As the world keeps spinning into political chaos and climate crisis, does music matter anymore?

Since antiquity Jewish life has been full of music, chanted and sung in synagogue and home, played by klezmorim for celebration, hummed to lull babies to sleep. Without music we would have a huge jumble of words, words and more words but no melodies to string them together and no rhythm to move them along.

Having just completed a week of mourning for my beloved sister Devva, I’m keenly aware of how much the prayer melodies and the bitter-sweet Yiddish tunes from our festival carried me through one of the saddest times of my life. To close the last night of shiva, longtime member Martin Flashman sang for us, “If somehow you could pack up your sorrows and give them all to me, you would lose them, I know how to use them, give them all to me!” A song Devva loved.

In this painful era of war and turmoil, we have so many shared sorrows. If only we could pack them up and give them away! Instead, I think we need to prepare ourselves to carry them together for a long time into the future.

This Friday we’ll celebrate Shabbat Shira, the Sabbath of Song, so named because the Torah reading includes the Song of the Sea sung by Miriam, Aaron, Moses and the Israelites as they made their escape from Mitzrayim (Egypt), and also the haftarah with Shirat Devorah, the Song of Deborah, one of the most ancient parts of the text, a victory song that surprisingly concludes with a deeply sympathetic portrait of Eym Sisera, the mother of the vanquished enemy. From these two great works of literature we may learn to listen to the cries of oppressed people and soften our hearts toward the grieving relatives of even our most difficult adversaries.

Our music on Shabbat Shira will be Songs for the Soul, traditional and new pieces to uplift, nurture and inspire.

Devva will be absent from the choir for the first time in many years, but Berel, Jenny V., Marnin, Jerryl Lynn and our choir sister-singers have beautiful music to share with you. It will give me great comfort to see your faces and hear your voices singing along.

Please join us for a TBE members’ shabbat dinner at 5:30, followed by music for the public at 7 pm.

L’shalom, Rabbi Naomi