[HANASHIR:9213] re: online ruach

[H & R Shubert <notfranz...>]

Great idea, Adrian.  

Jewish music kept me connected to my roots in my late adolescence/early 
"adulthood" years when I imagined that religion  was the farthest thing from my 
mind. I could not have predicted that one day Jewish music would become my 
life's work.  I remember hearing an admired American folk singer break into a 
spontaneous Yiddish "ya-ba-bim-bam" in the back room of a coffee-house after 
hours. He'll never know how he reached my Jewish soul at a time it seemed more 
important to be "universal" than culturally identified.   Years later, during a 
maternal hiatus in my professional singing career,  it was a silver cantorial 
voice which first threw me a lifeline when I was trying to find a way in to 
communal Jewish prayer again.  Perhaps it's useful to remember from time to 
time as Jewish music professionals that we never know who in the congregation 
or audience our voices may touch in a deep way and what repercussions it might 
have years later.  

Rachelle