Tikkun

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2003 – 2004

Tikkun is a multifaceted concept in Judaism meaning the “repair” or “improvement” of the world. In the broadest sense, it is the idea that human beings bear a spiritual responsibility for making the world better not only through religious rituals, but also through actions undertaken in the name of justice, peace, and moral progress.

The idea of preparing a cycle of concert-improvisations under the shared title “Tikkun” was born out of inspiration from a photographic exhibition by the legendary Polish photographer Tadeusz Rolke, telling the story of places once connected with the movement of Hasidim in Poland, entitled “We Were Here”.

The exhibition was presented in the French town of Die during the “Est–Ouest 2003” festival devoted to Polish culture and art, where the music group Lautari was also present. The exhibition, beautifully displayed in an old, round chapel outside the town, inspired the musicians of Lautari to express their feelings and emotions toward the places and traces of presence captured in the photographs. An improvised, many-hours-long nighttime concert, in which we gathered our previous experiences related to Jewish music, transformed into a concert-prayer, a meeting, a celebration to which everyone brought something—wine, bread, curiosity, contemplation, emotion—both the musicians and the audience.

The continuation of this spontaneous meeting is the cycle of concert-improvisations TIKKUN. Tadeusz Rolke agreed, for the purposes of the project, to make part of his exhibition available. We invited a group of friends, both Jewish musicians and goyim. Our point of reference is klezmer music, which constitutes an inalienable part of the cultural landscape of pre-war Poland. The history of klezmer music is, in a sense, the “musical soundtrack” of the history of Ashkenazi Jews. Awakened to life on the banks of the Rhine and developed in Central and Eastern Europe, it absorbed Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, Russian, and Hungarian elements, as well as the cultures of places of the Jewish diaspora.

The word “klezmer,” derived from the Hebrew words kley (vessel) and zemer (song), means a vessel, a transmitter of sound, or metaphorically a “singing instrument.” This is how we see our own presence in this project. We therefore create a group of “klezmers” in order to undertake a shared journey to synagogues, chapels, and private homes. To sing at crossroads, to show Tadeusz Rolke’s photographs “We Were Here,” and in their surroundings to play the music of Jews, the music of Hasidim, which once co-created the Polish cultural landscape.

Our activities go beyond the framework of a concert. We want to create events devoid of rigid structure and spectacle, open to the energy of places and people, shared sensitivity, reciprocity, resonance, individuality, personal impressions, and musical improvisations.

Our idea is to “celebrate in concentration,” to restore harmony, to perform Tikkun.