Re: Decantor

[Cantor Neil & Katie Schwartz <schwartz...>]

>
>"Hey, Cantors! Respect is earned, not demanded or proclaimed!
>Just like the rest of the human race!"
>
>Sure, be proud of your accomplishments - privately! But please
>stop trying to foist petty music-school inferiority complexes
>on the rest of the kehilla!
>
>
>Can we can the Cantors, please?
>

Alex, you won't have anything to complain about in a few years.
Between financial cutbacks in synagogues, the changing tastes
of younger congregants, and our "do-it-yourself" culture, this
might well be the last generation of full-time professionals
who are seminary trained and working full-time as Cantors.

Most of us who graduated from the three main schools (JTS, HUC,
and YU) in the last 25 years are very different from the type
of Cantor you seem to know.  We often have a B.A. degree in
Jewish Studies, and many of us spend most of our working hours
teaching and doing pastoral care rather than singing.

Whatever respect I may receive from my Kehilla is earned, but
not because I am the world's best baritone.  They respect me as
a clergyperson who touches their lives through Jewish music, and
who teaches their kids to feel good about being in shul.  The
fact that I may or may not sing well is less important to them
than the fact that I know what I am chanting and share it well.

Neither Israel nor Britain have many full-time Cantors now, and
in 50 years we may not either.  If the Havura movement is any
indication of the future, in a century we will also no longer
have full-time Rabbis either.  While I would love to be wrong
here, sometimes I think that in the future, the best reason for
training both Rabbis and Cantors will be to keep alive Jewish
knowledge in people rather than just in books and tapes.