I wrote it as a 4-minute four-part choral piece while studying in Montreal, and always intended it for a medium-to-large community choir, like the Sydney Jewish Choral Society. Although I offered it to McGill’s New Earth Voices at the time, I then had little understanding of arrangement in terms of harmony and progression, and so the piece was littered with all sorts of musical “errors”.

I showed or played the score for a few people, but essentially it was shelved, aided by the fact that I lost the latest version I had worked on in Montreal. As of last last week, I’ve now gone through and brought the piece back to life, adding interesting texture, and removing problematic dissonance.

You’ll find Hashiveinu with Reb Shlomo among a growing collection of music I’ve recently composed and arranged on my new Music Page (all of which — so far — is Creative Commons-licensed for free reproduction, performance and modification).

I hope you enjoy them and would love to hear feedback!

Up from the first two choirs I joined as an adult in 2006, I’m now singing with five groups, each presenting different styles of music, ranges of talent and opportunities. Between the universal lack of confident tenors and my own curiosity, I just keep joining.

Most of my singing time is spent on Barefoot Musica Antigua, a small group (up to eight) singing early (up-to-17th century) music. Since our wonderfully successful March concerts, we’ve been focussing on the music of Salamone Rossi, a 17th-century Jewish composer of Mantua, Italy. Our concerts at the end of August will be well worth your while.

Rossi was controversial at the time for bringing polyphony to the Synagogue, and although it became accepted in 19-20th century European choirs, his Renaissance-Baroque settings of Hebrew prayers were a first and a last; no other composers seem to have followed up on his choral approach to the synagogue service. But his works are simply emotive, creative, beautiful to the ear (Dad always thought they were the best the Madrigal Society offered), and Barefoot will not merely be singing “white notes”; we intend to interpret and feel the music.

Our director Jenny’s attention to historical context has involved finding and identifying manuscripts of Rossi’s music and Rabbi Leone Modena’s poetry; reading an autobiography of the latter; and constant communication with Rossi expert Don Harran debating, among other matters, the significance of breaks in the music. In preparing other traditional Hebrew tunes for contrast, I have made my first attempt at arranging a full piece of music for the choir; I’ve had to get a grasp on the idea of maqam; and Jenny has lost much sleep listening to the wonderful library of music at piyut.org.il (and thus acquiring another 15 concerts of repertoire). We’ve unfortunately also dipped into controversies of Kol Isha, which will aid the Orthodox Jewish community in persisting to not hear Rossi’s works.

I do hope to see everyone and anyone at our concerts, entitled Songs of Ascents: Barefoot in Venice on the 28th and 29th of August, and the 2nd of September.

One down.

At the Sydney Jewish Choral Society, the tenors are the strongest in ability but the weakest in number. Our eclectic repertoire under Rose Grausman’s direction would be better served with a more proficient choir. The group has a habit of not learning the music until the last minute, leading to some stressful rehearsals. Hopefully we’ll do a good job of our next couple of concerts for the year, in which I’ll probably have a solo or two, and maybe next year I’ll consider asking the choir to sing some music I arrange… we’ll see.

The Sydney University Madrigal Society lacks men in general. In fact, the first rehearsal this semester indicates that almost all it has is altos. So if you know someone at Sydney Uni who’d like to sing, send them along! The Madrigals have been a wonderful group in the past, and our last concert under Jehan Kanga was a treat, so his upcoming Italian Tenth-Anniversary Spectacular has much potential.

I’ve also found myself singing with the overflow High Holiday choir at South Head Synagogue, which is a different experience altogether (no sheet-music, but little improvisation); and I am occasionally singing contemporary a cappella tunes with my friends Dan, Mud and Saritha.

Unfortunately, more time spent on music means less time spent on writing blog posts (among other things). So once again excuse my lack of recent insights into Bible, Judaism, Hebrew, linguistics, technology, society, or whatever else I might otherwise have had a moment to ponder and prosify.

