Phish, the Shas, and God

The Siyum HaShas is Judaism’s festival of completism, a global celebration of the end, and thus the subsequent beginning, of the seven-and-half-year-long Daf Yomi cycle of Talmud study. It is therefore nothing short of eerie that the New York edition of this very occasional mega-event fell the day after a four-night Phish run at Madison Square Garden, none of which overlapped with Shabbat. Die-hard phans cringe at missing a single note of these shows, spectacles no other earthly experience can match for them. Obviously I went to all four. 

Minutes into the new decade, and about an hour-and-a-half after ma’ariv had wrapped up just off the lower concourse during the night’s first setbreak, Phish guitar player Trey Anastasio found himself and his gear marooned on a dangerously tilting suspended platform, 30 feet above a color-coded singing choir, his three other bandmates, and almost certain death; his whole world a narrow bridge until rescue could be arranged (which it was, once the show ended). After an anxious three-minute pause, band and choir decided to continue—they’d eventually figure out how to retrieve their guitarist once the job was complete. To my ears, the quavering in Trey’s voice during the opening lines of “Drift While You’re Sleeping” communicated absolute mortal terror, along with heroic insistence that the show had to go on, perhaps as some ultimate act of artistic integrity, or even love. By the end of “You Enjoy Myself,” his voice and guitar had achieved supernatural clarity. Consciously or not, Trey and friends had decided the important thing was not to fear. 

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