Everyone in Australia knows I've always been a Leonard Cohen fan, and last year my best birthday present was the new book Leonard Cohen The Mystical Roots of Genius by Harry Freedman (Bloomsbury). Good choice, spouse.
Leonard's (1934–2016) maternal family were Lithuanian rabbis. His paternal grandfather left Poland for Ontario in 1869, where he too was a rabbi (as the surname Cohen often suggests) and founder of the Canadian Jewish Times. In Montreal young Leonard attended Sunday school, learning Hebrew and religious sources. And given he was born into a scholarly family, he hoped to become a poet, then a song writer and eventually a composer. But by 1963, he was clear in public about his different beliefs. Cohen imagined himself as part of an underground crypt-religion of poets.
Sadly Leonard’s father died when he was just 9; his mother suffered from depressions and the lad too. His song Dance Me to the End of Love has a line about burning violins in the Nazi concentration camps, inspired by camp photos that he saw after dad died.
In time Cohen had published 2 volumes of poetry that had a limited audience, and one unusual novel. Cohen himself planned to “go into exile” from his faith, to think up other possibilities for spiritual life like love and sex and drugs and song, not seen in any synagogue.
Leonard was also learned in Christianity, the other spiritual tradition that he used to make sense of the world eg the four Gospels of the New Testament appeared in his songs, as did scenes of Jesus being baptised and crucified; the Spirit of God was a dove descending to earth.
In fact Cohen's music was scattered with allusions to Jewish, Christian and Zen tradition. But even then, his Christian and Zen Buddhist influences appeared via the lens of Kabbalah mysticism. Freedman traced every Kabbalistic source that stressed the mystical value of sex, and their influence on Cohen’s art.
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Cohen found how reconcile his lifelong obsession with earthly and mystical love.. when he met the modern dancer Suzanne Verdal. She took Cohen to her flat in a poor waterfront warehouse. She served him jasmine tea and mandarin oranges from Chinatown, and they walked along the river past sailors’ Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours. Cohen used their shared activities in his first huge song, Suzanne(1967); it became a unique pattern for lyrics that moved between conversation with a lover or with God.
Hallelujah (1984) opened: 'Now I've heard there was a secret chord, that David played, and it pleased the Lord... the baffled king composing Hallelujah'. As Cohen moved through the Old Testament, he sang of Samson having his hair cut by Delilah. Cohen’s sexual imagery best showed his belief in sex as a divine activity: 'I remember when I moved in you, and the Holy Dove she was moving too’. And note modern incantations that rival the Lord’s Prayer. The centrepiece of Cohen’s album, The Future (1992), provided the key line “there’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”.
How did Freedman know that Cohen spent 5 years writing Hallelujah, filling booklets with 80 verses, before he found the six that might best please the Lord, and his concert audience? And how did Freedman know Cohen identified himself with King David, “the embodiment of our higher possibility” in synthesising the sensual and the divine. In part Cohen’s own life over the decades displayed this identity.
Freedman wrote that we also hear a powerful sense of mission accomplished. Late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks greed: 'Leonard Cohen taught us that even in the midst of darkness there is light, in the midst of hatred there is love, with our dying breath we can still sing Hallelujah.'
Later in life, Cohen was engrossed in Zen Buddhism, living from 1990 in a Zen priory on Mt Baldy near Los Angeles. Learning from Master Joshu Sasaki Roshi, Cohen was ordained as a Zen monk in 1996. The Zen in Cohen’s art was the silence and the ready willingness to question everything, perhaps leading to enlightenment.
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Having forged his own spiritual path, Cohen enjoyed the irony that the album he released 45 years into his career, Old Ideas (2012), almost topped the charts. That final hallelujah was a dark joke by his Gods. Cohen died 2016, after his final album came out: You Want it Darker! From his classic Who by Fire, to his final challenge to the divinity, his spirituality inspired him.