Of course (in my way of doing things), my idea was somewhat more ambitious. Which is why it never got done. I’d like to see:

• More annotation of the origin of lyrics and tunes
• Links between tunes which are applied to different prayers

Essentially this means that the tune and the words are separated, and each of them could be annotated with Hebrew, transcription, translation, authorship/variant notes… and somewhere in the intersection people would upload recordings. Maybe I can ask Mendy and Gabe to work on it. Or mabye it was just too much to ever make a site out of and they’ve got it right.

Either way, I’ll need to find some time to record some tunes. (Because most of their voices are terrible…)

Not only do I have to work out the tune, but there seem to be a variety of texts for the purpose. This chart compares a few samples. Any bits people particularly like or don’t like??

• Is God a dweller on high, or a father to orphans?
• Should God procure space upon or under the wings of His presence?
• Do we mourn “6 million Jews”, or “our brothers, Children of Israel”, or “multitudes of thousands of Israel”, or the “holy and pure”?
• Do we specify “men, women and children”?
• Do we state that their death was “in the sanctification of God’s Name”?
• What different means of death should we list?
• Do we name the holocaust, or list the camps, or mention Germans, or Nazis, or that their name should be erased?
• Do we give attribution to our prayer for them, or to our charity on their behalf?
• Do we mention that among them were the righteous and learned?
• And why is יום pluralised irregularly as ימין when it follows the word קץ?

The original song also approximately rhymes the 2nd and 4th line of each of its three stanzas, which none of those translations do. So here is my go at a singable translation of Erev Shel Shoshanim:

Having never tried to translate poetry before, it was an exciting challenge. Some poems require a literal translation; others need to have the right sense but also the rhythm and rhyme. In this case, I chose the latter.

With the help of others, especially Simon Holloway, this is what we came up with:

Chishki Chizki (חשקי חזקי) by Isaac Aboab da Fonseca (1605-1693)

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 couple 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?

Shani had sent me this article in response to my asking: Where do these symbols of peace come from? Is the origin within the biblical story of Noah? Is their adoption much earlier, or much later?

the dove

The bible first refers to both the olive and the dove in connection with Noah and the flood (Genesis 8:6-12):

And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. And he sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground. But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him to the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth; and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her in unto him into the ark. And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. And the dove came in to him at eventide; and lo in her mouth an olive-leaf freshly plucked; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; and she returned not again unto him any more.

The raven is no symbol of peace, and is more often a symbol of bloodshed and battle. And the passage certainly describes a pretty picture, but it’s not clear from this biblical passage that the dove, or olive branch, or the two together, should mean anything about peace. It just means “it’s nearly safe to come outside”! The common image, though, is that the dove is the heralder or harbringer of peace.

Noah’s deluge story is not alone in using birds to identify a safe exit: Sumerian Gilgamesh XI tells the story of Utnapishtim in an ark with family and animals to escape the flood brought on by the gods. There he sends out a dove, and a swallow, and finally a raven that does not return, signalling time to exit. One site indicates that a dove was also used in an Aztec flood story, and of three birds being sent in a Chaldean version. Nonetheless, these are unlikely related to the modern symbology.

It may be worthwhile to explore the bible for dove imagery elsewhere. One relevant example is the psalmist expressing a desire for escape from persecution: “And I said: ‘Oh that I had wings like a dove! then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, I would lodge in the wilderness. Selah. I would haste me to a shelter from the stormy wind and tempest.’” (55:7-9) Isaiah refers to the moan of the dove twice (38:14, 59:11), as does Nahum 2:7. For a more contrary perspective, Hosea seems to indicate the dove’s foolishness, “כְּיוֹנָה פוֹתָה אֵין לֵב” “Like a silly dove, mindless” (7:11). The Song of Songs praises eyes like doves (1:15, 4:1, 5:12); elsewhere “O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,” (2:14); and “my dove, my perfect one” (5:2, 6:9). In the prophets, then, there is no clear symbolism of the dove towards peace, but Psalms and the Song (and possibly also Hosea) do seem to be presenting the expected image of innocence and purity.

