Hebrew and Arabic Lyrics in Aaron Weiss' Songs

The music of post-hardcore and indie rock band mewithoutYou has both haunted and intrigued me. The frontman's shouted slam poetry delivery can be hard for some listeners to become accustomed to, but once gotten used to, can become addictive and polarizing. People either hate it or love it. The lyrics, dealing with depression, suicide, self-confession, spiders (yes, spiders), talking vegetables and other talking animals can be too bizarre for some people to take. For others, they are magical. Additionally, the frontman's former vocal lifestyle of extreme pacifism, freeganism, and dumpster diving can stand in opposition to the mainstream American life. And finally, the frontman's religious identity (or lack of identity!) is a thorn in the side of those who desire clean categories. The frontman is a member of the three world religions: He is Muslim. And Jewish. And Christian. All at the same time. mewithoutYou, and its frenetic frontman Aaron Weiss, can be a bit much for some people to handle.

Aaron Weiss, along with his brother Michael, were born to parents Elliott and Elizabeth Weiss of Philadelphia. Elliott Weiss, born Jewish, converted to the mystical form of Islam known as Sufism. In addition to holding to the general Islamic tenets (there is no god but God and Mohammad is the prophet of God, prayer five times a day, giving to charity, etc.), Sufi holds that individuals can have an ecstatic and mystical relationship with God through prayer, study, and dancing. One might have heard of the so-called Twirling Dervishes. These dancing Turks were actually Sufi Muslims, and they dance in order to encounter and then become one with God. Sufi is not much different from the historical mystical strain within Christianity and also modern evangelical's emphasis on having a personal relationship with God and Jesus.

Elliott Weiss subsequently joined the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship in Philadelphia, which was a Sufi center that sought to follow the teachings of a particular Sufi teacher, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. Elliott met and married Elizabeth, who was raised Episcopal but subsequently had converted to Sufi by the time she met Elliott. Elizabeth, the former Christian, and Elliott, the Jewish Muslim (or Muslim Jew!), raised their children under the tutelage and auspices of the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship. Since their mother was not Jewish, the Weiss brothers, Aaron and Michael, are not halakhically Jewish, but Jewish influence from their father still shines through. Bawa liked to use parables of talking animals and vegetables in his teachings, and since the Weiss brothers were raised that way, that influence has shown in their lyrics.

In high school, Aaron Weiss was very shy and self-conscious and felt like he couldn't do a lot. He often thought of suicide, yet found solace in the poetry of the Sufi poet Rumi and in hardcore music. He was introduced to Jesus and evangelical Christianity through his longtime Christian friend Greg Jehanian. Aaron started going to a church where they taught you'll burn in hell if you don't believe in Jesus. One thing Aaron could do okay was to play music. So he and his brother started playing together.

Aaron played drums. But soon he realized that he didn't want to be sitting in the back hammering on the drumset—he wanted to get up, flail around, and dance. After screaming in a joke hardcore song gifted to a friend's sister, Aaron realized he could scream okay. So he decided to become the frontman and vocalist. Spiritually, he realized that the Christianity he was introduced to was manipulative by pressuring people to make decisions based on fear of hell. He also realized that it was hurtful to his relationship with his parents, as he would argue with them.

Aaron had a truly revolutionary encounter with Jesus—one that wasn't coerced—when he witnessed the Anabaptist Bruderhof community in Pennsylvania. These radical, peace-loving, pacifist Christians loved Jesus and followed him too. He decided that he wanted that sort of community or nothing. So he became a sort of Jesus hippie—sleeping under the stars on park benches, feeding homeless people, eating the wasted food from dumpsters, preaching against American materialism and consumerism, and the Iraq war. He taught to love each other and to seek God alone and not to listen to what he said because he was trying to figure it out too and he'll lead you astray, but to trust God alone and to pursue peace and never to resort to violence.

mewithoutYou became largely popular in the Christian rock scene in the mid-2000s. Aaron found it hard to reconcile his fronting a band with living a Christian life because he felt that he was glorifying himself and not God, and keeping people distracted on petty things like CDs, shows, shirts when they should be focusing on God. He was eventually able to come to some peace with his position, but not until he quit spouting off his views after talking to a teacher who reprimanded him for blabbing his mind at concerts and with fans. He now sees himself as simply an entertainer and is enjoying doing so. After many years struggling with single living and vacillating between committing himself to a celibate lifestyle and finding a wife, he recently married a beautiful young woman and has a young child.

An intriguing aspect of Aaron Weiss' paradoxical life is his use of biblical, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim imagery. As I said, he has Jewish heritage, a Muslim upbringing, and a Christian faith—and he allows all three to influence his current life, including his lyrics. He does not see any of it as contradictory (although he has stated that he does not recite the Islamic prayers in the mosque that say that God does not beget nor is he begotten, in deference to the Christian theology of Christ's sonship). He sees all truth as God's truth.

