Avi Davis is a senior editorial columnist for Jewsweek.com and the author of The Crucible of Conflict: Jews, Arabs and the West Bank Dilemma, to be published in the Fall.
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So like millions of other people my age and older, the news of George Harrison's passing on November 29 left me with a cavernous sense of loss. Like John Lennon's irrational murder in 1980, the event of Harrison's death forms something of a milestone along life's journey. That is because far more than any other musicians or entertainers, the Beatles became cultural symbols in their own right whose views, styles of dress, hair length and identity seemed to give shape to our own. Unsurprisingly then my image of them is stubbornly lodged in 1967 -where they remain vibrant, optimistic and ageless as ever. They belong to that part of my consciousness that won't and perhaps even can't, grow up.

The significance of George Harrison's role within the Beatles and within youth culture of the 1960s in general has always been underestimated. His own spiritual quest had a transformative influence on the lives and music of others and through his immersion in Hinduism, opened a gate to spiritual exploration for a generation. Much of that disillusioned generation's explorations had initially traveled along unconventional paths such as hallucinogenic experimentation. Early on, Harrison recognized the barrenness of the drug culture and repudiated it in favor of religious experience. Harrison's personal declaration of faith followed in songs such as "My Sweet Lord," which could never have had such an extraordinary influence without his stature as a cultural icon. As the 60s ended, the ex-Beatle unashamedly embraced religion and thousands followed his example.

But not into Judaism. Despite some notable exceptions (such as San Francisco's House of Love and Prayer where Shlomo Carlebach taught and performed his first gigs), the youth culture of the 60s did not gravitate towards Judaism. In particular, tens of thousands of Jewish kids, alienated from traditional observance, sought spiritual enlightenment along many different avenues, becoming key figures among the Moonies, the Hare Krishna and within Sufi sects. The debris left by that transformative wave was revealed by Roger Kamenetz in his book "The Jew In the Lotus," who discovered, to his fascination, that many of the Dalai Llama's closest disciples living in Dharamsala, India, are, in fact, Jews.

It was certainly not for lack of anything Judaism had to offer. In its ethical and mystical teachings Judaism has always provided a full palette of opportunity for the spiritually inclined. Nevertheless, in recent decades it has struggled to compete with the exoticism of Oriental religions among whose expressions 'Zen' and 'nirvana' command some kind of temporal authority within our own language. What it may have lacked even more, some have claimed, was celebrity attention. Despite some famous conversions in the 1960s, Judaism has never become the religion of choice for the glitterati.

All of which provides some reason to contemplate what may have transpired had George Harrison been charmed by the writings of the Zohar and not the Hindu mystics. Perhaps "Norwegian Wood" would then have been graced by Giora Feidman's Klezmer clarinet, and not by Harrison's sitar. Perhaps "My Sweet Lord" would have had alternating background choruses of Sh'ma Yisrael instead of Hare Krishna. And perhaps the Beatles would not have made a pilgrimage to the Maharishi's compound in Rishikesh, India, but to the yeshivot of Tzfat in Israel.

The improbability of this having occurred barely needs to be stated. What is more interesting is to speculate on the parallels that bring Harrison's religious beliefs in line with Jewish teaching. By all accounts, those beliefs and practices were somewhat muddled affairs. Not quite Hindu and not really Buddhist, they were stitched together to suit the man and the lifestyle rather than following a strict pattern of observance. The man, who, after all, often publicly spurned the material over the spiritual owned homes around world, was a racing car enthusiast (owning several) and lived a life more akin to England's landed gentry than the abstinent swamis he idealized.

But Harrison did evince some powerful central beliefs that were admirably demonstrated in his lifetime. And they do warrant comparison with Jewish teaching.

The first of these was his commitment to charity. From an early age Harrison gave his time and attention to those less fortunate and this trait achieved spectacular affirmation in his efforts in coordinating the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971. But some of his less spectacular giving also deserves attention. This ranged from the money he gave anonymously to fans who couldn't afford the gate fee at Beatles shows in Liverpool to the funds he donated to repair the local village church in Henley. It is significant that Prime Minister Tony Blair paid more tribute to Harrison's philanthropy than to any of his other traits.

Harrison was also a man who had a deep reverence for the Divine in nature. In the last 25 years of his life he consistently described himself as a gardener, not a musician. At Friar Park, his 37-acre estate in Henly-on-Thames, he created remarkable gardens, devoting many hours of the day to their development. Imbued with an awe for nature, he had much in common with the 16th century kabbalists of Tzfat, who drew great inspiration from the natural world and wove it into their transcendent belief system. Not unusually Harrison was often quoted as saying that he felt his most important legacy would not be the music he created but the gardens of Friar Park. Many who have visited his Surrey mansion do not dispute that self-assessment.

Finally there was his abiding belief in an after-life. Harrison's composure, courage and humor as he faced his final months were facilitated by his belief that this life is only a weigh station on a much longer journey. Even those who dismissed Harrison as a hypocritical gentleman hippy could respect how this deep-seated conviction became a powerful instrument for self-understanding and the means for determining his place in the universe. Such equanimity was shared by the greatest Jewish sages, whose own fervent acceptance of the world to come also gave them no fear of death. Harrison's final months and days therefore offer inspiration to those among his generation, washed clean by the riptide of post-war secularism, who had decided that spirituality and religion had become matters of irrelevance.

In Ecclesiastes, one of Jewish tradition's most philosophical texts, it is said that a man enters the world naked and so he goes out carrying none of his wealth away with him. That is given even more cynical emphasis by the Yiddish proverb that there are no pockets on a burial shroud. Harrison understood that in the end each of us dies alone and no matter what worldly fame, power or possessions we accumulate our mortality should humble us into inquiring into the purpose of life.

That of course didn't make George Harrison any more Jewish than Madonna. But we can all be forgiven for wondering whether somewhere along the trans-migratory journey of George Harrison's soul, there might not have once been an edifying stopover among the stone houses and mystical learning centers of 16th Century Tzfat.

Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.

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