The dove and turtledove are also the only birds institutionalised in Israelite sacrifice, and is considered the poor man’s sacrifice (Lev. 14:21ff).

The dove is also praised in the Greek world: it represented Athena who made a constellation of the dove that guided the Agronauts ship through the crushing rocks of the entry to the Black Sea. Bryant’s Analysis of Ancient Mythology (quoted here) suggests that the dove was seen as a maternal figure as a result of its gentleness and devotion to its young. Thus associated with femininity, it is sacred to a number of Greek goddesses: Astarte, Cybele, Isis, Venus, Juno, Mylitta and Aphrodite. While this follows the patterned image of the bird’s innocence, it does not clearly identify a symbolism of peace.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the dove in Christianity represents the Holy Spirit (as in Matthew 3:16 and the other three gospels), where the Spirit descends as a dove upon Jesus at his baptism. Elsewhere in Matthew (10:16), the dove is also used in simile for innocence. The 4th century patristic text of St Augustine (on Gospels of John Tractate 7:3) asks why the baptism was performed by means of a dove: Many things were said, and I am not able, nor is there need that I should go over all;—principally, however, to denote peace, because also the trees which were baptized outside, because the dove found in them fruit, it brought to the ark, as you remember the dove sent out by Noah from the ark, which floated on the flood and was washed by baptism, was not submerged.

Examining some of the commentaries (the Jewish ones at least) on the Genesis passage, we also get some interesting ideas about this choice bird. S.R. Hirsch (1808–1888) suggests that the Raven (עורב) was first sent because it “normally does not seek the vicinity of men; rather, ערבה, wilderness is its home”. So if it returns when sent, there must be no possible home outside. The dove, on the other hand, is accustomed to living among human beings, and so its residence outside indicates a much more comfortable environment.

Much more recently, we find doves used as symbols in works of art. Pablo Picasso painted a number of famous dove images, such as “Child with Dove”. Picasso kept a number of birds, and doves & pigeons were among his favourite to portray.

Elsewhere in art, and particularly sculpture, doves are often seen kissing: an image of love (possibly inspired by the Greek symbology). Associated with both the images of peace and of love, we are often also brought to imagine the mournful sound of “when doves cry” (for Prince it was more about a relationship than about world values).

And now we have doves in parliament. I get the impression that, like the hawk for the right side, this is meant to be a slightly insulting label. Just as hawks are imagined to be fierce and cruel, the dove is not just used here as a symbol of peace, but also as an image of being tame, even incapable. In the same way, things can be “lovey-dovey”, which doesn’t just make them calm and innocent, but exaggeratedly so, to the extent of being boring or disgusting. We can’t forget Dove chocolate, which depends on sensual, creamy, smooth pictures of liquid chocolate to compare to the implied softness and calm of the dove.

The major image we find of the dove, then, is not merely one of peace as is portrayed in the Noah story. It is more one of complete innocence. It may only be when the olive branch is between its beak that the dove most certainly comes to symbolise peace.

the olive

But the olive branch has its own independent symbology: one today may extend an olive branch to a potential partner for peace.

Biblically, one of the seven fruits of the promised land, the olive is often mentioned alongside the vineyard in terms of one’s grove, maybe a symbol of prosperity; its oil too creates light, and only the purest may be brought to light the temple’s lights. In Judges (9:7-15), Jotham tells a parable where the olive tree is the first candidate to be king of all the trees. Many features of Solomon’s temple were made of olive wood (1 Kings 6:23-33). In the prophets such as Jeremiah 11:16 and Hosea 14:6, the olive is a subject of beauty to which Israel is compared.

As a side note, the same rabbinic commentator quoted above disagrees that peace should be the primary symbol represented by the branch in the Noah story. On Gen. 8:11, Hirsch says:

For a whole year the dove had been fed but had not enjoyed טרף, food gained independently by its own efforts. That it had remained out the whole day was already a sign than the waters had receded; it had already found rest for its foot. But it could have been driven back by hunger. Then it arrived with an olive leaf in its mouth as food — something that it normally does not use for food! Our sages take this bitter olive leaf in th emouth of the dove to preach that great face: Bitter, unusual, normally intolerable food, eaten in freedom and independence, is sweeter than the sweetest in a dependent condition. So for us the olive leaf is not a symbol of peace but of the value of independence and freedom and of content and moderation.

