New year singing that reached the heavens
ELANA Sztokman finds the beautiful singing of a chazzan and his wife at the Rosh Hashana service simply took her breath away.
ELANA SZTOKMAN
I HAVE never heard a rendition of Netane Tokef, that dramatic apex of the Rosh Hashana service, quite like this one.
Officially, in order to abide the strictest rules of halacha, the chazan was Avi Gilboa, a professor of music therapy from an incredibly talented musical family who has a soft, gentle voice and practiced skill.
Only Avi said the formal blessings and technically the congregation only answered “amen” to him, the man.
In practice, Avi was joined in harmony by his wife, Tzurit, an incredible soprano who, I was astounded to learn, has no formal musical training yet sings with a precision, range, and purity of sound, reminiscent of Linda Ronstadt’s rendition of Mabel’s high-pitched aria in the Pirates of Penzance.
It’s that kind of singing to the skies, reaching those glorious places in the musical heavens, the kind of singing that leaves your knees weak.
Together, Avi and Tzurit stood at the bimah, he on the men’s side of the partition and she on the woman’s side, and led the distinctive mussaf service with such sweet, joyous, melodic harmony expressing the soulfulness of the service that simply took my breath away.
It wasn’t just the music that created a whole new prayer experience. After all, music alone is not prayer. It was much more than that, the way their voices sculpted the text, which recreated the entire message of the prayer.
It was an entire concept of male-female symmetry and synchronization. It was about how one balanced the other, sometimes alternating melody-harmony, sometimes taking turns on solo, and sometimes simply in unison.
They were doing prayer not as an individualistic leader whose singular performance places the entire onus of the community on the shoulders of one man’s expertise, but rather they worked as a team, a microcosm of community, of people, of humanity.
They were offering a message to God and to the community that the Divine spirit rests more comfortably and profoundly in collaboration and cooperation, in a coming together of different components of the universe and humanity -— male and female, high and low, right and left, melody and harmony.
There was such a rich depth in this kind of prayer, in which everyone has a place, in which no one is to be left out, left voiceless and invisible. All are seen, all are heard, and all stand together in beseeching the Creator for compassion and forgiveness.
There was something more as well. It wasn’t just any man and woman, but a man and woman who were clearly doing this in their own peaceful, practiced unison.
It was the astonishing way in which they seemed to read each other’s minds, as if there was some invisible conductor or invisible metronome going off in front of them.
They were not reading notes, and did not even speak one word to each other throughout the two-hour service. Yet, they somehow, miraculously followed one another, singing around and into each other’s voices as if they could hear what the other was going to sing next, as if an entire orchestra accompanied them.
They were completely one, like Mabel and Frederic, or Romeo and Juliette.
The entire service, then, was built around Avi and Tzurit’s apparent love and respect for one another, partners in life, in family, and in front of God.
It was a message that community and nation must be built upon that kind of mutual respect and care, and love, where all are equally respected and every voice has its place.
It wasn’t just me who found this magnificent. I am pretty sure I could feel God being moved as well.
American-born Elana Sztokman lives in Modi’in in Israel with her Australian-born husband Jacob and their four children. She is a lecturer in education at the Schechter Institute for Jewish Studies. From 2002-05 she worked in Australia as Educational Director of JNF Victoria and also lectured at the Florence Melton Adult Mini School. She blogs at blog.elanasztokman.com
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