“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side…” – Abraham Lincoln (1809 -1865)

There are many questions about Bob Dylan, few definitive answers.

1- Is he the greatest songwriter ever?

The answer is clearly subjective, but there are several objective indicators he is:

A- He is the only songwriter to have received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

B- He is the only songwriter to have received the United States’ highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in addition to the French Legion of Honor.

C- Rolling Stone magazine (2016), listing the greatest 100 songwriters ever, deemed him #1. (#s 2 and 3 were some unknowns named Paul McCartney and John Lennon.)

D- As a salient manifestation of his influence, both the magazine itself and #6 on its list, the group helmed by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, are named for his song Like a Rolling Stone.

E- He has had more of his songs covered by other artists than any other songwriter. (Including Jimi Hendrix’s biggest hit and the first two songs on Peter, Paul and Mary’s Greatest Hits album.)

F- In the Coen Brothers’ cinematic tribute to folk music, Inside Llewyn Davis” climax, as an unidentified singer begins to perform (Dylan’s song Farewell), the audiences in the film and the movie theater instantaneously realize this is farewell. Nothing will ever be the same. He has irreversibly changed folk music.

2- Is he the greatest song performer ever?

By any objective parameter, not even close. The evidence is undeniable:

A- Covers of his songs by other artists far outsell his renditions. (Peter, Paul and Mary recorded nine of his songs, shared the same Jewish manager, Albert Grossman, sold more records and popularized his songs more than he did.)

B- His son Jakob’s album Bringing Down the Horse sold more copies than any of his own.

C- Over time, unlike his contemporaneous peers, his concerts were forced to move to smaller venues in more out-of-the-way cities.

Every performer knows what their audience wants, their favorite songs performed as they remember them. Dylan instead plays what he wants, as unpredictably as he wants, often mumbling. Even if he plays one of his iconic songs, the audience doesn’t recognize it.

Furthermore, while all performers’ voices inevitably deteriorate with age, they try to compensate for it. He seems to savor it.

Every audience wants to feel a kinship with the performer, why performers acknowledge the city they’re in and compliment the audience. Dylan does neither. He won’t even talk to the audience (except to introduce his band) often won’t look at them, turns his back, hides behind his piano or music-stand, and/or wears a hoodie.

Performing with other headliners, he plays first, then leaves at intermission, advertising to the audience he doesn’t want to be there.

Some speculate he is misanthropic and/or autistic. A more charitable view is he performs Lishmoh, a Talmudic term meaning, literally, for its name, figuratively, purely. For Dylan, it isn’t about the audience, or his reviews; it’s only about the music.

He performs for an audience of one, himself. Depending on his mood, everyone else is, at best, along for the ride, at worst, intruding.

3- Is he Jewish? Does he consider himself Jewish?

He grew up traditionally observant, dad B’nai B’rith president, mom Hadassah president, Yiddish-speaking grandma living with them, attended Hebrew school, spoke Hebrew, was bar mitzvah (400 guests), attended Zionistic Camp Herzl, where he formed his first group The Jokers. (The Coen Brothers subsequently went there, singing the same Hebrew songs.)

He, and his Jewish wife and kids visited Israel often, at one point, planned to move to a kibbutz.

However, in 1979, he “found Christ”, “born again”, converted to Christianity, recorded gospel albums, preached his newfound faith at his concerts.

Subsequently, he reversed field: “I’ve never said I’m born again. That’s just a media term.” While he doesn’t believe in “organized religion”, “I’ve always said there’s a superior power, that this is not the real world, and that there’s a world to come.”

He changed his name from Jewish Zimmerman to Goyish Dylan, admiring poet Dylan Thomas (and TV western hero Matt Dillon) to escape the Judeo-hatred he encountered growing up. (Zimmerman derives from carpenter, but ironically, Zemer in Hebrew means song, so a Zimmerman is a singer.) Perhaps he avoids identifying publicly as Jewish for the same reason.

One thing is certain. Paraphrasing one of his earliest songs, he wants God on his side.

4- Is he Jewish? Is he considered Jewish?

No question. Not only was he born to two Jewish parents, raised Jewish, but (excepting his relatively brief Christian interlude) his Judaism has permeated his life.

One of the first songs he ever performed was Talkin’ Hava Nagila Blues. Though he rarely appears on TV, he sang on three Chabad telethons performing Hava Nagila with his Orthodox Jewish son-in-law folk singer Peter Himmelman (and Harry Jean Stanton??) He is indelibly tied to Chabad (“My favorite organization in the whole world”), visiting their headquarters, studying with them, Davening with them at the Kotel (wearing Tallis and Tfillin) and on Yom Kippur (receiving an Aliyah.)

More importantly, he raised his children Jewish, celebrating their bar mitzvahs at the Kotel, attending the same Camp Herzl, singing the same Jewish songs, some of his grandchildren Orthodox.

Most importantly, his songs exude Judaism, profoundly, proudly, and in detail.