This idea of independence, though, is paralleled with that of prosperity that we see both in Hebrew and Greco-Roman tradition.

In some possible coincidence, the olive branch like the dove is associated with Athena in Greek mythology: Athens was to be bestowed upon the god that would give the most useful gift to humanity, and while Poseidon offered the horse (a representative of war), Athena won with the gift of the olive tree. In ancient Greece it was a symbol both of peace and prosperity; in Rome, those defeated in war would carry olive branches (like a white flag) to seek peace, and its senators and consuls would wear the olive branch as a wreath.

The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols suggests that “for Islam, the olive is the central tree, the World axis, a symbol of Universal Man and of the Prophet.”

Wikipedia brings a speculative explanation of why olives may have gathered this understanding: olive trees take a very long time to bear fruit, so the cultivation of olives is something that is generally impossible in time of war. A school named after the olive tree explains at some length why the olive tree is such an effective symbol. Islam online has an article which focusses highly on the nutritional and healing properties of the olive’s oil.

The olive branch features to represent peace on many coats of arms. The United States’ Great Seal bears an eagle (bald-headed) which grasps in its right talon an olive branch of thirteen leaves. The flag of the United Nations flanks the world’s globe in the same branches (stylised a little). Both the emblems of the Israel Defense Forces and the coat of arms of the State bear olive branches. In the former, it twists around a sword, implying that it intends to use the sword for peace; in the latter, it flanks the menorah, an image borrowed from the prophets:

In Zechariah chapter 4 we find a description of a golden candelabrum “and two olive-trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof”. (Note that these are olive trees, and not merely branches, but the branch is more common in heraldry and is mentioned later in the passage.) And the angel reveals what this image is to represent, with a famous (but opaque) quote, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.” Zecharia further questions, “what are these two olive trees? … What are these two olive branches, which are beside the two golden spouts, that empty the golden oil out of themselves?” And the angel finally replies “These are the two anointed ones (lit. sons of oil), that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.” It may be these two which the Book of Revelation (11:3-6) considers G-d’s two witnesses who will prophesy in sackcloth for 3.5 years. Either way, if one takes these “two annointed ones” as messianic figures, they surely too are representatives of peace.

Very often the dove and olive branch are pictured together as a symbol, deriving directly from Noah’s story. One among a genre of Hebrew peace songs sung by IDF troupes is Chaya Samir’s “יונה עם עלה של זית” (“Dove with olive branch”), often sung at memorial ceremonies on Israel’s day of remembrance for lost soldiers. A beautiful tune accompanies sweet, dreamy words:

יש לי תמונה בבית של יונה עם עלה של זית
מעליה גלגל החמה, לרגליה פגעי מלחמה
היונה של השלום, על חורבותיה של אומה אחרת
תמונה מושלמת, חלומות בתוך מסגרת
יונה עם עלה של זית
צאי מן התמונה, השיבי את האמונה
שהשלום יבוא בעקבותייך…

I have a picture at home of a dove with an olive branch. Upon it is the wheel of the sun, at its feet are the beatings of war. The dove of peace, upon the ruins of another land. A perfect picture, dreams within a frame. O, dove with olive branch! Escape from the picture! Return the faith that Peace will come at your heels…

The song ends more sadly, the singer lamenting that the picture on her wall reminds her that outside, there is a raven in the trees, while the dove of peace hurries to no place, is forever a tourist, never staying. A moving lyric, and again a comparison of these birds, and a statement that while the dove is a bringer of peace, it is also a slow-moving absent-minded creature, never likely to stay at one place, just as peace so often fails to do.

the rainbow

A third sign of peace is brought from this same episode of Noah. As God sets his bow in the sky (Genesis 9:13), we see the rainbow as a symbol of a covenant never to destroy mankind in one blow again. As such it is a symbol of peace between God and his creations, and the observant Jew with a good memory will recite over it: Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the World, who remembers the covenant, is faithful in His covenant and upheld in His statements.

