2019年经济学人 羊角号女能人珍妮·利特瓦克(4)

 

And then there was how people responded to her call: the women who told her how welcoming her blowing made the Rosh Hashanah service for them, the National Public Radio listeners who heard her speak of her passion for her instrument and her encounter with Gillespie, the Justice on Israel's Supreme¹ Court—an Orthodox Jew no less—who invited her to blow the shofar at the court itself, the joggers in Central Park who slowed down and then stopped to watch when she accompanied Alicia Svigals on the klezmer violin, playing “Amazing Grace”.

然后人们就响应了她的呼唤：女人们告诉她，她的吹奏使犹太新年礼拜有多受她们的欢迎，全国公共广播电台的听众听到了她谈到对这种乐器的热爱，还有她和吉莱斯皮的相遇。以色列最高法院的法官——同样是正统的犹太人——邀请她在法庭上吹奏羊角号，当她给拉克莱兹默小提琴的艾丽西亚·斯维格尔斯伴奏《奇异恩典》时，中央公园的慢跑者们放慢了速度，停下来观看。

Along with the birth of her sons, she liked to say that blowing the shofar brought her closer to God than anything else in her life. Even after her metastasing cancer meant the removal of a large partof both her lungs, she would take up her instrument with kavanah,“intention”, close her eyes, shut out the world and concentrate on her breath, her shofar, her soul. In the Old Testament² the Book of Genesis says that God formed man out of dust from the ground when He blew into his nostrils³ the breath of life. The Hebrew word for soul, neshama, is intimately connected to the word for breath.

她喜欢说，和她的儿子出生一样，吹奏羊角号使她比生命中的任何东西都更接近上帝。即使在她的癌症转移意味着要切除她的大部分肺部之后，她会带着卡瓦娜(意为“意图”)，拿起她的乐器，闭上眼睛，与世隔绝，专注于她的呼吸、她的羊角号和她的灵魂。在《旧约·创世纪》中，当上帝把生命的气息吹进他的鼻孔时，他就把地上的尘土变成了人。希伯来语中代表灵魂的单词“neshama”与代表呼吸的单词紧密相连。

Her breath had shushed her boys to sleep in their crib, it whooshed⁴ out of her whenever she jumped naked, as she liked to do, into a Canadian mountain lake, and it transported Adas Israel's congregation to Mount Sinai when it blew air into her shofar. That breath may have been stilled, but like Abraham's horn it lives on. At the start of her funeral, the shofar was sounded by her three sons.

她的呼吸曾使她的孩子们安静地睡在婴儿床上，每当她光着身子跳的时候，它就从她嘴里呼出来，就像她喜欢做的那样，它进入了一个加拿大的高山湖泊，当它把空气吹进她的羊角号时，它会把阿拉伯以色列的会众带到西奈山。呼吸可能已经停止，但是就像亚伯拉罕的号角一样，它依然存在。在她葬礼开始的时候，她的三个儿子吹响了羊角号。

1 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

2 testament   

n.遗嘱；证明

参考例句：

• This is his last will and testament.这是他的遗愿和遗嘱。
• It is a testament to the power of political mythology.这说明，编造政治神话可以产生多大的威力。

3 nostrils   

鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Her nostrils flared with anger. 她气得两个鼻孔都鼓了起来。
• The horse dilated its nostrils. 马张大鼻孔。

4 whooshed   

v.（使）飞快移动( whoosh的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Oil whooshed up when the drill hit the well. 当钻孔机钻井时，石油喷了出来。 来自互联网
• Then his breath had whooshed out again, making Bianca's magic useless. 接着他终于发出一声低沉的呼吸，这让比安卡的魔法失去了作用。 来自互联网