Quotations on Jewish Sacred Music

By Jonathan L. Friedmann

Quotations on Jewish Sacred Music is a collection of over 700 quotations culled from an array of sources, including rabbinic and theological texts, sociological and anthropological studies, and historical and musicological examinations. The book is divided into five chapters: What Is Jewish Music?; Spirituality and Prayer; Hazzan-Cantor; Cantillation-Biblical Chant; and Nusach ha-Tefillah-Liturgical Chant. Taken as a whole, these quotations demonstrate both the centrality of music in Jewish religious life and the diversity of thought on the subject. They can be used with profit in sermons, speeches, and papers, and may be read in order or selectively. This is a valuable and easy-to-use reference book for scholars, musicians, synagogue staff, and anyone else seeking concise thoughts on major aspects of Jewish sacred music.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RowmanLittlefield
• Release date: Sep 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9780761855385

Book preview

Preface

Music has forever been central to Jewish religious life. The Bible reports that Moses, Miriam, and the Israelites sang an exalted song to God after crossing the Red Sea (Exod. 15:1-18). Accounts of worship in the Jerusalem Temple include numerous references to choirs and instruments making music in praise of the divine. Psalm 150, for instance, describes a worship service filled with blasts of the horn, harp and lyre, lute and pipe, resounding cymbals, and loud-clashing cymbals. Throughout the Book of Psalms, we are reminded of the importance of chanting hymns and singing prayerful songs. The Talmud recommends that the Bible be made understood to its listeners in musical and sweet tones,¹ and that prayers be offered in a pleasant voice.² In our own time, music is a part of virtually every Jewish occasion, from festivals and holidays to funerals and memorial services. For these and other reasons, it is easy to see why musicologist Eric Werner called the Jews a particularly musical people.³

Yet, despite its vital place within Judaism, music is rarely mentioned in Jewish historical, cultural, sociological, or theological studies. This scarcity of musical reflection owes in part to music’s assumed secondary role. It is commonly held that music serves only as an aid to texts or events, and is thus of little intrinsic significance.⁴ Likewise, traditional Jewish learning emphasizes the study of sacred history and literature without an equally developed appreciation of aesthetics.⁵ The performance and analysis of music also requires a set of skills historically limited to a small and select group of specialists. Prior to 1800, Jewish music was confined almost completely to an oral tradition, generally passed on from mentor to student.⁶ And Jewish musicology did not begin to emerge until the nineteenth century, coinciding with the Jews’ introduction to Western scholarship in post-Emancipation Europe.⁷ Moreover, the value of music in Jewish contexts is self-evident: it moves people prior to and independent of analysis or discussion. This has led to an unspoken consensus that music is more apt for experience than examination.

Quotations on Jewish Sacred Music was compiled in response to this general need for Jewish music education and appreciation. It is the product of four years of underlining and recording brief quotations—usually one to three sentences—from diverse and numerous sources dealing with Judaism in general and Jewish music in particular. These pithy statements come from rabbinic texts, popular and scholarly articles, books, lectures, and letters written by historians, musicologists, cantors, rabbis, composers, conductors, educators, sociologists, anthropologists, Bible scholars, poets, novelists, and social critics. Over 700 quotations are included, all of which acknowledge and give support to the indispensable place of music in Jewish religious experience.

The book is divided into five chapters. The first addresses the age-old question, What is Jewish music? Jewish music is remarkably varied, as Jews have always been influenced by the music of surrounding cultures. These statements demonstrate both the difficulty of defining exactly what is Jewish in Jewish music, and an underlying sense that Jewish music of all styles and genres exhibits a certain if indescribable national spirit. Chapter two offers words on the role of music in Jewish spirituality and prayer. Topics include the use of music in religious worship and the relationship of music, health, and happiness. The third chapter presents insights into the history, requirements, functions, and impact of the hazzan, or cantor, who is charged with singing prayers on behalf of the congregation. Chapter four examines the development and purposes of cantillation, the chanting of biblical texts; and chapter five explores the nature and significance of nusach ha-tefillah, modal systems of liturgical chant.

