By Michael Adam Cohen in San Diego
As a new year opens, Jewish wisdom does not rush us forward. It invites us inward. It asks us to slow our breath, soften our listening, and attune to what the prophets called kol demamah dakah—the still, small sound that lives beneath noise, beneath effort, beneath fear.
This is the frequency where Paul Avgerinos, a Gentile, creates.
Avgerinos does not experience music as something he manufactures. He experiences it as something he allows. A remembering rather than an invention. In language shared by Jewish mystics and universal teachers alike, the Greek-American composer points again and again to a simple truth: beneath the body, the roles, the striving mind, there is pure awareness—whole, peaceful, and complete. In Kabbalistic terms, this is the field of Ein Sof, the infinite presence that precedes all form.
Silence, for Avgerinos, is not absence. It is fullness. Much like Shabbat in Jewish life, sacred quiet is not about stopping—it is about aligning. It is the moment when striving gives way to being, when creation flows without force. His understanding that the finest music approaches silence mirrors a deeply Jewish knowing: holiness reveals itself when we make space.
There is a Hasidic teaching that every soul enters the world carrying its own melody, and the task of life is not to invent it, but to remember it. When Avgerinos speaks of music arriving beyond his conscious knowledge, of harmonies flowing through him that exceeded his formal training, he is describing this remembrance. The self does not lead. It relaxes. And something greater moves through.
In Jewish spiritual language, this is bitul—the gentle dissolving of the ego so that divine flow may pass unobstructed. Avgerinos’ devotion to meditation, invocation, and humility reflects a life lived in service to that flow. He prepares the vessel, then steps aside.
Yet there is wisdom here, not passivity. Judaism has always known that alignment thrives within structure. Freedom without form scatters. Form without spirit hardens. Avgerinos’ intentional use of structure—his clarity of purpose before creation—echoes this balance. Intention and service come first. From there, the music is free to unfold.
When frustration appears, Avgerinos does not interpret it as error. He understands contrast as guidance. When a piece resists, he listens. He walks away. He trusts. Like Jacob wrestling the angel through the night, he stays present until transformation arrives. And often, the very place of struggle becomes the greatest blessing.
Time, too, behaves differently in this space. Immersed in creation, Avgerinos enters the eternal now. Past and future soften. There is only presence. This mirrors the Jewish experience of sacred time—moments when the ordinary clock loosens its grip and something timeless reveals itself.
Recognition and accolades come, yet they do not anchor his identity. They are received with gratitude, not attachment. In Jewish ethics, humility is not thinking less of oneself but thinking of oneself less. Avgerinos understands success as responsibility. The wider the reach, the deeper the obligation to serve with kindness and integrity.
His story of hearing an angelic choir while working on sacred chants is shared not as spectacle, but as grounding. Even heaven, it seems, reminds us gently: you are participating, not originating.
At the heart of Avgerinos’ work lives chesed—loving kindness. This is the foundation of Jewish spiritual life, and it pulses through his music. His sounds accompany births and passings, healing and surrender. He holds these moments with reverence, knowing that to be present at such thresholds is a sacred trust.
As a new year unfolds, Paul Avgerinos offers a soft but powerful reminder: slow down enough to feel what is already flowing. Make room for silence. Trust the guidance within. Do not fear the cracks. Jewish wisdom teaches that light enters through them.
Every soul has a unique note in the great symphony of creation. Avgerinos reminds us that when we listen deeply enough—to silence, to kindness, to alignment—we do not have to force our melody.
It has been with us all along.
Waiting.
To be remembered.
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Michael Adam Cohen is a freelance writer based in San Diego.