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This week I had a conversation with one of my Cantorial teachers, somehow the phrase “making magic out of thin air” was used. I’m not sure what we were speaking about; an upcoming concert, her liminal space as she navigates retirement, my kids moving from middle school to high school and elementary to middle school… but this phrase struck me as exactly what we do here. Music, the act of creating vibrations, which translate in our brains to tone, and pitch, and rhythm, Music is the act of creating out of thin air. And when we do it well, when our instruments and voices join together in a sacred act, such as in prayers, sometimes magic happens too.  

Nearly 6 years ago the rabbis and I sat on a couch trying to envision a new kind of worship, there are an infinite number of aesthetic options what might work for us at temple Israel. I had recently returned from our teen Federation teen trip to Israel, and I had recently been exposed to the music of a number of Israeli synagogue composers at conferences and through a publication called Libi B’Mizrach. This is it! Lets create a worship that connects us to our progressive communities in Israel, its not politics, its just connection. With some postponement due to Covid this Shabbat Shira service was created with this connection in mind.  

Over the last 2 years, through guest Cantor Yahala Lachmish, my ACC mission to Israel this past summer, the publication of the 3rd volume of Libi B’mizrach, and my research on Mizrachi refugees as part of the story of Israel’s beginning, I have grown my exposure, knowledge and interest in the Jewish communities of the Middle east and particularly the music traditions they carry with them. The music of Shabbat Shira has adapted to reflect this, adding more melodies from the Moroccan, Iraqi and Yerushalmi traditions. Highlighting the middle eastern rhythm that run throughout the Israeli community melodies.  

Sometimes, such as the prayer we just sang, we combine a piyyut, medieval poem, with a traditional prayer text to make it more utilitarian in an American prayer context. But even as we limit the difficulty of using the piyyut language, many paragraphs of medieval Hebrew often with rhyme schemes that are difficult to translate, we maintain the traditional melodies of communities very different then those who founded the Jewish community in Omaha.  

Ki Eshm’rah shabbat is using a Moroccan melody for a text written by Iben Ezra, an 11th Century Spanish Jewish Scholar, commentator and halakhist, which the editors of the music book has now combined with the prayer words of V’shamru. The theme is the same, a covenant between God and the Jewish people, and we, like magic, connect through time and space to God, history, Iben Ezra and the Jewish traditions of the Moroccan community.  

While the music can sometimes feel different in its tonality; its overall repetition, rhythmic sense and short melodic phrases makes it quite catchy and I hope you find yourself humming along as quickly and easily as I am. As the music of Shabbat Shira has changed, I have found myself ever more interested in our people who did not descend from Europe, like my family, who did not live for generations in a Christian world, who’s world history is so very different than the Euro centric education I was raised on. I am curious and I want to know more.  

It will be a journey and one I hope you will support my going on, but learning more about these communities, and the their music, is something I’d like to add to my library of knowledge. And one way I will do this is a mission I hope you will consider joining me on. Every other year the ACC, American conference of Cantors, leads a community mission to an international location. In February of 2027 the ACC will be traveling to Morocco to explore its Jewish history, the community that continues to live there, see its amazing architecture and food, and enjoy the music that comes naturally when traveling with Cantors. Unlike a conference or my mission, the past summer to Israel, these trips are designed for a Cantor to bring her congregation with her. We have a bit of time, but if you, like me, have been inspired by the music of Shabbat Shira, if you would like to know more about the Jewish communities of North Africa, (specifically Morocco), or you would just like an really amazing travel opportunity, please speak to me and I can share information about the February 2027 mission.  

Shabbat Shira service was designed to seek a different prayer aesthetic, one perhaps outside of the comfort zone of 20th or even 21st century American Reform worship. But this aesthetic was envisioned to help connect us to how other Jews prayer around the world. First connecting to the Israeli progressive community and now expanding to a timeless cultural community of places where Jews have lived since the Babylonian exile 2500 years ago. The history of our community from the Euphrates all the way to the straights of Gibraltar is long and diverse and we are just touching the top of this sandy hill as we learn from the piyyutim and melodies they brought with them to Israel. 

Jewish worship, I have always believed, is about connection, connecting to the Divine, connecting to the community sitting with us, and connecting across time and space to the whole Jewish community celebrating Shabbat or the seasonal holidays. And on this week, I feel the connection of magic pulled out of the air, with the rhythm of the drum, the vibration of the cello and the spark of energy that moves throughout this room as we connect not just to each other, but to a broader Jewish community than we have truly imagined before.  

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Watch the entirety of Friday’s service here.

Temple Talk is a recap of sermons given from the Bimah for those who missed a Sermon or who wanted to revisit the words spoken at a previous sermon.