Reflections

by Cantor Barry Abelson

Mi Chamocha Ba-elim Adonai, who is like you among the gods, Adonai. These words, so familiar to us, seem to ask a question. I wonder did if ancestors argued about which melody to use for these familiar words. The answer is probably “yes.”

We Jews have very strong feelings about the music we use in prayer.

Music can have a powerful effect on us; it reaches out and touches our souls. Music can make us laugh, or make us cry. We remember melodies heard long ago or just last Shabbat, and we are moved by something within us. We love it or we don’t want to ever hear it again; we have a reaction, and it is always strong. God’s spirit is in the music that touches our souls; each of us, in our own way, with our own music, opens our hearts and brings the presence of God into our lives.

How can we understand the effect music has on us? What role does music play in a liturgical setting? These questions have been pondered by our movement.

If we can examine our sacred music and isolate the various moods of prayer, perhaps we can perceive how certain prayer experiences directly relate to particular musical expressions.

Cantor Benjie – Ellen Schiller, Professor of Cantorial Arts at the Hebrew Union College School of Sacred Music, suggests we develop a new vocabulary for sacred music that will help us focus on this unique convergence of  prayer and music.

Majestic – those moments when we are moved by a sense of awe and grandeur. Take for instance the glorious melodies of our High Holy Days, Avinu Malkeinu, Kol Nidre; we can all compose our own list.

Meditative – moments that lead us inward, times when we listen in the quiet of our hearts. The Mi Sheberach is a prayer of healing, a moment of personal petition to God.

And finally Meeting – those times when we are connected to our larger community. Joining in the Kiddush, Ein Keiloheinu, or repeating once again the familiar melody of the Shema.

These three “M’s” that Cantor Schiller teaches help us explore our varied experiences of prayer and music. But it is only part of the experience, writes Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. “Music gains its religious dimension when ceasing to be satisfied with conveying that which is within the grasp of emotion and imagination. Religious music is an attempt to convey that which is within our reach but beyond our grasp.”

Music heard and sung in the synagogue, during a retreat, a wedding, b’nai mitzvah, or around the Shabbat table, reaches across the generations to unite us as a people and draw us closer in some miraculous way to God. Music also stirs our memory

My parents, of blessed memory, filled me with a passion for music. In their honor, my family established The May and Murray Abelson Music Fund  at Temple Israel so that their love of music would endure.

This year we will honor my parents’ memories through a concert of liturgical music.

On Sunday, March 31 at 7:30 p.m. in our Sanctuary, we will be treated to the beautiful voice of student cantor Jill Abramson, who grew up in the Twin Cities and will be invested as cantor at the Hebrew Union College, School of Sacred Music this spring.

I will be pleased to perform in concert along with Jill and our own Temple congregational choir that evening. It will be an evening not to be missed.

Please plan to be with us, and experience this special musical evening.