Re: Re[6]: Itsy Bitsy Spider and other Liturgucal Themes

[Solidarity Foundation <svzandt...>]

Dear Rich Wolpoe,
        I greatly admire your ability to get right to the heart of thhe
matter, which makes it easier for me to understand my own view. Even though
I disagree with you, I take this as an opportunity to articulate my view
rather than an attempt to impose it on anyone else, least of all you.

H
What emerges from your statement is that , for the pain and suffering part,
nothing can beat the old Eastern European nusakh, but for "the entire range
of emotions," fortunately, we now have "the full range of Jewish music" to
darw on, "from chassidishe, to Yekkishe to
Litvishe, to Sephardishe from O to C to R, etc.  We have been iberated from
the opression of Eastern Europe, so let's enjoy our davening more!"

May I respectfully say that I just don't see it that way?

You write:
"A fellow chazaan whose father hailed from Bialystok told me that we
Americans cannot appreeciate the pain that Polish Jews suffered during the
last several centuries. " True, but apparently we can't appreciate
anything else they experienced during the last several centuries either.
We seem to think that if we admit that there was anything to East European
Jewish life _other_ than pain and suffering, we are being disloyal to our
heritage. Funny idea of loyalty to our heritage, to impose such a one-
dimensional caricature of it on ourselves. 

When you write, "Yetst, in unzere matsa[v]  in der goldne medina,  we yidden 
should
be singing Hallel and Mizmor leSoda because we are free to daven, and
express ourselves any way we want! " it is of course a fact that we are free
to daven and express ourselves in any way we want," but it implies that
our grandparents davened the way they did because they were not free to 
daven some other way. Whereas I think when they were in shul -- and can I
broaden this to the full range of traditional music --? to zmires, nigunim,
and the full range of wedding music, not to mention folk songs -- is
precisely where they WERE free to do what they wanted. 

Without wishing to minimize the suffering in any way -- I have read much,
I have known and know many survivors of the Holocaust, and it's in my
mind like a background note , a permanent background note -- it's precisely
those people who carry the experience of the FULL RANGE of E. European
Jewish life -- the falling in love, the weddings, the yomtoivim, the
amazing cast of characters, the countryside, the good -- not only bad --
relations with the goyim, the geshmake yidishe machulim, the magnificent
Yiddish language, and the beautiful music. 

My point is that , just as this culture has a full humanity, and a full
range of emotions -- af tseluches ale sonim! -- so does the music!!!! 
Now this culture has been genocided out by the Nazis, sovietized out by
the Communists, zionisted out by the Israelis, and assimilated out by
the Americans. To me, American culture at its best, for all that it is and for
all it's given me, and it's given me A LOT -- can only be a LINGUA FRANCA.
Which is a great, great thing, because it allows diverse cultures to
coexist here, yet people have something basically in common and they
don't feel thye have to go around killing each other! But, where I live,
I want my own culture, it's the only one I've got -- and that means trying
to continue it. And I feel a responsibility, because this culture has no
homeland but in our hearts.

Now, a minute ago I was talking about religion, but now I'm talking about
culture. What's the relation? The secularists believe the culture can
stand on its own. I think time has proved them wrong, because it hasn't.
I think the two are intimately intertwined. But culture is what gives
the religion its TAM. My ability to combine the two in my own life has
so far been less thanspectacular. But it's the ideal. Anyway, that's
my view.
Itzik-Leyb