Each chapter is organized chronologically, reflecting a continuity of thought on Jewish music’s cultural and religious import, as well as changes in its understanding and performance over the years. For example, several authors remark on the inclusion of women cantors in liberal denominations, which began in the latter decades of the twentieth century, while others comment on the rise of congregational singing in contemporary American synagogues. In addition, some of the earlier quotations contain untenable generalizations and historical speculations, while some of the more recent comments lack the romantic flare found in the writings of years past.

It should be noted that though the quotations in this volume are perceptive and wide-ranging, they do have limitations. Because the study of Jewish music as an academic discipline is a product of the modern age, the bulk of the sources quoted are from the nineteenth century and later. Also, most of the quotations are drawn from English-language sources—primarily written in the United States—and refer mainly to Ashkenazi music traditions. And, since the book focuses on sacred music—that is, music of the synagogue—there is little mention of secular genres, such as klezmer, Sephardic ballads, or lullabies.

The opinions and observations found in this collection speak to broad themes related to the five chapter subjects. They can be used with profit in sermons, speeches, and papers, and may be read in order or selectively. It is my hope that this book will prove a valuable and easy-to-use reference for scholars, musicians, synagogue functionaries, and anyone else seeking concise thoughts on major aspects of Jewish sacred music.

Notes

1. BT Megillah 32a.

2. BT Hullin 91b.

3. Eric Werner, From Generation to Generation: Studies on Jewish Musical Tradition (New York: American Conference of Cantors, 1967), 7.

4. This issue is explored in detail in Nicholas Cook, Analysing Musical Multimedia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 107-115.

5. This general neglect of aesthetics is also true of traditional Christian studies. See Jo Ann Davidson, Toward a Theology of Beauty: A Biblical Perspective (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008).

6. Israel Adler, The Notated Synagogue Chants of the 12th Century of Obadiah, the Norman Proselyte, in Contributions to a Historical Study of Jewish Music, ed. Eric Werner (New York: Ktav, 1976), 169.

7. See Neil W. Levin, Jewish Music in the Modern Era, in The Modern Jewish Experience: A Reader’s Guide, ed. Jack Wertheimer (New York: NYU Press, 1993), 242-261.

Chapter One

What Is Jewish Music?

[1] If a Jew likes a poem that was composed by a monk as a church hymn, he should not translate it into Hebrew to be used as praise to God.

—Yehudah Ha-Chasid, Sefer Chasidim (12th century)

[2] [Of] the tunes for songs and elegies: . . . some were composed in the lands of Spain and taken by the poets from the songs of Ishmael which were very attractive: others were taken from the popular songs of the French countries and are driven to extreme melodic height and extension.

—Simeon Duran, Magen Avot (c. 1400)

[3] A sheliah tzibbur who sings melodies that the gentiles use in their worship should be prevented from doing so, and if he refuses to comply and persists in doing so, he is to be removed from his position.

—Moses Isserles, Commentary on Shulhan Arukh (16th century)

[4] One must not change from the custom of the city even in regard to the melodies and piyyutim that are recited there.

—Moses Isserles, Commentary on Shulhan Arukh (16th century)

[5] [The] artistic singers in their ambition to show their art and to entertain the public with new tunes, forget the difference between the sacred place and the profane. Therefore, we hear in the sanctuary concerts, symphonies, and arias which belong in the dance hall and in the theater. They call forth in the heart of the congregation profane sentiments instead of religious.

—Anonymous Rabbinic Critique (1778)

[6] All that has hitherto been collected, relative to the music of the Hebrews, shows that it was in general use amongst them, from the time of their quitting Egypt, till they ceased to be a nation; but what kind of music it was with which they were so much delighted, no means are now left to determine.

—Charles Burney, A General History of Music (1789)

[7] [Music] was in constant use, both in their worship, in their religious and civil festivals, in their public and private rejoicings, and even in their mourning.

—Jehoshaphat Aspin, A Systematic Analysis of Universal History (1816)

[8] [No] two Jewish congregations sing their chants alike.

—William C. Stafford, A History of Music (1830)

[9] The music performed in the Temple, was probably in the diatonic scale, and it appears to have been of the most magnificent kind.

