The Liturgy of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah—Similarities and Differences by Hayyim Herman Kieval
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THIS IS THE INSIDE FRONT COVER EDITOR: Joseph A. Levine ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Richard Berlin EDITORIAL BOARD Rona Black, Gershon Freidlin, Geoffrey Goldberg, Charles Heller, Kimberly Komrad, Sheldon Levin, Laurence Loeb, Solomon Mendel- son, Neil Schwartz, David Sislen, Sam Weiss, Yossi Zucker TheJournal of Synagogue Music is published annually by the Cantors As- sembly. It offers articles and music of broad interest to theh azzan and other Jewish professionals. Submissions of any length from 1,000 to 10,000 words will be consid ered. GUIDELINES FOR SUBMITTING MATERIAL All contributions and communications should be sent to the Editor, Dr. Joseph A. Levine—[email protected]—as a Word docu- ment, with a brief biography of the author appended. Musical and/or graphic material should be formatted and inserted within the Word document. Footnotes are used rather than endnotes, and should conform to the fol- lowing style: A - Abraham Idelsohn, Jewish Liturgy (New York: Henry Holt), 1932: 244. B - Samuel Rosenbaum, “Congregational Singing;” Proceedings of the Cantors Assembly Convention (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary), February 22, 1949: 9-11. Cover design after “and there was light,” stained-glass window by George Rattner, The Loop Synagogue, Chicago. Layout by Prose & Con Spirito, Inc. Printing by Replica. © Copyright 2008 by the Cantors Assembly. ISSN 0449-5128 i FROM THE EDITOR: Issue of the High Holidays: How They Affect American Synagogue Practice All Year Round . 5 ASPECTS OF YAMIM NORA’IM Max Kadushin and the Distinctive Liturgy of the Yamim Ha-Nora’im . 9 Saul P. Wachs The Story of theAkedah —A Critical Reading . 18. Eliezer Steinman A Psychoanalytical Perspective on Abraham, Isaac and the Altar: Implications for Who We Are and How We Change . 23 Dennis G. Shulman Reading Liturgy through the Spectacles of Theology: The Case ofU-n’taneh Tokef . 46. Neil Gillman R’shuyot for the Sh’li’ah Tsibbur—Customs and Melodies . 59 Akiva Zimmermann Lower Extensions of the Minor Scale in Ashkenazic Prayer Music, with Emphasis on High Holidays and Festivals . 80. Boaz Tarsi The Hidden Subdivisions of S’lihot . 108. Joseph A. Levine The Liturgy of Yom Kippur and Rosh HaShanah — Similarities and Differences . 140 Hayyim Kieval The Kol Nidre—At Least 1200 years Old . 153 Johanna Spector Ad Yom Moto: Life’s a Game? . 158. Gershon Freidlin 1 A LITERARY GLIMPSE The Day of Atonement . 161 Sampson Raphaelson D’VAR N’GINAH Aaron Blumenfeld’s Setting of Ps . 27—Adonai Ori V’-Yish’i . 173 Gleaned from Many Sources D’VAR K’RI’AH Penitential Torah Reading in Ashkenazic Practice . 178 Gleaned from Many Sources MAIL BOX Future of the Feher Jewish Music Center . 188 Juval Shaked The Khazntes . 188 Gershon Freidlin Perele Feig, an Unsung European Khaznte, Israeli Hazzaniyot . 188. Akiva Zimmermann Sephardi Influences on Ashkenazic Liturgy in London . 190 David R. Prager Launching of the European Academy for Jewish Liturgy . 190 Jaclyn Chernett Music of the French Synagogue . 191 Arthur Bergen Comments on Jewish Life in Germany . 192 Daniel Katz Sh’ki’at ha-hammah in the Land of the Midnight Sun . 195. Gregory Yeckerson 2 NUTS AND BOLTS Notes on the History and Origins of the Music of the Anglo-Jewish Synagogue Tradition . 197. Daniel Tunkel Nothing New Under the Sun: What’s Still Wrong with Our Synagogues? . 209 Shoshana Brown How My Being in the High Holiday Choir Turned Me into a Shul Goer . 216. Raymond P. Scheindlin A “V’-Ne’emar” Boy Remembers . 224. Garrett Field REVIEWS Yearning for Compassion: Sol Zim’s Musical Machzor for Rosh HaShanah . 226. Jaclyn Chernett Excerpts of Moshe Ganchoff’s Recorded High Holiday Services . 229 David B. Sislen Meir Finkelstein’s Orchestrated Ne’ilah Service . 232 Sheldon Levin A Fusion of Traditions—Liturgical Music in the Copenhagen Synagogue, by Jane Mink Rossen & Uri Sharvit . 234 Charles Heller Point/Counterpoint: (1) Emanuel Rubin & John H . Baron’s Music in Jewish History and Culture . 237. Jack Chomsky (2) Charles Heller’s What to Listen for in Jewish Music . 241 Robert S. Scherr 3 MUSIC SIX HIGH HOLIDAY SETTINGS BY ISRAELI COMPOSERS— IN CELEBRATION OF ISRAEL’S 60TH ANNIVERSARY Shomeir Yisra’eil S’lihot Liturgy after Yehudah Leib Glantz, 1947, 1965 ....... 244 Uv’-Shofar Gadol Kalonymus ben Meshullam after Yair Rosenblum,1998 ............................ 245 U-Kh’tov L’-Hayyim/ High Holiday Amidah V’-Khol Ha-Hayyim after Dudu Shani, 2006 ................................... 252 Ya’aleh Kol Nidre Night liturgy after a Folk tune, 1948 . 253 Sh’ma Koleinu Yom Kippur liturgy after Dudu Shani, 2006 ................................... 254 Pit-hu Lanu Neilah Liturgy Beny Z. Maissner, 1995 .................................. 