Today’s guest blogger is Dr. Marsha Bryan Edelman, author of Discovering Jewish Music. This is the first installment of  Dr. Edelman’s two part series on music’s role in Jewish history. Click here to read part 2.

There’s a popular synopsis of Jewish history that says “They tried to kill us. We prevailed.  Let’s eat!”  This tendency toward gorging is balanced (somewhat) by the six fast days on the Jewish calendar, all of which leaves us with a “feast or famine” approach to Jewish holidays – and eating.

This “all or nothing” mentality can also be applied to the history of Jewish music.  In the days of the Jerusalem Temple, music was an elaborate and essential component of Jewish rituals.  The Temple orchestra was comprised of at least 12 harps and lyres of various sizes and enhanced with trumpets, finger cymbals and the jingling of the bells sown onto the hem of the high priest’s garments.  No fewer than 12 Levites sang in chorus, chanting psalms to accompany the sacrifices.  As the 150^th psalm itself testifies, the presence of a variety of instruments (used both in Temple rites and secular celebrations) were necessary for praising God, and the human voice, uniquely able to articulate specific praises, was the most highly prized of all.

All of that elaborate musical activity came to an end when the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE.  The rabbis marked the national mourning for their lost ritual center (and political autonomy) by imposing a ban on the public performance of music.  They obviously couldn’t monitor the informal singing of lullabies and work songs, but public use of instruments was limited to wedding celebrations and festivities surrounding the inauguration of a new synagogue or Torah scroll.  Even synagogue singing was limited to perfunctory chants by the sheliach tzibbur (representative of the community who led the prayers) and brief responses by the congregation.  Remarkably, that ban held for the better part of 1800 years! There were isolated examples of art music written for synagogue services and life cycle celebrations during the 16^th – 18^th centuries, but the overwhelming response to the Diaspora experience was a decided lack of formal musical accompaniment, despite the evolution and prominence of music all around us.

The Educational Program on Yiddish Culture

Two very different developments changed the course of Jewish music in Ashkenazic communities, and led to the proliferation of Jewish music that we hear in the US today.  The first was the re-insertion of “joy” into Eastern European Jewish life through the popular philosophy of the Hassidic movement.  The Ba’al Shem Tov (ca. 1700 – 1760) used the wordless melody, the nig’n, to express Jewish emotions in song.  Precisely because it was without text, the nig’n could be sung at any tempo, and could capture – or change – any mood.  Whether devoted to achieving dveykut (spiritual communion with God), dancing, or punctuating a rabbinic discourse with lively pounding on the rebbe’s tish (table), Hassidic songs captivated the masses, and enabled even the least educated Jew to express devotion to God and insert positive energy into Jewish life.

In Western Europe, the offer of citizenship put a formal end to the stateless wandering of the Jews.  The new Reform movement refocused Jewish prayer away from mourning for the loss of Jerusalem and upended the historic ban on synagogue music inspired by the destruction of the Temple.  Newly composed synagogue repertoire that modeled itself on the music of the church (complete with organ accompaniment) brought Jewish liturgical music into the Modern era.  Conservatory-trained musicians provided cantorial recitatives and choral works, and congregants added the singing of hymns to their role as active participants in musical worship.

Dr. Marsha Bryan Edelman is Professor Emerita of Music and Education at Gratz College.  A musician herself, active as a singer, conductor, arranger and producer, she has also served the Zamir Choral Foundation in a variety of musical and administrative capacities since 1971. Marsha has taught and lectured on a variety of topics relating to the nature and history of Jewish music for nearly 40 years, and published a long list of articles and program notes for concerts and recordings and recordings, including a highly regarded book, Discovering Jewish Music (Jewish Publication Society 2003; paper 2007).