Consider his first, famous, signature song, 1963, Blowin’ in the Wind, the folk movement’s anthem:

“How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?” [Was wandering in the desert 40 years insufficient?]

“How many seas must the white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?” [Ask Noah who postdiluvianly released her over those seas.] (Dylan’s subsequent record Before the Flood, is named for Yiddish writer Sholem Asch’s novel.)

“How many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free?” [Is almost 6 millennia insufficient?]

“How many times must a man turn his head pretending he just doesn’t see?” [Ezekiel  12:1 “They have eyes but they do not see.”  a verse Dylan recited annually on the high holidays.]

“How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?” [Were 6 million insufficient?]

These lyrics can be viewed through a Jewish prism, but could also apply to any oppressed people.

The following year, God On Your Side, his lyrics became more unequivocal: “The Second World War came to an end. We forgave the Germans and then we were friends. Though they murdered 6 million, in the ovens they fried, the Germans now too have God on their side.”

On the same record, When The Ship Comes In promises: “And like Pharaoh’s tribe, they’ll be drowned in the tide. And like Goliath, they’ll be conquered.”

The following year, two more songs reveal his intimacy with Judaism. Bringing It All Back Home: “As he weeps to wicked birds of prey who pick up his breadcrumb sins.” (Referring to Tashlich.)

Highway 61 Revised: “Yeah, God said to Abraham ‘Kill me a son.’ Abe said ‘Man, you must be putting me on!'”

In 1973, his landmark song Forever Young opens with the priestly blessing: “May God bless you and keep you always.” then invokes Jacob: “May you build a ladder to the stars.”

Did he bless his son Jakob, born four years earlier, with this lullaby? (When I bless my daughters and granddaughters, I always end: “May God keep you happy, healthy and forever young.” I know that I am not alone in doing so.)

10 years later, post Israel being criticized for bombing Libya’s nuclear reactor, Dylan fiercely defended her:

“Well, The Neighborhood Bully, he’s just one man. His neighbors say that he’s on their land. They got him outnumbered about a million to one. He’s got no place to escape to, no place to run. The neighborhood bully just lives to survive. He’s criticized and condemned for being alive. He’s not supposed to fight back. He’s supposed to have thick skin. He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in. The neighborhood bully has been driven out of every land. He’s wandered the Earth an exiled man. Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn. He’s always on trial just for being born. He knocked out a lynch mob. He was criticized. Old women condemned him, said he should apologize. He destroyed a bomb factory. Nobody was glad. Bombs were meant for him. He’s supposed to feel bad. His holiest books have been trampled upon. No contract he signed was worth what it was written on. He took the crumbs of the world, turned it into wealth. Took sickness and disease, turned it into health. Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone, Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon. He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand, in bed with nobody, under no one’s command.”

[For brevity’s sake some (of the 11) versus have been skipped, others slightly abridged.]

Confirming his Jewish identity, in the album photo, he wears a Kipa, in Jerusalem (at his son’s bar mitzvah.)

5- Is he a rabbi? Who ordained him?

Probably not (though he is very private about his religious studies.)

Rabbi however, means more than clergy. The word derives from “My teacher.”

Dylan has certainly been that. When Pink Floyd‘s Roger Waters urged The Rolling Stones not to perform in Israel, the man who provided them their name convinced them to do so.

He was ordained by the son of a Ku Klux Klansman, Woody Guthrie.

“The Dust Bowl Troubadour” in fact spent most of his life in New York City with his Jewish wife and children and mentor mother-in-law, constant companion, Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt. Though never recorded, it’s quite possible he wrote more lyrics in Mama Loshon (Mama-in-law Loshon) than any American Jewish songwriter.

What is definite is that he was Dylan’s North star. Age 19, Dylan came from Minnesota to regularly visit him in the hospital, singing Woody’s songs back to him.

Dylan wrote: “His songs had the infinite sweep of humanity in them… Woody Guthrie had never seen or heard of me, but I felt like he was saying: ‘I’ll be going away, but I’m leaving this job in your hands. I know I can count on you.”

He was correct. He could.

The first original song Dylan recorded, 1962, was Song to Woody:

“Hey Woody Guthrie, but I know that you know. All the things that I’m-a-sayin’ and a-many things more. I’m a-singin’ you this song, but I can’t sing enough. ‘Cause there’s not that many men that done the things that you’ve done.”

Even fewer did the things that Dylan did.

2011, Israel was, once again, being ostracized. Dylan received great pressure to cancel his concert there. He refused. He was greeted ecstatically by the country, and by his audience. The Haaretz critic wrote: “He has influenced Israel for the better more than any other American Jew.”

Through his universally acclaimed songs, his unmistakable Jewish identity, and his devotion to Israel, Bob Dylan has been on God’s side “influencing the world for the better more than any other” rabbi.

Woody Guthrie would be proud.

Dylan’s parents would be proud. His children are proud.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)