255 4 Issue of The High Holidays: How They Affect American Synagogue Practice the Rest of the Year In his landmark study of High Holiday liturgy (from which a chapter is ex- cerpted in this Journal) Hayyim Kieval states that the Torah, explicit in its description of the worship of the tenth day, Yom HaKippurim, is silent about any connection between it and the first day of the seventh month, aside from their calendrical proximity and similar sacrifice offerings (Numbers 29: 1-11). This reticence is remarkable in view of the fact that throughout talmudic literature, and especially in the liturgy of the synagogue, Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur are represented as integral parts of one whole.1 Rabbi Kieval saw how the solemnity of the Day of Atonement gradually flowed backward in time onto “the original festive joy of the biblical first day of the seventh month”2 and ultimately engulfed the interval between those two separate events, which was turned into the Ten Days of Penitence.3 This despite the absence of any direct mention of penitence in the matbei ‘a prayers of Rosh HaShanah. Each of these two Holidays—before being raised to “High” status—was unique unto itself: sui generis. The same may be said about all 5.5 million of us who declared ourselves “Jews by Choice” on various national population surveys taken during the past decade in the United States.4 Living in a democratic society, America’s Jews enjoy doing their own cultural thing. That extends to religion as well, claimed the late historian Arthur Hertzberg. 1 Hayyim (Herman) Kieval, The High Holidays, David Golinkin & Monique Susskind Goldberg, editors (Jerusalem: The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies), 2004: 232. 2 Numbers 10: 10; Nehemiah 8: 9-10. 3 Kieval, op. cit., p. 233; BT Rosh HaShanah, 17b 4 National Population Surveys were taken by: Barry Kosman (New York: Council of Jewish Federations,1990); Sidney Goldstein (New York: City University of New York, 1993); Gary Tobin (Waltham, Massachusetts: Brandeis Institute for Community and Religion, 1997). 5 The immigrants wanted to give to their Jewishness the aroma of the religious tradition and of folk memory, but on the condition that they could decide on what they wanted to keep and remember.5 And what did they remember—those sweatshop laborers who could never observe the Shabbos of their childhood in a six-day work week whose official Sabbath was the Christian Sunday? They remembered Yom Kippur! It had “so sacred a resonance,” wrote social critic Irving Howe, that the immigrant generation “felt that to go to shul then was to confirm one’s identity as a Jew.”6 The echoes of that sacred resonance could be heard all during the rest of the year, permeating the observance of every other liturgical occasion. From lack of awareness and an absence of accessible role models, our laity has been painting Weekday Arvit with the musical coloring of Erev Shabbat whenever asked to lead a Minyan in observance of a parent’s yahrzeit. The prevailing nusah for Friday Night Bar’khu7—the hazzan’s Call to Prayer—is actually a S’lihah mode better suited to Erev Yom Kippur (Example 1 .—words of Kol Nidre are parenthesized). 3 Ba - r’ - khu et A - do - nai ha - m’ - vo - rakh. (V’ - KI - NU - SEI U- SH’ VU - OT.¦ ) Example2 1 . Friday Night Bar’khu in a S’lihah mode paraphrasing Kol Nidre. When offering glory to God in hymns likeYigdal 8—“No unity like unto His can be, Eternal, unconceivable is He”—we sing it as well in the Forgiveness mode of Kol Nidre9 (Example 2 .). E - had v’-ein ya - hid k’ - yi - hu - do 5 3 (U - D’ - ISH - - - - - T’ VA- NA) Example 2 . The glory hymnYigdal, sung in the Forgiveness mode of Kol Nidre. 5 Arthur Hertzberg. The Jews in America(NY: Simon & Schuster), 1989: 5. 6 lrving Howe. World of Our Fathers (New York: Simon & Schuster), 1976: 191 7 Sabbath Service in Song—Friday Evening, ed., Gershon Ephros (New York: Behrman House), 1955: 20. 8 Melody by Meyer Leoni (London, 1760), charted with folk-song parallels in Abraham Z. Idelsohn, Jewish Music (New York: Henry Holt), 1929: 222-224, line 6. 9 Henry A. Russotto’s arrangement in Gershon Ephros, ed., Cantorial Anthology, vol. II (New York:\: Bloch Publishing), 1940: 6. 6 And we blithely apply the S’lihah mode to Friday night without causing the sky to fall or placing our first-born in danger of heavenly retribution. Because in our blissful unawareness we are deeply stirred—and often shaken—by a 3 mismatch that only American Jews could have come up with. We say Mi Khamokha—Who is like unto You? Revered in praises, doing marvels—and we sing this laudation penitentially (Example 3 .).10 No - ra t’ - hi - lot o - sei fe - leh. Example 3 . Ending of laudatory Mi Khamokha sung in a penitential mode. We convert God’s triumph at the Reed Sea (Shirat HaYam; Exodus 15: 11)4 to supplication, wailing this ecstatic paean to the ending of a melody for Ya ‘aleh11 (Let our pleading rise up at night) from the S’lihot section of Kol Nidre Night: “May our forgiveness arrive at evening”(Example 4 .) V’-YEI-RA - EH KIP-PU-REI - NU AD A - REV.