2006 Cantors Assembly Convention

Proceedings
PAGE
American Niggunim Passionate Davening
Monday May 8, 2006, 9:30 a.m.
Presenter: Rabbi Charles Simon

Tribute to the Music & Personality of Hazzan Max Wohlberg

Monday May 8, 2006, 4:00 p.m.
Presenters: Hazzanim Kenneth Cohen,
Perry Fine, David Lefkowitz, Erica Lippitz,
Lorna Wallach-Kalet & William Lieberman, Chair

19

Annual Address of the Executive Vice President

Presenter: Hazzan Steven Stein
Tuesday May 9, 2006, 9:30 a.m.

28

The Genius of Abraham Joshua Heschel

Tuesday May 9, 2006, 11:30 a.m.
Presenter: Rabbi Gordon Tucker

31

Vocal Production: Building the Throat A Unique Process

Tuesday May 9, 2006, 3:45 p.m.
Presenter: Dr. Don Roberts

43

Contract Issues
Wednesday May 10, 2006 10:45 a.m.
Presenter: Hazzan Howard Shalowitz

49

Spirituality and the Pulpit

Wednesday, May 10, 2006, 1:45 p.m.
Hazzanim Jack Chomsky and Emanuel Perlman

70

New Ways to Teach Tropes in the Computer Age

Wednesday, May 10, 2006, 1:45 p.m.
Hazzan Tzvi Taub

81

American Niggunim Passionate Davening

Monday May 8, 2006 9:30 a.m.
Presenter: Rabbi Charles Simon
(Alberto Mizrahi)
Were here not so much to present a finished product in fact its nowhere near finished, its just beginning
but to present a report on an initiative thats taking place. And Im going to let Rabbi Simon, Chuck
Simon of the Federation of Jewish Mens Clubs, explain to us the process by which this thing began. But,
alternatively, it is called Passionate Davening. (Audience member makes request.) Ah. Its impossible
to understand what Im saying it feels like Im under water. Thats what youre telling me. (Another
comment from audience.) Yeah, well Im telling him now. Can you do something like give me a little less
bass, maybe, I dont know. (Audience input.) Too much reverb. Thats bettermuch better, because Im
not so close to the microphone. In fact, this is even better, Ill bet. And if I do this (voice
fading)(audience laughter)its amazing! Oh, you can still hear me wait let me go out the room see
what happens. (Laughter)
Its called alternatively its called Passionate Davening, vkarev pzurenu, to bring in the hoards and
hoards of people that are missing from our synagogues and whatever the hell you want to call it. I really
dont care what you call it. What we are doing will be explained by Chuck Simon. Then were going to
have a few people who are in pilot programs come up and speak to us about how far they are into the
program, and then Im gonna go over a few things that Ive found to be successful in my congregation.
Many of you are doing the same things. I laud it, I laud you, and I applaud you. Some of you are doing
even better, more exciting things, in which case Id love for you to share because this is going to be an
interactive morning.
What we want is not only to tell you whats happening with us and how it came to happen, but I want your
ideas so that we can best understand how it is that we can help those people who have not yet quite
st
gotten onto the retooling for the 21 Century sort of track. OK? And if you have a problem with it, well
hear that too. So, without further ado, Rabbi Charles Simon, Chuck Simon the Executive Director (or is it
President?) Executive Director of the Federation of Jewish Mens Clubs.
(Applause)
Chuck Simon
Everybody can hear me out there, yes. Id like to do this as kind of a report to the assembly. Let me
explain to you about Passionate Davening, not going into the standing room only. (Speaker is not at
microphonecould not understand remainder of sentence).
Our program began. We began last July at the Federation of Jewish Mens Club Biennial Convention.
During the course of Shabbat morning, we had experimented with psuke dzimra -- repeating niggunim, a
little bit of teaching. We looked at our time a little differently and felt that we were able to build, over the
course, a Shabbat morning with 500 or 600 individuals there, a congregation that gave back -- a
congregation that provided you with energy. I always look at the litmus test of a congregation as whether
or not the congregation can give back. You know many of us have this kind of vampiric relationship with
the congregation where you give and you give, and they take and they take. Well, the idea was can we
reverse this, can we make it work. And we were just astounded by the results that we received.
And walking out into the dining hall afterwards, my out-going and in-coming Presidents said, Gee, this is a
shul Id like to belong to. If we could only figure a way out, a way where we could market this and develop
this further. And, like an idiot, I said, Its really just a question of time and money. If you really want to do
this, lets think about how it can be done. And, first, lets go talk to the Cantors Assembly. And so, we
went to Steve and we began a series of dialogues, which resulted in this program.

What we attempted to do was to create 10 to 15 models in different synagogues throughout North America
that were geographically and culturally different. Where the Rabbi and Cantor worked well together and
there was a Mens Club that either could take this up because they were strong enough or needed this to
strengthen them which would serve as kind of a marketing team. And we didnt know what would
happen. Frankly, we dont know whats going to happen. Nothing like this has ever been done before, but
it sounded good on paper.
So Alberto and I kind of made a cross list of Rabbis and Cantors, looking for the long list of say 35 to 40
teams. And I was surprised how quickly we were actually able to get 25 teams where we had a Rabbi and
a Cantor who got along. I feel like Abraham only 25? Well, 25 came easily and then we crossreferenced it with Mens Clubs and we developed a short list of about 15 congregations. Currently we
have 9 pilots in operation. Ill give you a brief rundown of where they are and what theyre doing in a few
minutes.
There were certain basic assumptions that we made. One is that we were trying to figure out a way to get
more people to come to shul and so any congregation which entered into this pilot committed to a years
study, a years work, a years process. And that this process would result in something, which was
indigenous growth in other words, nothing was trying --- we were not trying to impose anything onto a
congregation externally. We were not trying to change the congregation, its culture, by instituting
instrumental music if it was not their nature to have instrumental music, and so on and so forth.
And the third component was that we needed to also -- in addition to getting a congregation involved in this
process (which Ill explain in a few moments) -- we also needed to start to think about what type of music
would resonate with our congregants, and their children, and our children 10 years down the road. And
this is where Alberto came in. I did the process work. He did the music work. And so we began a process
of trying to think about, how do we create new music?
Let me explain a little about the process. Rabbi and Cantor would say, well to improve attendance at X
service (it could be Kabbalat Shabbat and Maariv, it could be Maariv, it could Shaharit, it could be Shabbat
Morning), whatever it is we choose. So select one service. And we brought the Mens Club in as a
marketing arm and everybody agreed to suspend normal thinking. Everything was up for grabs. And so
the group began to ask questions like:
Is the service too long?
Is the service too short?
Is the time that services are running the most flexible and the most workable times for our community?
Does the Rabbi speak enough?
Does the Rabbi speak too much?
Should more pages be announced?
Should less pages be announced? You know were not idiots. Why are you announcing pages every 2
seconds?
What kind of mood should be created in services?
And, of course, the first question we asked is How should one feel when they leave a service? Because,
if you dont know how youre going to feel when you leave, then how can you possibly plan and create a
mood thats going to resonate with our members.

And so we began a process of involving lay leadership and professionals into this dialogue. Similarly then
music became a key part and the role that music had, and one other thing which we found was very
important and this is and that is we felt that, if lay people were involved in thinking in this process, that
they would feel ownership. And if they felt ownership, they would come and they would bring their friends.
And youll hear this from the pilot groups that are running.
So whats happened is -- what was started as an initial group of Mens Club people (because they had to
say yes, they wanted to do this) -- this group was expanded into a larger group that perhaps involved
people from ritual. Members of the Sisterhood, people who dont come to shul at all, young families, empty
nesters, whatever the group, the targeted population group was that the core group had determined was
needed to make this service work.
Just think about what would happen if you were a member of a shul and the phone rang and it was the
Rabbi or the Cantor on the phone. Well, today I happen to belong to a shul, so you know what happens
when the phone rings I think, What do they want? How much is it going to be? But here we have a
situation that is totally different. The phone rings and the Rabbi or the Cantor says, Hello Shlomo, this is
the Rabbi. Would you be willing to come to a meeting and think with me? Im very concerned about what
happens in our synagogue at Kabbalat Shabbat and Maariv. And I know you dont come to shul very
often, but you represent a sizable portion of our congregation and Id like to hear what would work for you.
Would you come and join us? Well, as a member of the shul I would be so flattered that my Rabbi or
Cantor had called me. And I certainly have opinions on everything when it comes to tfilah that people
come.
This process began and kind of began to engage our laity and, as a result of that, they began to feel
ownership in this product. And so what weve done since this project started in September is weve
selected 9 congregations. Let me just give you a brief up-date and then Ill draw some conclusions.
Several of the pilots have selected Kabbalat Shabbat and Maariv. Its a natural, though some of the
congregations have targeted different groups -- empty nesters, for one -- a young adults under 35 for
another. One congregation has determined to work on the shiva minyan and I think this is absolutely
fabulous because the congregation realized that, in order to provide a service of comfort to a mourner, the
service could vary musically and liturgically, based upon the religious connection of that family. A family
that doesnt read Hebrew, a family that hardly ever comes to shul might require a different type of service
to provide them with comfort than the normative Maariv service with an added Psalm.
One congregation selected Shabbat Morning and two of our congregations selected the actual daily Maariv
service, where our Hazzanim are writing music and trying to figure out ways that they could use new music
and use Maariv as a way to build and to make daily prayer more a regular commitment in our synagogues.
So thats where we are at this point. Weve selected our pilots. We have 9 pilots, it turned out, that are
now functioning. The first one of them will actually kind of be kicking off next Friday night, but youll hear
more about that in a few minutes.
And we anticipate over the next, hopefully by the end of the summer, all of these congregations will have
created their product, have developed their marketing strategy, and they will continue to then run, under
guidance of Cantorial and Mens Club guidance, for the next 8 months. So Im really just telling you about
this, you know. Hopefully, if it works, if we have anything to show, youll invite us back next year and we
can say, this is what weve learned. Just like we hope that all of these congregations will showcase their
success at the Federation of Jewish Mens Clubs biennial next July in Chicago, where well have been
able to have written this up and show it to 200 to 300 congregations. And then, if were really successful, if
something really happens, we can turn this over to the movement. We could give it to the United
Synagogue we can look at the movement and say; this is what weve learned together. How would you
like to move on this? Because we really want to make sure that our children have places to daven. And
order to do that we really need to understand that the culture of our synagogues in praying needs to be
modified, needs to be tweaked in order to respond to the needs of future generations.
So thats my report to the Board. Id like to thank you for listening and I can take questions later on.

(Applause)
Nancy Abramson and David Lefkowitz of the Park Avenue Synagogue are one of our pilots and Id like
Nancy to just say a few words.
Come on up!
Nancy Abramson
I just found out listening to Chuck that we are the first ones. We chose to work on our Friday Night Service
and we are rolling it out this coming Friday night. Its not that our Friday Night Service was broken. It
didnt need fixing in that regard, but we really felt it needed a new infusion of life. The people who came
were a small group of people. They come fairly regularly and there was sweetness to our Friday night, but
we really wanted to make it more vibrant and to reach more people.
We also have a very strong Mens Club at Park Avenue Synagogue and we felt that, with their input, we
could create a vibrant, well-attended service. So what Id like to do this morning, with Davids help, is just
sort of go through the chronology of how we got to this week right before the service because I think
thats an interesting process to share. It almost doesnt matter what music were doing. What matters is
that people come and fill up the room. And heres what we did to hopefully make that happen.
We began, as many interesting projects begin, in a Star Bucks, when David and I, in January, met with
Chuck and sat around for almost 2 hours and just kind of did what Chuck said. We threw out all of our
assumptions and tried to think outside of the box as to what would work for Park Avenue. And thats kind
of when we decided on Friday night and on a little bit of the process of how we were doing that.
At the end of January, I contacted some of the leaders of our Mens Club to set up a meeting with a few of
their members. They were involved right away because they chose who was going to attend this meeting
I didnt choose. But I let them know that the goal was to discuss Friday night services and to increase
both attendance and meaning in our Friday night services. And, again, as Chuck said, they were thrilled to
be contacted and to be involved.
In the middle of February, David and I met with four members of our Mens Club. They were enthusiastic
about the project and had a lot of ideas on how to make our service a better one. Among these four, all of
them were service attenders, but they didnt necessarily come to our Friday Night Service. Everyone left
with an assignment, and that was to make a list of a few ideas that might make someone who is not a
regular service attendee come and enjoy this service. So they went home with homework.
The next day after this meeting, I sent out a synopsis of the meeting to the participants and to our Rabbis
and to the Synagogue chairperson. I realized that it was very important to include as many of the key
players as possible and that if they were invested from the beginning, they would be willing to go along
with this idea and not to just go along but to show up and to encourage others to show up.
The beginning of March these Mens Club members who had been at the previous meeting, both Rabbis
and David and I, the Synagogue Chairman and Chuck met again to discuss how to bring people to the
service and how it should be. We began to write some publicity for the service and one of the Mens Club
guys came up with this great line, Turn Off Your Cell Phones, Pagers, iPods and Blackberries and Come
and Have a Spiritual Friday Night Service. And we tweaked that and that sort of what has been on all the
publicity that weve done. It was just a three-sentence little blurb.
We also agreed at that meeting to form a larger committee to expand into a greater area of the population
with Mens Clubs, empty nesters and some of the new members who were saying how can I get involved
in the synagogue. And we called that a think tank. Over the next several weeks, heads of each of these
groups drew up a list of possible candidates for this think tank committee and then I did what Chuck told
me to do (Im very good at following directions), and I called each one of these people individually. It took

a huge amount of time because, as you all know, when you call a congregant with one goal in mind they
have five other things they want to talk to you about. But no one said no. Everybody said they were willing
to come and talk about services from the new members who had never been to one of our Friday Night
Services to the empty nesters who used to go when their kids were in Hebrew School but had stopped
going. Everybody was glad to be contacted and it showed me what kind of power and influence we can
actually have to do well in our congregations.
The beginning of April we held that meeting with the larger committee and, prior to that meeting, again with
Chucks help, we drew up a list of questions to pose to this group. I shared it with one of our Mens Club
guys who were instrumental in this, and he tweaked the list of questions with me. David and I went over
the questions and we sort of used that to spearhead the discussion. Some of the things that Chuck said,
How do you want to feel when you leave this service?
How much singing; how much Rabbi speaking?
When do we announce pages?
And the stuff all sounds elementary, but they have opinions about it. They know what makes them feel
better when theyre sitting there and what doesnt make them feel better. And then, as I had done with
each meeting, I e-mailed the notes of the meeting to everybody and thanked them again for participating.
The middle of April we held a meeting to help people choose some of the tunes for the service. I invited
the congregants who were part of the think tank and we also invited members from our congregational
singers group to come. And David wasnt at that meeting but what we did was put together a list of a
couple of Lha Dodi tunes and a couple of Mizmor Shir tunes and a couple of Ahavah Rabah tunes. And I
sang them for people. No accompaniment, no nothing, although there will be accompaniment at the
service. But, I said, just listen to these. What moves you? And they were not only able to say which tunes
moved them, but sometimes why. It was really a wonderful thing.
Before that meeting I also prepared by listening to a couple of CDs that some our colleagues have done of
their Friday night services. I got the list from Abe of what his synagogue does at their Friday Night Live. I
listened to David Propis CD, I listened to the BJ CD and took some suggestions, not all of them, from
whats already worked for people. We made some decisions about what to use.
The last meeting that we had was, again, with all four clergy (2 Rabbis, 2 Cantors) and the larger
committee, that think tank committee, and we actually sat down and hammered out an outline for the
service that were going to premier this Friday night. We also made a plan to have a rehearsal Friday
before the service and have invited lots of congregants to come, sing the new tunes so they can feel like
theyre already invested and they know what theyre singing. We have also asked them to spread out in
the congregation. Theyre all supposed to bring friends and relatives, but we dont want them all sitting
together. We want them to sort of get the energy level up all around the room. And weve also planned a
meeting for feedback the week after the service so that anyone whos been at the service can come and
express what worked for them and what didnt, or what theyd like to see differently.
So thats where we are. Both David and I are kind of nervous in a positive way about whats going to
happen on Friday night whos gonna come, whats gonna be received. And I cannot tell you enough how
much this process has been eye opening and exciting and how both Chuck and Abe have been really good
at providing support and answering questions as weve going through this. And weve really modeled it on
what theyve told us to do.
David, did you want to say anything?
Just a couple of questionsthere might be more than one

(Audience questioner) How long from the very beginning of being inspired did it take to get to this point?
Nancy: Well I can tell you that we met, I mean I went through all my notes in preparing for what I was
th
th
gonna say today, and David and I met with Chuck on January 24 and were rolling this out on May 12 .
There were probably about 8 meetings in between there.
(Abe Lubin) How many people are you anticipating, expecting or have you decided numbers?
Nancy: Good question. Our normal Friday Night Service, when theres nothing else going on, no birthday
service or kids participating, is about 60 congregants. And we meet in our small chapel, not in the
sanctuary. We are hoping to pack the chapel and have it be standing room only, which means at least
doubling.
Chuck: I think that the challenge is not what happens the first Friday night. The challenge is what
happens 8 weeks from now, cause this is not a once a month. One of the discussions was, what about
this once-a-month event and did we strongly discourage people from once a month because people want
continuity. You get confused with once a month. You go on a Bar Mitzvah, youre out for the weekend and
you miss another month We didnt want the philosophy to kind of continue.
So I think theyre gonna get twice as many people next Friday night and then whats going to happen is,
depending upon the nature of the follow-up that they do (follow-up takes place every week it can be done
electronically, but its got to be done). Cause there has to be tweaking on a continuous basis until you
develop a kind of cultural attitude. I suspect that the week after theyre going to drop by 20 people and
then theyre going to stay where they are, somewhere about 100 people for about 6 to 7 weeks before they
get a bump. Okay? The challenge is going to be, once they get to that point of 5 or 6 weeks, how to figure
out how do we get that bump. Whats going to make the difference? And I think well figure that out as we
go along.
(Riki Lippitz) You have a very rich tradition at Park Avenue. How (something about music), but how
different should this music be from what we have done? Im assuming that what you were doing on Friday
night is accurate in any case, so what have you been doing and how different is this from what you plan?
Nancy: Our Friday night service is not like our Shabbat morning service, which involves professional
quartet and organ. Our Friday night service has always been I call it a sweet service. Its much more
low key. This one were actually ratcheting it up. There will be mostly all singing but the congregants that
came to one of these focus groups said, we love the way our Cantors sing we want to hear some
Cantorial gems within this service, we just dont want it to be all of that. I mean, they were very frank.
We are using a keyboard and a tof player for this particular service, and my assumption is that people will
say that they liked that or they would like to see different instruments. You know, theyll tell us what they
want.
Alberto Mizrahi
Nancy, on the same topic, what surprised you? I mean you got my service; you got Davids service, etc.
What surprised you that thats not what theyre looking for? Was there anything that you would call a
hidush coming up, or are you being conservative about it? I mean, what, musically?
Nancy: They chose the music. I mean I used some stuff from you, from your service, some stuff from
Davids service. The congregants spoke. I mean, they said yeah this is a nice Lha Dodi, but weve done
this before. Lets use a new one. Lets use that one. They had a lot of opinions and then there were some
things where they said, this is a really pretty melody but its not so sing-able. We some something we can
just jump right in on.

