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?

