Re: Kol Nidre

[Sam Weiss <SamWeiss...>]

"Robert Cohen" <rlcm17 (at) hotmail(dot)com> wrote:

  >... I'm rather discomfited by Sam's admonition to "learn the
  >score," and let the emotions speak for themselves.  Cantor
  >Weiss is, of course, correct that "Kol Nidre" is not really a
  >prayer at all, and its particular words... may not be worth
  >the intense concentration or focus that was suggested. But
  >the hopes and emotion and tears and awe--and whatever
  >else--that a good chanting of Kol Nidre inspires in a
  >congregation ...
  >...To demean those invested responses as "trivially
  >mundane" seems highly inappropriate to me...


...And inappropriate to me, as well.

Please recall the context of my remarks which, thanks to my tendency to
under-write [in another life I must have had a career in insurance], may be
misunderstood and easily distorted.  Speaking from my experience in
teaching cantorial students, I suggested that this singer who was
approaching her new role with -- as she put it -- the trepidation of a
greenhorn, not **overly dwell** on the distraction of observing herself as a
channel for "the hopes and sorrows of the congregation," but to dwell on
the immediate main task before her. This task is to musically interpret the
words as best she can ("to 'learn the score', as it were"), so that the
congregants might perform **their** task, which is to invest **their own
participation as listeners** with the meaning they choose. 
Trust me that one's effectiveness as a Sh'liach Tzibbur ("emissary for
the congregation") results principally from an effective "performance" --
in the broadest use of the term.  An effective rendition of the prayers is
**not** facilitated by obsessing on one's role as the Sh'liach Tzibbur
(as was implied by Joe Kurland's well-intentioned advice), **especially**
in the case of a novice.

In responding to Joe's message, I understood his suggestion that Lenka
relate to "the hopes and sorrows of the congregation" in this general way,
i.e., as a representative to her constituents.  Unfortunately, my experience
over the years permits me to think that in too many cases these hopes and
sorrows, even if not trivially mundane, do not approach the seriousness
with which Lenka seems to be taking her mission.

As to my brief "contrarian" discussion of the text of Kol Nidre, this was
simply in response to Joe's advice to "...concentrate on the meaning of
every word and every phrase and the historical context in which this
prayer was written."  In no way was I demeaning a congregation's
response to the prayer experience or to this particular text, and I
certainly was not correlating "triviality" with the literal importance, or
lack thereof, of Kol Nidre.

__________________________________________________________
Cantor Sam Weiss === Jewish Community Center of Paramus, NJ

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