In other cultures, the rainbow finds quite different meaning: Gilgamesh of Sumeria suggests the rainbow gives divine sanction to war; in Greek society it is a pathway from the heavens, as between the Norse Ásgard and Midgard; to the Chinese a slit in the sky, sealed with precious stones; and of course its ends are the prime sites to look for gold (hidden by a leprechaun).

But it seems that the peace idea—maybe more explicit for the rainbow in Genesis than for the dove and olive branch—has been the one most sustained, being associated with various peace, cooperative and social action movements, and the rainbow idea (in its beauty and its symbolism) draws in hippies for Rainbow Gatherings. Now, though, one of the most prevalent implications of the rainbow, as the rainbow flag, is the GLBT movement. In many of these cases, the symbolism is not merely that of peace (especially the biblical peace between G-d and man), but the idea of variety in colour, and the gathering of diversity. While the intention of diversity may have been the original motivation for the rainbow flag associated with homosexuality, I feel that the symbol of peace within the rainbow overhangs it, and its message is really the meaningful one of “peace through difference”.

As the world is essentially reborn, the ending of Noah’s story presents itself as a major paradigm for divine peace and covenant with man. Although it is not always clear when tracing the symbols’ use we see much change in their force over time, the dove, the olive branch and the rainbow have all been borrowed into popular culture as representatives of a hope for peace. May it be upon us in the near future.

That morning I got up after not much sleep to go to the Ghetto Shul and be chazan there for Tefilat Hageshem, had a brief lunch there (too much food, too much the same, not enough eaters) and went back to bed. As night fell from evening, after having a seudah shelishit without food (ie just singing) with Allison and her friend Sophie, I packed my bag and was ready to go to our first stop for the night: the Ghetto Shul.

There were nine of us who had decided to walk from downtown Montreal up to the more Jewish neighbourhood of Cote St Luc, about 8 kilometres:
Arié, David Zvi, Denise, Greg, Nathan, Rachel H, Rachel K, Sarah and me. Things started a little late at the Ghetto Shul (announced for 7, actually after 7:30), and yet at the same time I was surprised at how fast things went. We did two hakafot (rounds of celebration and dancing with the torah scrolls) before discussing our movement to the next location (Westmount Chabad). And the discussion took a while to complete, so in the meantime I danced some more, getting hungrier. It turned out half the group weren’t packed and ready to go yet to the night’s adventures, so when things were finally sorted out, the 4th hakafa was already coming to a completion and tables were being taken out for food. Despite our hunger, those of us that were ready left off, to meet the others at Westmount.

So four of us headed down the road for the ~35 minute walk west. It didn’t feel that long, probably because we were singing (and a little dancing) through the streets along the way: me and Arié and Denise and David Zvi (who was dressed in a long black gown and tallit for the occasion). We also figured that at this late hour, we were better off stopping at Shaar Hashomayim who would finish before Chabad. But the Shaar were dining, and it looked/smelled like quite some feast—the sort of thing we should have already paid for. The idea that it might have been worthwhile to sneak in past the security guards only came up afterwards, and we arrived at Westmount to discover that they too had just finished the services. But there was plenty of good food on the table: mostly kosher American Chinese, some of it actually bearable (fried rice even good, but chicken mostly battered alongside pineapple). So we stuck around there for a short while; a couple of plates of food, a couple of glasses of wine and whisky shots; a couple of dances though the dancing was over; a couple of brief conversations. The rest of the group had turned up, and the night was yet long and Cote St Luc far. Next top was another Chabad centre, but some walk away.

We walked on, towards the Montreal Torah Center, the unassuming name of a large Chabad establishment in the Jewish centre of Montreal. It was quite a cool night, and many chins were considering freezing off, but the singing continued, albeit reduced, and it was altogether quite pleasant. If nothing else, it was a wonderful group of people to spend the walk with. When we got to MTC, we were met by large crowds of people in the entranceway. Once again, we had just missed the end of the official action, and now there were only a handful of hasidic farbrengens, and young people crowding the foyer.

