The Sziget Festival

Ten minutes from the heart of Budapest, on the Danube River, floats the Sziget, the Obudai Island. Every year, in the beginning of August, the Island sees hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world coming together under the common sky for the largest open-air music festival in all of Europe.

On the Island: Dreadlocks are not dreaded; tie-dyes have not died; and to be a hippy is, once again, to be hip. Hygiene is looked upon as nuclear energy; mud is welcomed as a natural phenomenon; and normalcy is the natural enemy. Beer flows like the infinite watts of music; the drugs here do not come from any pharmacy; and sobriety is lying under a rock somewhere with a hangover.

Amidst all the chaos, and not thirty seconds from the main stage, there stands a little nucleus vibrating with energy. Young rabbis, their beards not so uncommon in this rowdy crowd of Beatnik wannabes but their reasons for being here very much so, have pitched tent.

They are here for only one reason: to cover their little corner of the universe with knowledge of G-d as the waters cover the sea. They encourage all Jewish men – not caring if tattooed or pierced – to come put on Teffilin. Their philosophy: no ink or needle can ever tattoo a Neshama and no stud or ring can ever pierce a soul.

The ways of covering the Island with knowledge of G-d are many, and the seven days with which to do it very few. The young kindred spirits exploit every means, and take advantage of every second, to spread that knowledge along the collective human body like an epidemic – an epidemic that cures. Indeed, people would pass along the contagious phenomena to their friends – “did you here about the Jewish Tent?” – and the next day the friends would pass it on to their friends – until the “Knowledge” was really getting into the know.

The question of “What exactly happened at this ‘Jewish Tent’?” must be tackled in two time periods – “When The Sun Was Up”, and, ”When The Sun Went Down” – because they are as different as, you guessed it, night and day.

When The Sun Was Up

At noon, when the “Islanders” peek out of their tents for the first time and squint at the glaring sun, they see four kippa-sporting young men weaving through the plethora of bodies, schlepping sound systems and tangled wires passed the main stage, along the many booths and tents that line the walkway, their Tzitzis flying in all directions, until they reach a tent with a sign reading Zsido Sator, or Jewish Tent.

After all is set up and Jewish music – from classical Chabad Niggunim to Hasidic reggae phenomenon Matisyahu – is blaring from the speakers, the people start showing up. The “Ask The Rabbi” stands, where one can do just that, start heating up. The Island is probably the most popular place to be a rabbi. Questions range from the intellectual to the emotional to the sexual, from the physical to the spiritual to the hypothetical, from the practical to the theoretical to the whimsical – and, yes, everything, and anything, in between. One man asks, “How do I curb my anti-Semitism”? One woman asks, “What’s the recipe for Charoseth (a Passover dish)?” “Is it expected of a rabbi to know the recipe for Charoseth?”

One person wonders, “How can you guys sit here at this festival all happy when your brothers and sisters are being pulled from their homes in Israel?” Wow. The reply: “We believe the only way to really achieve peace in Israel, and for that matter the world, is by spreading the knowledge of G-d, or whatever word you wish to use if you do not like the G word, throughout the world. And that is how we, here on the Island, are helping our brethren in Israel.”

“What exactly is this knowledge of G-d”? The questioner continues. “The knowledge that all things physical and, of course, spiritual, are G-dly, and that, at the root, we all come from the same place – G-d”, the young rabbinical student answers, and then continues, ”if we would all see the world that way, there would be true peace upon all humanity.”

And then there is the Teffilin, small leather boxes containing sacred passages from the Bible that Jewish men place against their hearts and on their minds every morning to bind them to G-d. Though Teffilin is not as popular as “Ask The Rabbi”, for the simple reason that only Jews can put on Teffilin and asking the rabbi is limited to no one, hundreds of Jewish men, many for the first time, connect their hearts and minds to G-d.

“Are you Jewish”? The answers vary: mostly “No’s”, very few “Yes’s”, and an occasional “Half” or “Quarter”. “Which quarter?” “My mother’s mother.” “So you are Jewish.” “Really?!” This exchange happened more than once.

When The Sun Went Down

Things may have seemed pretty orderly when the sun was up, but once the sun departed so did all pretense of order. In the shadows of the moon, chaos reigned. The young rabbis, who in daylight were “mind & soul doctors”, with dusk turned into “rock & roll doctors”. And that is exactly what they did – rock n’ rolled.

A rabbinical student plugs in his electric guitar and – “Jimmy move over, let Mendy take over”. Near him, another young Hassid has his fingers caressing the keyboard as if it were a geshmaker sugya in Gemara, a delicious portion of the Talmud. The rest of the “free wheelin’ yeedin” are dancing in front of the tent with more energy then should be legal. A semi circle of about 200 wide-eyed people forms; they have never seen anything like it. Before long, the spectators become participants and the dance floor, dirt and beer caps, is soon beaten by hundreds of feet. Of course the men and woman dance separately – its all part of the novelty.

Close to midnight, the beat turns into a Hip-Hop slash reggae progression and one of the rabbinical students starts improvising a reggae rap. After the crowd gets over the initial shock of seeing a Hasid with a beard, Tzitzit, and Kippa, doing a Jamaican accent and an inner city ghetto rhyme, they start bouncing – and it gets crazy from there. You had to see it to believe it: hundreds of deadlocked, tattooed, pierced, stoned, drunk, half-naked people screaming after the rapper words like “We are all created in the image of G-d” and “We want Moshiach now”. Just wild.

When the music, dancing and rapping comes to a rap, around one in the morning, the crowd wants more; but the rabbis, after a full day of spreading the knowledge, wish to spread out on a bed and recharge for tomorrow.

After seven days of this type of chaos, we can only hope that this epidemic of knowledge has spread passed the Island and into the Mainland. And as one of the Hungarian newspapers quipped: “If you haven’t seen the joy at the Jewish Tent you haven’t seen true joy” – a line which, knowingly or not, comes from the Talmud’s description of the joy that was in the Holy Temple.

Before the sun has once again come up, may we, with our physical eyes, see the true joy of the third and eternal temple, and may we dance, with our physical feet, to the beat of the Levites.