Old School Ties

I had an amazing meeting last week. I got together with seventeen members of my 7th grade class, the people with whom I celebrated bar and bat mitzvah. I've really been trying to process what the reunion meant to me. These were people, some of whom I haven't seen in 45 years.      
What would it feel like to see them again? After all, I wasn't really friends with all of them. Like any other group of kids, we went in different directions, both in terms of how our lives had proceeded and geographically. People came from as far as Atlanta and Maine to meet in Connecticut at the home of two of our classmates. While it's true that we were all Jews (from a Conservative and a Reform congregation in Waterbury, CT), this get-together was secular. Wasn't it?

 Well, yes and no. Except for an impromptu "Shehecheyanu" no one spoke much about our Jewish background. On the other hand, we reminisced about our b'nai mitzvah parties, and our memories of Hebrew school (almost universally loathed). We mostly schmoozed, like friends do. We shared old photos (graduations and party-pics) and favorite moments. It wasn't really "Jewish." Except that among the 18 (yes, I know, chai!) of us there were: one cantor, one rabbi, four synagogue presidents or past presidents, a dozen board members (or ex-board members), and one person who was more dati (observant) than any of us might have guessed when we were kids. Even the people who were in no way involved in Jewish communal life were still linked to the group by that tenuous tie, a Jewish childhood.Our education had taken us away and brought us together again. In every town and city to which we had scattered, we sought out a connection to Judaism.


 So, did our teachers succeed? After all, here we are, confidant Jewish adults, able to navigate at least the periphery and in some cases the heart of our religion. At times in my tenure as a congregational cantor I've sometimes thought that synagogue schools do everything they can to make Judaism seem banal and tedious. But most of the people in that room didn't stop at "pediatric" Judaism. We went on to learn more, to delve more deeply, to assume that 3,000 years of history, liturgy, thought, and ritual was more than what we were taught in 8 years of religious school education. Maybe our teachers, rabbis, and cantors didn't do such a terrible job after all.

Improvisation!

When I was an acting student, I remember hating improv class. It seemed so messy! So undisciplined! But when I really watched what my more talented classmates were doing I realized that the ability to improvise in a believable fashion was the result of being totally secure in the situation. Only when you have all kinds of information at your command can you be free to let go of some of the 'rules' and fly.

The same thing is true about hazzanute - the art of the cantor. It's made up of many rules; the correct nusakh  for each time of day, for each kind of service, the motifs that make a piece of liturgy recognizeable, the melodies that congregants already know, woven with new melodies to keep the davenning fresh. These are the tools of the trade for a cantor. But then one has to go further. It's not enough to keep repeating and repeating. You have to improvise a little. You have to step outside your comfort zone to keep the music of prayer alive.

There is a saying that is attributed to Cantor Max Wohlberg, of blessed memory. He said,  "Nusakh is like underwear; you have to change it occasionally!" Even if he didn't say it, it's a great thought. We like the comfort of the melodies of our youth, but that doesn't mean we can't add new melodies. And for hazzanim it also means we might like the first 'licks' we learned in cantorial school, but we can only soar as prayer leaders when we feel free to bend them and improvise. Davenning is like life: it doesn't go in straight lines!

Debbie

It's impossible to say how much certain people affect you. Debbie Friedman died today, and I am trying to think when I first became aware of her. I think it was in 1993, when I was working at Carnegie Hall and one of my co-workers said I would probably enjoy the concert that night. He said it was "Debbie somebody," and that she always sold out the Hall. I stuck around for the first half of the concert before I had to get to the other concert that I was monitoring. Joyous it was. I was aware that every single person in that hall knew Debbie and loved Debbie. On some songs you could hardly hear her, because everyone wanted to sing along! That concert was a precursor to the famous 2-disk recording, "Debbie Friedman: Live at Carnegie Hall." (1997)

Years later, when I was very involved at B'nai Jeshurun in New York, someone came up to me after I chanted a haftarah and said it was beautiful, and I said thanks. A friend asked, "What did Debbie say to you?" And I asked "Debbie who?" That's how clueless I was.

In years to come I would learn from Debbie, sing with Debbie, schmooze with Debbie, and even introduce her at a concert in New Jersey. I sang with a choir that accompanied Debbie just last year. I was delighted to see her again, and she was absolutely wonderful, pouring her whole self into every song. It's impossible to say how much Debbie has meant to millions of Jews - some who don't even know her name. The memory will last for as long as kids learn their aleph-bet. Zichronah le-shirah v-liv'rachah. May her memory be for a song and a blessing.

What's new in "Nusakh"?

There's a word that gets knocked around a lot. Nusakh. It can mean so many things that it has lost all meaning. For example, it can mean the liturgy of a particular part of the world, like Nusakh Romani, or Nusakh Israeli. That includes any regional or country-specific text. If you think about the dreidle you'll see that in Israel the dreidle has a peh instead of a shin, because in Israel the sentence is "Nes gadol haya poh" -- a great miracle happened here. And other changes between countries or regions just grew up over many centuries.

Nusakh can also refer to denominational differences: Reform nusakh refers to God as "m'khayei ha-kol" -- the One who gives life to everything -- as opposed to "m'khayei mei-tim" -- who gives life to the dead. So here the nusakh reflects a theological difference. Orthodox nusakh - whether Ashkenazi or Sephardi - doesn't include the matriarchs. Yet.

In the case of the music of a service, the word nusakh means something entirely different. So between now and next week (or so) pay attention to the music of the services that you attend, and I'll add the musical bit next blog!