[HANASHIR:11644] Another opinion about sharing our music

[LSOLKOWITZ <LSOLKOWITZ...>]

WARNING:  This posting may be upsetting to some readers.

This has been bothering me since last night, when I read the entry about 
someone travelling home from Hava Nashira and meeting up with a family in a 
restraunt and sharing music & encouraging them to buy it and spread it to 
their friends.

Living here, in the bible belt where I do,  I can tell you from experiences 
that anything shared may be used against us.  (If you'd like to get really 
frightened, search Google or Yahoo under "Messianic Jew" and check out some 
of those sites.)

What do I mean?  Well, their GOAL is to convert us into them.  So, they can 
use our own familiar words and sounds to lure our own "lost souls" to their 
ideals.  This is nothing new.  Mainstream churches have been singing our 
hymns like Yigdal, Adon Olam and Ein K-lo-keynu (in English) for years.  The 
Christain pop chart includes at least one song called "El Shaddai".

But what happens when the lost young man or woman  stumbles into a Fellowship 
where they sing tunes that sound vaguely familiar with his or her Jewish 
past?  And they convince him or her that he can be BOTH Jewish and Christian, 
after all, we have the same music...how different can we be??  Or they catch 
the tune on a "pop" Christian station and stay to listen more?  Or an 
intermarried couple decides that they can have it both ways?

Our music is one of our greatest treasures and a legacy we hand down to our 
children with our rituals, prayers and core JEWISH values.  Personally, I 
abhor the thought of a bunch of goyim desecrating our sacred songs.  Our 
songs are sacred when the melodies, words and kavanah come from a pure Jewish 
neshama (soul).  You may say they respect it, but I contend that they will 
still be using it for their purposes to get our children on their path.  
(Just as we have adopted some gospel works for our own purposes).

Assimilation is tearing away at the fabric of our people,  I do not feel that 
we should be giving the world the scissors to do it with by freely sharing 
our sacred music.

Laura Solkowitz RN
Pre-school - 6th Grade Performance Music - Hillel Day School Raleigh, NC
Patient Educator, WakeMed Rehab Raleigh, NC

lsolkowitz (at) aol(dot)com

"He who has saved one life, it as if he has saved an entire world" - Talmud