USCJ Review - Spring 2005
Fusion: Tradition and Change in Synagogue Music
We see them on TV - the Gospel bands, the rock bands playing to packed houses at Protestant mega-churches-and we wonder why we don't have 3,000 people swaying and clapping their hands at our worship services.
So what are we Jews to do? In the past several years, if not several decades, Jews have responded with our own attempts to weave contemporary music into the fabric of Jewish worship. Perhaps the trend began with guitar-toting Shlomo Carlebach in the sixties. Names such as Debbie Friedman and Craig Taubman have attracted devoted followers, and their music has drifted into our religious services.
Conservative Judaism's motto of "tradition and change" is now being played out in the arena of synagogue music, with many synagogue leaders struggling with the push and pull of traditional hazzanut versus contemporary popular music. On the front lines of this struggle is the Cantor's Assembly, the Conservative Movement's association for our professional hazzanim.
According to the Assembly's website (www.cantors.org), "the Cantors Assembly member sees himself or herself in a most important role: as the prime protector and transmitter of the authentic musical treasury of the Jewish people." Yet, on the same page of that website, the Assembly declares its role to "encourage the creation of new settings of our services within appropriate frameworks of good taste and the use of traditional prayer modes."
The Cantors Assembly refers to this blending of the "musical treasury of the Jewish people" with "the creation of new settings" as "fusion." According to Assembly president Cantor Jacob Ben Zion (Jackie) Mendelson of Temple Israel Center in White Plains, NY, liturgical music has always reflected the musical tastes and sensitivities of the culture in which Jews lived, but has, at the same time, remained consistent with the musical style of nusah, traditional cantorial modalities.
"I welcome American sounds," Mendelson insists, "but I want the service to have nusah with American sounds, not vice-versa." Mendelson envisions contemporary melodies as musical bridges between elements of nusah, so that these melodies become intertwined gracefully and seamlessly into the traditional liturgical structure.
Similarly, Cantor Henry Rosenblum, Dean of the H.L. Miller Cantorial School and College of Jewish Music at the Jewish Theological Seminary, understands the need for hazzanim to help fulfill the congregation's desire to sing and to participate in the service. According to Rosenblum, the congregation's role in synagogue worship historically was to respond "amen" to the prayer leader's blessing. The notion of congregational singing is a contemporary phenomenon.
"Today," Rosenblum insists, "cantors have to be in both worlds. They must lead the service as well as the congregational singing. The most successful cantors are those who are able to synthesize the two and to create an eclectic service."
Yet the greatest challenge often emerges in the nexus between Jewish music education and synagogue music. We can all recite the script. The youngster goes off to school or camp or a USY kinnus and comes back clapping and stomping like the best of the Gospel choirs. Then he or she goes to shul, and it's not quite the same. There is no better source of insight on this topic than the music educators, the people on the frontlines designing and executing music programs and tefillah (prayer) programs in our schools and camps.
One veteran educator, Beth Greenapple, who teaches music at the Hillel Day School in Detroit, a Solomon Schechter affiliate, longs for the day when hazzanim, tefillah teachers and music teachers work together. Beth has 40 minutes per week to teach Jewish music, secular music, as well as music theory and appreciation. This leaves her little if any opportunity to teach students the music that they could use to lead the daily minyan at the school.
"What we need is a class for minyan melodies," Greenapple maintains. "Then, students who are serving as shelihei tsibbur (prayer leaders) could choose from a list of melodies that they use to lead the service. This would be a tremendous benefit in terms of keeping the student congregation alert as they hear and sing different melodies from day to day."
Greenapple shares this educational concern with another veteran Jewish music educator. Judy Grundfast teaches music at the Jerry Shaw JCC Preschool and the Jerome Lippman Jewish Community Day School in Akron, OH. She has been teaching Jewish music for 30 years, including eight years on the staff of Camp Ramah in the Poconos.
"The biggest problem is that there is no uniform music curriculum," Grundfast explains. "Even in the day schools, teachers teach what they know." Like Greenapple, she would love to see more conversations between hazzanim and educators.
Happily, this concern is being addressed. Cantor Jack Chomsky of Tifereth Israel in Columbus, OH, has been on the staff of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin since 1997. "People prefer to think of what they already know as tradition," Chomsky muses, "and Ramah, in its unique way, is probably more resistant to change than many other places." So the veteran hazzan has established as his personal mission to find campers who can be taught the correct nusah and work with these students to develop their prayer-leading skills. At the same time, he realizes that to fulfill his mission, he must "engage in the musical and cultural life in camp so that people will find their ways to the cantor's door in camp or out of it."
"Contemporary musical expression is appropriate within the context of a larger service," Chomsky explains, "but we need to keep the larger picture in mind, too. Can we do it without damaging the integrity of the service? This is why cantors need to be involved-to help integrate new ideas in a way that makes sense. If we proceed this way, fusion won't lead to confusion!"
If Henry Rosenblum has his way, there will be more cantors like Jack Chomsky. The H.L. Miller Cantorial School requires students to take two to three courses in Jewish Education and allows cantorial students to enroll simultaneously in the Masters Degree Program in the William Davidson Graduate School of Education at JTS.
"My goal," says Rosenblum, "is for the Cantorial School to become a venue to train talented musicians to direct the music programs at the Ramah camps and in the Schechter day schools."
There is a clear desire to bring contemporary music into the sanctuary in ways that inspire people and encourage them to participate. At the same time, it is recognized that our rich musical heritage remains the source of that same inspiration. Inevitably, ongoing conversations among rabbis, cantors, educators and lay leaders will succeed in making "fusion" a successful embodiment of "tradition and change" in the area of synagogue worship.
The author is the executive director of the USCJ Great Lakes & Rivers Regions and a frequent contributor to the Review.