In this article, I would like to specifically highlight the Hebraic and Arabic lyrics in his songs.

Arabic Lyrics

The first song of his I heard is also one that included Arabic lyrics, probably in 2007 or 2008. Due to my upbringing in America, I associated Islam with terrorism, Satan, and the devil. So when I heard the song I immediately thought that this band played devil music. The song is called The Dryness and the Rain from their 2006 album Brother, Sister, the album title being a reference to St. Francis of Assissi's poem.

At the end of the song, a Muslim voice sings in an intimidating manner:

Isa ruhu-lah 'aliahis-salat was-salam

nastagh-firuka ya Hakam
ya-Dhal-Jalali wal-Ikram

Isa ruhu-lah 'alaihis-salat was-salam

ya Halim, ya Qahhar
ya Muntaqim, ya Ghaffar!
la Ilaha ilallahu, Allahu Akbar!

The rough meaning of the lyrics is

Jesus, o spirit of God, peace, we pray, be upon you.

We ask for your forgiveness, o Judge
o Lord of Majesty and Generosity

Jesus, o spirit of God, peace, we pray, be upon you

The Forbearer, The Subduer
The Avenger, The Forgiving
There is no god but God, God is greater!

These lyrics can be understandably frightening, disturbing, and even offensive to American listeners. In fact, the last words of the song are Allahu Akbar (God is greater!) which are the exact words that many radical Muslims use when they decapitate infidels! In another provocative lyric off of their newest LP, Pale Horses, Aaron Weiss sings, I was the ISIS flag design (lyrics). In reference to that song, Aaron humorously wondered whether it would put him on the FBI watch list.

The litany of names at the end of the song The Dryness and the Rain are some of the ninety-nine names, or titles, of God in Islam. Aaron is clearly a Muslim, but he also has a strong attachment to Jesus, as evinced by his reverent mention of Jesus and lyrics about Jesus in other songs. In fact, the Jesus lyric from this song is a quote from the Qu'ran, but Muslims interpret the line differently because different interpretations have different theological implications. The traditional interpretation is asking the spirit of God to bless the prophet Jesus. Another is equating Jesus with the spirit of God, which few Muslims would do, as it impinges on God's tawhid, or oneness.

In case any of their fans did not believe that Aaron was Muslim, in their next album, the connection to Islam is even stronger and more explicit. The last song on the album is called Allah, Allah, Allah. Consequently, many Christian bookstores banned this album it's all crazy, it's all false, it's all a dream! it's alright! because of that song title.

The first song on it's all crazy contains Arabic lyrics, Every Thought a Thought of You, which is a prayerful hymn to God:

Kul-anaya fir minh ka
Abadan ahatman enna ajab
Hayya'alal falal qad qamadis alah
Haqq: la illaha il allah

which means,

All my thoughts concern You
Never care for our being
Let's live our lives the way God intended
It’s true: God is the only one

These lyrics direct our attention away from ourselves to the Only One who deserves our worship. We should not care for our own being, but we should care to follow God's commandments as to how we live life.

Other lyrics in the album reference the incarnation of Christ, seeing God in every blade of grass and in other humans, and avoiding premarital sex. The song, A Stick, a Carrot, and a String, holds a veiled reference to Jesus as the defeater of the serpent, or devil, in Christian theology. Intriguingly, this lyric portrays Jesus in the line of sages and mystics who renounce desire in order to become one with the divine:

And the snake who'd held the world
A stick, a carrot and a string
Was crushed beneath the foot
Of your not wanting anything

Although his theology may be heterodox, his reverence and devotion is genuine.

Another Arabic lyric sings in the song Bullet to Binary, Pt. ii

Ya subhannallah
Hayyul Qayyum
Subhannallahi Amma Yassifun
Sallalah wallah Muhammad (Sal.)
Ya Rabbi sali alaihi wa salim

Glory be to Allah
The Provider of All
Glory be to Allah
May Allah send blessings and peace upon the Prophet
My teacher May Allah send blessings and peace upon the Prophet

This song clearly references the Prophet Muhammad, and is clearly Muslim. But for Aaron Weiss, none of these things are contradictory. He finds the truth in everything, just as God is in every blade of grass and reveals himself as the light within my brother's eyes.

Hebrew Lyrics

As for Hebrew lyrics, Aaron includes those as well. In a b-track from their fifth album, Four Fires, Aaron shouts his own lyrics amidst a choir singing the Jewish prayer Ein Keloheinu.

Ein kelohenu, ein kadonenu,
ein kemalkenu, ein kemoshi'enu.
Mi chelohenu, mi chadonenu,
mi chemalkenu, mi chemoshi'enu.
Node lelohenu, node ladonenu,
node lemalkenu, node lemoshi'enu,
Baruch Elohenu, baruch Adonenu,
baruch Malkenu, baruch Moshi'enu.
Atah hu Elohenu, atah hu Adonenu,
atah hu Malkenu,
atah hu Moshi'enu.