(Joe Gole) Does this replace the regular Friday night menu? In other words, you have your regular Friday
night menu.
Nancy: No, this is our new regular Friday night service and, again with the Committee, we figured out
ways to incorporate and Bar and Bat Mitzvah in participating in this. We havent quite figured out what to
do when theres special Hebrew school participation. That we still
(Joe Gole) The alter yid that goes to shul every Friday night, theyre buying into this notion?
Nancy: Yes, and some of them sat on this committee.
(Sara Geller): So, you chose all of the new melodies with the congregation. So you had other melody
values that you were doing before. And, if youre gonna implement this as your regular Friday night
service from now on, are you going to alternate some of the older melodies that you had been singing, or is
it gonna be these are the specific melodies that they chose when you had a couple that they chose from,
and they picked this Lha Dodi? Are you going to have a range or it will be exactly this service with these
tunes every single week?
Nancy: Just to clarify, we didnt throw out everything. As I said at the beginning, our service was not
broken. It just needs umph! So we kept some of the melodies and they chose which ones they wanted to
keep from the things we already do. In some of my notes I wrote, for this service were doing (for instance
Laufer Lha Dodi), but people like bla-bla-bla so save that for another time.
My guess is that at least four times in a row we will do the same thing. Its sort of like when your mom
said, you know, try this vegetable at least four times and if you still dont like it after the fourth time then you
dont have to eat it anymore. Thats kind of what our approach is with these tunes. So no, its not set in
stone.
When David Propis sent me his outline from one of his Friday Night Services, it had a specific date on it.
This is what they did that specific night, so Im assuming that they do other things other times and thats
what we will do probably as well.
Anybody else? David Lefkowitz?
Well we have a few more presenters; so David do you want to just tie it up?
David Lefkowitz
I just want to add one point here, that to demonstrate the important, powerful aspect of this. Typically
when you go about trying to do something new or trying to come up with a plan, you work very hard at it.
You may work with a committee or a few other people. Rarely do you even have the Rabbi involved. In
this case, we not only had all the clergy involved, we had people from the Board of Trustees, as well as
Nancy had said, regular congregants of different age groups, as well as people who didnt come that often.
The point being really, here, that in the planning we had the comfort level to really let go and not to be
taking, asserting the power of whose in charge and what has to be. We completely let that go. You have a
trust factor, so the result is that, if you do it the old way you could come to your occasion and people are
coming in you do all your PR work and they come in and, then, what are they doing? Theyre judging.
Thats an important distinction because the problem, then, is that people arent really part of it. Theyre
sitting back and saying well I like this and I like this, but I dont really like this. And then you have a bunch
of disagreement and its not really what youre aiming for.
The power here is that, because (as Nancy said) the people themselves are empowered and theyre the
ones that, working together and it was an amazing experience. We would just sit in and the professionals
would look around and say, well this is really interesting because when people feel involved in it, they

really give of themselves. And nobody then cares about how his or her opinion was. Once there becomes
this kind of give and take and people start to feel what seems right, then everybody is on the same
wavelength with it. And then the important result is that when you come to it, there are no consequences.
It doesnt really matter that this was great because well have a meeting two days afterwards and, as a
group, well decide okay, where do we go from here? And nobody feels to blame; nobody feels that theyre
the victor or the loser. And thats a really important move forward.
Chuck: Thank you, David.
Chuck
If youll hold the questions for just a second because Im looking at our time line I just want to
acknowledge some of the other pilots that are offering right now. Jack Chomsky has a pilot; Earl Berris
has a pilot; Elias Rosemberg in Boston; Eric Wasser in New Jersey. David Tilman is taking a Shabbat
morning in Philadelphia, and Sheldon Levin, who Id like to see come up and share a little bit of what hes
doing right now, and Steve Stoehr whos been working on the Shiva Minyan program as well, which well
develop into a course. And following that I guess well have time for a few more questions but Alberto is
going to make his presentation.
Alberto:
Thanks Chuck. At my shul we chose first of all you should know that we dont use instrumental music on
Shabbat or Hagim, so weve been looking for ways of getting that kind of energy that sometimes
instruments can add to a service. I do a Friday Live service several times a year when we can do it before
it gets dark. We use the instruments Kabbalat Shabbat and then put the instruments away and do Maariv
and that way no ones gotten angry that were violating Shabbat or totally changing the whole tenor of the
congregation. And I get so much positive feedback people want more instruments. So we keep adding
more of those and were doing them now also this summer. Our Mens Club is wonderful. We have a
great Mens Club at our shul. Theyre going to run bar-b-cue dinners with these summer Friday Night
things and we may do them outdoors, weather permitting.
But then, to add more instrument opportunities, weve now added Saturday Nights a couple of times a
year. We start with Havdalah with no instruments and then immediately after Havdalah we bring out the
instruments and Ive got great people in my congregation who are very talented musicians. Theyre all
amateurs but they play very nicely. They read from music and so we write out parts for everybody and on
Saturday Night its basically a sing-along kind of thing, with Israeli songs or, if theres a holiday coming up,
we use some holiday melodies. And we often include a Saturday Night dinner with it and we get kids out.
We get huge turn outs at all of these things.
So we looked at our services and we said, when else could we use instruments? We dont do a Maariv
weekday service. We have a weekday morning service that our chapel is filled to capacity. There is not a
seat to be had every morning. But we dont do a weekday evening.
So we decided (and its really our Mens Club that pushed this) that on Tuesday nights were gonna try
doing a weekday evening service with instruments at 7:30, because, at 8 oclock, we have our ritual
meetings, our Board meetings, our Executive meetings our Finance meetings (theyre all Tuesday nights at
8 oclock). And also on Tuesday night our Hebrew High meets. So the goal will be to use instruments to
hopefully have the Hebrew High kids sing the choir parts.
The Committee hasnt yet decided for sure what music were going to use. I just got a Charles Davidson
service that was premiered here at a convention; I think the one in Detroit, which included kids singing and
instruments. I got Gerald Cohens service that was premiered to the Cantors Convention in 2001. Both of
those services are written with instrumental parts and with opportunities for lots of congregational singing
and opportunity for some sort of choir or kids to sing.

We may also offer the Committee some other options, Wohlberg tunes or Carlbach tunes maybe tunes
that they know already rather than everything being something that they dont know. And then, hopefully,
this is something that will take a life of its own. What you heard before is exactly what were doing. Were
going through the process, were involving people, were trying to get lots of peoples input. And then,
hopefully, it something that will have an energy, that will keep growing and moving on its own.
Jack Chomsky
Well in Columbus Ohio I think we may be the last ones in.
(Background response We have some)

Have you gotten anybody since us?

Chuck
Ok! So I know Im going to be calling Sheldon because he had all those great resources as he so often
does. We dont really know what were doing with the service yet. What we decided in our initial meeting
is that, more than any particular service, weve identified a segment of the congregation that we dont see
in the times and places that we would like to see. These are our under 40, our under 35 members, who
are nice people and I see them around at a lot of things in town but they have not found their way into
regular synagogue attendance. And if they dont that could be problematic.
I think that the most exciting thing at least at the outset is the opportunity to have an honest
conversation, to listen to what people think. Many of our congregants are not very sophisticated in terms
of their davening skills or their understanding of whats involved in davening, but they are very well
educated, sophisticated people. And this provides a really good opportunity to sit down and listen to them,
as has been described -- to put before them some of the issues of designing and shaping a service, and
without it being a gripe session. An opportunity to see, you know, what are the things that would be of
interest to them and how can we use the resources that we have available to shape something that will
engage them. So I hope, as you said, you know, next year therell be a lot more to report. And, hopefully,
all of us can report about the many people who have been more deeply engaged in the activities of our
congregation (and in active Jewish religious lives) because of these conversations that came to us
courtesy of the vision of the Mens Clubs. Of Chuck Simon, who really has been the source of a number of
great visions in our movement. And Chuck really thinks outside the box. I mean, hes got this kind of a
yellowish jacket and orange shirt and a pink tie. The guy is really out there! And Chuck and I go way
back. So thats my report.
You all know our President.
Steve Stoehr
I just think anybody who wears a loud colored shirt like that is. (Laughter)
Our community is involved in something quite different. Were responsible for coordinating the portion of
this initiative regarding Shiva Minyanim and we see this opportunity through the Cantors Assembly and the
Federation of Jewish Mens Clubs in a wonderful partnership. And, so, while the Hazzanim are taking the
primary role in many of these new initiatives of Friday Night Lives and One Shabbat Mornings and those
sorts of exuberant types of musical possible exploratory services, we obviously have a more limited
atmosphere in which to work a more limited venue.
But much like the United Synagogue has the Immun Program and the Womens League has the Kolot
Bikdushah types of certification, we would like to coordinate this effort between us and the Federation of
training people to become certified Shiva Minyan leaders. And my congregation is given the task to try to
coordinate some of these efforts.
My congregation also has a Hevrah Kadishah, which also makes us a little bit unique. Some of your
congregations Im sure may also. I know Im working with a couple of friends in the Assembly in trying to
coordinate their synagogues to create Hevrah Kadishah, so my congregation is very sensitive to that

10

element of life, as Im sure yours are. But we have a specific drive to educate and to reach out to our
congregants who have suffered loss, by actually having members of our congregation be on the Hevrah
Kadishah. And this is simply an extension thereof for those people who cant quite come to bring
themselves to being in the room with those of us who do it. Some people can be shomrim and, if not,
some people can lead a Shiva Minyan. Its a wonderful mitzvah and thats the partnership that were trying
to do.
When Chuck approached most of us Im gonna use a word from the 90s the idea was Empowerment
Right, how do we get this minyan not yan per se but how do we get this throng of excited Mens Club
people, gentlemen, who go to their retreats. They have these ruah davenings, they learn, theyre
educated, they find out what Tfilot means (singing chant) and then they come back home to shul and
theyre not included and theyre not infused into the service, and theyre not utilized. How can we keep that
sense of their excitement going on in the congregation? And, so, at least thats what I thought our initiative
was based on. How do we get this large group of men to become infused into whats going on in the
synagogue?
So the way were trying to do this, once again, as Womens League does, as United Synagogue does, is
were trying to train lay leaders. Were trying to sensitize people to the needs of a Shiva Minyan. I dont
know about your communities, but in my community sometimes you go to a Shiva Minyan and you know
you walk in and people are serving wine and it almost becomes a party it almost becomes a wake. Its
hard enough to get people to separate themselves into a quiet room for the minyan because everybody
else is making noise in all the other rooms of the house. So what were trying to train our lay leaders to do
is how to come in, how to take control of the atmosphere, how to meet with the family prior to the minyan.
If there are small children that are part of the mourning process, how to speak to them. How to make the
service accessible to people who are not Hebraicly literate, to people who never come to shul that weve
heard about in other communities other than mine. How do you get these people who dont know how to
daven, who dont know how to open a Siddur to make a Shiva Minyan meaningful to them? Ashre Yoshve
Veteha and theyre sitting there going, eh eh. OK, its time for Yitgadal Vyitkadash and theyre trying to
follow along the transliteration.
A -- two parts to the process. How do we make a Shiva Minyan more accessible, meaningful, cathartic,
healing for the mourner? B, how do we get and empower the Mens Club people (and other in the
community, but specifically that s who were working on this initiative with) how do we educate them to
become para-chaplins, if you will, extensions of the clergy? And Im just as comfortable sending my friend
Mike to run the minyan as I might be going as the Hazzan to lead the minyan. How do we educate them,
empower them and create an atmosphere in a shiva minyan, which is, probably, the most sensitive of the
venues in which we lead a minyan?
So were talking about physical proximity. How do you set up the room? Do you face them or do you face
away from them? Ive led minyan where weve got Mom and the Daughter sitting in the front but the Uncle
and the Brother are sitting in the back. Should you bring all the mourners towards the front so that they
feel like theyre together, that they have a sense of commonality and comfort? The use of silence, the use
of meditation, the use of song and nigun, the use of poetry, teaching materials for the children all sorts of
things. Do you light candles? Dont you light candles? So were trying to work on the atmosphere, the
room; were working on the liturgy, the minyan; were working on making it comforting for the mourner and
empowering and educating the Shiva Minyan leader. And thats the process were going through
presently.
(Applause)
You have a question for Steve?
Steven, theres a couple questions for you. Well take two questions because I dont want to get out late,
ok?

11

(David Feuer): Rather than a question, I have a statement. I am fascinated for the study that you are
doing. You are in the time of investigating something that many of us, at least me, I am doing this kind of
work for more than 40 years, starting in my country (Argentina). Here in my congregation, 20 years that I
prove that the material that I am doing with them works. We are talking just pure music. Not organization
of the service, but singing of Kabbalat Shabbat, Shabbat Morning. My congregation is a singing
congregation and I think that I can help to anybody here to put these together.
(Alberto Mizrahi): David, thats going to be part of my presentation, is asking for your help.
(David Feuer): OK, Im here.
I know, and may of us know, that you and others here and around that arent in this room, have been
active in this kind of activity for many, many years. You also came from a culture that had started
developing this in Argentina long before we started thinking about it here. But I appreciate what you have
to say and I thank you for your help. We need it.
Who else? Sara has had her hand up for a long time.
(Audience member Sara): I was just wondering if, as part of this process, youre also going to be coming
up with a new minyan booklet that we can use, because thats one of the problems that I often have, that
the minyan booklets arent accessible.
(Mizrahi)
Thats also part of my presentation. I think well stop the questions. Is that to me or to the general?
(Stoehr)
We probably will come up with some text. Primarily we use the Minyan of Comfort books, those green
books that I find to be very nice and have lovely alternatives. But when it comes to musical options or
nigunim or other meditations or childrens materials, we do hope to come up with a compendium.
(Mizrahi)
Were going to take more questions at the end. Let me just I had a kind of a long (but its going to be
very short now because I love everything thats been said). As Chuck said to me, Who knew we had so
much substance?
(Laughter)
st

And its true. I mean we started this, not on a whim. Were in the 21 Century and Ive been preaching this
in the Officer Corps and Im preaching to the choir enohi nami. Theres nothing to preach. All of you are
here because youre thirsting for the ability to be more meaningful to your congregation, to your profession,
to your calling, to yourselves. And here are a couple of things that have come to my mind.
It took me many years to allow myself to think that I needed to change in any way. I mean, Im a Hazzan,
why do I have to do this yaba-yaba-yaba stuff. It was, you know. And thats not too long ago, you
know. Davids been doing popular, contemporary music for many, many years. That was not the case
with me.
I was doing old Eastern European congregational melodies, tried and true hazzanut, not constantly like in
an orthodox synagogue, you know, when you have a concert shabbos, but enough of it that, you know, I
would get bored. And it took me a long, long time. And then, all of a sudden, it dawned on my that, you
know, I think maybe it was the year 2000, you know, when the century changed, and I went Oh God,
where the Hell are we with this thing? Were so far from our roots (Cantorial roots in Eastern Europe)
our musical roots are way before that. But were so far from these Cantorial roots and weve lost our
audience. Theyre not there. Theyre gone, or most of them are gone. And their children, some of them
remember it, but many dont. Their children are the sheeno yodeah lishol certainly at least the tam. So
what are we going to do about it?

