It’s been six months since I left High Holy Day services muttering about the music — admittedly a sorry way to begin the new year. I’m not proud of it, especially when I’m in the midst of atoning, but there’s something about choirs and organs that make my eyes roll.
They’re still rolling.
Of course there are synagogues with different musical approaches. There are the sing-along services and the “alternative” places to worship. But enter the largest Reform and Conservative synagogues in San Francisco, or any American metropolis, odds are choirs and/or organs await you.
I raise this issue not to offend the cantors who arrange the music, or the choir singers and organists out there. Your voices and playing are beautiful. If I weren’t musically challenged, I might put on a robe to join you.
What’s my problem? If I can speak for the peers I’ve surveyed, and myself, we feel like we’re in church. And frankly, we just don’t get it, let alone appreciate it.
I decided to visit Cantor Roslyn Barak for an explanation. She’s been with Congregation Emanu-El — home to three choirs and just as many organs — for 16 years, and is currently the interim president of the Northern California Board of Cantors.
“Look, when I first walked into a Reform synagogue and heard an organ, I just about died,” admits Barak, who grew up in Orthodox shuls where instrumental music is forbidden on holy days.
Today she is accompanied by one of the largest and most renowned organs in San Francisco. The organ in Emanu-El’s main sanctuary was installed in 1924 and has more than 5,000 pipes. Jack Bethards, president of Schoenstein Co., which maintains the synagogue’s three organs, says the famous organ is especially suited for Jewish worship because it offers the tones and dynamic range to complement the service.
Barak calls it “an exalted instrument” — one that can mimic other instruments, such as flutes, harps, even shofars. Together with the voices of the cantor and choir, she says, High Holy Day music in particular “paints the text,” creating sacred space.
It smacks of Christian space to me, I tell her, before crying assimilation. She acknowledges the German Protestant church influence on early re-formers, but quickly adds that there’s nothing foreign about music in temples. In fact, vocal and instrumental music was central in ancient Temple ritual. Barak points to Psalm 150 for illustration.
It reads, in part: “Praise Him with the blast of the horn … the psaltery and harp … the timbrel and dance … stringed instruments and the pipe … the loud-sounding cymbals … Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord.”
At the young adult Shabbat service, where guitar playing and group singing reign, I can praise like nobody’s business. But find me in front of a choir, organ and cantorial performance, and I’m counting pages in my prayerbook.
Barak doesn’t knock group singing, but she thinks there is a time and place for it. Sing-alongs can lock people in a rhythm and interfere with personal prayer, she says. Since individuals arrive with different needs, she errs on the side of time for reflection rather than hand clapping.
“We aren’t troubadours, we’re prayer leaders … We are the messengers for those who cannot pray, or we create the space — for those who can — to go deeper,” she says. “People have to learn how to listen, feel and understand the text.”
Therein lies my problem. I don’t know how to feel the music I’m complaining about. And while I can clap my hands, sing off-key and read the text before me, I certainly don’t know how to pray.
The closet and shelves in Barak’s office represent 1,000 years of rich Jewish musical history. Files bulge with arrangements from distinguished cantors and, get this, their choirs. They are the commissioned works of composers, the sacred notations received through oral tradition and the music used at services.
Next time the choir and organ begin, I’m willing to try something new. Rather than roll them, I’ll close my eyes, listen and try to feel.
But if anyone sneaks bells into the sanctuary while I’m not looking, I reserve the right to resume questioning.
Jessica Ravitz is working on her master’s in journalism at U.C. Berkeley. She can be reached at [email protected].