Thread by @wordpaley

Thread on @IshayRibo’s new single Sibat ha-Sibot (The Reason of Reasons), feat. Rambam and flamenco music.

It’s been nearly a year since Ishay’s last release, Keter Melukha (thread on that ⬇️), and these two songs couldn’t be more different. Or that’s what he wants us to think.

https://twitter.com/wordpaley/status/1245497717910130691

As I wrote last year, Ishay perfectly captured the spiritual and cultural moment in his blend of an unusually somber musical key and lyrics about being stuck in the in-between spaces. And he threw in an allusion to the coronavirus by centering the song on keter, meaning crown.

So at first listen, this new song, a foot-stomper about God being the reason for everything, is the polar opposite. First off, it’s his first true EDM-inspired song, featuring the second-beat claps and high-key synth trumpets common in house music (think Avicii and David Guetta).

Second—understandably so, because it’s been a whole year—the lyrics of Sibat have a different, more optimistic tone than Keter. Last year Ishay sang the word אין (there is no) and מי (who?) a lot, and the chorus helplessly asked God what God wants us to learn from all this.

This year, he’s a bit more confident. “There is no doubt the path will clarify itself,” he croons tentatively. Then he asks God to open up the gates of faith and understanding that we have no king other than God. So far, the themes of the two tracks seem similar: God’s kingship.

But then he gets a bit bolder:

We left the Ark of Noah/comfort/ (nice double-entendre!)

into another reality/

...to accept the black-and-white/
(perhaps a ref. to Charedim)

with all the colors of the rainbow/

...Humankind is beloved, created in the Image (of God)

So we know what at least one purpose of this was: to give us an opportunity to heal our long-festering divisions. Unfortunately, that hasn’t quite happened yet, especially in Israel. But Ishay tries to gently ease the Covid-related tension with an appeal to everyone’s humanity.

It is in this respect that these lyrics diverge significantly from those of last year’s Keter: where last year he sang of not knowing, of being alone, of having questions, this year he has some idea of an answer. But it’s not just about other people. He knows something about God.

Now we can finally talk about the song’s odd title: “The Reason of Reasons”, or more precisely, “The Cause of Causes.” It’s an Aristotelian term for God that made its way into Jewish philosophy, including R. Yehuda ha-Levi’s Kuzari and even mystical texts like the Tikkunei Zohar.

What’s interesting is that despite Aristotle’s known influence on Rambam/Maimonides, the phrase never appears in Rambam’s work. Per Y. Even-Shmuel, who wrote a commentary on the Moreh, this is because Rambam agrees w/ Plotinus that First Cause isn’t a sufficient descriptor of God

Other Spanish-born philosophers, including the Muslim theologian Ibn Rushd/Averroes and the Talmudist R. Shlomo ibn Aderet (Rashba), favored the phrase, while Thomas Aquinas brought it to Christian theology. It got as far as the Baal Shem Tov and is now part of Hasidic liturgy.

The common denominator in its usage across these faiths is that it’s used to explain the necessity of faith. We might not know what causes things to happen, but if we know anything for certain, it is that God caused the first thing in the chain. For ex:

sefaria.org/Baal_Shem_Tov,…

All of this is to say this: this is not just a catchy phrase that rolls off the tongue (though it does), and Ishay knows what he’s doing. The greatest minds in history used it to grapple with one of the central questions of philosophy: the problem of causation.

Here’s where it gets crazy: the chord progression of the song is i-VII-VI-V (lowercase=minor key), aka the Andalusian cadence. Music historians say this progression originated with the Moors of S. Spain, around the *same time* that the idea of the First Cause was getting popular.

Some historians go so far as to say that the progression has roots in a musical structure from the ancient kingdom of Judah. (!) Either way, it had a big impact on classical music and continues to be essential to flamenco music and dance, which also come from southern Spain.

Obviously there’s no way to prove there’s a connection, and I don’t even think there is one. But the fact that Ishay, even unknowingly, was able to tap into the spiritual aesthetic of 12th century Andalusia is remarkable. Such are the accidental discoveries of musical genius.

So why do I think Sibat and Keter aren’t all that different? Because they both submit that we ultimately don’t know. We can only call God by names even the Rambam thinks are inadequate. And yet that’s something to bob our heads and stomp our feet about. Cuz what else can we do?💃