JoelNothman.com

One of the first things I did when I got to McGill was find out what singing groups I could join. After all, I had decided a couple of years ago that 2006 would be the year for singing: having been involved in Hineni, people would ask me (mostly after synagogue), “so what are you doing with that voice of yours Joel?” and I replied, “too busy… after Hineni”. So this year was set aside for singing. I led a lot more services in synagogue than ever before, got a couple of paid jobs as a chazzan, and joined two choirs in Sydney: the Sydney Jewish Choral Society (finally capitulating to Warren), and the Madrigal Society (under the leadership of Anthony who I encountered regularly, although he gave me no pressure to join). I enjoyed them a lot. I was even a little surprised to do so.

So I got to McGill and looked up the SSMU (student union) web site to find out what was on (because they don’t have an O-Week quite like back home). I discovered that apart from the small a capella groups that I’d heard of, there was a McGill Choral Society. It seemed to me as if the a capella groups were too competitive, and I just wanted to sing for a little fun and practice.

So I went along to the first meeting of the Choral Society. But I didn’t particularly like the attitude in the rehearsal room. It’s hard to describe. While the choristers were quite good, I felt that it was very rough in its manner and not such a pleasant place to be. They would be performing selections from Handel’s Messiah at the end of the semester in a large cathedral. I also felt a bit uncomfortable about that. (In the meantime I’d need to get a wad of musical scores and a CD for $25 membership, and I wasn’t ready to commit, given my other misgivings.)

So when there was “activities night” a gcouple of weeks into semester, I signed up to New Earth Voices. It appealed to me because it was advertised by sociable, excitable characters, and because I felt it might be a little more like the Madrigals. They claimed to sing a capella inter-cultural “spirituals”. Okay, so it would be a little different from the Madrigals where the weight was to secular tunes, with a couple of religious ones in strange languages thrown in: here we would be singing mostly religious music, but from a variety of places. Still, I decided to stop going to the Choral Society rehearsals and set aside my Tuesday afternoons for NEV.

When I found the Diocesan Hall we would be practising in, I found a choir in desperate need of more men. The first song we sang was a Hebrew tune, “Uri Tsafon”. Like a number of tunes from early Israel, its lyrics were taken from Song of Songs (many modern tunes still do). While it could be taken as so, I wasn’t sure it should be called a “spiritual”. It’s not the sort of thing sung in a Jewish religious context at all, and was taken in the 1940-50s to be about imagery of nature, or as a love song with biblical roots. It is spiritual in the sense of Zionists used the bible to worship the earth.

Since then, though, the vast majority of pieces we’ve been doing have been Christian tunes: a handful in English, and others in French, Spanish, Polish, German and Ewe. We’re also doing one in Tamil whose words reflect Eastern spirituality: “Untold millions of people run and run, constantly seeking, grow desperate and die looking for the light that is in them”. Also one other mostly-Hebrew tune called “Hebrew Rounds for Peace” which is a very corny piece, seemingly American, made up of a couple of classic tunes to typical biblical verses on peace, along with the words “shalom chaverim, shalom chaverim” and instructions to shake the audience’s hands during the closing part of the song. Ugh. A little too corny for me. And not spiritual at all, IMO.

But as the distinctly Christian pieces kept arriving, I felt less and less comfortable. Some are general liturgical or gospel tunes, others are Christmas carols. The first carols I’ve ever sung. While some of the tunes are great fun (still not as fun as many of our Madrigals last semester), I don’t see how singing about a festival, its practices and myths is spiritual.

They also handed out “Sevivon sov sov sov”, but we’ve never sung it: a song about Channukah’s practice of gambling! Firstly this equates Channukah to Christmas, which is a funny American falsehood, secondly it has nothing to do with religion or spirit, but is merely about an unusual cultural practice. After all, the song’s major statement on the times is “Spinning top, spin spin spin! Channukah is a good festival!”

So on one hand I would like to heavily question the definition of spirituals. On the other hand, my issue is whether I should be singing songs that are strongly associated with Christian faith, like Silent Night, or songs that preach about Jesus. Should I stop at the point that the song professes him divine? We do that too (”Il est né, le divin Enfant”; IMO “Il n’était pas divin Enfant”). And if I had a problem with Handel’s mass, which is at least a monumental work musically, surely these tunes would be more problematic. Or was the major problem that I was going to sing it in a church? (Although a capella does mean “like in the chapel”.)

There are about 5 Jewish members of the not-large choir (which will be performing on December 2 after shabbat 3 in the afternoon). At least one other has expressed strange feelings about singing some of these songs. She last year made a distinction where she would stop singing if the song made problematic theological statements.

In the Madrigal Society—where the majority of our songs were about lovers made or lost, or set for coronations and featuring nymphs and shepherds dancing—there was never any need to feel a sense of conviction towards the words I was saying. Secular music can be sung without any faith or attachment, but still empathising with the feelings of the author.

Religious music is designed to be sung with spirit and belief. That’s what it was designed to do. And singing it in public is usually a declaration of faith. Maybe this could be excused for a few songs amid many more secular and detached, or maybe it could also be excused when not sung in a religious circumstance or place.

In the Sydney Jewish Choral Society earlier this year, a piece called “Hasidic Medley” had a style guideline hand-written at the top of the score: mit dveikus. Literally, “with attachment”, this Yiddish term refers to a Hasidic notion of reaching for and clinging to the Divine.

Mit dveikus is how religious music is meant to be sung. It is difficult to do, sometimes, but deveikus is something that can be seen and heard and felt if it really is there in the hearts and minds of the singers.

If I can’t and don’t want to sing Christian “spiritual” works with conviction, let alone dveikus, should I be singing them at all?