Mo Egeston

Rabbi James Goodman, Americana roots band Brothers Lazaroff, and Rabbi Zach Fredman present a concert created through the three C’s: Creativity, Collaboration, and Compassion. It will be held at Central Reform Congregation, 5020 Waterman (at Kingshighway), 63108, in St. Louis. Admission is free. I have had more great teachers than anyone I know and I’ve asked a lot of people. No one I have asked has had more than me. Still I have learned more from my students. Collaborationists. On Tuesday evening, July 1, at Central Reform Congregation, we will celebrate the nature of collaboration, the key to the door that opens onto creativity between generations -- teacher to student, student to teacher – where we meet somewhere outside of time and age and it no longer matters who has given what to whom, we are contributing to each other and rising over our former borders because of it. Real collaboration means something new rising. My last three musical projects have been with the help and inspiration of younger artists: a band playing Americana roots music Brothers Lazaroff here in St. Louis, and my good friend (now Rabbi, former St. Louisan) Zach Fredman in New York City, and Compassion: A Ceremony, an opening onto a new project called Compassionate St. Louis (seewww.facebook.com/compassionstl). With Brothers Lazaroff, we created Eight Nights, a CD preserving the celebration of alternative wisdom around themes suggested by Hanukkah, and The Book of Healing, a CD of song/spoken word/rap/ poetry and music. With Zach Fredman, we recorded the Torah. We combined a traditional Jewish eastern Mediterranean musical form called maqam and wedded it to a spoken piece for every portion of the Torah, recording a video of each with some of the best working musicians in New York City. We post one a week based on the yearly Torah reading cycle atwww.themaqamproject.com. With CompassionStL we began with a celebration of music, poetry, and story based on the Charter for Compassion called Compassion: A Ceremony. All of this we will celebrate and trot out for the hometown crowd on Tuesday, July 1st. I learned much from my teachers, more from my students -- this from Pirkei Avot (the Sayings of the Ancestors). Truth. Rabbi James Stone Goodman