Rabbi Rami Shapiro on Spiritual Music

Spiritual music is music that lifts me beyond the egoic “I” to the divine “Thou.” I can experience this through Bach and Mozart, Coltrane, Cage, and Reich, and Shankar and Carlebach. I can find it Gospel choirs and Gregorian chant, Hindu and Jewish kirtan (call and response), and Sufi dhikr. Spiritual music defies form, and shares function; it is self-transcending.

Liturgical, sacred, or religious music may or may not be spiritual. Just because a piece of music is traditionally part of a worship service, or sacred to this or that religious tradition does not make it transformation. Nor does it preclude it from being so. Music is spiritual in those who make it and those who listen to it find it to be transformative.

Music has been a part of Judaism at least since Moses’ sister Miriam took a timbrel and sang (Exodus 15:20). David played the lyre and sang; the prophets used drumming and chanting to open themselves to the presence of God; sacrifice was mixed with song in the Jerusalem Temple worship, and hazzanut (cantorial singing) is essential to synagogue services. Indeed in traditional Jewish study halls texts are sung rather than merely read.

While all of this is religious music, not all of it need be spiritual. I have been awash in God’s forgiveness while listening to a good hazzan chant Kol Nidre, the affirmation of freedom sung on the eve of Yom Kippur, and I have been left cold when a novice sings the same prayer. It all depends on the power of the voice and the receptivity of the ear. And both of these must be cultivated and learned.

One of the things that troubles me as liberal Jews search for more participatory worship experiences is that the power of the cantor to chant and the capacity of the worshipper to listen is being lost. Too often we want our cantors to be camp song leaders. Too often we hide from the vulnerability and humility that comes with deep listening by singing along. Too often a “good” service is defined as one where people clap their hands, rather than transform their souls.

Music can be a powerful means to spiritual transformation, but only if we let it. My hope is that we Jews train our cantors not only to sing, but in how to teach the rest of us how to listen.

Comments

[Jonathan Neufeld]

What an interesting bunch of first posts opening this discussion! I'd like to respond to everybody but, as Michael Rose so eloquently pointed out, time is short. Rabbi Shapiro, I very nearly wrote something that I take to be like your opening sentence, but without the "divine." A key to the spirituality of music (and I wonder if this might not just be a key to good music) is this lifting from the egoic I to an acknowledgment of another.

One might be tempted to think that the music does this all on its own, but of course it doesn't. The egoic I has to listen and to be lifted. And so it seems that the idea of spiritual music (or perhaps good music) is tied to an idea of “deep” listening, just as you say. Deep listening, then, is something that doesn't happen to us, rather it is something that we do—something that spiritual music calls us to do, perhaps.

This call for deep listening and acknowledgment of another is given another historical, communal and political aspect by Odessa Settles' excellent contribution on Spirituals. I hope I can grab another moment later and comment on that post as well.