RE: Debbie Friedman article

[Adrian Durlester <durleste...>]

I am somewhat disturbed at this penchant many seem to have for decrying the
lack of traditional nusach modes in the works of contemporary songwriters
(like Debbie Friedman.)

Having just had another go around of reading Werner, Idelsohn, Schleifer, et
al for a paper I was writing on comparative histories of Jewish and Xtian
liturgical music, I cannot comprehend how anyone could still believe that
this issue is any different now than it had been for the last 2000 years!

In "Sacred Sound and Social Change" edited by Larry Hoffman and Janet
Walton, Samuel Adler starts off an article entitled "Sacred Music in a
Secular Age" with a wonderful quote from T.S. Eliot (we can all remark on
the irony of that some other time) about the over-importance we assign to
our own time which he then translates into its relevance for liturgical
music - the gist of which is that we have always been grappling with this
issue of secular and sacred sound-our time is no different than any other.

If we recognize this truth then we realize that this same scenario has been
played out time and time again - our own version of what is now traditional
was once the challenger.

It's fine with me if someone chooses to use a personal aesthetic sense to
judge certain music and deem it less suitable to their tastes. It's another
matter entirely to call upon the "weight of tradition" to back your own
personal aesthetic. Let's not confuse the two. Mozart and Beethoven and
Rossi and Novakowsky wrote some dreck too.

We just don't know what music Moshe Rabbeinu and Miriam Ha the Prophetess
and the people sang on the other side of the Reed Sea. For all we know, it
could have been the same melody as "Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown" or "Louie, Louie"
or the tune of one of the many contemporary renderings of these Biblical
passages by Freidman and others.

A "new American nusach" is developing. Is that inherently bad, or is it part
of what has been the secret all along to Jewish survival? If it is appealing
to our young people, is that not a good thing?

It would indeed be a sad thing is what we have come to think of as the
traditional nusach were to be forgotten and lost. But it would be even
sadder if there were no one left to forget it.

If the music of Friedman, Klepper and Freelander, Cotler, Taubman, Glaser,
Silver, etc. can make someone feel as if they themselves had been brought
out of Egypt, then it has earned its place in the pantheon of Jewish
liturgical music, replete with a lack of "traditional" nusach" or not.

Adrian A.
Durlester-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Adrian A. Durlester  -  durleste (at) home(dot)com
http://members.home.net/durleste/
Student, Vanderbilt University Divinity School
http://divinity.lib.vanderbilt.edu/vds/vds-home.htm
Music Director, Congregation Micah, Nashville, TN
http://www.micahnash.org/
Home phone (615) 646-9788
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Editor, Bim Bam (for Torah Aura Productions)
http://www.torahaura.com/
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