When Cantor Jennie Chabon delivers the sermon at Congregation B’nai Tikvah’s erev Shabbat services this week, congregants will likely hum along.
Chabon’s singing sermon celebrates Shabbat Shira, or the Sabbath of Song. It stems from the weekly Torah portion, Parashat Beshalach, which includes the story of the Israelites crossing the Sea of Reeds.
A passage from that portion, Exodus 15:1, notes: “I will sing unto the Lord.” Thus Shabbat Shira usually means a lot of extra vocal music in the sanctuary.
Chabon’s sermon includes little sermonizing. She says it’s more a “history of Jewish music, a musical map that brings Judaism to life.”
The erev Shabbat Shira service begins 6:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 14, at Congregation B’nai Tikvah in Walnut Creek.
Composed by Cantor Stephen Freedman and sung a cappella, the sermon features modes and scales that typify Jewish music through the centuries, from the melodic minor to the Freygish scale.
What’s the Freygish scale? Chabon calls it “in-your-kishkes Jewish music,” the kind often heard in klezmer tunes. “I explain it, pause, then sing a different mode,” she says. “Then I shift into High Holy Day music, and [describe] the actual melodies.”
This isn’t the first time Chabon has tackled the singing sermon. She’s done it twice before, though not at B’nai Tikvah. The piece is also not the only such sung sermon for Shabbat Shira. Chabon says there are many out there in the Jewish music world.
“It’s really cool,” she adds, “and when it’s delivered effectively, people have this full music experience, reminding you of all the stuff you’ve heard and putting it into context.”
The Friday night sermon won’t mark the end of Shabbat Shira. The next day, B’nai Tikvah will hold a morning service at which a percussionist and guitarist will join Chabon and Rabbi Raphael Asher on the bimah. The cantor will chant Shirat Hayam, the Song of the Sea.
“Any cantor you talk to loves Shabbat Shira,” Chabon says. “It’s an excuse to do lots of extra music at the service. The classic thing that happens is you read the story of the crossing of the sea. The trope changes between Torah tropes and a special melody for that reading. In some synagogues, people will stand.”
She says cantors all over the world have musical fun with this week’s services, adding new melodies, bringing in instrumentalists and using the Torah portion as a tuneful teachable moment.
A Berkeley native, Chabon was invested as a cantor at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She is a graduate of Columbia University, where she studied anthropology with a focus in comparative religions. She then spent two years living and studying in Israel. She joined the clergy at the Reform B’nai Tikvah in 2004.
Chabon hopes to make the Shabbat Shira singing sermon an annual feature at B’nai Tikvah. But whether it catches on or not, she says congregants have ample opportunities to savor the wide world of Jewish music at the synagogue.
For example, on the third Friday of every month, she officiates at Shir Joy, a music-oriented Shabbat service.
Says Chabon, “The magic of cantorial music is how a cantor takes a text and a simple melody and brings it to life.”