traumatic.  I run a recording studio behind our house and I loved having young Max co-engineer with me.  He would man his own mixing console, paint, draw and scribble and crawl around looking for bugs to eat.  I loved being the sole source of his nutrition, education and influence. That is - other than the times when his nosy mother or grandparents would butt in.  Then that terrible day arrived.  I grabbed my camera and shot pictures as he confidently strode down the street with his oversized yarmulkah and new backpack.   His mom then drove him to the beginning of the first of his 17 years of education and I laid down on the couch and wept.

 

Now Max would be subjected to the reign of terror of underpaid, overworked teachers, brutal peer pressure, teasing and bullies.  He was so happy when he came home that day, bubbling over with an enthusiastic report of all the new experiences.  I fished for information regarding any mistreatment or how badly he might have missed hanging out with me.  Nope.  I remember his sharing a new work of art he created and then my wife telling me to get over it.

 

The next underreported milestone is becoming "reproductively irrelevant."  I always envisioned having four kids. Four is a nice, round number, I grew up in a family with four boys and I felt like four meant you were a real parent. Also, one of our favorite rebbetzins used to lecture us on the importance of Jews having large families to undo the damage of Hitler's taking 1.5 Million of our kinderlach.  I love the sweet adventure and mystery of pregnancy and birth.  Of course that's easy for me to say.  I tried to participate in everything, from birth coaching to feeding and the changing diapers.  I even got to dispense the milk my wife would laboriously pump.

 

After Sarah, our third child was born, my wife kept breastfeeding for years.  I suspected she was trying to delay the onset of her period and thereby avoiding getting pregnant yet again.  Perhaps she was trying to hold on to that feeling of closeness with her daughter.  By the time we got back to business it became clear that God had other plans. After the third miscarriage we were resigned to accept the gift of our three children and the completion of our family.  The problem is that try as I might, I could not move on.  To this day I find myself going straight for whichever baby is within arms reach at our synagogue and singing baby songs in spite of the pronounced distress of my adolescent children.  I am secretly envious of the stroller set, hungry for the days of portable children that don't say no.

 

I knew I needed some help to let this inner ache go away and made an appointment to speak to my rabbi.  I don't remember his exact advice but it was something like, "man up, move on and count your blessings" or something like that.  I bear him no malice; he is a righteous man that has better things to do, like counseling childless couples.  I eventually got used to the idea that sex no longer had anything to do with reproduction.  I also had to get used to the return of my wife's cycle and the joy of separating half of each month. Arrrgh!

 

The next lifecycle event came on the heels of our last child becoming a Bat Mitzvah. Sarah turning 12 means that Max is a senior in high school. Yes, my friends, the empty nest phase is approaching. We are now in the midst of SAT's, college applications and researching yeshivot in Israel.  Last month he went on his senior trip in which the class goes to Israel to see firsthand the top fifteen academies that are recommended for their gap year of study. This is all very exciting for Max.  But it's a bit heartbreaking for me. Our official annual vacation this last January was our last as a whole family, at least for the foreseeable future. Next year he won't be with us for Pesach.  Or High Holidays or Chanukah for that matter.  We won't enjoy his brief appearance at dinner every night.  And Jesse, who is only a year-and-a-half younger soon will be following in his 

footsteps. I'm getting weepy writing this.  I know I should be stoic and matter of fact.  But I will leave that for my wife, who wears the pants in the family. (Actually I wear the pants, but she tells me which pair.)

 

The bottom line is that there are plenty of micro-milestones that are under reported but highly impactful in any parent's life.  More are on the way: a completely empty nest, menopause, college graduations, weddings (God willing!), grandparenthood and avoiding senility.  No one prepares you for this life when you are a teen and think you are going to live forever.  The only constant in life is change.  And riding this roller coaster with your sanity intact requires a good spouse and good spiritual guidance, or at worst, self medicating or becoming a hermit.  Or there's another way: live the life of a rock star and never grow up.  

 

Just know that if I ever beeline for your babies, I mean no harm.  I'm a perpetual kid and a loving dad trying to get a fix of the dreamy feeling of having an infant falling asleep on my shoulder.  Last week a friend's kid was on my lap playing with my tzitzit and drooling on my suit, laughing as I sang "Swinging," "Pony Boy" and "Run Away."  I know my wife shares my desire that our kids do the "be fruitful and multiply" mitzvah sooner than later so that we can enjoy what my parents consider the ultimate pleasure: being a grandparent.  May we enter our golden years with health and love for each other, filled with the wisdom that only comes from surviving these bittersweet bumps along the road.



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Sam at the Piano
Sam with Kids
Sam with the Orchestra
This Month at 

 

David Steinberg is a writer, composer, animator and is presently the SVP of Production for Nickelodeon.  He gets his late night thrills by writing and producing love songs and I have the great gift of working with him to record his creations  Even busy executives can make their own musical dreams come true!  This full service studio is ready for you to do the same with your own dreams.

The Possible You
is for YOU!  
Presented 
by Sam Glaser
March 17-18-19!

 

The Possible You is a groundbreaking seminar that creates the space for participants to realize their unlimited potential. It is rapidly growing in popularity and is offered in Israel, the US, UK and Canada. There are now 2000 supercharged alumni worldwide that credit The Possible You with initiating transformation in their lives.  

With an intensely paced delivery of profound insights coupled with music, visual aids and group sharing, a crucial set of life tools are communicated to the full spectrum of learners in all modalities. Originated by renown Jerusalem-based teacher Rabbi Yom Tov Glaser, The Possible You is an amalgamation of the wisdom of kabbalah, mussar, surfing and a variety of transformation technologies of the past several decades. While its message and mode of delivery is tailor-made for the Jewish soul, The Possible You is available for people of all backgrounds.

 

This step-by-step, twenty hour course investigates what makes each of us tick. Participants work in new realms of trust and commitment, connecting with truth, respect for one another, respect for themselves. Participants enter as strangers and leave as allies and loving friends, taking a stand for each other's success in life. They open the door to estranged family members and experience real healing for wounds gathered over life's journey.

 

Sam Glaser has been working hand in hand with his brother Yom Tov to customize the seminar for American students. He meticulously follows the established Possible You syllabus while giving the sessions his unique spin. Let us help you make arrangements in LA to attend. Register today!

February Videos! 

Raise Your Mask Purim - The Fountainheads
Raise Your Mask Purim - The Fountainheads
Purim Animated
Purim Animated
 
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Tzedakah of the Month: 
The Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity
The Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity undertakes projects that address Jewish identity and community through the medium of culture.  This wonderful organization has been instrumental in helping me complete many of my musical projects and I know from peers that they share the same story.
 

The CJCC was founded in Tel Aviv in 1990 by leading Israeli and North American artists, scholars and entrepreneurs who recognized that creative talent is a major resource of the Jewish people for sustaining Jewish identity. A non-profit institution in both the United States and Israel, the Center is committed to fostering a dynamic international Jewish culture rooted in the Land of Israel, as envisioned by Zionist philosopher Ahad Ha'am. The Center facilitates access to cultural works from Israel, and to Jewish creativity from outside Israel, as a means of strengthening Jewish communities, shaping Jewish identity, and honoring the ongoing Jewish contribution to universal civilization.

Thank you!

Thank you for reading, for listening, for your support and friendship.

 

Glaser Musicworks
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