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EMBROIDERING IN THE KEY OF AWE Just before beginning my rabbinical studies in 1989, I had taken a side-step from the world of classical singing onto the bimah as the cantor of a small Reform temple in Toronto. I had never heard cantorial singing of any style in my youth. At the Young Israel of my suburban baby-boom childhood, services were mumble-davened or sprinkled with the style best described as yell-singing. Just before this gig, I had begun to study nusach with a local European-born Conservative cantor, with one of those “could have been an opera singer” voices. He was shocked and upset that I had accepted this opportunity, declaring – and I so love this phrase – “from a long sleeve you can make a short sleeve, but from a short sleeve you can’t make a long sleeve.” He had a point. There was very little repertoire that could be called nusach in the binder full of music the very helpful music director handed me on a Tuesday afternoon prior to my first service that Friday. During those couple of years singing the Reform-style liturgy, usually accompanied by organ or piano, sometimes guitar, often with a choir, all led by a music director, I was perpetually puzzled. The puzzlement emerged at first with the shock that I was hired in the first place, initially to cover for an ailing cantor, and then to stay on. Why would you hire someone who knows as little as I do? I mused, and not solely based on imposter syndrome. More puzzlement ensued when folks would come up to tell me how inspiring, how spiritual, how meaningful their prayer and worship experiences had become through my singing. I’m not professing either false humility about my skills, or ignorance about the choices made in that liturgical context. It became the inflection point for my ongoing exploration of the spaces between performance, reception, uplift and meaning through sung liturgy. Service leaders across the liberal denominational and spiritual spectrum have so many choices and options, as well as demands and challenges. We have an exponentially increasing number of choices to make when we craft our services. The amount of music to choose from combined with the number of needs to address reach a sonic fever pitch during the Yamim Noraim. Yet we all share one believe with absolute certainty – that Jewish spiritual expression is made concrete through its sacred musics. Over the past few years I’ve been exploring the career of Judith Kaplan Eisenstein, whose influence on Jewish music education and understanding of Jewish musics deserves wider recognition. Reflecting on her own journey late in her life, she wrote: “For me the transcendent experience came through music… As I grew up, I listened to the music of the giants – Bach and Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. Just listening was all I needed to lose myself in a universe beyond anything I had ever known.” 1 She went on to describe how longing for “a setting of our own Kedushah that could move me as did Bach’s Sanctus” [from the Mass in B minor] led her to “explore the music of my own people. There, indeed, was the raw material for great creation. I learned the ancient tunes, the chants of prayer and Scripture, the great leitmotifs of the high holy days and festivals. In their unembellished state they were stirring. Hearing them did provide a deep sense of continuity with my people – which I felt must extend to generations to come.”2 Her yearning for awe is palpable. It is mine as well, and it is ours. We find the key of awe when we weave the layers, the multi-hued, glorious patterns of our peoples’ music, and then embroider the cloth anew. -Rabbi Liz |
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1Judith Kaplan Eisenstein was the eldest daughter of Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionism. https://kaplancenter.org/ 2Judith Kaplan Eisenstein, “The Spiritual Power of Music,” in Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality: A Sourcebook, Ellen M. Umansky and Dianne Ashton, eds. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), 290-291 |
