Re: Kol Nidre

[Joe Kurland <ganeydn...>]

At 12:21 PM -0400 7/17/01, Sam Weiss wrote:
>
>Nice idealism, Joe, but are you trying help Lenka or scare her away?
>Without intending any sarcasm, I would not advise Lenka in ths 
>context to overly dwell on the hopes and sorrows of the congregation 
>-- which may be trivially mundane -- but to "learn the score," as it 
>were, as best as she can, and the concomitant emotions will speak 
>for themselves.
>
>As it happens, to "...concentrate on the meaning of every word and every
>phrase.." of Kol Nidre may not produce the desired results as it might
>in other prayers.  In fact, Kol Nidre is not technically a prayer at
>all, but a legal formula for absolution of vows which has made 
>rabbis -- from Rishonim to Reform -- squirm for many centuries.  (It 
>provides fodder for countless hate websites to this day.) The 
>historical context in which this declaration was written is 9th 
>century Babylonia (=Iraq) where Aramaic was still the Jewish 
>vernacular, and not 15th century Spain, as common lore has it.  Its 
>high drama in today's Ashkenazic congregations derives principally 
>from the stirring 17th century melody which has become firmly 
>attached to the words of Kol Nidre.  (Among the Sephardim it is 
>chanted quite plainly.)

No, no,  I don't want to scare her off.  OK, OK, I should lighten up a bit.

Sam, I love your davening, and have a lot to learn from you.  But 
maybe I'm over-reacting to the people I hear singing the services 
who've learned it just by reading from the score, (something I can't 
do) without knowing what words they're singing, performing a piece of 
pure music with words serving only the function of adding musical 
texture but not meaning.  Not that my Hebrew is so good, but I am 
understanding more and more all the time by looking at the 
translations in the siddur and makhzor and I think that has helped my 
davening.

Yes, the absolution of vows is problematical.  Jews have been 
discouraged from making vows for  a long time, Yiftakh (Jepthah) 
being one of the earliest examples of what trouble it can bring.  But 
accurate or not, we associate Kol Nidre, including the change of 
wording from vows taken in the past to vows that might be taken in 
the future, with our feelings about forced religious conversion.  If 
that's not what we're thinking about when we're singing Kol Nidre, 
then maybe we shouldn't sing it at all.


Zayt gezunt (be healthy),

Yosl (Joe) Kurland
The Wholesale Klezmer Band
Colrain, MA 01340
voice/fax: 413-624-3204
http://www.WholesaleKlezmer.com

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