As Hazzanim, it is important that we keep ourselves in four places musically:

1. Our Roots – we need to have a strong understanding of where our music began, it’s origins.  We have to retain our knowledge so as not to forget where we started musically in our liturgical/musical background.
2. The “Golden Age” – this of course referring to the late 1800’s early 1900’s.  What is it that made Cantors so great during that time.  The Choirs; the great voices; the Synagogues clamoring for great voices; the Congregants coming to listen to those great voices.
3. Today – not just the contemporary style of people like Debbie Friedman (z”l), Rick Recht, and Craig Taubman, but the music that our young Congregants listen to.  We need to be able to blend those styles with the styles of the past, keeping true to Nusach while at the same time keeping “musically” in touch with all of our Congregants. 
4. The Future – As Cantors – the keepers of our rich, musical traditions – we have to always be open to the new, not just discount it because it is “not what we would listen to”.  We have to be able to integrate musically the future with our current, and our past.

This always makes our job as Hazzanim fresh, challenging, and at the same time exciting. 

When I meet with Colleagues and speak about this subject, many of them will go to different extremes.  Either they only look to the past, the “Golden Age” and attempt to emulate that style.  I am not saying this is a bad thing, however this can restrict the Congregants that we can musically reach and entice to come to services.  Or some look to the contemporary style and state that the “Golden Age” is through and this is the “new-Golden-Age”.  Again they are only reaching a certain faction of our Jewish Community. 

There are of course other factors, and we need to continue a dialogue on musical styles and musical adaptation in our services while keeping true to ourselves. 

Can we blend the old with the new?  Can we adapt?  Historically Judaism has been able to do that throughout our history.  When the 2nd Temple was destroyed by the Romans circa: 70 CE we adapted.  No longer were we part of a Sacrificial Cult.  We moved on and moved forward.  Our music has adapted throughout our wanderings in the Diaspora.  Many of these musical trends can be found in several Scholarly works. 

It is important that we continue to evolve – at least for us Hazzanim – musically.  I do not believe that we have to do only one or the other – I believe that we can blend the old and the new. 

“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. The inside might be as black as the night, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” (Andrew Lloyd Webber from the musical “Starlight Express”)

These lyrics by Andrew Lloyd Webber have a different meaning today than when he wrote them for the musical Starlight Express in 1984. As we went through the past year during the pandemic of Covid-19, we kept looking for that light to get us out of this tunnel of darkness. During all these months since March of 2020, we have experienced loss, severe isolation, depression, anger, and much more. Then the vaccines which were promised began to be dispersed, albeit more slowly than we wished. However, once vaccinations started, that “light at the end of the tunnel” began to dimly appear.

As in the Parsha of B’shalach, which we read from the Torah on January 30th, the ancient Israelites experienced their own “light at the end of the tunnel;” it is called Shirat Hayam, the “Song of the Sea.” In front of them was the Sea of Reeds, and behind them was Pharoah and his Army on Chariots. G-d provides passage by dividing the Sea of Reeds, giving the Israelites a path to walk to freedom. Imagine that the vaccines represent the dividing of the Sea of Reeds for all of us to cross to freedom from the slavery of the pandemic. Like the ancient Hebrews, we will not reach the promised land immediately. We will continue to move forward and shake those chains of isolation, quarantine, and loss of freedom.

How does one shake those chains? The ancient Hebrews did that with music, a song – Shirat Hayam, the Song of the Sea – “Az Yashir Mosheh uv’nei Yisrael…” “Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Eternal…” (Source: The Torah, A Modern Commentary Revised Edition, Plaut, pg 439). They celebrated in song.

All cultures which have gone through some form of oppression, whether a pandemic, slavery, or any other form of oppression, use music to help them deal with the situation, and also to celebrate their freedom once attained.  Regardless of culture or situation people use music to help us understand and express our emotions.  “Music has even been described as a ‘language of the emotions.” (source: What does Music Express? Basic Emotions and Beyond, Patrik N. Juslin, Published Sep 6, 2013 from “Frontiers in Psychology”).   We use Cantillation to read from the Torah, the HafTorah, and the Megillot. Music is a conduit for prayer in every religion. Even a seemingly tuneless chant is a form of musical expression.

During these past 12 plus months of the Covid-19 pandemic, we all turned to music to express various feelings and emotions and to help us deal with this situation. Remember the TikTok post by Nathan Apodaca in which he lip syncs to Fleetwood Mac’s song “Dreams” while holding a bottle of juice? So simple, but the feelings expressed in the video resonated with all of us.

During these days, many of us listen to music which helps inspire us, to let us know that we are not alone in what we are going through. It doesn’t matter the type of musical style we connect with because music reaches out to people in a way that  helps them feel and deal with situations, whether joyous, sad, angry, or fearful.

In Judaism, the songs of our people, the Nusach of our T’fillot express our emotions. A prayer like the Sh’ma, which we sing to a melody notated by Solomon Sulzer, might mean something different to each of us depending on our emotional state when davening. The melodies of our prayers in the entire service, help to convey the words of the T’fillot. And even those words, those melodies, which many of us have known most of our lives, will have a different meaning to us each time we sing them.

We are once again nearing the holiday of Pesach. Like last year, this will be a celebration in which we have to follow health and safety protocols to protect our loved ones and friends. The melodies we sing from the Passover Seder will once again have a digitized feel to them. But we must take consolation in the fact that there is a “light at the end of the tunnel” and that our Seders, our religious services, our concerts, Holidays, will soon be enjoyed together as a community, hand-in-hand. May we continue to acknowledge that “light at the end of the tunnel” and may we soon be blessed to share in each other’s presence as one people, one community, one family.

Hazzan Steven Hevenstone

March 9, 2021