12

Some of us are very lucky. We have congregations that have full minyanim in the morning that have lots of
people on Friday night. With Sheldon, Im thrilled to hear it. Demographics play a very, very important part
in what were trying to do. Demographically speaking, I live in an urban area right in the middle of the city
of Chicago. As you know, in the middle of urban areas, when youre not in suburban or even somewhat
suburban areas, when youre right in the middle of a city (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles) people are
running around. Theyre got theres a vibe that tells people youve got too many other things to do to go
to shul. Now that happens in suburbia also, of course. But I find that to be one of my greatest challenges.
What is it thats going to attract these people to the congregation? What is it? Can I get them there every
week? Am I giving up by doing a once a month Anshe Emet Live as opposed to every week, or do we do it
every week or every other week?
Well, the Rabbi and I spoke about this. I will tell you that we have not created the focus group that should
have been created. That has a lot to do with the personality of a congregation, which usually stems from
the top. Some people are just control freaks and they dont want to give up that control. Its very, very
difficult. But we have had many, many frank talks and my Rabbi is not an impossible person. Hes a
youngish guy and when you sit with him and talk, hell say yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, three days
later he forgot the conversation happened. So its something I have to keep working at. But the one thing
were all on line about is that we need portals to davening. Opening portals its like a time port like those
shows. The time port is the space you walk through and youre going though a space continuum and
youre in some other reality. We need these portals for people who just going to synagogue is as foreign
as flying to Mars.
Whats going to attract these people? Youngish people -- people who are so busy not with young
families. Young families you can grab in a second. Have a dinner. Boom! Do a kiddy service with guitars
for 20, 30, 40 minutes. Boom! Theyre there. Got hundreds of them -- hundreds. And we do that in my
synagogue. That doesnt mean all your synagogues, cause demographically you may not have that many
single parents or young families as we do. We have a huge amount of that in the city. Then they move
out, they go to school somewhere else although thats not happening any more in Chicago.
So how do you create portals to davening? One of my great challenges and something that Ive spoken
with all the Officers about and Im sure theyll agree with me is how do you create this change without
throwing away tradition? What is the balance of tradition and change? How do we can we remain
authentic Hazzanim? How do I tell the kids in the school that Im coaching at the Seminary, Baruch
Hashem, you know? Im very proud and very happy doing it. Its a tirche believe me, but I get so much out
of it because theres very, very terrific talent there. But how do I tell them that they have to learn Hazzanic
recitatives with authenticity and Cantorial moves and all that, so that they can sound like an authentic
Hazzan? What is an authentic Hazzan? Maybe Rabbi Joe Black is an authentic Hazzan today. I dont
know. Maybe Taubman is the authenticity today. I dont think so. I think that they all have a place, a
tremendous place. They are innovators; they open eyes; they open ears. But were Hazzanim; we do
have a calling; we have thousands of years of history. How is it that we dont give it up?
How do we meld this munous into a seamless tapestry of the magnificent and the modern, the
contemporary which can also be magnificent? Because if youve got 200 people singing bkol ram, thats
magnificent. Theres nothing wrong with that. And, as my friend Ben Tziyon Miller said to me, Ah, youre
waking up. The Hasidim have been doing it for 400 years. (Laughter) And they have! They were on to
something. Theyre not stupid, the Hasidim. How do you think theres so many of them? Of course they
have 20 babies each, but thats something else. (laughter)
How many in this room have what they would consider a synaplex? Whos the cantor of a synaplex? Its
not a lot. Gees! Who hasnt ever heard of a synaplex? You all have heard of it, but you dont do it! OK.
So you come to my shul on any given Shabbos. Maybe you have it and you dont know you have it, but, I
mean, when you have like every first, third and fifth Shabbos, you have a tot shabbat, a shahar, a mahar,
you know, different age groups. Then you have an on-going library as we call it, the Rose Crown Room
Minyan which is an egalitarian traditional Minyan, where they daven everything, cause we cut things in
our shul. But in that Minyan they cut nothing full Psuke Dzimrah, full reading, full everything -- Daven,

13

by the people themselves. I find it so boring. Not because of the length, because the leading people arent
trained people, and although Ive helped them but they dont come for a lot of help. You have to sort of
force yourself and thats schism is a very difficult one. But we dont We always send a Rabbi. We have
three of them, thank God; theyre not all on the Bema. So we send one of them there and he, you know,
they talk they might give it five minutes to ten minutes speech, sermon, whatever. But they are there as
a Rabbinical presence, but its run by the people themselves.
You have the main sanctuary service. We have a class, a Talmud class thats taught by a layperson that
used to start in
(Musical interruption)
Thank God for iPods, you know. You press a button and ba-boom! Its right there. Anyway its my salvo.
We have this Talmud class thats taught by a layperson that used to start an hour before the main Shaharis
but nobody came because it was too early. They used to come used to have a little group. So now they
start the same time as Shaharit, so there goes Shaharit. You know we have very few people at Shaharit
and then they walk in towards the middle or sometimes the end of the Torah reading because theyre so
excited by their learning. And its an exciting time. And they have 20 people that go every Shabbos
morning. And, by the way, numbers are relative. In Joes congregation you have 700 Iranians every
Shabbos morning. And how many non-Iranians? (Laughter) I mean, the point is, that everybody has a
different demographic so theres a plus and a minus to every situation, to every single situation.
Im a Hazzan of a synaplex. We are running so many services and programs at any given time it makes
your head spin. What is your role in all of this? What is mine? Mine is to get away as often as possible
and to sing concerts. (Much laughter) But, honesty not always the best policy! Ok!
Stoehr is developing a Shiva Minyan to make it feel spiritual and real to the people who come. And I have
always felt, and still to this day feel, -- well, first of all, Im very excited about what hes gonna come up with
and what the congregation is gonna develop, because Im gonna steal it immediately. But I want to see
what they come up with because I see that, even when people have no idea how to daven, that if you
come in and do an authentic, beautiful, blachash but with voice, with feeling, with tenderness do a couple
of poetic readings not the usual crap. You know, terrible translations of things but you use the Morris
Adler readings or a couple of things that truly touch the heart, that are short, to the point, that make a gift of
memory that kind of things. I find that if you do a traditional, people may not know what youre doing but
thats true of 90% of the people who come to your shul most of the time. But they do go away feeling like
this is what we needed, because at times of death, birth, and wedding, and those kinds of Simchas or
Smahot or the opposite, people are looking for the old time religion. Not the old time religion of the guy
Ashre Yoshve Veseha (with an Eastern European accent), you know. Im talking in todays world. So, you
know, thats a schism but its a good one. Its wonderful. I want to take what he does and then put it in my
traditional davening and see what I can learn from it. Thats all really were here to do.
My whole thing is that Ive re-tooled and Ive worked very hard at it, and Im nowhere near where I should
be. Now Nancy and David have done a miraculous thing. Theyve actually gone through the process.
Thats a hard thing. Those meetings, you know, I dont care how exciting they are theyre meetings.
They are evenings out of your life so youre not going to tell me thats the easiest thing. Thats hard work.
Its very hard work. Its hard to get them at the beginning and to keep them and to be innovative enough
and excited enough that they, you know but it pays off. Its a big pay off. Its my its a presumption and
Im in a panic mode, Im in a slightly panic mode for my colleagues and my profession. Im in a panic mode
and I think most of you should be.
Weve talked about this. Steve has given us brilliant dissertations on this. My panic is that were going to
forget how to be authentic Hazzanim not necessarily the people in this room, but some of the younger
people because they wont have anybody to listen to. And if you cant listen to an authentic Hazzan, you
dont know what it is. We all learn by listening. Thats how everybody learned over the years its an oral
tradition. Hazzanut as is Middle-Eastern music, which Hazzanut is an offshoot of, right. What are we going
to do with it now that were in the year 2006? I mean, were very blas about the fact that were at the

14

beginning of a new century. Big deal; therell be another centurybut not for us, you know. I wont be
here to see that. Im not Chinese, you know. The last millennium was not the Chinese millennium this
millennium will be Chinas millennium. They have time; they have time. (Laughter) They have billions of
people. Theyll come; theyll do; theyll take over the world. They have time. Theyll wait another thousand
years.
What are we gonna do in our lifetime to insure that what we do remains authentic and traditional, as much
as tradition means to each and every one of you in their own way. And yet, retool for this century and do it
immediately. Thats how this came about. My Rabbi and I spoke about this about six years ago and I said,
you know, I dont know how to do this. Ive never heard a service. Everybody kept saying, Oh BJ, its the
answer. (Laughter) OK. OK. I want to hear this I mean, I have to hear this. No! That was not my first
reaction. I have to be honest. My first reaction was, Ah, bull shit! Come on! BJ, Schmee-J! Its another
fad! And then Sinai! OH! They do this Friday Night Live. Taubman! OH! Ah! Its the answer! You
know what? It is an answer. And BJ is an answer. And Propis is an answer. And now I have an answer.
And everybody has an answer. Nancy is going to have an answer. I want each and every one of you to
have an answer. If youre not one of the pilot congregations, I want you to come up and say, Why arent I
one of the pilots? Well, for whatever reason, we chose demographically so that we had different kinds
to see what works where, because every part of the country is different. Right!
I want you to buy in to the fact that if you start making your service feel more contemporary, feel like an
American service, with tradition, that youre going to build your position. Youre going to strengthen your
position, youll build yourself up in the eyes of the congregation and your Rabbi and your Board and
theyll say this Hazzans trying to do something. Hes trying to help us. And the numbers game is big,
yeah. Id love to have 1000 people in shul, I really would. I dream about retiring and going to that golden
shul in the sky somewhere. Where they have 1000 old people who dont care about the new stuff and just
want to hear Hazzanus. So I can scream my way to death, you know. (Laughter) Its true. But, you know,
I sit there in Chicago and say, You idiot. You are so lucky. Youve got this major place in a big city (which
I love) and they let you do anything you want. What are you going to do with that? Are you gonna sit there
and daven and daven and daven?
Yeah, sometimes I will, because a Birkas Hahodesh comes up and I feel like davening. I give them a big
Birkas Hahodesh. And you know what I get at the end of the service Wow that was some Brat
Hahodesh. I feel great! But in between Ive sung Taubman, Finklestein, Carlbach, you know and I dont
know enough of these tunes. In fact, thats one of the things Im gonna send out an Hazzanet note that, as
we develop these things
The original idea was, maybe Ill talk to 4 or 5 composers of contemporary music and ask them to write
some new stuff -- to give me stuff. Debbie Freedman and I had a meeting. She gave me some of her
things which are beautiful cause I said, I dont know your music. I mean, other people know
everything she wrote. I dont know her music. But I said, What can I use in a conservative service that
doesnt change everything? And she had a few things. I love what Taubman does. He takes very simple
lines and repeats them and makes them he has a genius for simple, melodic lines thats (most of the
time) 100% sing-able.
So what I want to do now with the little time we have left is look at something that weve done at Anshe
Emet and now, by the way, our project is to revamp our Hahnasat Hatorah through the Musaf. And thats
not the Rabbi saying to me, I dont like your Musaf. Its, I know that theres a little wink in the eye of some
of the congregants who say, I loved your davening. But a couple of others said, Hazzan, Oy, such a
long service today. It wasnt me really, honestly. I dont do long services. My Musaf is at most 20
minutes. I mean, if its 30 minutes, its because theres a choir doing two pieces and that kind of thing. We
have a choral service once a month.
Were going to do now a Shabbat Morning Live. And how are we going to do it? It cant be the same as
my Anshe Emet Live, the Friday Night service. The Friday Night service has taken on its own life and Ill
show you what it is and talk to you about it. The Shabbos Morning has to be a little bit; to me anyway,
more on the traditional side and also the Rabbi refuses to change the order of the service. So if you cant

15

change a 2 to 3-hour service, itll never be popular enough to grab hundreds and hundreds of people. If
you can make a 1 to 2-hour service you have a chance. You have a chance.
Look at the sheet I gave you of Anshe Emet Live the menus, the programs. So I was going to play you
the tape. We just came out with a CD of this, but lets just all sing it a little bit. You know Lhu Nrannoh
heres the order. We, oh by the way, Chuck and I do not disagree because, every time he says something,
it bears great gravitas.
We ran out. I only made 50 because I didnt expect anybody to be here. Listen; listen for a second. When
Chuck says something I may not immediately agree, but I know that its coming from thought. And Im
saying, you know, maybe hes right or, you know, hes probably right. But, in my congregation, to do this
service every week it would lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight, because its a very radical service.
We didnt keep the old service and incorporate new stuff into it, as Nancy is doing and David, and I have a
feeling that it might work very well on a weekly basis, just like Bnai Jeshuruns service works on a weekly
basis. And they change their music all the time, by the way. They have different tunes that they use on a
rotating basis, use a lot of sfardic melody, a lot of the stuff that in Argentina they call Argentinean music
sfardic melody, you know.
I didnt want to do Taubman service either, because he is great and he does this rock thing (Shouts
loudly, Get your hands up!). You know, I cant do it I cant do it. Its not me. Im a Hazzan. So he can
do it great and I bring him in once in a while just to and, you know, the last time I brought him in this is
really bragging. I had a lot of people come up and say to me, We dont need him here. We have a great
service. -- because they like a service. So, we start with Carlbach.
(Singing Lhu Nrannah Ladoshem)
I have a 7-piece, sometimes 6-piece jazz band that plays with me. Some of the best players in Chicago,
and part of the reason we cant do it more than once a month is it costs me over $1800 for this thing every
Friday night. So.
(Audience interruption then laughter)
What the hell was I saying? (Audience responses) Thank you. It costs me 1800 bucks so the answer is,
use people in your congregation that play well and will give you their time. Rare! It will happen, youll find
them, but its hard and, for me, I went the easy way. I have a professional choir, I have a professional
band its just the only way I can work because I have 4 minutes before the service to go over the music
with these guys cause Im not around. So!
( Singing Lhu NrannahNariah Lo up tempo)
Youll get clapping, you get singing. We at the beginning were thinking of demographically aiming this for
the 20s and 30s. People in their 20s and 30s.
(Aside: 10 minutes no problem. I knew Id talk too much.)
People in their 20s and 30s. What happened with the service? The first time we co-sponsored it with a
United Federation Young Adult Division and they sent out e-mails to their entire mailing list. We had ads
going out. We got about 500 people and 300 to 400 of them were young. And we said, weve succeeded.
We did it. Thats it. Here it is. Boom! That was 5 years ago. The next service was a month later and we
had 300 people and we started feeling, Uh Oh! But thats not what happens.
At first theyre curious. Sometimes it might work the other way where you start with a core group and it
builds. We started with this huge thing, because of publicity and there was a lot of buzz in Chicago about
it. Chicago is not as big as New York eh, its pretty big! Anyway, Second City syndrome! And they
came in big numbers. The next time it went down to 300 and now we consistently have 300 to 400 people,

16

sometimes 500 Ive never had less than 300 people. In a shul we get 25 people on a Friday night. OK.
What are they seeing in the service?
(Audience members cell phone rings)
What theyre getting out of this service is an ability to let go to feel like theyve davened even though they
can clap, they can dance, they can we do all the things that everybody does, but they also get a chance
to daven a silent amidah. They also get as opposed to these other things I mean Bnai Jeshurun I think
has all of that. But its a very different service. I like it but I cant carry it out I cant carry it off. This I can
carry off because Carlbach is good to me. Taubman, the tunes we use the Finklestein tunes are very
usable. And some people think his Mi Hamoha is too hard originally, but when you sing it 3 or 4 months in
a row. My people are singing it like crazy. Its like it was mothers milk. You can teach a congregation
anything if you repeat it long enough and often enough.
So, look at the service. Lhu Nrannah right? (Singing in Hebrew) And then, when thats over,
everybodys clapped themselves out, the little kids (now I have a group of 7 or 8 nine, eight, seven, six
years old) that sit right in the front and dance. I dont ask them to do it; they just love it. They dance. And
their parents are going, Oh my kid is dancing in shul! And then we go right into Yismhu Hashamayim
(singing in Hebrew). Why, because its such a great tune? No, because the entire world knows it. So you
make people feel comfortable and they sing something they know, and the kids are dancing. Shiru
Ladoshem (Singing in Hebrew). So that is my yaba, yaba, yaba the trio of pieces, a medley. The yaba
medley, ok! We do the Carlbach, the Sirotkin, the Carlbach, and its, you know. Ganchoff used to say,
When youve got em, once you get to the climatic part of the piece, dont let them go. Stay climaxing for a
while. Its the same thing with this. Once you get into that kind of a Carlbach rhythm kind of thing, dont
let it go for a while. Let them feel like theyre Wow, Wow! Its not going to end. Im tired. Leave me
alone. And then it stops. (Laughter)
th

Then we do Mizmor lDavid. Now I put Spanish Portuguese on the January 20 Havu Ladoshem Bnai
Elim (singing in Hebrew). Nice with guitar, little tof, you know. But other times we do the Carlbach, which
is, to me, is gorgeous. (Audience questioner speaks.)
Mizrahi responds No, there are no English readings whatever in this service. But, as a trade off, theres
also very little davening, sometimes none between some of the pieces. So the Psalms, which many
congregations often skip many of the Psalms, you know so instead of skipping the, we do beginnings, we
do endings, and then when we get to the Maariv, thats more or less davened completely, except we dont
take a Hell of a lot of time. So if you traditional and you want to daven, you can daven while Im singing the
next thing but I did give you a few seconds to daven. Because continuity and not letting go of the
moment is very, very important. Especially when you can use instruments and theres a whole.
By the way, the instruments versus the non-instruments how many of you here if you wanted to could
use instruments in your synagogue service on Shabbos? Thats not even well its about half. OK.
Those of you that cannot, this will not succeed as well. Im telling you right away. Which means dont
expect 300-400 people in you services. But, if you create your focus groups and you teach them and you
have rehearsals, and you buy in just like Nancy had them tell you what they want, you know, help them
help you you will get double the amount you have now. Isnt that something? Isnt that yes sir
(Recognizing audience questioner) (Speaker could not hear question until repeated)?
That is your answer and Im sure its a valid one and it works. In my congregation, when 99.9% of the
people that come cannot daven, do not know how to daven, and are there for an experience a spiritual
davening experience and they dont know what that is, I provide it for them. Therefore, they are not
missing the davening.
Yes sir. (Recognizing audience member)
This is sort of a general question, observation at my shul, which ties in to what. One of the things said
before I think Nancy said it that this up and down flow of once a month and then every week is

17

something different. Its an issue were kind of struggling with right now because, whats happened is, we
have a Carlbach service once a month. Right! And, that goes through all those melodies. And then we
have a Friday Night Live once and two other times we have something that weve developed over the
years which is more just davening and thats the thing that the Bnai Mitzvah lead. But one of the things is
we have all these different components we have people who know how to daven. We have people who
come and love the Friday Night Live, but the davening people dont really like it. They prefer Carlbach
because they. See, so I have all these constituencies and Im thinking, our clergy are thinking, well
maybe we need to have one Adath service that goes every week because its more consistent but at the
same time. Its confusing for people, as well.
If I could suggest, you have to think about blending here. Not just one service, because you have different
portals and different entry levels. But at the same time it sounds to me like, if you have different services
once a month, what youre doing is youre having events. Its poor programming. Events dont build upon
something else. Its like theatre. Its like television. You have your favorite show you like to watch once a
week. And if its bad, well after a while you stop going. People dont like to go to bad theatre. People like
to have a certain kind of expectations and youre just denying the larger the congregation those
expectations by limiting it to once a month. You have to have a broader vision of where thats going.

