Yom Tov wrap-up
Oct. 11th, 2009 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuShemini Atzeret was lovely. I had been asked during the week to be the shaliach tzibbur ("representative of the congregation" -- i.e., prayer leader) for musaf (the last portion of the service), which on Shemini Atzeret is a great honor because it means reciting the special piyyut (paraliturgical poem) "Geshem" (Rain). This is the fourth year, I think, that they've asked me to do that, and I'll admit that it's a high point of the year for me. Geshem (and its springtime counterpart, "Tal", which is the prayer for dew) is a bit complex.
The shaliach tzibbur wears his kittel, the white robe which we all wear on Yom Kippur. Typically, one's kittel will become his burial shroud, so there's a certain element of combined senses of mortality and eternity in wearing it. The nusach begins with a "mi-Sinai" melody, which was not literally handed down from Sinai but which is nonetheless older than written recollection. This one probably dates back to the Second Temple.
And "Geshem" is one of the few piyyutim that speaks clearly and directly. Its six stanzas evoke Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and the tribes of Israel and their generations --- without the indirection usually found in piyyutim --- and relates each of their narratives to water. Each stanza ends with alternative fervent pleas: "For his sake, do not withhold water!" and "Because of his righteousness, send abundant water!"
The challenge for the chazzan is to bring these images to musical life, without crossing over into parody, and while working within the limitations of the several-thousand-year-old mode. If you just use the straight nusach, you can't capture the fervor of the text; if you indulge in too much chazzanut, you bore the congregation and make yourself look like a pompous idiot.
This year, I really felt like I hit my mark. The feedback that I got afterwards reinforced that feeling. For the first time, I left my musical cheat sheet down on the table and just used my machzor (prayer book) and my kishkes (my gut feeling), and that helped me really sing it with kavannah (untranslatable) and not as a performance piece.
I also worked in a few new allusions. When Jacob rolls back the stone covering the well of water, I introduced a circular musical motif on the word "gal". As in previous years, I also text-painted Moses hitting the rock and --- after a pregnant pause --- the water starting slowly to trickle out of the rock, gradually picking up strength and speed as it grows into a geyser. And I used Cantor Spiro's setting for Aaron which uses the "Avodah" motif from Yom Kippur.
But my real insight came at the last minute. First, on "Zachor shnaym asar shevatim" I slipped in the corresponding few notes from the Passover table song "Echad mi yodeah" on the words "shnaym asar shevatim". But then, on the line "Toldotam...", which talks about "for the sake of the generations of Jews whose blood was shed like water; hear our plea, for we drown in troubles as in water!" I switched, subito pianissimo, from the ancient nusach into the melody for Hannah Senesh's poem "Eli, Eli." Senesh's poem has the word "mayim" (water) at the corresponding point in the line. The melody that was written to her poem fits perfectly in the nusach. And Senesh was murdered in the Holocaust; her poem is a prayer to God that despite the evil in the world that the foundations of the world, including the rush of the waters and the prayers of humanity, never be silenced.
There is a widespread custom to have our meals in the sukkah on Shemini Atzeret, even though it is technically no longer the festival of Sukkot. At our house, the schach (sukkah roof) is made up of two large bamboo mats, side by side. As we finished eating lunch, a great gust of wind lifted up one along its edge, holding it hovering for a moment, then flipping it exactly on top of its neighbor. We hastened into the house and said bentching from the safety of the kitchen. But the timing was perfect!
Simchat Torah was fine. The kids enjoyed the singing, the dancing, and the candy.
This afternoon, as we were finishing the maftir Torah reading, the gabbai came up to me and, apologizing for asking me to do duty two days in a row, asked if I would lead Musaf again today. He said to me, "And you know what kind of musaf we need, right?"
I replied with a smirk, "I should give everyone plenty of time to digest the kiddush before their walk home?"
