SEPTEMBER 21 • 2023 | 47
festivals, Pesach, Shavuot and
Sukkot (which have much
musically in common but also
tunes distinctive to each), and
for the Yamim Noraim, Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
There are different tunes for
different texts. There is one
kind of cantillation for Torah,
another for the haftorah from
the prophetic books, and
yet another for Ketuvim, the
Writings, especially the five
Megillot. There is a particular
chant for studying the texts of
the written Torah: Mishnah
and Gemarah. So, by music
alone we can tell what kind of
day it is and what kind of text
is being used. Jewish texts and
times are not color-coded but
music-coded. The map of holy
words is written in melodies
and songs.
Music has extraordinary
power to evoke emotion.
The Kol Nidrei prayer with
which Yom Kippur begins is
not really a prayer at all. It is
a dry legal formula for the
annulment of vows. There
can be little doubt that it is
its ancient, haunting melody
that has given it its hold over
the Jewish imagination. It is
hard to hear those notes and
not feel that you are in the
presence of God on the Day
of Judgment, standing in the
company of Jews of all places
and times as they plead with
heaven for forgiveness. It is
the holy of holies of the Jewish
soul.
Nor can you sit on Tisha
b’
Av reading Eichah, the book
of Lamentations, with its own
unique cantillation, and not
feel the tears of Jews through
the ages as they suffered for
their faith and wept as they
remembered what they had
lost, the pain as fresh as it
was the day the Temple was
destroyed. Words without
music are like a body without
a soul.
MUSIC EVOKES
STRENGTH
Beethoven wrote over the
manuscript of the third move-
ment of his A Minor Quartet
the words Neue Kraft fühlend,
“Feeling new strength.” That
is what music expresses and
evokes. It is the language of
emotion unsicklied by the pale
cast of thought. That is what
King David meant when he
sang to God the words: “You
turned my grief into dance;
You removed my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy, that
my heart may sing to You and
not be silent.” You feel the
strength of the human spirit
no terror can destroy.
In his book, Musicophilia,
the late Oliver Sacks (no rel-
ative, alas) told the poignant
story of Clive Wearing, an
eminent musicologist who was
struck by a devastating brain
infection. The result was acute
amnesia. He was unable to
remember anything for more
than a few seconds. As his wife
Deborah put it, “It was as if
every waking moment was the
first waking moment.”
Unable to thread experi-
ences together, he was caught
in an endless present that had
no connection with anything
that had gone before. One
day his wife found him hold-
ing a chocolate in one hand
and repeatedly covering and
uncovering it with the other
hand, saying each time, “Look,
it’s new.” “It’s the same choco-
late,” she said. “No,” he replied,
“Look. It’s changed.” He had
no past at all.
Two things broke through
his isolation. One was his love
for his wife. The other was
music. He could still sing, play
the organ and conduct a choir
with all his old skill and verve.
What was it about music,
Sacks asked, that enabled him,
while playing or conducting,
to overcome his amnesia?
He suggests that when we
“remember” a melody, we
recall one note at a time, yet
each note relates to the whole.
He quotes the philosopher of
music, Victor Zuckerkandl,
who wrote, “Hearing a mel-
ody is hearing, having heard,
and being about to hear, all at
once. Every melody declares
to us that the past can be there
without being remembered,
the future without being
foreknown.” Music is a form
of sensed continuity that can
sometimes break through the
most overpowering discon-
nections in our experience of
time.
Faith is more like music
than science. Science analyzes;
music integrates. And as music
connects note to note, so faith
connects episode to episode,
life to life, age to age in a time-
less melody that breaks into
time. God is the composer and
librettist. We are each called
on to be voices in the choir,
singers of God’s song. Faith
is the ability to hear the music
beneath the noise.
So, music is a signal of tran-
scendence. The philosopher
and musician Roger Scruton
writes that it is “an encounter
with the pure subject, released
from the world of objects, and
moving in obedience to the
laws of freedom alone.” He
quotes Rilke: “Words still go
softly out toward the unsay-
able / And music, always
new, from palpitating stones
/ builds in useless space its
godly home.” The history of
the Jewish spirit is written in
its songs.
I once watched a teacher
explaining to young children
the difference between a
physical possession and a
spiritual one. He had them
build a paper model of
Jerusalem. Then — this was
in the days of tape-recorders
— he played a song about
Jerusalem on a tape and
taught the song to the class.
At the end of the session, he
did something very dramatic.
He tore up the model and
shredded the tape. He asked
the children, “Do we still have
the model?” They replied, No.
“Do we still have the song?”
They replied, Yes.
We lose physical posses-
sions, but not spiritual ones.
We lost the physical Moses.
But we still have the song.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (1948-
2020) was a global religious leader,
philosopher, the author of more
than 25 books and moral voice for
our time. His series of essays on
the weekly Torah portion, entitled
“Covenant & Conversation” will
continue to be shared and distributed
around the world.
POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
• Why do you think music plays such an important
role in Judaism?
• Are there tunes and songs in our rituals and
prayers that particularly speak to you?
• How can we ensure that we do not lose this song?