D'var Torah for Shabbat Shirah
Greetings, friends!
Every year Shabbat Shirah gives the cantor the opportunity to design a service that functions as a ‘Sermon in Song’, to teach about the rich and illustrious traditions of Jewish musical liturgical settings, chant and song.
This year I felt a pull to focus my theme for Shabbat Shirah on women composers in the Jewish tradition. I knew that we already draw on many of these composers for our Shabbat repertoire, but there are so many more in the Jewish music world, and so much great music!
A brief side note to acknowledge that gender binary terminology is now being interrogated and complicated by those who identify with both, neither or additional genders. I’ll use the term women, but my implication is those who don’t fall in the category of cis-male, or male at birth.
Transcontinental Music is the musical publishing arm of the Reform movement, as well as the largest publisher of Jewish music. When I began looking in their search engine at Transcontinental for titles like ‘Mi Chamocha’ or ‘Hashkivenu’, the number of titles by women was about 1/5th of the number of male composers, or less. Of course, this trend has changed dramatically in the last 20 to 30 years.
Last week we observed the 11th yartzheit of the trailblazing folk-style singer-songwriter and recording artist Debbie Friedman. aleha ha shalom, may peace be upon her. The seminary at Hebrew Union College in New York City named their School of Sacred Music for Friedman, which is an exciting first in terms of naming the school for a woman, for any Jewish seminary in the United States, and probably, in the world.
Ultimately, I was excited to find some beautiful and appropriate compositions for this service; almost all by women composers.
These are gifted and wonderful musicians in their own right:
Alana Arian, Julie Silver, Debbie Friedman, Rabbi Hannah Tiferet Siegel, Cantor Rachelle Nelson, Daphna Rosenberg of Nava Tehila. The list goes on. The world of Jewish music can only be enriched by the contributions of talented women whose voices might have been sidelined, or never heard 50 or 100 years ago.
Our parasha this week teaches of the liberation of the Israelite slaves from Pharaoh’s oppressive yoke. In his 11th century commentary on the famous climactic phrase in the Song of the Sea, ‘Mi chamocha ba Elim Adonai, mi kamocha ne’edar ba kodesh’ ‘who is like you among the Gods Adonai who is like you wondrous in holiness’, 11th century commentator Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra claims that the term ‘Elim’, or ‘the mighty’ refers to the angels in the celestial heights .
As the morning liturgy suggests in the Kedusha of the Amidah, we rise three times up on our heels, in a quote from Ezekiel, imitating the singing of the angels, ‘Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, Adonai Tzeva’ot, m’lo kol ha’aretz k’vodo ’- ‘Holy, holy, holy, The Lord of Hosts fills the whole world with God’s Glory’.
The songs of the Shabbat service inspire us to raise our voices, to become one with the angels in the celestial heights, the accompanying angels of God’s holy celestial choir.
The women composers of our global Jewish community offer us these gems, these beautiful ornaments to our tapestry of Shabbat musical possibilities. They give wings to those of us who sing God’s praises on the 7th day of rest; the holy, blessed Shabbat. We become like the angels, as we gain an additional soul, a ‘neshama y’teira’ every Shabbat.
Especially now, in these challenging times, may our hearts and souls be filled with the music of our tradition, this week by women composers, uplifted on angels’ wings and the wondrous musical creations of human hands.
And let us say, Amen.