Can music enhance memory?  Go back to your first experience you can remember of being in a Synagogue.  It could be one of the High Holy Days, a Holiday like Purim, Chanukkah, or Passover, Religious School, and even Shabbat.  What do you remember?  When asked that question, my response is always the music, how the prayers were sung.  Those melodies touch something deep inside of us.  Not only in the Synagogue do these songs, these melodies resonate, but also from Passover Seders, Chanukah, even in our secular lives. 

From our early years we all remember the melody to the “A, B, Cs”; “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, and others.  Many of those melodies have made it into our Prayers.  Those melodies continue to resonate with us every Shabbat and Holiday.

“Since earliest times, music has universally been a part of G-ds’s creatures’ worship of their Creator.  From the very beginning of our national existence, the worship pf G-d with Prayer and sacrifice has been accompanied by music (noted in Exodus 15: 12, 20) and music played an important part of the Temple service as well.” (source: A Guide to Jewish Prayer pg. 370) In Chronicles, David commands the priests to sing to the Lord with instruments of music, with trumpets and cymbals and harps.

“Sing to G-d a new Song…”(Psalm 96)  The sounds and tones of music weave through Jewish life as a thread through a tapestry.  This tapestry is rich and vibrant, much like Joseph’s coat of many colors.   But instead of colors, we have tones and harmonies which can lift us up and raise our spiritual identity, helping to fill us with sweet sounds.  We only have to listen, and let ourselves be carried away by these sweet sounds. 

Growing up going to Shul I would look forward to attending services along with the Cantor and the Congregation.  There truly was and still is something very spiritual that happens when we all join together singing the prayers.  That sense of our community, not only here at North Shore Synagogue, but the entire Jewish community coming together through the words of our Prayers utilizing music.  Sometimes our melodies differ slightly from Synagogue to Synagogue.  Sometimes the melodies might be completely different.  However the result is still the same, as we join together in song.  Our spirits are lifted, and no matter how you enter our Friday night service, our joyous praise lifts us all up.  

“Clap your hands, all peoples!…” (Psalm 41)Today, many of the melodies for our prayers represent our differing cultures, blending together different musical Minhagim (traditions).  Throughout our services here at North Shore Synagogue you can hear the Ashkenazic melodies which many of us grew up with.  You can also hear strains of Sefardic melodies.  There are also the melodies from Contemporary Composers like Debbie Friedman (z”l), Dan Nichols, Rick Recht, and many others.  Etz Chaim,which we sing prior to the closing of the Ark at the end of the Torah Service, is sung to the melody of HaTikvah.  And as stated above some nursery rhyme music has entered our services, or is it Mozart?!

Many times we introduce new melodies into our services.  These melodies might take a little bit to grow on us, but those melodies bring a fresh perspective on the Prayer. 

Our music is another way we represent L’dor Vador – Generation to Generation.  We pass on these melodies to our children and others, and the next generation takes those melodies to heart.  As each generation grows into those songs, many come up with new melodies for the Prayers, taking their own personal perspective and becoming a new part of the tapestry of song.  “Make music to G-d…with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn …! (Psalm 98)

Whether you’ve had a good week or one of challenges, come join us on a Friday night this summer and experience 60 minutes of food for your soul.  Who knows? Maybe you’ll be humming all week!  May we all continue to be a part of that musical tapestry that is our tradition, new and old. Type / to choose a block