Recording was cut off at this point.

18

Tribute to the Music & Personality

of Hazzan Max Wohlberg
Monday May 8, 2006 4:00 p.m.
Presenters: Hazzanim Kenneth Cohen,
Perry Fine, David Lefkowitz
Erica Lippitz, Lorna Wallach-Kalet
& William Lieberman, Chair
Welcome to this wonderful next session a tribute to Hazzan Max Wohlberg. Alav Hashalom.
presenting the program and helping us through the rest of the afternoon, Hazzan William Lieberman

In

(Applause)
Hazzan William Lieberman -- Thank you, Steve?
th

The biographical entry in the Cantors Assemblys 50 year, Jubilee Journal describes Max Wohlberg as
educator, scholar, composer, Hazzan, and formidable champion of nusach ha-tefillah. Hazzan Max
Wohlberg rose from his student days in a Szatmar yeshivah to become one of the most prominent voices
in the world of Jewish music. His favorite haunts were the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the
New York Public Library, and the New York City Music Library. His linguistic abilities stood him in good
stead, as he read books and articles written in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, German and Hungarian. The
recipient of many honors, in 1987 Professor Wohlberg became occupant of the first endowed chair at the
Cantors Institute the Nathan Cummings Chair of Hazzanut and Liturgy. Upon his passing on April 19,
1996, his funeral service was held at the Seminary in New York, as befitted a great scholar and luminary
in Jewish life.
Asay lkha rav these words from Pirkei Avot ring as true as ever before, as we mark the tenth yahrtzeit
and beginning of the Centennial year of Max Wohlberg. To say the least, it is a daunting, as well as
humbling task to try and convey the essence of an individuals life and music in the space of one hour.
However, the feelings and thoughts that bring the seven presenters before you this afternoon is a sincere
love and respect for a beloved teacher. Asay lkha rav find for yourself a master- teacher How true,
when we pause to remember those who guided us along lifes paths and journeys, and whose teachings
are with us every day of our lives.
It is my pleasure to continue the program by asking Erica Lippitz to introduce her segment.
Erica Lippitz
Id like to give credit -- source of everything that I will be presenting is here in a marvelous book written
by Charles Davidson, From Zatmar to the New World, Max Wohlberg American Cantor. Its published
by JTS. It is an extraordinary, concise, entertaining biography and much of what I will read to you today
will come from this book. Which, by the way, does not only speak about Max but speaks really about the
time and context in which he lived and worked. So, meet Miklosh Wohlberg. Moshe ben Yirmiyahu Born
on February 9, 1907, in Homonna, Hungary. He was the third child of his family. His sister Blanca (or
Blanche), his brother Yitzhak Tzvi (Harry), preceded him and he was followed by his brother Yoseph and
sister Madeline, who would be the child of Herminas second marriage. Were going to fast forward to a
time in which his family was supported by his maternal grandfather, a wealthy wine grower of Pethora,
who had married his daughter Hermina to a scholar, Yirmeyaho, as was customary in those days.
Maxs father and two of his uncles had beautiful voices and functioned as Hazzanim on the High Holy
Days. At the age of four, following the early death of his father, who succumbed to a heart attack, Max
was sent to live with his aunt and uncle. His new life style was comfortable. He was the sole
responsibility of a French maid who had been hired to watch over him. And so it was in his uncles
restaurant, Sterns Kosher Restaurant in Budapest, that Max sang publicly for the first time.

19

It became the custom on Friday evenings for little Miklosh to stand on a table and entertain guests and
family with Shabbos Zmiros. Budapest was also a magnet for the famous Hazzanim of that day. In the
same section of town as Sterns Restaurant was the large Neolog (liberal synagogue), known as the
Taback Temple. Zavel Kwartin served there as Hazzan before immigrating to America. The well-known
Jacob Bachman sang in the other large Rombach Temple of Budapest.
Although Max displayed obvious musical talent, there were no opportunities in Yeshivot for formal musical
studies. Boys with vocal ability who were the sons of Hazzanim studied with their fathers, or they might
have been apprenticed to other Hazzanim as mshorrim. The apprentice system was the usual course
for learning the Cantorial craft.
Max was also curious about life beyond the Yeshiva and one of the most entertaining things youll find in
this book are the stories of his escapades, sneaking off to the theater. One evening he managed to slip
away from Yeshiva early, tucking his payot behind his ears, walked to the theater, bought a ticket and
saw his first play. He was soon hooked often seeing several plays a week. The ushers grew to
recognize him and hed be permitted to sit in a vacant, more expensive seat when there was room. He
also became curious about the society and culture that existed beyond the Yeshiva walls, secured novels
(forbidden books), which he read in secret starting with Dostoyevskys Crime and Punishment
proceeding to The Brothers Karamazov through Tolstoys War and Peace and the list goes on and
on. His interest in reading never stopped during his lifetime, and in later years he would only regret that
his eyesight no longer permitted him to read as voraciously as he had in his youth.
In 1923, Max came to America. His mother was here, his oldest brother and his brothers wife had moved,
th
and he started life new again on 9 Street in lower Manhattan. We now turn to the first musical selection.
You have it there in your hands in the book provided to you.
(Piano, Erica Lippitz singing Shalom Aleikhem, Eliyahu Hanavi)
(Applause)
(Piano in background Perry Fine) You should have the Umalkhuto Bratzon in the middle of the page,
and please join in at the choir parts.
(Piano, Perry Fine singing in Hebrew)
This next setting is a prayer for the State of Israel.
(Piano, Perry Fine singing in Hebrew)
(Applause)
Erica Lippitz
It would be impossible to summarize in a few minutes all the places that Max Wohlberg served as
Hazzan, and the influence he had, but let me highlight some of the more important moments. His first
full-time job was at Congregation Ahavat Achim in College Point, Queens. The year was 1930 and, in the
wake of the Depression, most congregations could not afford both a Rabbi and a Cantor they were
looking for a Kol Bo. So, there he was required to prepare sermons, attend to pastoral duties and,
drawing upon the knowledge of Biblical exegesis, which he acquired during his Yeshiva days, he did all
that.
But the sermons in English were a challenge to him. His English had greatly improved since his days as
a sparkplug salesman, but his delivery was somewhat halting, and he often mispronounced words. Both
Max and the congregation lived through his running battle with the language and, in his later lectures and
speaking engagements, he was admired as a polished and precise speaker. In fact, his commitment to
study was life long. He maintained a program of study that continued as intensely and steadfastly as it

20

had been in the Yeshiva. He set himself the task of becoming an expert in Jewish music. He
methodologically read through the Mishnah and Gamarah, references to music went on to study all the
journals and books on Jewish music that he could find and his copious notes formed the basis of the
future lectures and articles for which he became well known.
His early days in New York, in truth, had been spent mostly with non-musical work. In contrast, his first
full-time position gave him the time and perspective to focus specifically on Jewish music.
It was pardon me. In 1935, he moved on to the Inwood Hebrew Congregation, where he stayed until
1941. It was there that he organized and conducted his first community choir, in addition to working with
the professional octet of men and boys that he had for Shabbat and Festivals. The congregational
melodies that he wrote for that choir and for that congregation became the basis of his first book of
congregational melodies, published in 1948 Shirei Zimrah.
One might also note that he was active in the development of Cantors organizations. From 1933 until
1940, Cantors (at least in the New York area) were dependent upon the Hazzanim Farband and stories
about the Farband in this book would make you glad that we have a Cantors Assembly. Then they tried a
labor union -- Affiliated Hazzan Ministers Alliance, and that didnt last. But all of these were preludes to
the organization that we now, to which we now belong. In fact (pardon me, theres so much to say here
and I want to make sure we dont run out of time for music) In fact, during the years 1945 and 1946,
Max met several times with Rabbi Max Arzt at JTS to explore the possibility of the Seminarys
establishment of a school for the training of American Hazzanim.
In one of those meetings, Arzt told Max that Rabbi Lang had left his congregation and was now Rabbi of
Beth El in West Philadelphia, looking for a Hazzan. So, in this same time period that were describing all
the scholarly work and articles and work with the Farband and work on developing a school, Max served
at Inwood Hebrew Congregation, then moved to Beth El in Minneapolis after his son Jeffrey was born,
and then moved to Emanuel in Hartford, and then moved to Beth El in Philadelphia.
Were now going to return to music, and Lorna and I are going to sing for you the Yismkhu.
Please do feel free. Sing along with us.
(Piano, Erica Lippitz and Lorna Wallach-Kalet Yismkhu)
(Applause)
Bill Lieberman
Please join in as we all do an ensemble piece, The Psalm of David.
(Piano, multiple singers, singing in English)
(Applause)

Perry Fine
I think when certainly when I think of Cantor Wohlberg, and I think many of us would agree we think of
him with a great deal of affection. This was a kind, sweet, gentle man. And I think it was built, personally,
on a great deal of respect for him. Here is a man who was equally comfortable in Talmud and Rabbinics
as he was in the world of Hazelnut. And yet, when you sang for him in his class and I remember going
into the first class, you know, I didnt know anything he just was calm and loving and caring, and took
you where you were and showed you. And there was that gentleness and kindness which I always

21

appreciated. That, coupled with a tremendous wit I mean, just a funny man very funny and a
talent.
I remember, by that time, he was in his 80s, and hed take the music and he would demonstrate
everything, and with a clean pure tone of a man much younger. He could sing forever and sometimes, I
think, his congregations didnt really understand how good he was. I had the privilege of being the
student Cantor at the Malverne Jewish Center on Long Island. That was his last pulpit. And when you
asked people about Cantor Wohlberg, theyd say, yeah, it was nice, but. I mean, he didnt have that
big booming voice, but he had a sweet, gentle voice.
Years later, when I came to my pulpit in South Orange, New Jersey, he installed me and I think this was
one of the last times he installed a Cantor and Id found out that, when we were giving out assignments
for the High Holidays, there was one person who did Minha all the time his name was Jonathan
Woocher. You know the name. Hes Executive Director of JESNA. And he did ithe did a beautiful job.
And hed start Minha with (singing Yitgadal Vyitkadash). I used to wonder, How in the world do you
know that Im just how did you know that? He said, I grew up in the Malverne Jewish Center and
Cantor Wohlberg was my Cantor. So he taught him all these duets. And we did duets together,
reminiscing about Cantor Wohlberg. Lovely man.
Titbarakh Tzurenu from Yahad Bkol, Please join in the refrain.
Well just do the beginning and the end.
(Piano Perry Fine, singing in Hebrew)
(Other voices join in at refrain)
Next page.
(Applause)
Sim Shalom from Yahad Bkol. Please join in.
(Piano Perry Fine singing in Hebrewother voices join in chorus)
(Applause)
Kenneth Cohen
I thought that, since so many of us here were touched by Cantor Wohlberg, it might be nice for us to reexperience what it was like being in class with our dear mentor. So heres a short trip down nusah
memory lane.
Just a few moments for us to go back to a sweet man who loved us and shared with us his passion for
prayer, our sacred music legacy Nusah.
(Recording of Max teaching a class demonstrating Mizmor Shir Lyom Hashabbat, Tzadik Katamar etc.)
Or something like that(laughter)continues singing)
(Applause)
Recording of Max Wholberg
Which suits the text better, according to me, who lived in 1980 in the United States because, if I lived in
1870 in Germany or in Vilna, I would feel differently. For instance, we say to be major is jolly to be
minor is sad. Or in Ahavah Rabah (Sings). That would sound sad. Right? But not necessarily to

22

everybody. To the Egyptian, a major melody would be like a dirge, a funeral dirge, and we sing (sings
Yoshkeh, Yoshkeh). (Sings freilachs, you sing Yismkhu, but to the major this would be a sad thing. So
we must keep in mind that for us, today, we must qualify it.
(Sings Likrat Shabbat, Lkha Dodi)
Because of the text, Mikdash Melekh, and later on Lo Tevoshi, are often sung in my minor a
disappointing quality (Kumi Tsi) sanctuary of values (Mitokh Hahafekha). They could leave it out of
darkness (Rav Lokh Shevet Bemek Habakha) -- value of the period. Sitting in the valley of tears Even
if you sing it in minor end it in major; people will have all these images. Let me illustrate. (Mikdash
Melekh). This is not a mustthis is not a must, but you will come across this very often. That Mikdash
Melekh is sung in minor and the same thing will happen with Lo Tevoshi.
(Applause)
Kenneth Cohen
I almost feel like I could get ready for the Nusah comps, with all the scale degrees and references. This
particular setting of Psalm 23 I first heard and sang at the funeral, actually, of Cantor Wohlbregs wife. Its
very meaningful to me. It reminds me of being there with him at, perhaps, one of the saddest days of his
life and his memory. Let us join together -- Psalm 23 beautiful setting.
(Piano, Kenneth Cohen)
(Applause)
David Lefkowitz
Weve heard about Maxs humor and most of us, who are familiar with some of the things he did in class
Im actually going to go to a different subject, but I cant resist the temptation. I heard one of his jokes
last night that a colleague was telling me that the Bar Mitzvah kids in Philadelphia would receive a pack
of gifts. Among which were a Siddur and an umbrella The Siddur, which rarely was opened, and the
umbrella, which frequently got opened. And, of course, his jokes about his size but, while he may have
been short in physical stature, he was really a giant. And for me, I knew a side of Max that hasnt been
talked about, and that was the one-on-one relationship. He was a tremendous mentor and Id like to just
focus on some memories and anecdotes, which were really very tender and loving. They were serious,
but they remained with me always and really made a difference.
He was concerned with humility in leading prayer. He was concerned with a logic of the Hazzanut, of the
music, not to be showing off but to be interpreting Tfilah. If words were repeated, there had to be a logic
of why they were repeated. The phrasing of texts were very important to him and we had discussions,
actually, where he talked about the importance of accentuation and how it was always important not just
to phrase the Hebrew, but that the Hebrew made logical musical sense. And that there were many
different ways of accomplishing a faithfulness to the Hebrew text which didnt destroy a musical sequence
th
that words could be spread out. That there were mistakes that Hazzanim in the middle part of the 20
Century were making, when they would quickly go to the accented part of the word and then they were
going on one syllable through a melissmatic phrase, which could have been more logically transformed
through breaking the word.
Also that the beginning of a measure isnt necessarily the only place where there is a stress mark; that
there are other ways of having strong beats. So, that was important to me. I remember on occasion in
my first year in school, I brought in a transcription that I had done of a Mimkomkha that I had from a
recording that I loved from early childhood. Max was very gentle and respectful of my Cantorial
background, but he didnt let me get stuck on that. I brought in this Mimkomkha that my father had sung.
He had a weekly radio broadcast and Heinrich Schalit was the organist and Schalit would improvise
these incredible harmonies. They were so beautiful and so I notated the Hazzanut in detail and

