Kol Isha – New Clip

One fine summer day, I was sitting outside on my porch. A soulful voice wafted towards me. My neighbor was playing his guitar, singing a song about King David’s son, the Messiah, coming to save us.

And the thought that popped up was, “What if it is going to be a woman?” What if we are all going to be saved by, not a son of King David, but a woman…? Maybe we can’t solve our problems with the same consciousness that created them? Have we worn out the idea of a male saviour? Is it time to connect deeper to that divine feminine aspect as a new archetype?

The idea of a God described as male who works through his prophet as savior exists in all 3 major monotheistic religions. As a Jewish woman, what I was missing in Judiasm, was a powerful woman archetype who could also save us. I know, there were prophetesses, but they weren’t the ones who took us out of Egypt. Or built the temple. I loved the idea of a woman Messiah. Where could I find her? How could I excavate her, dust her off, liberate her, free her from the confines of history?

Who could she be descended from? A daughter of Ruth the Moabite? Ruth wasn’t even Jewish. She converted. It makes sense to me, that if there was a woman who would lead us out of this mess we are in, it would be someone descended from her. Someone who made a conscious choice to follow a spiritual path, not because she was born into it, but because she felt called to it. A woman who chose her own destiny.

My personal belief for myself, that one of the best things I can do in life, is to make art. For me, art is about transformation. It is about taking my own personal challenges. The ugliest, worst, hardest places, I have experienced and making something beautiful out of them.

For me, this song is about the challenges I experienced as a woman growing up in an ultra orthodox world. It’s about my search for what you could call powerful spiritual feminine leadership inside and around me.

This song is about my inner journey of transformation with my own femininity. As an independent woman, in a very traditional society with a long list of rules and expectations, being a woman always seemed like a oppressive burden.

I’m not blaming or pointing fingers. I believe that I chose all my life experiences to learn and grow. I’ve learned from the experiences of pain, rejection, and the difficulties of starting out as a woman singer songwriter with many odds working against me. If I was searching for a strong divine feminine consciousness and I couldn’t find it around me, I had to search inwards and discover it as a new part of myself. I had to connect with being a woman, being an artist, and see how I could find freedom, as opposed to oppression within that.

When I decided that I would put my music out into the world, I chose to start working on this song. “Start with something less potentially controversial”, the staff at the studio advised me. “No.” I said, “This is a theme song for me, about my life. It says everything I have to say about being a Jewish woman. I want to put things out there. I want to see what other people have to say about this topic. Art is about change and new ideas. not staying in a neutral comfort zone. It’s about daring to be real.”

If I used to be dependent on other people’s reactions, and one of the things that made me nervous was ignored or rejected, I credit myself, my life experiences and the people who have been with me with supporting me in all ways, negative and positive, in finding my own voice. I strive to be true to that small, silent voice within. Of taking the time to connect inwards and upwards before blindly shooting from the hip. It’s about connecting first to that almost mystical, softer, quieter, (call it “feminine”) aspect that whispers softly rather than shouts out loud. Looking for the answers within.

As Rabbi Frumin z”l once said, “Judaism needs to be feminized” Well. It’s not just Judaism that needs to be feminized. I think we all need to learn to connect, listen to and be nourished by the that quiet within before we rush out into cacaphony around. And yes. I do believe. That if everyone of us could do that, we’d be saved.

 

I wrote this song in Hebrew, and I am working on an English version, which will be out soon. Sign up for the email list HERE to get it when it is finished. If you’d like to see the English Lyrics, click here.