So we got bored of MTC pretty quickly, and headed towards “The Lighthouse”, dropping our bags at Arié’s place on the way. The Lighthouse is a youthful scene in CSL run by Rabbi Elyon Shemesh, a shaliach from Israel and a student of Shlomo Carlebach. As we entered his apartment, the nine of us were fervently greeted by many familiar faces, shocked, amazed and excited to hear we had just walked all the way from Downtown (it was now after 1am, too). So we joined in the party, meeting some of the locals and having a good time, snacking on cakes and pretzels. And Elyon rose to speak, and spoke, a long personal anecdote, with a few songs and some nice teachings interwoven, and it lasted an hour. All cheered his words, and decided it was about time for bed. So we too left and found our way into Arié’s basement at 3am. (There Greg entertained us in his unusual lack of sobriety; Nathan and I played footsies through the night.)

We woke up fairly late: the family had decided not to wake us, so we all eventually crawled out of the house in time to miss most of the celebrations at the nearby synagogue. The congregation we attended is a small Moroccan one founded by Arié’s father, and when we got there the crowds had left to dance through a circuit of other synagogues in the neighbourhood. Just as those of us arriving late caught up all we had missed, the congregation returned. They returned with song for the taking out of the torah from the ark. For some reason, the sifrei torah here were not in the decorated cases usually expected for a Sephardi congregation, but were dressed like Ashkenazi scrolls; many of the lovelier tunes were Sephardi, although there was a spattering of chassidic nigunim among them as well. The hazan there has a wonderful voice, and an oriental style that I continually fail to imitate (some think I do a good “shabbehi yerushalayim”, but they clearly haven’t listened carefully to the real thing). According to their custom each nearly-bar mitzvah boy went up to the torah, and upon completing his turn received a toy car (of course one of the congregants owned a toy store—at the same time, they were forbidden to open the box on the festival). They had an atmosphere imbued with cheer and excitement, and for those of us mostly familiar with European styles it was a beautiful experience. I nonetheless did visit a couple of times the Adat shul around the corner, particularly the congregation in its basement, where the dancing continued much later (I still only got in for the last minute of it).

After the services, the Moroccan congregants and my group of friends went downstairs to enjoy the delicacies of the lunch Arié’s mother had prepared in exquisite North African (or otherwise) taste. Meat-filled pastries, turkey, artichokes; a nice small buffet of delicious food. And of course mint tea whose many species of leaves she ships regularly from Morocco; and sweet battered pastries with fruits for dessert.

Many of our group had left by dessert and were off to have another picnic lunch some distance away at Mount Royal; Denise, Arié and I were left with his brother (Yoel) and friend to rest at their house. We came up with an idea of heading up to Quebec City for the weekend of the 28th, but that plan seems less likely now—besides, we would miss all the pre-Halloween parties! Soon we were back in the synagogue for some more prayer, food and delicious song. Later, at Arié’s home we waited for the family to return to say havdalah and bring out the festival. The family gathered around: Arié’s mother and father, Arié, Yoel, his sister and her boyfriend, Denise and me. It was a nice family gathering with beautiful custom and a blessing from the father of the household for the following week’s prosperity for each of his children and those present. Like from the congregation earlier, the prayer was adorned with sporadic “amen” responses from those listening.

Arié continues to repeat an idea from Yosef: Sephardi Judaism is real religion, while the Ashkenazim are all about “what does the halacha say?” And maybe he’s right, and maybe it’s why chassidut felt the need to escape the chambers of learning and to jump up and down in a natural and loving fervour away from the nitpickings of the law. I don’t know how I feel about this, and I think that there needs to be a balance in the styles of practice. I certainly did enjoy my taste of this Moroccan flavour, and will definitely be back for more.

With a lift back to Villa-Maria station and a ticket lent to me who bore no cash, the month’s festivities were over and we were on our way home.