"How Does it Feel?": Arnoff on Dylan on Empathy as Everything

Dudes: please check out Stephen Daniel Arnoff’s podcast and book, Bob Dylan: On Man and God and Law. One of my favorite pop-culture rabbit-holes, the podcast delivers on so many levels: informative, illuminating, a ton of fun and at times breathtakingly insightful. I was super excited to talk to him and fan-boy out a bit about it. Stephen talks about how he came to approach song lyrics as sacred text, how music “saves your life and keeps you company,” and his esteemed lineage of invaluably “weird” teachers (“Weird is good. I like weird.”) He describes his journey from passionate singer-songwriter to pursuing a doctorate in ancient midrash, the Talmud professor who promised to help him “preserve a creative life” in the process, and the very live question that drives his musical-intellectual-spiritual work:

“I want to know if there is any meaningful use for religion? In the way that rock and roll is of use. In the way that love is of use. In the way that feeding people is of use.”

He also gives his take on what, ultimately, Dylan’s life’s work is all about. Spoiler Alert: it’s EMPATHY.

“The question How does it feel? is the question of the age. We live in an age where we’re either going to fail as a human race for lack of empathy, or we’re going to survive. Only those who are empathic will survive…You can’t abuse, you can’t enslave, you can’t belittle another person if you have empathy.”