23

notated the harmonies and I showed it to Max and he said, Its very nice, but you were weaned on this,
so let yourself move on explore all that there is.
One of the funny moments that I had, but I was really embarrassed and scared he asked me to come
out to his home for my High Holiday Nusah comprehensive. So I came to his home in Malverne and
among he asked me certain things and I did them. He said, Well I know you know these. He says,
Could you sing Apid Nezer? So I said, you mean (sings few words Apid Nezer) He said, Continue.
(Laughter) Well, he said, But you see Thats the point. He says, I want you students to be able to
know these details so that you can transmit this to further generations.
He also taught me lasting influences about modulations. He said, You know, its not healthy
Hazzanically and musically and vocally to just stay in just one key. And you can make it more interesting
its better for the voice but you need to know where youre going with it. And he just, you know,
shared such beautiful details with me. How do you move up a half step or how do you move down a half
step so that the congregational melody is easier. Or if the key changes and youve got a choral piece
coming up that you need to have up a half step how to get there. These kinds of things. As a result, I
became more familiar with the modes how Cantorially to get in and around these.
I just want to say that the piece today is an honor for me to sing. Its a challenge as well, and its not a
straightforward piece. Its there are many levels here. He beautifully depicts the Hebrew phrasing and
he also brings out nuances of the text some of the philosophy, the emotions of the text. So Ill try to
bring some of these forth.
(Piano, David Lefkowitz.. Shir Hamaa lot Lishlomo, Ps. 127)
(Applause)
Erica Lippitz
A few quick notes and then kindly take out the Hatov Ki Lo Holu Rahamekha that was distributed as a
separate page. First I want to note that Max Wohlberg served as the President of this Cantors Assembly
from 1948 to 1951. In 1951, he also began developing the curriculum for the school, concerned that the
way that teachers of Hazzanut were accustomed to teaching was based upon their own experience,
which then depended upon their country of origin and the material that was given to them by their own
teachers. Max thought that such a one-sided approach was not correct. He wanted Hazzanim to be
exposed to all existing traditions. He, therefore, formulated a curriculum based upon an analysis of
Eastern, Western and Central European Hazzanut, which permitted the student to select a suitable
personal style, based upon full knowledge of all available material.
He wrote in one of the articles what he thought the ideal Hazzan ought to be. One who knows
everything about Jewish music and is completely familiar with general music. One who knows the prayer
book in its entirety, as well as its history and the development of the prayers. One who knows the place
of Nusah Hatfilah in all its aspects, and who is able to use that knowledge for the creation of new forms
of Jewish musical expression. And one who is able to use his abilities in the service of the Almighty.
Kindly sing with me. This is a melody we use almost every Shabbos because Professor Wohlberg taught
me how to modulate from Ahavah Rabah to Minor, and its too good a melody not to use.
(Piano, Erica Lippitz, Hatov Ki Lo other voices join in)
First Verse
The Refrain
Second Verse

24

Pick it up
Id like to invite Bill Lieberman back to close the program and Id like to note that the Hatov Ki lo Halu
Rahamekha, as it says on your page, is not a manuscript. It comes from one of the two books that the
Cantors Assembly publishes. I hope you have them both. Azamrah BOdi is the one from which the
Hatov comes. The other book that is available through the CA is Yahad BKol, published in 1975.
William Lieberman
Charles Davidson and Joe Levine both send regrets for not being able to participate in todays tribute.
However, Joe did forward me the following thoughts:
{Bill, thanks for the invitation, but well be overseas at that time. So here are a few thoughts that Ill ask
you to please deliver on my behalf.
th

Distinguished colleagues, its my loss that I cant be with you to observe our teachers 100 birthday. But I
can remind you that Max Wohlberg was a master- not only of nusah- but also of the hilarious one-liner at
the right moment. If he walked into a classroom and spotted a lighted cigarette, hed say with a straight
face, You can smokeif you dont exhale. (Laughter)
He was also a master of improvisation, especially of the numerical Midrash known as Gematriyah. If he
were alive and standing here before you, Im sure Max would say something like, Well, today marks my
th
100 birthday, and the word meiah in Hebrew means one hundred. Yet, if we were to total the
numerical value of the letters of meiah-- Mem-Aleph-Heh-- we would find that they only add up to 46.
Now, I know that whenever Im asked to speak before an audience, in order to calm peoples fears that
my remarks will be overly long, I tell them not to worry-- as usual, Ill be very short. (Laughter) But 46
years instead of 100 is more than short, its an insult! How would it sound if we wished someone that
they should have the zekhut to live to-- 46 and 20. Thats only 66, the gematriyah of needar, or
missing.
Exactly how much is missing from 120? 54, the same total as the letters of the Hebrew word nad,
meaning to wander. So, like a good musician, Id better quit while Im behind bars-- or else you all
might insist that I finish my sentence -- since, unfortunately, Im not on parole.. To which we all say
Amein, Selah (to last 3 bars of Maxs Rosh Hodesh Bentshn)!}
William Lieberman conclusion
My heartfelt thanks and appreciation to my colleagues, the presenters of todays tribute to the life and
music of Max Wohlberg-- Hazzanim Ken Cohen, Perry Fine, David Lefkowitz, Sheldon Levin, Ricky
Lippitz and Lorna Wallach-Kalet. If anyone is interested in obtaining a copy of Charles Davidsons book,
Max Wohlberg, American Cantor, order forms are here at the podium.
Please join with us as we conclude the program with a 1950 version of Adon Olam. Please join in the
refrain.
(Piano, William Lieberman, with all assembled joining in on refrain)
(Applause)
(Piano background)
Thank you.
(Piano only)
Steve Stoehr
Thank you, everyone. All right, folks. 6:30 is dinner. Enjoy some free time. Hospitality Room is open.

25

THE MUSIC AND LIFE OF MAX WOHLBERG

Cantors Assembly Convention Hudson Valley Resort
Monday, May 8, 2006
4:00 -5:00 PM
Erica Lippitz (Part I - Childhood)
From Max Wohlberg American Cantor
Yalkut Zmirotai
P.7: Shalom Aleikhem
P.42: Eiliyahu Hanavi
Lorna Wallach-Kalet
Arvit Lhol
P.6: Mikhomokho
P.18: Prayer For Israel
Perry Fine
Erica Lippitz (Part II Active Years)
From Max Wohlberg American Cantor
Chemdat Shabbat
P.36: Yismchu
Erica Lippitz & Lorna Wallach-Kalet
High Holiday Hymns
P.8: A Psalm Of David
Community Sing
Perry Fine (Personal Thoughts)
Yachad Bkol
P.22: Titbarach
P.44: Sim Shalom
Perry Fine
Kenneth Cohen (Personal Thoughts)
Pirkei Zemer
P. 12: Mizmor LDavid IV (Psalm 23)
Kenneth Cohen
David Lefkowitz (Personal Thoughts)
Pirkei Zemer
P.25: Shir Hamaalot LiShlomo (Psalm 127)
David Lefkowitz
Erica Lippitz (Part III JTS Years and Beyond)
From Max Wohlberg American Cantor
Manuscript
Hatov Ki Lo Chalu
Erica Lippitz
William Lieberman (Reflections from Joe Levine)
Manuscript

26

Adon Olam, 1950

William Lieberman & Community Chorus
**********
Sheldon Levin, piano accompanist

27

Annual Address of the Executive Vice President

Presenter: Hazzan Steven Stein
Tuesday May 9, 2006, 9:30 a.m.
There is a saying that suggests, The only thing constant is change. Every generation has claimed that
the world around it was changing. And, they were right. What has been most unique in the past 50 years
(and especially the last 10 years) has been the pace of change. Wired magazine recently ran a series on
the past 10 years of technological change. Ten years ago the founder of Amazon.com was still trying to
convince people that selling books online was possible; he was delivering orders to the post office in his
Chevy Blazer. Nine years ago, Polaroid introduced the first consumer one-mega pixel digital camera,
which cost over $3,500. Five years ago, a college dropout introduced a service called Napster which led
to a revolution in how music is purchased and delivered. Three years ago, Apple Computer released the
IPod, hoping they might sell a few hundred thousand. They sold over a million units in less than a year.
And, consider some of what happened just last year:
The national phenomenon of blogging took off. It is estimated that a new blog is created every
second over 80,000 in a day
An appearance by Jon Stewart a few months back on a CNN show was seen by more people
online than on television
A new phenomenon known as podcasting has emerged. For those of you who are not quite up to
speed on this technology, podcasting is the distribution of audio programming through the internet
and played back on the users MP3 player at his or her whim.
Is the pace of change likely to affect us in the Cantorate? You bet! Many of us, Im sure, feel that the
velocity of change is too rapid. Though, I dare say, if you are someone waiting for a cure to an illness
that has afflicted you or someone you love, you are praying for medical technology to advance more
speedily.
Chances are your parents and grandparents hand wrote letters to family and friends, but how many of us
still write letters? And when it comes to our children, forget it. The younger generation communicates
almost exclusively by cellphone and e-mail, text and instant messaging. It is not far-fetched to predict
that todays young people, after the low-tech summer-camp years are over, may never again in their lives
put pen to paper to write a personal letter.
For decades, the cornerstone of family entertainment had been going to the movies. But, with all the
home entertainment options now available, there has been a decline in movie theatre attendance for
three consecutive years.
For any profession, including our own to remain relevant, taking into account the speed of change in
todays society, we are going to have be aware of what is happening in the culture around us and we will
have to re-evaluate our priorities and goals no less often than every few years. The theme of the Cantor
as more than a singer, novel and creative in the 1980s, is no longer so. We have gotten that message
across. It is clear from the job descriptions that congregations submit to us that they see the hazzan as a
multi-faceted individual immersed in education and pastoral work, along with music.
There is an organization known as the Alban Institute. Its mission is to conduct research on
congregations of all faiths, guiding churches and synagogues, along with professional and lay leaders, in
how to best serve their constituencies. Recent articles in their periodical, the foundation for much of what
I am sharing this morning, suggests that while in the past, pastoral leadership was about playing various
roles, that may no longer be sufficient. Clergy schooled and skilled in all the right roles may still find
themselves presiding over declining synagogues and churches, battered by complaining congregants,
and wondering why their answers dont work anymore.

28

To be sure, as hazzanim we have an obligation to ourselves and to those we serve to develop our voices
to their fullest potential and to maintain our singing at the highest possible level. Every hazzan should
have a voice teacher and/or vocal coach with whom he/she studies weekly, regardless of age and
experience. But, of equal if not greater importance now and into the immediate future may be the manner
in which we touch the lives of others. On the one hand, attendance at services may be down. On the
other, we see that our congregants are reaching out to us. Try as they may to display an aura of
confidence, it is often a faade masking an inner insecurity. People are concerned about being able to
keep up with rapid technological changes. Will we be able to figure out how to work the new electronic
gadgets that are constantly being introduced? Of greater concern, since 9/11, we dont feel as safe as
we used to. We worry about terrorism on our own soil, in addition to the daily security threats facing our
beloved state of Israel.
It has been suggested that the clergy of the future will need the heart of a servant. In other words, we
must understand that our purpose is to enrich the lives of others. Remember the words of the Hinni
which speak of our humility. It is essential to balance modesty with a sense of professional pride, but
professional pride is different from egotism. We are not in this profession to have our own needs met.
Our purpose is to serve others; we best not forget that. This certainly is not meant to imply that we be a
doormat, to be so self-sacrificing that we do injury to ourselves relinquishing our own integrity. The
willingness to devote ones self to making the lives of others better must come from an inner strength and
confidence. It is not to be a sign of weakness.
The clergyperson of the future needs to be an architect. The greatest challenge of the architect is to be
both an artist and a mechanic to see the grand design and at the same time attend to the details, to
create a thing of beauty that works effectively.
It has been suggested that the clergy of the future must have the strength of a gymnast. Imagine the
fortitude it takes to run full speed into failure. Thats essentially what a gymnast does on every vault. The
chances of achieving a perfect 10 on a vault are infinitesimal. The chances of missing the landing are
great, even for accomplished gymnasts. And yet they are able to focus their effort, marshal their strength
of body and mind and enter into the challenge ahead of them. And they are able to bounce back quickly
from a failure and try again, perhaps taking an even greater risk the next time. Thats the kind of strength
clergy need for the future. It will require a strength that enables us to focus even in the face of possible
failure, because the solutions to the challenges we confront may not be clear or perhaps dont even exist.
We will need a strength that enables us to move into the challenge ahead with great intensity, even if we
cannot be sure of the outcome, because anything less will lack the energy needed for the task at hand.
Clergy of the future will need the legs of marathoners. Marathoners are in it for the long haul. The goals
set may not be quickly accomplished. Lo Alecha Hamlacha Ligmor. The transitions that are taking place
in society are leading us some place new, but we are not yet sure of our destination. Who among us truly
knows what lies ahead? Leaders for the future will need to stick to the missions they believe in. They will
need to try and fail and try again. They will need to keep learning, discovering and discerning. They will
need to deal with those who resist change, those who clamor for more and faster change, those who are
tired, those who are fearful, those who are annoyed, and those who want to give up.
Perhaps the most striking physical characteristic of the marathoner is leanness. Some baggage from the
past must be discarded, setting aside programs and priorities that no longer serve our purpose. As
Conservative Jews, whose motto is tradition and change our challenge is to determine what shall be
preserved and what we should set aside.
And, the leader of the future should have the soul of a poet. Poets combine words and images in ways
that create new realities for us. They help us feel as well as think. Poets help us to see what we could
not see before, creating new possibilities and realities for us.
For the past few moments I have been speaking in metaphors. In truth, no one person could embody all
of these qualities. So, the leader for the future of a synagogue is not a person, but rather a team. It will
require the combined efforts of a hazzan, a rabbi, an educator and a team of dedicated and wise lay

29

leaders to effectively lead a congregation. Upon being named the next chancellor of JTS, Dr. Eisen spoke
of the need to re-energize synagogues by doing a better job of engaging the laity.
Is there a correlation between our singing and our ability to touch those we serve? The answer is, yes.
Music has always occupied an important role in the lives of people, from youth to adulthood. It can have
both a physiological and psychological impact on humanity. Music has many therapeutic qualities and has
been utilized in promoting both physical and psychological healing by reducing stress.
Numerous studies have shown the benefit of music on the human nervous system. Music can equalize
and slow down brain waves, affect respiration, heartbeat and pulse, reduce muscle tension, increase
endorphin levels, regulate stress-related hormones, boost the immune system and produce a feeling of
well being. Music can relax a newborn child and elicit a response from elderly patients with diminished
faculties. Music has been used to calm the agitation of Alzheimers patients. Those afflicted will
sometimes respond to music when nothing else seems to work.
With the use of music, a person in surgery may require less anesthesia. Therapists have found that
music can help patients better manage postoperative discomfort. Some hospitals are using music to help
cancer patients cope with physical and emotional pain. As we plan for the future of the Cantorate,
continuously re-evaluating our priorities, perhaps classes in music therapy should be added to our course
of study.
I would like to conclude my speech this morning with a few quotations from perek gimel of Pirkei Avot
(passages referred to are 12 and 13).
Finally, Rabbi Elazar Ben Azariah compares one whose wisdom exceeds his good deeds to a tree with
many branches and few roots. A strong wind can uproot and topple over the tree. The person, in
contrast, whose good deeds exceed his wisdom, may be likened to the tree with few branches but many
roots. It is far more likely to survive the strong wind and flourish.
My hope for all of you my dear colleagues is that your good deeds will continue to multiply in the years
ahead.

30

The Genius of Abraham Joshua Heschel

Tuesday May 9, 2006 11:30 a.m.
Presenter: Rabbi Gordon Tucker
Marc Dinkin
It is my esteemed privilege this afternoon to welcome Rabbi Gordon Tucker, who has been at Temple
Israel Center in White Plaines, sharing the pulpit with out esteemed colleague Jack Mendelson. Rabbi
Tucker has been at the Temple since 1994. In 2003, he was named Senior Rabbi. A native of New York
City, he holds the AB Degree from Harvard University and a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University.
The Jewish Theological Seminary of America ordained him a Rabbi in 1975.
Currently Rabbi Tucker is Honorary Chairman of the Board of the Masorti Foundation for Conservative
Judaism in Israel and a member of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical
Assembly. Rabbi Tucker joined the faculty of JTS in 1976 and has taught there continuously ever since.
He is currently Adjunct Assistant Professor of Jewish philosophy. From 1984 to 1992, Rabbi Tucker was
Dean of the Rabbinical School at JTS, in which capacity he directed the training of over 200 Rabbis.
Rabbi Gordon Tucker
(Applause)
Thank you, Marc. Did I hear there is a whole bunch of Yaleis in the room? (Laughter) Yeah? OkI
mean both Harvard and Princeton got hissed! So ok. Urim v tumim. (Laughter)
Steve Stoehr asked me to teach here and I was delighted to do it. The only little hitch was that he asked
me to teach about Heschel, which was fine because I did last year bring out a translation and a
commentary on Heschels long work on rabbinic theology called Torah Min Hashamayim -- and its
English title is Heavenly Torah so that was fine. .And Ive been doing some teaching from that book,
as you might imagine, over the last year, but he also wanted me to talk about Heschel on liturgy. And
theres the hitch. He says a lot of things on a lot of subjects in Torah Min Hashamayim. Theres
virtually nothing about liturgy in there, except (I didnt have the heart to tell Steve this he was giving me
an impossible assignment) except that there is actually one section early on in Torah Min
Hashamayim that does, in effect, tell us some important things about liturgy, or at least raise some
important questions about it. And, we will be sure to get to that before we are done.
What Id like to do here, therefore, is range over a number of his earlier works. Some things he has had
to say about prayer, public and private, the role of the clergy in prayer, the role of institutions of prayer in
the life of prayer. Some of these sources may be known to some of you; some, I am sure, will be a little
less known, and to use it as a way of just sparking some thought. And, if it sparks some comments and
some questions, I am happy to take them as we go along; but I will manage that time so that we get
through at least the things that I am anxious to get through. So dont be inhibited about raising your hand
at some point and Ill try, in the midst of these blinding lights, try to do my best to see hands as they go up
and, if there are some relevant comments or pointed questions along the way, well make room for that.
So lets begin here on Page 1 of this handout that everyone has. I assume, by the way, with the way
everything is being pushed back, that we have the same hour that was planned. Is that correct? OK.
So lets look at the first text in the upper left-hand corner. This is I have taken this out of a collection of
essays that was edited by Heschels daughter, Suzanna Heschel a wonderful book that, if you dont
have, you should own Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity which was published just a number of
years ago. But this essay from which this comes, on prayer, was actually published in The Review of
Religion in 1945.

