The High Priest

I kept on telling everyone at work for the entire week that on Thursday I had a meeting with the Jewish High Priest - the Cohen Gadol, the Priest of Priests. I managed to snag an expensive ticket to Leonard Cohen's performance last night in Israel and I was sure the High Priest would bless his audience. I thought about it for quite a number of days - about what a great idea that would be for him to give the priestly blessing to an audience of 47,000.

I was awash in day dreams throughout the day, wishing I was his spiritual tour guide while he was in the country. I'd take him to my friend Ibrahim in the Mt. of Olives, to the Sufi Sheikh on the Via Dolorosa, midnight praying at the Western Wall, etc. etc.

So at 4:30 pm while I was shredding paper, as the last thing I do before I leave the office, people seemed aghast.

"What are you still doing here?"

"I need to clear up my life" I explained. The worst thing would be for me to come back to work on Tuesday, after the Yom Kippur vacation, to a mountain of shit on my desk. I told another person standing at the reception area that I needed to get to the bank to take out some money. I can't go to Tel Aviv penniless.

"Do you want money?" asked another person.

While shredding, I'm telling him "who doesn't want money! Of course I want money."

His generosity would have saved me 1/2 hour which would have gotten me to Tel Aviv a bit earlier. He was worried because he read in the papers that roads would be closed for the concert and was concerned that I wouldn't make it on time.

"Don't worry" I told him. "Leonard will wait for me."

I got the cash, grabbed a taxi to the central bus station and craved a hot dog with sauerkraut to go, but when I saw the huge line waiting for the Tel Aviv buses, I decided I'd rather starve than miss buses. Everyone on line was talking about Leonard - I think half the bus was on its way to Ramat Gan Stadium.

Two buses filled up before I was able to get on one, and 20 minutes later, I was sitting in the front next to a woman with a cane, who told me the best way to walk to the stadium from the bus station. She's a native Tel Avivian, and I listened the entire way to her life story. When we got to Tel Aviv, an American woman listening to our conversation, also going to the concert, decided to do the walk with me. While beginning our walk, I'm telling her that although I really like Leonard Cohen's music, I am not a total fanatic, I don't know the words to all of his songs. And while I said that a young man walking in front of us turned around and shot me a look as if to tell me 'then what the hell are you even seeing him for. You don't belong.... only the 'real' fans belong." But we scurried past him only to meet others from Jerusalem walking in the same direction. One young man, who seemed to know in which direction the stadium was, told us it's about an hour's walk. So we hopped on a bus.

Bad move. The traffic wasn't moving, and the bus was sitting in traffic for 20 minutes. We had only moved a couple of blocks. We all pleaded with the young bus driver to please let us off the bus, but he was adamant to make us wait until the next stop, about a kilometer away. Someone offered to pay his fine, should he be fined for letting us off illegally. I told him the concert is starting in 1/2 hour and we're getting frantic. No one wants to miss even one song.

"You want to party?" the driver asks, thinking that this is some bad-ass rock concert. "Here, let's party" and he turns up the volume on this awful dance club music. Doesn't the shmuck know who Leonard Cohen is?

We all got off the next stop and had about 25 minutes before the concert starts. Leonard is known for being punctual. When we finally got to the stadium, the lines in front of the gates were frightening. Hundreds of people had yet to get into their gate. No one seemed as frantic as I. I went over to gate 10. There was nobody at the gate. It must have been a gate of people who had all come early. The guy looked at my ticket to see if it was a forgery or if it was real. It was real. Thank God it was real because I didn't want to have to kill the guy who sold it to me, which was fine, because I ended up sitting right next to him and his girlfriend.

The concert began one minute after I got to my seat. There was a Bank Discount green bag on my seat, and I thought for a moment that someone had taken my spot. But I saw those green bags everywhere. That's the least that stupid bank can do. I tried for two years to get refinancing on a loan where they were charging me 12% interest. They wouldn't hear of it. So I changed banks. But I'll take the green insulated bag - thank you. Fuckers.

My first thoughts, as the concert began, was - am I going to feel that the concert was worth the 800 shekels I spent? For one, my seats were fabulous. I sat around 30 rows back and only 2 rows up from the floor. I saw the stage clearly, but if I wanted to see Leonard's expressions, I had to look at the screen. The same guy who did Leonard's poetry reading in Hebrew in Jerusalem, had his translations of the lyrics shown as subtitles on the screen. I hope he got to meet the Man for his efforts. The Jerusalem Post's review mirrored the same emotions/reactions/feelings I had about this concert. I knew about 80% of his songs, and I sang along to the ones I knew. I took some photos (to be posted tomorrow) and one video. And I wondered how this man could get everything so perfect - from the simple stage backdrop of flowing chiffon-like curtains, using only different colored lighting for the stage, which didn't annoy the crap out of me because the lighting changes were slow and elegant, just like the entire performance. Leonard's voice was perfect. The band was incredible. He was incredible. The audience was great. Noisy when it had to be, yet when he spoke, you could hear a pin drop. Everything was incredible. So, yes, it was worth the fortune I spent.

I loved the version of Who By Fire (or is the song called "who shall I say is calling?") - probably one of the evenings favorites of mine. The Spanish guitarist/lute player, or whatever that instrument is, was amazing. Cohen gave so many encores, I lost count. I felt tears running down my cheeks by the end.

We must have been on the same wavelength somehow, either that, or I am psychic as all hell, because at the very end, right before he left the stage, he stood at the microphone with his hands up the way Jewish priests bless the people, and Leonard Cohen, the High Priest, blessed the audience in Hebrew with the ancient priestly blessing - “May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord let His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord look kindly upon you and give you peace.”