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THE FIRST OF A THREE-PART SERIES ON MUSICAL NUSAH: The historical evolution of synagogue music used by the Jews in Eastern and Western Europe is a topic near and dear to my heart. Our modal patterns that began to take on definition in the middle ages were, in and of themselves, a sophisticated form of commentary on liturgy and Torah. Alas, this artistic commentary is all but lost today even among those who make it a priority to study Biblical and Rabbinic texts on a daily basis. The generations of talmiday chacham (textual scholars) who were gifted musicians, used improvisational techniques to elevate the ancient modes and motifs associated with Shabbat, holidays and life cycle ceremonies to new heights by anchoring their prayer in the traditions handed down through the centuries and inserting moves and riffs newly offered by great secular composers. Over the next few months I look forward to highlighting some of the practices that I find particularly impressive.
As part of their craft, hazzanim would include "intertextual commentary" within their davening. Intertextuality was a key tool used by the great medieval commentators in their efforts to elucidate biblical literature. On a micro scale it enabled them to ascertain the meaning of an obscure word or phrase by recalling how that word was clearly intended elsewhere in the Tanach and then applying it interpretively to the section of Torah they were grappling with. This practice applied to entire blocks of text has allowed modern biblical critics to understand how the Torah, Prophets and Writings were, in fact, written/codified as commentaries on one another.
The liturgy of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur provides a perfect platform for intertextual musical reference. Malchuyot, Zichronot and Shofarot, the core liturgy of our Rosh Hashana musaf service, are each a collage of biblical verses from Torah, Prophets and Writings. Many of these texts are passages from entire psalms that are recited daily or weekly and Torah and prophetic passages chanted at other times during the year. In days gone by, people would wait with baited breath to hear how their cantor would interpret these sections in exciting new ways. Often he would employ artful usage of Torah and haftarah trope patterns or ancient psalmody. The quotes from the enthronement psalms found in Malchuyot would likely hint at the nusah of Kabbalat Shabbat, the service in which they are recited every week, but different facets of this rich Friday night nusah could be employed one year to the next. Perhaps in one year the verses from Jeremiah found in Zichronot might be rendered in a way suggestive of Lamentations, as he is the prophet most closely associated with Tisha b'Av, while the next year they could be set to an appropriate colloquial melody that the congregants would readily recognize and understand as a comment on innocence lost.
An actor who performs the same show every night for two years expends a great deal of invisible energy trying to keep the script fresh month after month. For the davening artist who dared to take risks on the Yamim Noraim, the next step was then to allow the new insights that they unearthed in their High Holy Day davening to inform how they could infuse new and creative energy into their prayer and laining throughout the year that followed. Just as our rabbinic tradition encourages us to always ask new questions about texts that we have seen a thousand times because we are different year after year, our Jewish musical heritage evolved in a manner designed to foster a similar approach to communal prayer.
Thank you to everyone for your support and encouragement during our first High Holy Days together and yashar koach to the wonderful ba'aley tefillah who led P'sukei D'zimra and Shacharit.