A story shared by Jill on our last Monday evening about Itzhak Perlman,
Written by Jack Riemer for King Syndicate
If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play
By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play. But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap -- it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do.
People who were there that night thought to themselves: "We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage -- to either find another violin or else find another string for this one."
But he
didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the
conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had
left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as
they had never heard before.
Of
course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just
three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night, Itzhak Perlman
refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing, recomposing the
piece in his head . At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings
to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.
When he
finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and
cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of
the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing
everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done.
He
smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he
said -- not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone -- "You
know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can
still make with what you have left."
What a powerful line that is.
It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it.
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Our ZHS on-line schedule
- Mondays: 7-8:30pm - zazen, short service, lecture/discussion
- Tuesdays-Fridays: 5:30-6:10pm - zazen, offering of merit/bows
- M-F: 7-7:30am - zazen
- Saturdays: 8:00-10:15am - zazen, short service, tea, discussion/study
- For more information: www.zenheartsangha.org)
Special bows for today:
- Please offer bows of well-being for:
- Please offer bows for Misha's brother, Duane, who is receiving radiation for cancer
- Please offer bows for Shannon's husband, Gil, who contracted COVID
- Please offer bows for Roshi Sojun (Mel) Weitsman) who entered hospice 12/14/20
- Please continue to offer bows in honor of:
- Please offer bows for Angie Boissevain who is recovering well at home
- Nora Hayes-Roth, a dear friend of Misha's, who died on 11/25/20
- Dan Pomeroy, a friend of dharma brother, Dainuri Rott, who died on 11/20/20
- Ofelia Mendez, Lilliana Mendez-Soto's aunt who died on 11/12/20
- Please continue to offer bows of well-being for:
- Nancy Leech's mother, Doris Leech, who is recovering well at home
- Flip Dibner, who is undergoing chemotherapy while at home
- David Shaw, who suffered a stroke; he is home now with his wife, Nancy, and beginning the long slow process of rehabilitation
- Rev. Les Kaye, Misha’s Zen teacher, who is in the final month of chemotherapy
- From Kathleen: Irish open-air cellist strikes coronavirus lockdown chord. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55007563
- From Anna: a modern Heart Sutra: https://youtu.be/nvIGCMhjkvw
- Zen Heart Sangha website: resources about COVID-19: www.zenheartsangha.org
- If you would like to leave a comment on this blog: Here is a quick video on how to--it's from 2017, but should work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T4RflO5Wgg
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