31

About 100 years ago, he writes this is how he begins the essay Rabbi Isaac Mayer Alter of Ger
now Yitzchak Mayer of Gerusually you see that in Hebrew as Gur and actually in Polish it is
Goracalvaria, which is, my friend and colleague and teacher of many of us Art Green likes to point out, is
one of the symptoms of living in Golas that Goracalvaria means Calvary hill. And, to be the Rebbe of
Calvary hillright? This is the very essence of Golas. You know, its like the St. Mary Hassidim and so
on. I mean we have all this this is a no thats not a joke. Thats what sockmar is.
So in any event, Yitzchak Mayer is better known as another quaint thing about the Jewish tradition is
how people are known by the names of their books right? So one of the famous Gerer Rebbes was the
Sfas Emes. Right. That wasnt his name; it was the name of his most famous work, the Hofetz Hayyim.
That wasnt his name, right, it was Yisrael Mayer Hakohen Kagen, but he was known as
And this is somethingI imagine its not entirely unique to the Jewish tradition, but it is distinctive about
us. Its as if Shakespeare became known as The Hamlet. Not to my knowledge did anything like that
ever happen, but, being identified with the words and the ideas that you put out is an interesting thing in
and of itself. Yitzchak Mayer was known as the Hidusheirim. When you see the Hidusheirim the noveli
of Yitzchak Mayer, thats who were talking about.
So About 100 years ago, he writes, he pondered the question of what a certain shoemaker of his
acquaintance should do about his morning prayer. The weekday shaharit. Here was the problem. His
customers were poor men who owned only one pair of shoes. So the shoemaker used to pick up their
shoes at a late evening hour and work on them the whole night and part of the morning, right through the
break of dawn, in order to deliver them before their owners had to go to work. So when should the
shoemaker say his morning prayer? Course Zreizim Akdamim Lmitzvot, if hes up when the dawn
breaks, he really should drop everything and daven then. So should he pray quickly the first thing in the
morning and then go back to work? But that could be depriving some of the poor people of their
livelihood. Theyll get to work later, theyll do less work (theyre paid by the piece), and they will be
loosing money. Or should he continue his work and let the appointed hour of prayer go by and every
once in a while, raising his hammer from the shoes, utter a sigh woe unto me, I havent prayed yet?
Perhaps that sigh is worth more than prayer itself.
A story that I think needs no commentary its sort of self-commenting about what hes getting at here
what Yitzchak Mayer was getting at and what Heschel was trying to get at by starting off this essay on
prayer with this evocative question. So well have occasion to get back to this, but with that as a kind of
an opener and as a prologue, lets go on to a source thats not usually thought of as a place where
Heschel is talking about prayer and yet he does say some interesting things about tfilah in his book
The Prophets.
The Prophets that English work was published in 1962, but it was based on, it was an expansion of,
his doctoral dissertation written in German several decades earlier on The Prophets, which he wrote in
Berlin. And, that its based on a kind of a German academic work an academic work in German in
part accounts for some of the high faluting technical language in here, such as the very first word that we
find in this selection, which is Theo tropism. I dont know when the last time you used that in regular
conversation was. I never have. This is a section in The Prophets where he contrasts anthropotropism
with Theo tropism. Makes it even worse. But just to clarify very quickly well you know what
phototropism is when plants turn towards the sun, towards the light. So anthrop tropism is turning
towards human beings. Thats something that God does, which was, in effect, what Heschel was trying to
teach us throughout this work is really the way to understand biblical prophesy.
Whether you believe it really happens, really happened, or not is a separate question. If you want to
understand the phenomenon of biblical prophesy, you have to understand it as a divine turning to human
beings to particular human beings for something that is going to fulfill a divine need. Gods inner
emotional life requires God turning to a human prophet to be able to convey that emotional reality of God
to other human beings. So thats anthrop tropism.

32

The converse of that is when human beings turn to God. Theo tropism, mans turning to God, is a
structure of experience that may be attained through the performance of ritual acts, prayer, meditation
not an exhaustive list. Ritual acts is the most prominent of these and it is first on the list. And we know it
very well because of what weve been reading in shul the last several weeks. Vayikra is the Theo tropic
book par excellence in this respect that there are rituals that the authorized functionary of the
community, not by virtue of being called but by virtue of his status and the authority invested in him by the
community there are ritual acts that are done under the supervision of that person that are meant to be
a turning to God whether it is for forgiveness, for healing or for purification, or whatever it might be.
It is characteristic of exercises performed in order to induce the state of ecstasy and communion with
God. Of efforts of a magic nature aimed at establishing contact with the sphere of the divine. So just go
back a few days and think about the Sir Hamishtaleach, the goat that is sent off into the wilderness to
Azazel -- a quasi, or maybe not even quasi-magical act aimed at establishing contact in some meaningful
way with the sphere of the divine.
But now Heschel focuses on the second thing on the list. Not on ritual acts per se but on prayer that
can be a form of turning to God. Prayer, too, is an act consisting of a moment or decision or turning, and
of a moment of direction. For to be engaged in prayer and to be away from prayer are two different states
of living and thinking. You are a different person when youre in prayer. In the depth of the soul there is a
distance between the two. The course of consciousness which a person pursues, the way of thinking by
which he lives most of the time, are remote from the course and way of thinking peculiar to prayer. To be
able to pray, one must alter the course of consciousness. One must go through moments of
disengagement. One must enter another course of thinking. One must face in a different direction.
The most commonly done and also, I think, most commonly overlooked reflection of this expression of
what it means to be altering ones consciousness and to be disengaging, and to be going into a state of
ecstasy because what ecstasy means quite literally the literal meaning of the word means to be
outside of the place, or. As we might say in English not in the colloquial use of the term beside
yourself
The most commonly performed act that is also the most commonly overlooked is I take three steps
forward before the Amidah. If I happen to be standing near a wall, I take three steps back first so that I
dont crash my head into the wall. But the essential, the essential choreography is three steps forward
and, at the end, three steps back. Why? Because I am supposed to be entering a different space. Think
of yourself as a director of some play and you want to create a different reality on the stage from what the
actor is in right now. Perhaps its a flash back. Whatever it might be, you will either direct the actor or
actress to turn around dramatically or the stage will be darkened and the light will come up on a different
part of the stage. Theres going to be what is essentially a symbolic change or space, which is going to
be about a change of consciousness about creating a different world.
In the oft-quoted Midrash about Moses ending up in Akivas Academy -- everyone knows this story
wants to meet this man who will be this great exegetical superstar some day and when God is going to
send Moses to see Akivas Academy, he says to him, Hazor Laharekha -- Turn around. Its the
perfect staging. Moses has to turn around because, when you change your orientation, you change your
direction or you literally change where you are even by three little steps it is expressing something
critical about prayer. You cant do it in your normal space. You cant do it with your normal way of
thinking. Something has to change significantly. And thats what Heschel is now beginning to describe
about prayer.
Top of the second columnThe course one must take in order to arrive at prayer is on the way to God.
And now hes going to say something very, very interesting and, in a way, counter intuitive so pay
attention here. The focus of prayer is not the self. A man may spend hours meditating about himself,
will be stirred by the deepest sympathy for his fellow man, and no prayer will come to pass. Prayer
comes to pass in a complete turning of the heart toward God, toward his goodness and power. It is the
momentary disregard of ones personal concerns, the absence of self-centered thoughts, which constitute

33

the art of prayer. Feeling becomes prayer in the moment in which one forgets ones self and becomes
aware of God.
When we analyze the consciousness of a supplicant, we discover that it is not concentrated upon his
own interests, but on something beyond the self. The thought of personal need is absent and the thought
of divine grace alone is present in his mind. Thus, in beseeching him for bread Barekh alenu Adonay
Eloheinu et hashanah hazot vet kol miney tvuatah ltovah vten brakha etc. In beseeching God for
bread, there is one instant, at least, in which the mind is directed neither to ones hunger nor to food but
to Gods mercy, and this instant is prayer.
Now I deliberately quoted the ninth brakha of the Amidah, because those middle brakhot on the
weekday Amidah are exactly what seem to contradict what Heschel is saying here. The core of our daily
tfilah is thinking about our needs and directing those needs to God. In fact, one of the ways of
understanding, I think, why the Amidah of Shabbat eliminates all of that is precisely because Shabbat is
supposed to be the day on which you are not focused so much on the things you dont have but on the
things you do have. Shabbat is supposed to be a day in which you are focused on the blessings of life
and all that goes along with it and, if you begin asking God for things, youre inevitably going to be
focused on all the things you are lacking. Not a very Shabbosdik point to view to adopt.
And yet Heschel tells us that you can be as sincere as possible in asking for things for yourself, not
outrageous, luxurious things the necessities of life. You can be as sincere as you want in saying Tka
bshofar lherutenu vsa nes lkabetz galuyotenu and be thinking about Jews in Iran and Jews in places
where they are oppressed, and thinking only of your fellow human beings and prayer may still not be
happening, because its still not something that is connecting with the divine reality. It is sending
something out there to something you hope is there, that will hear something about my needs or my
fellow human beings needs.
Laudable, admirable -- nothing wrong with it. But not the same as having empathy or an intuition about
what it is that is in the divine consciousness. What Gods inner life is. Exactly this is why its in the
book of The Prophets. Because he has spent this whole book we are already on page 440, you see
developing this idea that God, from the point of view of the classic Jewish tradition, does have an inner
emotional life. And to connect to that, to have that kind of empathy for God in that instant (and it may
just last an instant), thats when prayer happens. That is tfilahthe sense that I have taken three steps
forward and I am literally now in touch with a different consciousness.
In prayer we shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender. God is the center toward
which all forces tend. God is the source. We are the flowing of Gods force the ebb and flow of Gods
tides. Or you might extend this a little bit. Other modern philosophers have talked about human beings
as being the waves in the ocean, which is God. Bundles of local energy, we are, with our own identify,
but not really separable from the ocean itself. And until we feel that that we are not separate, that we
are ultimately connected to the source of all, prayer is not really happening. Its a challenging idea, which
is going to become even more challenging when he, in other passages, gets us to question. So what do
we need to do to bring the possibility of that kind of prayer to ourselves and to our communities, and what
are the things that stand in the way?
A student of mine recently pointed out, when I was talking about a passage very similar to this in Heschel,
just a kind of a cute acronym, which is a good thing to keep in mind because theres a certain amount of
truth in it, that ego the word ego can be taken to mean Edges God Out. Right? The selfconsciousness that you had before you took the three steps forward somehow keeps God on the margin.
And this is a very classic Hassidic idea that youve got to get beyond the ego and beyond the Anohiyut in
order really to experience the connection with the one source of everything.
So now lets go back to that essay that we started with, with the perplexity of the Hidusherim about the
shoemaker, and see what he says a little further on in that essay. Its at the bottom of the right-hand
column on Page 1, which is going really to build on what we just read from The Prophets.

34

To a farmer about to prepare a seed bed, the prerequisite for his undertaking is not the accidental need
of a crop. Thats an accident. I happen to need food now Ive run out, or Im going to run out at a
certain time, and I need to plant more. His need of food does not endow him with skill in cultivating the
earth. It merely affords the stimulus and purpose for his undertaking. I better plant. But what if you dont
know how to plant. Youre needing to plant is not going to do you any good unless you know how. It is
his knowledge, his possession of the idea of tillage, which enables him to raise crops. The same
principle, he says, applies to prayer.
And, before welets justbecause he leaves the first clause out here essentially, which is, the fact that I
need things, the fact that I feel a sense of dependence on some force beyond me, the fact that I need to
turn to a higher power to use kind of recovery language here to do things that I cant do myself all of
that is excellent. But it is only the accident of my life that requires me to turn to someone in prayer.
But what if I dont know how to do it. What if I am not skilled in being able to do it. It is the natural loyalty
of living, fertilized by faith saved through a lifetime that is the soil on which prayer can grow. Laden with
secret fertility and patient discreteness concerning things to be and things forever unknown, the soil of the
soul nourishes and holds the roots of prayer. But the soil by itself does not produce crops. There must
also be the idea of prayer to make the soul yield its amazing fruit. And so what is the idea of prayer? It
may seem to be the assumption of mans ability to accost God and to lay our hopes, sorrows and wishes
before Him those 13 middle lessons of the Amidah but this assumption is a paraphrase rather than a
precise expression of what we believe.
Now just look at the last 6 lines or so of this paragraph. Contact with God is not our achievement. It is a
gift coming down to us from on high like a meteor, rather than rising up like a rocket. Before the words of
prayer come to the lips, the mind must believe in Gods willingness to draw near to us, and in our ability to
clear the path for his approach. Such belief is the idea that leads us toward prayer. The expression of
that, of course, is after youve taken the three steps forward, you say Adonay sfatay tiftakh ufi yagid
thilatekha before I can really I can say words any time I want, but before those words become truly
words of prayer (of tfilah), God has to make it possible for me. And thats a matter thats a statement of
faith, that there is a God who can do that who can turn, in that sense, towards me. Its a wonderful
extension of the idea of biblical prophecy, where God picks one or two or three people to turn to in a
generation. At the moment of tfilah, you are expressing a faith that God could be turning to you at that
moment, to create a different kind of consciousness to create this empathy and connection with the
divine pathos that will enable you to get beyond the ego and to really connect to that which is most real.
So the next page, probably the most challenging for all of us, is how structures hinder us.
This is from Mans Quest For God, published in the early 50s, which has since been reprinted in a more
correct form as Quest For God. I remember Avram Holtz at the seminary once advised a student to go
read Mans Quest For God and the student dutifully went and, you know, looked it up in the
cataloguein a book catalogue somewhereand said, There is no such book. And Dr. Holtz said to
him, Its impossible. Its one of the greatest books every written. How can you say theres no such
book? Well, it had been reprinted as Quest for God, taking Mans out of it, and he was completely
unaware of that. But this is the original title and look what he says here.
We worry a great deal about the problem of church and state. Its comforting to know its not just a
problem of 2006 it was back in the 1950s also. Now what about the church and God. Sometime there
seems to be a greater separation between the church and God than between the church and state.
(laughter) Or as I sometimes like to kid around, you know, you must really have a lot of guts to get up
and talk about the G-man in shul. I know thats very unpeceil, so
Look what he says here. It has become a habit with modern movements to decapitate biblical verses.
Some such decapitated verses have become famous slogans. The name of the BILU movement is an
abbreviation of bet yud lamed vav, or House of Jacob, come let us walk. The very next verse in Isaiah,
after Lo yisagoy el goy herev lo yilmdu od milhamah, but the essence of the verse Bor Adonay, which

