Transcript
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London, England is home to some of the
most famous poetry theaters in [music]
the world. Now, a poetry theater is
where poets compete to read aloud
classical poetry in the most authentic
and dramatic way and the crowd judges
them. And one such event took place, one
cold winter London night. With the
theater filled to capacity, the
contestants were handed the poem that
would [music] be in that evening's
competition. It was, believe it or not,
chapter 98 into Hillan. It was a psalm
that spoke about singing a new song to
Hashem. Each contestant had a turn and
they were all so so until one young man,
he walked on the stage and he left the
crowd in [music] just a thunderous
applause. He was energetic. He had a
great voice. He was handsome. He had the
perfect facial expressions. When he sang
each verse, he was awesome. and he was
selected unanimously as the winner of
the competition. But right as the
curtains were about to close and the
stage was about to clear, an old man
from the back of the theater stood up
and called out, "Wait!" And he walked
slowly with his cane to the front of the
stage and the crowd fell into a curious
silence. They all [music] wanted to see
what exactly this man had to say. And
the old man took the microphone, he
cleared his throat, and he said, "If
[music] I may, just for a moment, sing a
rendition of that poem in its original
language."
He brought the mic close to his mouth
and [music] he began the slow singing of
And he closed his [music] eyes and he
looked up and he kept on singing. And
the audience just frozen in shock. They
stared at him. They never saw something
like this before. The man almost in a
trance, he kept on singing.
He sang and he softly tapped his right
foot and people were just frozen. There
wasn't a dry eye in the theater.
Um um the man continued until at the
very end he stopped [music] and people
were literally crying and the crowd
erupted into a thunderous standing
ovation and the man opened his eyes and
he [music] smiled a small smile and with
a twinkle in his eye he walked off the
stage and the crowd filed out of their
seats. The old man took his cane and he
[music] walked outside into the cold
London street and the young winner of
the competition he ran outside. He
looked for the old man. He spotted him
walking slowly alone and he caught up to
him. Sir, sir, he called out.
I feel as though you should be the one
who gets this award, not me. You were
[music] fantastic up there.
And the old man stopped and looked at
the man [music] and said, "Oh, no, young
man. You were great. You did a great
job. Please keep the trophy."
But the young man, he insisted. He said,
"No, no, no. You were better than me. I
don't deserve it." The old man said,
"Look, I'm an old man. No need. I
refuse. You did a [music] great job."
"Okay," said the boy. "But I just have
one question for you. Why was it that
when I was on the stage, the crowd
smiled and clapped, but when you were up
there, they cried?"
The old man stopped walking. He looked
the young man in the eye. After a moment
of silence, he removed his arm from his
coat and rolled up his sleeve.
See these numbers? The man asked,
pointing to the numbers tattooed [music]
on his arm.
You learned poetry in college. [music]
I learned poetry in Awitz.
King David to you is a composer. King
David is my grandfather. He rolled down
his [music] sleeve and he put his coat
back on and he looked one more time into
the eyes of the young man and said, "You
may have gotten up on that stage and
sang [music] that song. I am that song."
And with that, the [music] old man took
his cane and he walked off into the
night. The Jewish people don't just
[music] sing the songs of the universe.
We are the song of the universe. And the
world keeps spinning [music] because we
refuse to stop singing.