So after kiddush and the guest lecture by the prophet Nechemia (which was quite funny), I took to the bimah to lead musaf. It was about 2pm when I started, and I made quick, efficient, but accurate work of it. And it was a great ego boost to know that the gabbaim feel that they can call on me both for a meaningful and rich Geshem with suitable chazzanut and for a last-minute no-nonsense get-it-done davening.
The shaliach tzibbur wears his kittel, the white robe which we all wear on Yom Kippur. Typically, one's kittel will become his burial shroud, so there's a certain element of combined senses of mortality and eternity in wearing it. The nusach begins with a "mi-Sinai" melody, which was not literally handed down from Sinai but which is nonetheless older than written recollection. This one probably dates back to the Second Temple.
And "Geshem" is one of the few piyyutim that speaks clearly and directly. Its six stanzas evoke Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and the tribes of Israel and their generations --- without the indirection usually found in piyyutim --- and relates each of their narratives to water. Each stanza ends with alternative fervent pleas: "For his sake, do not withhold water!" and "Because of his righteousness, send abundant water!"
The challenge for the chazzan is to bring these images to musical life, without crossing over into parody, and while working within the limitations of the several-thousand-year-old mode. If you just use the straight nusach, you can't capture the fervor of the text; if you indulge in too much chazzanut, you bore the congregation and make yourself look like a pompous idiot.
This year, I really felt like I hit my mark. The feedback that I got afterwards reinforced that feeling. For the first time, I left my musical cheat sheet down on the table and just used my machzor (prayer book) and my kishkes (my gut feeling), and that helped me really sing it with kavannah (untranslatable) and not as a performance piece.
I also worked in a few new allusions. When Jacob rolls back the stone covering the well of water, I introduced a circular musical motif on the word "gal". As in previous years, I also text-painted Moses hitting the rock and --- after a pregnant pause --- the water starting slowly to trickle out of the rock, gradually picking up strength and speed as it grows into a geyser. And I used Cantor Spiro's setting for Aaron which uses the "Avodah" motif from Yom Kippur.
But my real insight came at the last minute. First, on "Zachor shnaym asar shevatim" I slipped in the corresponding few notes from the Passover table song "Echad mi yodeah" on the words "shnaym asar shevatim". But then, on the line "Toldotam...", which talks about "for the sake of the generations of Jews whose blood was shed like water; hear our plea, for we drown in troubles as in water!" I switched, subito pianissimo, from the ancient nusach into the melody for Hannah Senesh's poem "Eli, Eli." Senesh's poem has the word "mayim" (water) at the corresponding point in the line. The melody that was written to her poem fits perfectly in the nusach. And Senesh was murdered in the Holocaust; her poem is a prayer to God that despite the evil in the world that the foundations of the world, including the rush of the waters and the prayers of humanity, never be silenced.
There is a widespread custom to have our meals in the sukkah on Shemini Atzeret, even though it is technically no longer the festival of Sukkot. At our house, the schach (sukkah roof) is made up of two large bamboo mats, side by side. As we finished eating lunch, a great gust of wind lifted up one along its edge, holding it hovering for a moment, then flipping it exactly on top of its neighbor. We hastened into the house and said bentching from the safety of the kitchen. But the timing was perfect!
Simchat Torah was fine. The kids enjoyed the singing, the dancing, and the candy.
This afternoon, as we were finishing the maftir Torah reading, the gabbai came up to me and, apologizing for asking me to do duty two days in a row, asked if I would lead Musaf again today. He said to me, "And you know what kind of musaf we need, right?"
I replied with a smirk, "I should give everyone plenty of time to digest the kiddush before their walk home?"
So after kiddush and the guest lecture by the prophet Nechemia (which was quite funny), I took to the bimah to lead musaf. It was about 2pm when I started, and I made quick, efficient, but accurate work of it. And it was a great ego boost to know that the gabbaim feel that they can call on me both for a meaningful and rich Geshem with suitable chazzanut and for a last-minute no-nonsense get-it-done davening.