Down next to me in this lonely crowd,
Is a man who swears he’s not to blame.
All day long I hear him cry so loud,
Calling out that he’s been framed.
Hearing “I Shall Be Released” for the first time when I was fourteen – the year my head was exploded by Bob Dylan – I felt bad for the poor guy, thrown into prison, clearly innocent. Now in my mid-sixties, these plaintive verses call out to me quite differently. During Elul, we are asked to ask ourselves “ayekha” – where are you? Who are each of us at this moment – as an individual, as a member of a community, of a people? Is that man in his “lonely crowd” really so blameless? And if our crowd comprises nothing but castaway, isolated souls, can it even be called…a community?
When I walked into Ansche Chesed two summers ago, having but a casual yet warm acquaintance with Jeremy and knowing only a few members, I found myself amidst the opposite of a “lonely crowd.” In lieu of feeling “framed” by personal circumstances, I chose to be the light of which Bob Dylan sang:
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.
May the light of community and friendship that I have found at Ansche Chesed illuminate the paths we each must take at this time of growth, pain, change, and compassion.