Leonard's (1934–2016) maternal family were Lithuanian rabbis. His paternal grandfather left Poland for Ontario in 1869, where he too was a rabbi (as the surname Cohen often suggests) and founder of the Canadian Jewish Times. In Montreal young Leonard attended Sunday school, learning Hebrew and religious sources. And given he was born into a scholarly family, he hoped to become a poet, then a song writer and eventually a composer. But by 1963, he was clear in public about his different beliefs. Cohen imagined himself as part of an underground crypt-religion of poets.
Sadly Leonard’s father died when he was just 9; his mother suffered from depressions and the lad too. His song Dance Me to the End of Love has a line about burning violins in the Nazi concentration camps, inspired by camp photos that he saw after dad died.
In time Cohen had published 2 volumes of poetry that had a limited audience, and one unusual novel. Cohen himself planned to “go into exile” from his faith, to think up other possibilities for spiritual life like love and sex and drugs and song, not seen in any synagogue.
Leonard was also learned in Christianity, the other spiritual tradition that he used to make sense of the world eg the four Gospels of the New Testament appeared in his songs, as did scenes of Jesus being baptised and crucified; the Spirit of God was a dove descending to earth.
In fact Cohen's music was scattered with allusions to Jewish, Christian and Zen tradition. But even then, his Christian and Zen Buddhist influences appeared via the lens of Kabbalah mysticism. Freedman traced every Kabbalistic source that stressed the mystical value of sex, and their influence on Cohen’s art.
Leonard Cohen The Mystical Roots of Genius
by Harry Freedman, 2022
Freedman showed the spiritual journey that took Cohen through lovers and drugs. His knowledge of the Bible and religion was deep: nearly everything he wrote touched on a religious idea, even if the song itself was not religious. Freedman noted pop music had long explored the shifting borders of sacred and profane devotion!
Cohen found how reconcile his lifelong obsession with earthly and mystical love.. when he met the modern dancer Suzanne Verdal. She took Cohen to her flat in a poor waterfront warehouse. She served him jasmine tea and mandarin oranges from Chinatown, and they walked along the river past sailors’ Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours. Cohen used their shared activities in his first huge song, Suzanne(1967); it became a unique pattern for lyrics that moved between conversation with a lover or with God.
Hallelujah (1984) opened: 'Now I've heard there was a secret chord, that David played, and it pleased the Lord... the baffled king composing Hallelujah'. As Cohen moved through the Old Testament, he sang of Samson having his hair cut by Delilah. Cohen’s sexual imagery best showed his belief in sex as a divine activity: 'I remember when I moved in you, and the Holy Dove she was moving too’. And note modern incantations that rival the Lord’s Prayer. The centrepiece of Cohen’s album, The Future (1992), provided the key line “there’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”.
How did Freedman know that Cohen spent 5 years writing Hallelujah, filling booklets with 80 verses, before he found the six that might best please the Lord, and his concert audience? And how did Freedman know Cohen identified himself with King David, “the embodiment of our higher possibility” in synthesising the sensual and the divine. In part Cohen’s own life over the decades displayed this identity.
Freedman wrote that we also hear a powerful sense of mission accomplished. Late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks greed: 'Leonard Cohen taught us that even in the midst of darkness there is light, in the midst of hatred there is love, with our dying breath we can still sing Hallelujah.'
Later in life, Cohen was engrossed in Zen Buddhism, living from 1990 in a Zen priory on Mt Baldy near Los Angeles. Learning from Master Joshu Sasaki Roshi, Cohen was ordained as a Zen monk in 1996. The Zen in Cohen’s art was the silence and the ready willingness to question everything, perhaps leading to enlightenment.
Cohen trained as a Zen monk
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Having forged his own spiritual path, Cohen enjoyed the irony that the album he released 45 years into his career, Old Ideas (2012), almost topped the charts. That final hallelujah was a dark joke by his Gods. Cohen died 2016, after his final album came out: You Want it Darker! From his classic Who by Fire, to his final challenge to the divinity, his spirituality inspired him.
This great book looked deeply into the soul of the best singer and lyricist, to see how Cohen reworked myths, prayers and legends. It gave us a better pereption of Cohen's soul. And thanks to Tim Adams for helping Freedman’s task. For a slightly different review, read Beth Dwoskin