There is none like our God, There is none like our Lord,
There is none like our King, There is none like our Savior.
Who is like our God? Who is like our Lord?
Who is like our King? Who is like our Savior?
Let us thank our God, Let us thank our Lord,
Let us thank our King, Let us thank our Savior.
Blessed be our God, Blessed be our Lord,
Blessed be our King, Blessed be our Savior.
You are our God, You are our Lord,
You are our King,
You are our Savior.

while Aaron himself sings

Mama, sing my favorite hymn
As I sink deep into the grass
And the night birds beat me with their wings
With horrid laughter as they pass
The stage goes dim, its pageants finished
Fleeting worlds to which I've clung with a now extinguished longing

Mama, sing my favorite hymn
Where we make ploughshares from our swords
And the mason's barber trim our Christmas tree
In the Oneness of the Lord
What grace surrounds! what strange perfection!
Mamma, sing my favorite hymn
Remind me
Everyone is him

Aaron refers to the Ein Keloheinu as his favorite hymn, which, when mewithoutYou performs it, becomes a very catchy one indeed. I have found myself listening to this song on repeat many times, due to the catchy nature of the remake. The last line deviates from Jewish and Christian orthodoxy in that it espouses a pantheistic or panentheistic worldview—but orthodoxy is not something to which Aaron seems to care to hold fast.

Interestingly, the last song that mewithoutYou has wrote and performed so far (the last song on their latest album) contains both Hebrew and Arabic lyrics together, cementing Aaron's dual identity. mewithoutYou's latest album, the highly anticipated LP 6 of their corpus, is Pale Horses, which deals with apocalpytic issues and has disturbing and destructive album artwork. One member of a mewithoutYou Facebook fan group to which I belong said that, after hearing this album for the first time, he sat there for a half hour in stunned silence, not able to move due to the majesty and weight of the album. Most of that owes to the intense nature of the final song of the album, Rainbow Signs.

The title Rainbow Signs is a reference to the rainbow with which God covered the skies after the Flood of Noah as a sign that he would not destroy the earth through water again. Due to that promise on God's behalf, Aaron sings, G-d gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water, is the H-bomb next time? He wonders what medium humanity's final destruction will employ. The song begins with a mid-tempo, melancholy sound with similar sentiments to the above-quoted, and the first section ends with, Cloud gave no one rainbow sign—Six-point starred ink flag next time? This flag is the Israeli flag, in contradistinction to the ISIS flag mentioned in another song. Aaron wonders whether we will die due to Muslim radical terrorists or radical Zionists.

Aaron then sings the most sacred words of Judaism and Islam, respectively:

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל ה' אֱלֹהֵינוּ ה' אֶחָד قل هو الله احد الله الصمد

The Hebrew words read Shema Yisra'el, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad. This is the Shema, the Jewish profession of faith recited every day or more by observant Jews. Its words mean, "Hear, O Israel! YHWH is our god! YHWH is one!" It is a call to unity in the unitary and unique God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And Weiss sings the Shemaaccording to the traditional melody of the synagogue, bringing us back to fond memories as children.

The Arabic words from the Qu'ran read Qul Huwa-llahu Ahad Allah hus-Samad, meaning, He is Allah, One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. Both prayers in Arabic and Hebrew have the cognate one, ahad and echad, respectively. These prayers reveal Aaron's devotion to God. And the fact that he quotes both side-by-side shows that Aaron can no more choose one over the other. They are both equally true and equally part of his identity.

The song, after these uplighting prayers of faith from its melancholy beginnings, lead directly into the chaos of hardcore rifts, as the listener is ushered into the presence of the Almighty Judge as he begins his wrath upon the world. Wielding the sanctified sword, Aaron screams, For the army of the Scarecrow Lord. The imgary is quite haunting.

The sky, I'd been told
Would roll up like a scroll
As the mountains and islands moved from their place
And the sun would turn black
As a dead raven's back
But there'd be nowhere hide
From the Judge's face

Then the song returns, like nothing ever happened, to a college dream that Aaron had, to a simple lilting melody. His father

started on the Abrahamic joke we knew
About apostrophes and pronouns and you-remember-who
But let's keep that silly punchline between me and you
Little Haroon
And the man in the moon.

The album ends with these simple yet emotionally moving words about the sacred relationship between a father and his son. Aaron chose not to end the album with the bombastic vision of the end-times, but with a seemingly inane, yet deeply profound, night-time conversation. The last song, sweeping through both ends of catharsis, captures the dual Jewish and Muslim nature of its profound lyricist, Aaron Weiss.

Listen to mewithoutYou music here.

Purchase my friend's biography of Aaron Weiss, which influenced some of this content, here.