Parshat Nasso: With the Beatles - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

while other phenomena of the 20th century which defies complete understanding is the Beatles now granted they had two outstanding composers and the third who was pretty good they were prolific writing around 300 songs now it's true that Schubert wrote over 800 tunes but only about a hundred of those are memorable Mozart comes close to that but you have to wait a long time until you get someone who wrote so many good tunes as the Beatles did the moptops were all appealingly thin full of youthful energy they were witty iconoclastic but nothing really can explain their phenomenal success in this week's torah portion we find the blessing of the cohan the second stanza reads mayor shem illuminates his countenance for you and be gracious to him if a Shem illuminates his countenance for me is not the same as being gracious the word gracious in Hebrew here is when Yosef Joseph was imprisoned in Egypt the Torah says and he endowed him with charisma and he put favor in the eyes of the prison warden favor he rose again translated as Kenny the message in the two verses is identical you can have bags and bags of charisma but you'll only ever be a legend in your own lunch time and the session gives you favor a king in the eyes of man you can be a lovable mocked Oh a great song smooth and as cute as a button but to be a musical and sociological phenomenon that only the master of the world can grant [Music] [Applause]