Woodstock

August 14, 2009
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

     In this week's Torah portion, Moses commands the Israelites to conduct a ceremonial gathering as they cross the Jordan River. He tells them to gather at the foot of the twin mountains Gerizim and Ebal. Chieftains of the tribes should take places on the two mountains -- six chieftains on each mountain -- to represent all the Israelites. From Mount Gerizim, they will call out the blessings coming to the Israelites if they obey God's commands. From Mount Ebal, they will recite the curses to befall the people for refusing to obey God's commands. The people will listen to each blessing and curse and respond with Amen. The list of curses is more colorful than the list of blessings but the blessings are things essential to well-being. For example, who among us can deny the importance of rain, especially here in Houston this year?

     The Book of Joshua tells us that this gathering was held more or less according to Moses' instructions. The people assembled at the foot of the two mountains and the priests blessed them and the curses and blessings were recited.

     In the 19th century, Bible scholar J.W. McGarvey noticed deep semicircular recesses at the foot of each mountain that formed two "amphitheatres." As an experiment, McGarvey stood between the two mountains where the Levities and the people of Israel gathered. He reported that there was enough space there for 600,000 Israelites and their families. Then, he asked one of his companions to climb halfway up Mount Ebal and another to climb halfway up Mount Gerizim to represent the Israelite chieftains. McGarvey read the blessings and the curses; and his two companions responded with Amen. The fellow on Gerizim heard every word clearly and McGarvey could hear his Amens clearly, too. The fellow on Ebal heard McGarvey's voice but found it difficult to make out the words because of trees and terracing now on the mountainside (which were probably not there in the time of Joshua). In the end, McGarvey reported that, if Joshua had a loud voice, every Israelite would have heard him. Evidently, God had chosen the very best site in all of Israel for this mass gathering. It may have been the only site where no PA system was necessary for the gathering.

     The same was not true of Yasgur's farm. It was easy enough to plow a field large enough to accommodate the crowd that gathered forty years ago, on August 15th, 1969. It was easy enough to construct a stage. But the acoustics were far from perfect. To bring off Woodstock, at one point the promoters had to construct a huge PA system, and also to borrow a PA system from The Grateful Dead. Even so, they were not expecting the nearly half a million people who actually showed up for their weekend "of peace and music." They said they were planning for 40-50,000 people, depending on whose memory you trust, but they secretly made plans for as many as 250,000.

     But their planning was hardly divine. They did not have enough sanitary facilities for 250,000 people -- certainly not have enough for 450,000. There was not enough security, not enough food, not enough shelter, not enough of almost every necessity. Two weeks before the festival, 180,000 tickets had been sold. The promoters signed a handwritten contract with Warner Brothers for movie rights, asking in turn only for the cost of raw film. They convinced Warner Brothers that their studio could not lose. Either they would make a great film about hundreds of thousands of people enjoying music or they would make the best-ever documentary about a riot.

     Twenty-four hours before the concert, the traffic already blocked Route 17 for a distance of ten miles and was building its way back to the New York Thruway. Anyone on the grounds who looked like a responsible adult was being drafted as a security person and all of them were issued the same secret password. The password was "I forget." "Are you authorized to be here?" someone would ask, and the other would answer, "I forget." The response would be "Good. We need your help."

     Makeshift kitchens sprung up all around the field. A makeshift infirmary was set up. But everyone was expected to sleep outdoors, even people who had never before spent a night under the stars. Naturally, there was a Jewish connection. When Sullivan County residents heard that the kids on the farm didn't have enough food, members of the Monticello Jewish Community Center pitched in on Friday to make sandwiches from 200 loaves of bread, 40 pounds of cold cuts and two gallons of pickles.

     The organizers could not get started on time because of the traffic jam. They could not even find helicopters to bring the performers to the stage. But someone noticed Richie Havens wandering around backstage, so Richie Havens became the lead act Friday afternoon. Every time, Havens tried to stop, he had to go on because no other act had arrived. He played for three hours, before a helicopter finally landed with musical reinforcements. You have to wonder whether there was not a little miracle at that moment. The helicopter was provided by the US Army, which reached out to help all those anti-war folk enjoy their weekend. And more food was flown in by more military helicopters belonging to the National Guard.

     The people gathered for one weekend in 1969 were liars and lovers, prophets and profiteers. They made love, they made money, and also they made history. Like most high-points in time, you can only define Woodstock as either an accident or a miracle, depending on your point of view. The only serious attempt to emulate it occurred that December in Altamount, CA, when a gathering of 300,000 to hear music and practice peace was disrupted by riots and murders.

     So why speak of Woodstock forty years after it happened? I think Woodstock was important for the unifying effect it had on a generation. Moses wanted the Israelites to gather all in one place to help them grasp the meaning of unity. I do not know who arranged the catering for that gathering or whether there were enough sanitary facilities at Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal that day. I do know that Woodstock symbolized a high point for music as the expression of a whole generation. The music then was still speaking of values -- values of independence, of freedom, of love, of sharing, of nonviolence. A national movement had taken those values as far as it could, and the unity dissolved almost immediately after Woodstock -- maybe it had begun to dissolve even before, and Woodstock was the last gasp of it.

     But the same could be said for the ceremony of Joshua and the Israelites. It happened only once and the Israelites were never again quite so unified in their thinking and in their ways. And yet these high moments leave us with aspirations. They leave us with hope and even with a sense of possibility. So long as we can pray for a common set of goals, or sing for a common set of goals, we can express the highest aspirations of our humanity -- even if we can never quite live up to what we really wish we could be. And let us say: Amen.