Kesher Talk

Raise our voice and sing — NOT! On Friday night, I went to the opening of the "Only in America: Jewish Music in a Land of Freedom" conference, a multi-cantored, hundred-odd-chorister performance during Shabbat services.

Services were to start at 6; when we got there a few minutes after 5 the line stretched back almost to Broadway. The services had been widely advertised, and the line was swollen by people who had read about the event that day in a long, admiring article in the Times.

The place was a zoo. People guarding seats, begging seats, stealing seats. People gawking, pushing, greeting, waving, stepping on coats, stepping on toes. It took forever to get people seated. Rumors wafted back into the sanctuary that even after the room had filled the line was still up to Broadway.

Then the services started, and I realized why it was that I had hated to go to shul when I was a child. I realized why generations of Jews had fled synagogues in droves, going back only when it was absolutely necessary. The Jewish Theological Seminary had chosen in its wisdom to recreate the crushing boredom, alienation, and situational existentionalism ("What the hell am I doing here?") that used to define being in shul.

The cantors no doubt had lovely voices, although I prefer to listen to such voices when I am sitting down. But they seemed to vie with each other in the how-many-syllables-can-be-fit-into-this-one-word, how-long-can-each-syllable-be-drawn-out, and how-many-times-can-this-line-be-repeated-before-some-maddened-congregant-gives-me-the-hook competitions that I used to think of as the essence of hazzanut. Their performances changed us, normally a congregation of dovveners, of participants, into passive listeners. We were turned from a kehillah into an audience.

Part of this, of course, is a direct reflection of my own shortcomings. Just as I was born freakishly missing genes that would have allowed me to enjoy football or gambling I am missing the opera gene. I love reading about divas' lives far more than I enjoy hearing them sing.

But I know that if in order to go to shul I would have to listen to that interminable noise, I would find something else to do on Shabbat mornings. Like, say, washing my hair. Or feeding the cats.

posted by Joanne @ 11/10/2003 10:31:42 PM