—William C. Stafford, A History of Music (1830)

[10] The synagogue music . . . may possibly present the best popular idea of the manner in which our fathers, for many centuries, chanted the services of the church.

—John Antes Latrobe, The Music of the Church Considered in its Various Branches (1831)

[11] [The Jews] have, with increased tenacity, preserved their ancient melodies, and bequeathed them, by memory, from one generation to another, with the same jealous care that a miser would his most valued treasure, and as the last melancholy relics left to remind them of their kingdom past away!

—Isaac Nathan, Musurgia Vocalis (1836)

[12] [All] disciplines are needed for the understanding of our holy Torah and are included in it. To this end, one should have knowledge of all of them, and we can mention in particular the study of algebra, geometry and trigonometry, as well as the study of music.

—Israel of Shklov, Pe’at Ha-shulhan (1836)

[13] I set it as my duty . . . to consider, as far as possible, the traditional tunes bequeathed to us, to cleanse the ancient and dignified type from the later accretions of tasteless embellishments, to bring them back to the original purity, and to reconstruct them in accordance with the text and with the rules of harmony.

—Solomon Sulzer, Shir Zion I (1838)

[14] The inner history of a people is contained in its song.

—Adolf Jellinek, Der Orient (1844)

[15] We are told, upon respectable authority, that the Jews of more recent times had lost all tradition even of the ancient music.

—E. W. Hengstenberg, Commentary on the Psalms (1846)

[16] It is remarkable that the great susceptibility and fondness for music which the ancient Hebrew evidently possessed have been preserved by their race until the present day.

—Carl Engel, The Music of the Most Ancient Nations (1864)

[17] Moses undoubtedly had opportunities, while in Heliopolis, of studying temple-hymns, and of adapting their form to the Jewish temple-service.

—Frédéric Louis Ritter, History of Music (1874)

[18] Take up your Bible and trace in its pages the history of music. The first inspiration God gave to man was a musical inspiration. First of arts was music; first of artists was Jubal, the father of all those who handle the harp and organ. Before painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, came music. Before men learned how to write, they learned to sing; as the baby crows with a musical song before ever his lips have learned to form papa and mamma.

—Wilber Fisk Crafts, Trophies of Song (1875)

[19] [In] the first place, it behooves us to fight the opinion that the regeneration of the service can be materialized only by an entire break with the past, by abolishing all traditional and inherited, historically-evolved liturgy. . . . Jewish liturgy must satisfy the musical demands while remaining Jewish; and it should not be necessary to sacrifice the Jewish characteristics to artistic forms.

—Salomon Sulzer, Denkschrift (1876)

[20] In the synagogal hymns of the Sephardic Jews, who were expelled from the Spanish Peninsula at the end of the fifteenth century, distinct traces and characteristics of Moorish music are still preserved.

—Carl Engel, The Literature of National Music (1879)

[21] There is no such thing as gypsy music, just as there is no such thing as Jewish music; though both Jews and gypsies are specially distinguished by musical abilities—the latter more generally; the former in fewer cases, but more highly.

—Henry Sutherfield Edwards, The Lyrical Drama (1881)

[22] Whomever God blessed with a pleasant voice should chant with the joy of performing a mitzvah. This singing should not include secular songs and certainly not love songs, which are most sinful.

—Yehiel Michel Ha-Levi Epstein, Arukh ha-Shulhan (1884-1893)

[23] [With] that remarkable race-capacity for discriminating, and the no less remarkable ability to assimilate, it was not strange that, rejecting the dominion of Egypt, [the Israelites] should have retained for their civil and religious code a compilation largely based on the law of their taskmasters. Thus it was that the music also became incorporated into their ritual, never to depart from it while Israel should be Israel.

—Louis S. Davis, Studies in Musical History (1887)

[24] It is certain that Hebrew music had its sources in Egypt.

—William Henry Parker, The Psaltery of the Church (1889)

[25] The real character of Hebrew music is unknown. Not even a well-authenticated fragment of early Jewish melody has come down to modern times.

—J. B. Rust, The Music of the Old Testament and the Religion of Israel (1891)

[26] The absence of positive knowledge touching the character of