35

are the next two words in the light of the Lord omitted disciples of Ahad Haam proclaimed Lo vhayil
vlo vhoakh ki im bruakh. Yet the prophet had said, Ki im bruhi my spirit Gods spirit..
The Jewish National Fund has as its official motto Vhaaretz lo timahel litzmitut well read it in a week
and a half the land shall not be sold forever. But the end of the verses Ki li haaretz (laughter)
not because you can reclaim it and own it and assert your ownership over. For nobody can assert
ownership over it. Its Gods. And during the last war, the popular slogan among Russian Jews was, Lo
amut ki ehyeh, but the continuation of Vasaper maase Yah was dropped. Institutions, JNF, Zionism,
whatever it is, have this habit of decapitating biblical verses. Its not a decapitation really it is a desacrilization. Its eliminating the God language.
OK. Now lets get a little closer to home. Twenty pages later on. The prominence given to the sermon,
as if the sermon were the core and prayer the shell, is not only a drain on the intellectual resources of the
preacher Im not sure exactly what he means there, but I assume, living this as I do week in and week
out -- lets face it folks, there arent 52 good ideas a year. (laughter and applause) There arent. Right?
but also a serious deviation from the spirit of our tradition. The sermon, unlike prayer, has never been
considered as one of the supreme things in this world. (laughter)
Theres a whole Breita in Psahim that talks about things that were around, created before creation, that
were around before the creation of the world and there were such things as the tshuvah and Bet
Hamikdash, and, you know, all of these things the sermons not in there. OK?
If the vast amount of time and energy invested in the search of ideas and devices for preaching if the
fire spent on the alter of oratory were dedicated to the realm of prayer we would not find it too difficult to
convey to others what it means to utter a word in the presence of God. Preach in order to pray, he
advises. Preach in order to inspire others to pray. The test of a true sermon is that it can be converted
to prayer. Now theres an interesting challenge. Will something that you teach, something that you
model, get someone to actually not just move three steps forward, but actually move into a different
space. Will it be a little piece of hand luggage that hes going to be able to take with him on that journey
and make it a real journey.
And so, a few pages later, Herschel says the following, What I plead for is the creation of a prayer
atmosphere. Its not created by ceremonies, gimmicks, speeches, but by the example of prayer by a
person who prays. You create that atmosphere, not around you, but within you. And, if I would add
here, people observing you (all of us that was the general you, not you here), they know the difference.
I am a congregant (Heschel writing), and I know from personal experience how different the situation is
when the Rabbi is concerned with prayer instead of with how many people attend the service. The
difference between a service in which the Rabbi comes prepared to respond to 30 centuries of Jewish
experience, and one in which he comes to review the book of the month or the news of the day. It was in
the interest of bringing about order and decorum that, in some synagogues, the Rabbi and Cantor
decided to occupy a position facing the congregation. I dont have an exhaustive survey of this. I
suspect were in quite a different place statistically from where it was in 1954 when this was published,
but maybe not all that different.
It is quite possible that a re-examination of the whole problem of worship would lead to the conclusion
that the innovation was in error. The essence of prayer is not decorum but, rather, an event in the inner
life of men (people its 1954). He who prays must turn his eyes down and his heart up. His face is not
supposed to be visible. The heart is supposed to be visible. What goes on in the heart is reflected in
ones face. It is embarrassing to be exposed to the sight of the whole congregation in moments when
one wishes to be alone with his God. Which, of course, is part of what putting the talit over ones head is
about to create a kind of private space.
I have a little corner in the back we dont go up to the Bima until the shaharit is over on Shabbat
morning, and one of the problems I have always had with the Shaharit Amidah was that, if the ushers who
were supposed to kind of keep people from barging in during the Amidah so as not to disturb people,

36

sometimes they are also saying the Amidah, people will get by them and someone will come by me and,
you know, expect to say Good Shabbos or whatever, so Ive found for myself a little inaccessible corner
in the back of the synagogue. I have to go through a door its very bizzare but thats where I daven
the Shaharit, the Amidah for Shaharit, because, if Im seeing, its a whole other thing that goes on. A
whole other dynamic is created. Why do the Kohanim cover their heads with the talit during the Nsiat
Kapayim during the Dukhenen? Its because their identity is supposed to be nullified at that moment.
Ego edges God out. Youre not supposed to be looking at a person. Youre not supposed to be seeing a
human face.
A Cantor who faces the Holiness in the Ark, rather than the curiosity of people, will realize that his
audience is God. He will learn to realize that his task is not to entertain but to represent the People,
Israel. He will be carried away into moments in which he will forget the world, ignore the congregation,
and be overcome by the awareness of the One in whose presence he stands. The congregation then will
hear and sense this gets to my saying a few minutes ago that people know the difference that the
Cantor is not giving a recital, but worshiping God. And that to pray does not mean to listen to a
singer this is a great phrase coming up but to identify ones self with what is being proclaimed in
their name.
It is not what is being done to me. It is whats being done, in a sense, for me and with me, in my name
that I am connected with I identify with. And this whole page, I think it reads as pointedly, I think, and
with as much punch, 52 years after it was published as back then is an enormous challenge to all of us,
whether were Rabbis or Cantors about this idea of creation of a prayer atmosphere, and what it means to
take words and space and human form, human body, human clothes, all the things that are as ordinary
and mundane as they can be, and create a different reality and a different consciousness with them.
Because its only by exiting the normal reality and the normal consciousness that one has what Im
about to say is intended as a pun one has even a prayer of connecting with God.
One of the things he goes through, by the way those of you who are familiar with Mans Quest For
God is what he considers to be the, you know, the nice try things about prayer. That people will talk
about, well, it helps us connect with the people, Israel. Thats why we teach our kids tfila, Hebrew in our
religious schools because theyll be able to go into any shul anywhere in the world and connect with
their fellow Jews. Nothing wrong with that. Right? In fact, theres something very good about that. And
its good policy, in that sense, if were raising kids to identify with the rest of the Jewish world, which,
hopefully, we all want to do. Terrific! That it is also something about finding yourself recalls that either
the fallacy or something like that of solipsism you know, the world ends at my nose, or I need to find
myself and center myself. We all need to find ourselves and center ourselves, and if the siddur, if the
words of prayer somehow help us do that Ma Tov thats great.
But all of the things that people have said to try to rationalize prayer, he says, are just kind of fringe
benefits of it. Its not the essence of what tfila is. Unless it has a real theological reality, unless there
really a Theo tropism, a turning to God in whom you believe and whom you believe can be turned to, and
can be connected with, then it is ultimately not really tfila. It may be all sorts of good things, but it is not
that.
Think of how weve conditioned generations of Jewish children growing up, many of whom are adults and
even grandparents and great-grandparents now. A child comes home from school and talks about I
am going to raise money for victims of terror in Israel
Its fabulous, right. The kid cares enough to know about it, to think its important, to help out other human
beings. Im going to go to rally for the people in Darfur reaching even beyond your community
having that kind of social consciousness. Coming home and saying, I really want to spend a summer in
Israel and learn Hebrew really well. All of these get very, very positive feedback. I want to learn as
much as I can about Jewish history. Wonderful, positive feedback we will all give that child, but do you
think the child that comes home, or even dares to say, I really would like to work on my relationship with
God (laughter) what do the parents say at that point? These kinds of conditionings have an effect after
a while, when they are repeated over and over again.

37

OK. Lets look at Page 3. Im going to leave the left-hand column for you to read. I called it a Why
Synthesis, the importance of prayer being a moment of connection, even if its just an instant he has
established here. He gives two stories there, also from that essay on prayer. One from Sefer Hassidim
in the middle ages, which reinforces that idea, but just so you dont get the idea that he thinks that
practice and prayer that learning siddur Hebrew, and that going through the discipline of kevah day in
and day out is just so you dont think he believes thats unimportant he gives you another very
important story from the Rizoner of Rebbe, which brings us back to the importance of synthesizing both of
these things. But youll read that and evaluate it on your own.
I want to move injust a moment, after I take this questionto the right-hand column, which is, in fact,
from Heavenly Torah.
Question cannot distinguish
Yeah. I totally agree and, which is why I think theological talk is very important. People have to be gotten
accustomed to thinking that its ok to think this way, its ok to struggle with it. Heschel at one point talks
about how I still dont know what God is but Im still struggling with it. But, when he talks about
creating an atmosphere of prayer and, therefore, creating an atmosphere of devotion, an atmosphere of
something being Godly, people have to see it. And people have to see it in a way that they are not only
intrigued by it, but feel that maybe they want to try to get some of it. Its like that classic scene in When
Harry Met Sally. You know the scenein the restaurant shesright! Ill have what shes having. You
know, the punch line. Right? Those of you who dont know, ask Jack Mendelson. Hell tell you. He
knows about these things. I didnt know what the scene meant; he explained it to me. (laughter)
But, I dont want you to be thinking about this during the Musaf Amidah, but comment from the audience
I know (laughter). People should be looking at you and looking at me looking at the Hazzan, looking
at the Rabbi and saying, Im not sure how to get it, but I want some of that. But weve got to develop it
for ourselves first. Otherwise they wont havethey wont even have a concrete model of what it is that
they want. Yeah.
(question from the audience)
Yes, to be a leader and to be, in a sense transparent, and. Therefore lets say it very bluntly. To be
transparent means, in some sense, for your ego to be dispensable for that moment. That is, there are
things that are coming through you that are presumably a lot more professional, a lot more musical, a lot
more evocative than virtually anyone else in the congregation could do, but it has to be in some sense if
its too tied to the real ego that is you, it is, for that very reason, lessened. And its not an easy thing to
pull off. But, I think it is possible. Like everything else it takes you have to be practiced its a spiritual
discipline you have to be practiced at.
Yes to someone in audience
Question: Isnt that the tension, though, because, as you said in Page 2, that the high point in the deal is
that we are supposed to be praying on behalf of our congregation. Right? Thats what Heschel says.
But the question is not necessarily about sublimating our own ego but about the congregation assigning
ego to the prayer leader. Because the idea is that people dont necessarily want the Cantor to be praying
for them because theres a sense of self-empowerment that we all have in our own congregation.
Gordon Tucker
You have to be careful about praying on behalf of the congregation. What he said was that the
congregation has to feel an identity with what is being proclaimed in their name. I would even say, to be
represented. That doesnt mean that one is simply ceding the activity of prayer to someone who is simply
speaking on my behalf. Its not a Cyrano DBergerac kind of thing. What it is, is something that is very
powerfully expressing what is real inside me, as well, which I now recognize.

38

You know sometimes you have lets think of it in very ordinary terms. Everyone here, Im sure, has had
the experience of someone getting up maybe even at a convention, at a microphone. Youre bothered
about something, about some resolution on the floor. Someone gets up and says perfectly what was in
your mind and in your heart and you say, That was it. That doesnt negate your connection to this
doesnt negate your input. Its just that you have now been, in a sense, directed to the real truth of what
was inside you. Now thats a very mundane example. Now raise it to the level of the most important and
most real and most sublime yearnings that a human being can have to connect to the source which we
are all ultimately connected to, for a Hazzan or for a Rabbi to be, to understand their role, to (as he puts
it) preach in order to pray, to invert something it enhances if you enhance someone elses tfila,
not replace someone elses tfila, not saying to someone, Ok, I can say Amen to that and, you know,
its going to go up to Heaven on my behalf. But actually for a person to say, that melody, that
conjunction of song and words, is really I now understand exactly what I was trying to bring to the fore
for myself, and you are now part of it. Its as if you said it, its as if you sang it. Because its you. Thats
what it means for a Hazzan to be praying on behalf of a community or to be representing a community. I
think thats what hes trying to direct us towards. And that requires immediately that the Rabbi, the
Hazzan, have to feel that my ego is really unimportant. It has to, in effect, be a general ego. It has to
be merging with everyone elses and bringing him or her along so that we are, in that sense, all one.
Carol. Question: I dont know about everybody else, but I think I have a pretty good idea across the
United States that the average Shabbat morning experience is the Bar Mitzvah. And that couldnt be any
more vain or ego-filled than completely at the other side of what youre trying to get at. And I know, even
as Im facing the Ark when I lead the congregation in (Hebrew word), that Im standing within a few feet of
where the Bar and Bat Mitzvah family is congregation in this special section of my sanctuary, where they
all sit. And what is that experience about what theyre wearing, the bema flowers, everything, all the
accoutrements of the morning that reek of vanity and ego and everything that is at the opposite end of
everything I might be trying to achieve in a Shabbat service which is supposed to be absent of vanity
and full of humility. And what am I thinking about but all the distraction thats going on around me, which
is so incredibly difficult to absent myself from, and to convey ( with my back to the kahal most of the
kahal is behind me joy, fervor, connection to God, knowing before whom I stand and all those great
idea, which seem to be at polar opposite from the average person in that synagogue even the regulars.
Even the Shabbat regulars who are, by rote, mumbling through Shaharit, because thats what they do
every week no one is going to this level of humility, absence of ego, connection to the Divine. And its
all wonderful and good, but is this what Im experiencing on a week-to-week-to-week basis. God I wish it
were so. And when you say you just get a moment, sometimes you just get a moment
Response: Yeah, but thats the good news. Carol: Thank God.
The good news isthats exactly what the good news is. An instant, a moment of prayer. And he says it
may only happen in that instant, when you get beyond yourself. If youre able to induce that in others for
an instant, it means that those people who came in knowing exactly what was going to happen why are
th
we going to another Bar Mitzvahyeah, its the circuitits the 30 one my kids had this yearthe
flowers are going to be in the middle of the Bemayeah, I know at some point the Rabbi is going to say
Kaddish Shalem, Page 138etc. etc. Everything is known in advance; theres nothing more spiritually
deadening than predictability. If theres one instant of surprise, that the people who are sitting there, who
think they know exactly whats going to happen, in one instant they are just taken by surprise, youve
already opened the door. They understand that the next time they go to a synagogue they may be
surprised again, in different ways.
Now this is you cannot plan a surprise. You cant. You can plan it for someone else but then it wont
be a surprise for you and theyll sense that. And so thats the hardest thing. Someone actually gave me
this assignment last year. I hated him for it, but I recognized afterwards that there is something very
challenging. But even though, in a sense its impossible. The assignment was, walk across the room
and, in walking across the room, surprise yourself. How do you do that? I mean, it doesnt work to say,
all right. Halfway across Im going to suddenly start doing a gig. Thats not a surprise. You planned that.
What does it mean to surprise yourself at all? I think what it means is, you have to be open, you have to

39

be sufficient open and sufficiently holding your own ego sufficiently loosely that things actually can
happen and surprise you. Spiritually, in the context were talking about.
It may not happen every week. But thats ultimately what has to happen, and if it does, I dont think it
takes more than an instant to have an impact on people. The problem is, we dont get too many of those
th
instances. One of the most controversial things about the Reform movement in the 19 Century was the
idea of planned services. You know. You read the literature and a lot of the railing about what the
Reform Temples were doing in Germany which things were too planned out. That that somehow was
undermining the nature of tfila.
Youve been waving your hand so Im going to let you but I want at least to give you a little road map to
whats on the right here. Yes.
Questioner: I think the Hazzanim need to think of themselves in a very different light. I really believe that,
in many ways, were like the kohanin and not the lviim. Were not choirs. We oversee what is the
replacement for the korbanot and thats what our job is. And I think when we perceive ourselves like the
Kohen and not the Levites, I think we will be performing as prayer leaders in the way that youre talking
about. I think its a change, a transformation of seeing yourself as performing service like the Kohen.
Reply: As long as by Khunah you dont mean following the script of the prescribed rituals.
Questioner: No, but the care and the love that went into overseeing the sacrifice the prayer is the
replacement for that and thats the kind of care and love that we have to give to the prayers.
Reply: Ok, youve given the perfect segue way to this thing about the sanctity of liturgy and from
Heavenly Torah, and weve only got a couple of minutes here, so let me tell you exactly whats happening
here. This is the one place where he really says things about liturgy in this work, and what hes talking
about is the difference of opinion between Rabbi Yishmael and his school and Rabbi Akiva and his school
about what the sacrifices were about when there was a Temple. So, just look at the first couple of lines.
The basic difference in attitude to the sacrificial system may be summarized thus. In the School of Rabbi
Yishmael, the view was not for my sake do you offer sacrifices, but for your sakes to satisfy your
needs. For my part this is God speaking. Im pleased that, having given you the commandment, you
fulfill my will and I shall reward you.
What is the sense you have there? I dont need this specific animal. Its not important to me that its a
male animal and not a female animal; or a female and not a male; that its a sheep and not a goat; or that
it not a you know. All of that is really unimportant. Whats important to me is that there is this Theo
tropism that you are turning to Me youre trying to do My will. Thats the school of Rabbi Yishmael. Its
sort of about this the Luv Dafka School, or you see on the back (were not going to read it) on the fourth
page my comment on this chapter in Heavenly Torah talks about the rituals of sacrifice being matters of
convention.
But in the School of Rabbi Akiva was I desire nothing else but the sacrifices. Their sweet savor brings
delight to Me. That God is and youll see there are Midrashim that he gives you further down the page,
that further exemplify the difference between these schools with Rabbi Akiva understanding the verse
Tsaddik ohel lsovah nafsho the righteous eats to satisfy his desire (from Proverbs 13:25 its three
paragraphs from the bottom of the page). Here is a Midrash that says, who is the Tzaddik you know,
think of Adir Hu from the Seder. Tsaddik Hu God is the Tsaddik. Tsaddik ohel lsovah nafsho . God
eats the sacrifices to satisfy His Nefesh, which mean more literally that, like the breath -- and just very
similar to what Nshamah really means. So what is it? The Holy One said to the people Israel, my
children you offer me many sacrifices. I derive pleasure only from the odor (sniff).
As the verse reads, Sweet savor unto Me shall you observe to offer in its due season. That the
sacrifices, as they are done, have a kind of sacramental quality to them. They are inherently, intrinsically
important. Thats the School of Rabbi Akiva.

40

But the School of Rabbi Yishmael said, remember theyre really just conventions. They re ways,
theyre rituals that kind of give some concrete form to the inner desire to connect the desire to find out
and to do Gods will. But they are not intrinsically important. And the difference now is just turn the
page; well read just one little piece of a paragraph from the commentary that I offered here on that
chapter. Lets look at that last paragraph on the left hand side.
Through this brilliant and insightful extension of the Akivan and Yishmaelian division, Heschel here
explicates for us why Rabbinic literature exhibits ambivalences on the significance of the Mitzvot and of
the sacrificial cult specifically. The seemingly trivial debate over whether the golden calf came first or the
building of the Tabernacle came first which these two schools differed on. Did God always have a
Tabernacle in mind, and the golden calf just delayed its building? Or was the Tabernacle a response to
the golden calf, as he saw hey, these guys are out of control. I better regulate this impulse. But that
there wasnt supposed to be a tabernacle and sacrifices at all, except for the problem of the golden calf.
All of that takes on far-reaching importance and we can sense the ramifications of this ancient Rabbinic
debate for contemporary struggles, with the meaning of religious command and ritual.
Indeed, Heschel does one more thing. He makes it clear through his references to later Rabbinic and
philosophical literature, that the potentially subversive conventionalist view, the Yishmaelian view that
says, ehnone of the rituals, theyre not inherently, intrinsically important. Theyre just really symbols of
what it is to do Gods will wasnt a fluke. Instead, survived and even became the corner stone of
Maimonides understand of Jewish worship in the Middle Ages. The implication of all of this for such
current topics as liturgical reform are easily drawn out. Just think of what Siddur Sim Shalom did with the
Korbanot transmuted it into the Midrash from Avot Drabbi Natan, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zaaki teaching
his students that well, we dont have Korbanot anymore, well find other ways. Yesh lanu kaporat
aheret Well find other ways to achieve atonement. Well find other ways to do Gods will, because the
sacrifices themselves were never the point. It was what was accompanying the thoughts that were
accompanying the sacrifices.
For liturgical reform, for changes in that very part of the Siddur, the Korbanot, the changes involving the
Imahot for all sorts of liturgical change and variation, the issue is not so much the efficacy of particular
words or particular postures. The ultimate problem is, is there anything behind it, or is it simply an empty
currency with nothing that is backing it up.
There is another tale at the end, which Ill leave for you, but the last thing I will say is something, when Im
talking on this subject, I never fail to point out. I mentioned Shakespeare before and Hamlet. It actually
is one of the great scenes in that play, where Hamlet, of course, would like to get vengeance, to take
vengeance on his uncle who killed his father to become king. And theres a moment where Hamlet finds
his uncle alone and thinks, maybe I can kill him now and get vengeance. But he discovers that his
uncle is actually down on his knees in prayer. And this is undermining my something I said before, only
in one respect. Hamlet actually is fooled here. He thinks his uncle is really in a state of grace and,
therefore, doesnt want to kill him now because, if he kills him when hes in a state of grace, hell go to
Heaven.
But we, the readers, are allowed to listen in on what the uncle is actually saying. And what hes saying is,
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to Heaven go. And thats
the end of the scene. From the outside, the observer sometimes can be fooled -- probably not forever -and sees all the words being said, and thinks that theyre somehow inherently efficacious, as the School
of Akiva said. But here the School of Yishmael really had it more right, as Heschel is teaching us. That
its really ultimately not about the words that are being said, but is there that moment of connection. And
if the thoughts remain below and there is no connection with the Divine, then the words never to Heaven
go. And they dont go into the other places where we would like them to go into the hearts and souls of
the people who are worshiping with us, as well.
So we need to stop here, and I thank you for your attention.
(applause)

41

Marc Dinkin
Thank you, Rabbi Tucker. You have given us, perhaps for many of us I put myself in that category
that moment, that unexpected surprise that charge that thought that I know I will take back to my
synagogue and energy and thought process which we always can evaluate and re-evaluate. Thank
you. Yasher Koakh.
And now we will adjourn for lunch.
(applause)

42

Vocal Production: Building the Throat A Unique Process

Tuesday May 9, 2006 3:45 p.m.
Presenter: Dr. Don Roberts
Rebecca Carmi: (Introduction)
There has been a vocal reformation afoot for a number of years. We have the source of it right here.
Hordes of cantors, people from the Metropolitan Opera have been studying with our own "secret
weapon". He is a 1970 graduate of Hebrew Union College, a Hazzan, a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology
and of late a Rabbi. It is my pleasure to introduce my friend, Hazzan Donald Roberts.
Donald Roberts:
Thank you. There are many familiar faces here this afternoon. It's been a while since I have been
involved with the Cantors Assembly but it is good to be here and I am privileged for the invitation to share
and illustrate for you what it is that I do.
The first thing is to start off with what I do. I am going to play you clips from two singers that I met at 15
years old. Meredith Hoffmann-Thomson, a dedicated bassoon player, came to study with me at a
summer high school college program where I was on faculty. This is where I first heard her head voice
and I said to her very innocently, Meredith, did you ever think of becoming a singer? She looked at me
as if I were crazy. She was planning on becoming a professional bassoon player; these were only
elective voice lessons, not something she had to do. Sort of how I met my wife, but thats another story.
That very same summer I had a young tenor come to me, Timothy Fallon, who aspired to be a primary
education schoolteacher. I listened to this kids voice and heard a magnificent voix mix falsetto voice
with no real physicality to it. I asked him if he had ever considered becoming a singer and he responded
by saying that he liked to sing but felt he never had the strength of character to become one.
Both of these students had extraordinary head voices, so I talked them into it and they both started to
study with me. What you are about to hear is the result of seven years of a process that continues even
today. (Video Clips of Meredith and Timothy)
Rebecca Carmi
To start with Don, I'd like to ask you what you mean when you say that you are not a teacher but a
facilitator.
Don Roberts:
Ah... This is an interesting term. Let me just summarize that by saying that the throat is Nature, no
different than a heart, set of lungs, bowels, pancreas, or any other anatomical component to human
existence.
The voice is the physical fulfillment of that Nature and the singing voice is the poem of Nature. Now,
music belongs to the explanatory sciences, which teach us what singing is and not how singing ought to
be done. When you listen to those two singers, most of you were getting into the sound of it. What is she
doing in terms of her sound? I after many, many years of working on this have decided that it has nothing
to do with listening to the singers sound. It has to do with listening to a singers mechanics.
If we listen to the mechanics of how people use vowels, we hear if they sing with open vowels, closed
vowels and so on. These mechanics are the physiology, the science of the throat. The throat is a
science, it is nature and all nature has science attached to it that concerns the human experience. Were
always waiting for some new medication for illnesses or genetic engineering, much like replacing parts of
a car, ultimately. Science. Mutation. Singing is no different: a result of the Science.

43

My work is focused only on facilitating that Nature. I am not interested in singing. I never taught Meredith
how to sing. Meredith is a singer who studied singing with the best coaches in the United States of
America and prepared everything from the beginning to what you heard and even beyond to what she
sounds like today. There she was twenty-three and Tim was twenty-four. I met them both at fifteen. In
that time Tim received a full scholarship for Julliard and made an opera stage career, singing debuts and
God knows what else. This process has destined both of these singers to the stage at the Met in five to
seven years. I promised them that. I am not a prophet. I cannot guarantee when it will happen, I cant
tell them the exact day it will happen, but I said, If you do A, B, C, and D and listen to me, you will
become a serious singer and they have listened to me with unflinching devotion.
The next point is how did they do this? With telephones. Now, let's get this out of the way because it
seems to be the big joke amongst many people in this room, as it should be. If someone told me this
fifteen years ago I probably be laughing at them too. However, the question is: Why does Donald teach
on the telephone? How does he do that? It is because I am not primarily listening for sounds. I am
listening for muscle pulls. This throat science, developed by Dr. Douglas Stanley and his disciples Tom
LoMonaco and Ray Smolover, if you know how to get into the science and you know the alchemy, opens
up a world to you that is unimaginable.
One more point on this matter. If you are familiar with Freudian language, you know there is an ego and
an id. The id is what drives the ego. What I do, has nothing to do with ego but if you tell that to most
singers, theyd think you were crazy. Im not interested in the ego. I want you to get rid of your ego with
my work. Save it for the coaches, performances, the applause or anything else you want to. When the
audience screams and yells for, you earned the ego. Instead, what I want is the determination of an
animal. As Jack Mendelson said in my documentary, Hes like a lion: he sees what he wants, he kills it
and he eats it. Thats exactly what it is in terms of behavior. Singing is behavioral.
Many of us learned how to sing way before we ever phonated. We know our fathers, our mothers, our
grandparents, our Rabbis, our Cantors, our people in the synagogues, and on opera stages. Singing is
something weve listened to, photographed in our conscious minds and subconsciously retained. When
we went to sing our first notes, we duplicated it and then the coaches came in and they corrected it.
Period.
Rebecca Carmi:
I want to cut to the heart of the matter and ask: How do you, Don Roberts, build a voice?
Donald Roberts:
How do I teach? Telephone is the big metaphor. On the phone I hear muscle pulls, as I said earlier,
better than I do in person. Its almost like an x-ray machine. As long as I can hear those muscle pulls,
working interrelated in the way they have to, according to the physiology of the throat, then I can teach
you voice. I hear 75-80 percent of the entire voice on the telephone--enough sound to make a
determination.
As an example, I met a student here today for the first time. She spoke to me and I was amazed at how
similar it was to the telephone. So that answers the question. Im not here to debate it or not. You heard
two of my examples and I have many more sitting in this room.
How do you know it works? Dont believe me. I am not a testimony, you have to go to the people that do
it, who pay for it, because something must be going on that they want. I cant make people do it. Thats
the success of it.
Rebecca Carmi:

44

In your lessons you refer to things such as the gola, squillo, the colona senora. Can you elaborate on
what those terms are and what it is you are working to create.
Donald Roberts:
Thats a great question. Those terms are educational terms. Every singer must be aware of their throat
just like a person must be aware of their sexual organs. If theyre not, theyre a fool. I dont care who you
study with, what you do, where you are you must get over the hang-ups and be aware of whom you are.
If not, youre going to get into trouble. Personally or professionally thats a fact. The most important
thing is you must study.
Now the terminology: I believe if you have ever seen a voice lesson of Bengiamino Giglis, Alfredo Kraus,
or even Moshe Koussevitzkys you would understand how voice was taught by the master teachers. It
wasnt La, La, La, La, La, La, Lasing the song go to the opera house. No. You build a throat like you
build a building. If you can build a building, you can do this. I will show you.
Im going to give you three examples of a famous operatic phrase with a high B natural. Vincero, from
Nessun dorma, how may are familiar with that? I am going to sing vincero the way three famous tenors
sang it. The question is, what do you hear? You are probably going to sit there and evaluate my voice,
enjoy it and maybe try to analyze it as sound. Forget the sound. Just listen to what I do.
(Don sings examples of three different approaches)
Example Number 1:
Does that version sound familiar to anyone? The only man that ever did it that way was Jussi Bjrling.
Example Number 2:
Pavarotti
Example Number 3:
Now this is the worst one mechanically. Even though when you heard it, it blew you away. This is
Franco Corelli. Now I will explain the differences between the three of them.
Bjrling was the only tenor that I ever heard, and Ive heard thousands of tenors, who ever brought out a
closed e before he opened his voice at the top. He was tuning his voice to his head voice. The oovowel the piccolo oo-vowel was the key to tuning the voice. The great masters, they knew about this.
So anyone think these people just dropped into voice, they need to get their head examined. These were
consummate athletes of voice. They built their voices. That was their work. But they didnt tell us much.
Singers by nature are very, very selfish and stingy. They dont want to give away their secrets, and
rightfully so. If you dont structure this in an orderly fashion, you can destroy a throat. You cant just buy
it at the store like bananas. Thats not the way it works.
Now, the second example was Pavarotti. Pavarotti in my opinion, and Ive hear him live at least sixty
times, was the greatest tenor of his generation up to 1983. Then he became a Fellini character for a
variety of reasons; health problems, weight problems, and personal problems. Pavarotti pulled his head
voice right up just like a rubber band. He kept his head voice astoundingly. He could fake you all and, he
has faked you all to this very moment. Trust me he was a phenomenon with a golden throat.
Franco Corelli probably had the greatest vocal cords since Pertile. Look what he did to them though. He
blew himself out by bringing too much power into the sound. The sound was astonishing though, and
electric to listen to.
Although I didnt show you Richard tucker, Ill add him. He studied with Paul Althouse, a great teacher of
the Garcia Method. That is why Richard literally sang until the day he died. He had two heart attacks and

45

continued to basically sing exactly the same as he had when he started in 1945. I heard Richard Tucker
sing at least eighty times on the stage of the Met and in at least twenty recitals. While you were all doing
your thing, I was doing my thing.
Rebecca Carmi:
Don, those of us who know you, we know that you are passionate beyond passionate obsessed with
voice. How did this happen to you? Who were you as a child? How did your relationship with this life
long quest for the throat begin?
Donald Roberts:
Now, thats a great question. I never thought I would come towards the last chapters of my life being
laughed at like I was in the beginning chapters of my life. But, thats okay. I was not like you probably
and you were not like me.
At five years old my father, blessed man, gave me a phonograph with a recording, the London Sampling
Recording. I still own that record, which was a revolution at the time. Del Monaco, Simionato, Tebaldi,
all the hottest singers of the time were on it and I became obsessed with it. I wanted to be an athletic
singer. I related it to sports, like boxing, and felt that those people were sports people. In addition to
that, I was a Jewish kid and I loved my synagogue. I became very close with the Cantor and the Rabbi.
At eight years old, in that synagogue I said to myself, this is it, I can be a singer and also be religious.
What a profession. Thats how it began.
Then I started going to the Met at Eleven. My parents were well off. I was their spoiled, fat little Jewish
boy and they bought me subscription seats. Whatever I wanted I got. I wanted boxed seats at the Met
and thats what I got. I went to sixteen performances a year and I heard everyone.
In the early part of the sixties I befriended William Weibel, a very good man and the prompter at the Met.
He and I became like brothers and he brought me backstage, into the prompter boxes and into rehearsal
studios every night to witness the singing firsthand. The more I watched it the more I wanted to do it; but,
I didnt have the chutzpah at the time because I wasnt happy with my voice. I continued my singing and
studying as a result of that. I studied with maybe seventeen teachers over the years and the greatest
voice teacher I ever studied with was a direct result of Bill Wiebel. He introduced me to an 84-year-old
Giovanni Martinelli and I studied with him for almost a year and a half. He would sit in the corner in his
chair and all he talked about were voice vowels, breathing, vowels, breathing, breathing, and more
vowels.
I was not able to record those lessons, but I did keep a journal which I subsequently lost and then found
five years ago. I found that this journal confirmed so much of what I heard Gigli, Kraus and many others
teaching and I started to experimenting along that route.
My voice was very different thirty years ago and I developed my voice to what it is today. Thats the truth,
like it of not. Everyone has an opinion. I have no opinion of my voice it is what it is, and it does what it
does.
Rebecca Carmi:
Don, would you like at this point to bring up some of your singers?
Donald Roberts:
Yes, Yes, Id like to bring up some of my cantorial students that I work with here and can illustrate their
progress.

46

Danny Mendelson has been working with me for about six years as a part-time student because he is
also a film student. Hes gotten caught up in my work and hes spent a lot of hours filming my work with
many different kinds of people. We are going to hear him sing corengrato to show his progress.
(Danny Mendelson Sings)
(Rebecca Carmi Sings)
Wonderful So these people work very diligently on what they are doing and define their singing
strategies and experiences with their throats. When the throat is fully fulfilled it can ultimately do
anything. Its in the words, the words are the key; because, the words ARE the vowels period.
If we can get those vowels in gola (which is your throat), and you can know the anatomy of that gola
(which is called the cologna sonora or the colony of sonority. The Colony of Sonority creates the ability to
create the power of the head voice muscles. These muscles must be constructed and brought down into
your gola from the most closed vowels to the most open ones. When this is built you will be amazed at
how your throat comes together.
I do not have a method of singing. As my friend Neil Shicoff has said, my work is an existential science
and thats precisely what it is. What do I do? I really cant explain it all but I just know what I do intuitively
from my years of dedication to this science.
Now, we will hear Henry Rosenblum, a wonderful colleague, friend and supporter of my work who will be
singing for you.
Henry Rosenblum:
Don doesnt need any endorsements. Im just going to tell you one short thing. We all know our own
voices. We know our own limitations and as a result we are typically our own worst critics. Since
working with this unusual individual, Ive actually come to feel better about the way I sing. Thats the
greatest endorsement that I can think of. I feel good about what I do.
(Henry Rosenblum Sings Brosh Hashanah)
Donald Roberts:
Thank you, Henry. Im going to play one more selection of a person some of you may be familiar with.
Netanel Hershtik has been singing with his father Naftali in Jerusalem since he was a little boy. Currently
he is the cantor at the Hampton Synagogue in East Hampton. When I met him he had a beautiful head
voice with a fully detached falsetto voice. Everything was flipped, separated. Hes been studying with me
for a year and this is Netanel recently at a concert. I really was blown away by his progress and so was
he. So, listen for yourself; draw your own conclusions and I hope you enjoy it.
(Netanel Hershtik recording of Umipnei Chatoeinu by Brun is played)
For every single one of my students purity of vowels will bring them closer and closer to the ideal
perfection of their singing. I dont have to teach anybody about singing. You all have a great concept of
singing and in every generation astounding throats still exist. Listening sonically is enjoyable for a
concert but listening mechanically is what helps you understand what the masters did and how they did it.
Question and Answer section:
Q: Give us an example of what you do.
A: Here is something if you would like to do this at home. One example: take your falsetto and bring it as

47

high as you can and then bring is as low as you can without breaking out of your head voice. Doing that
over and over will gather and solidify your head voice column. From there it can be extended further and
further by putting pressure on it and I would begin to play with it slowly and surely until those oo vowels
opened up. From there the oo vowel is funneled through all the other vowels, but always start with the
oo vowel because that is the head voice. If you start with ah you are going directly to the chest voice.
The ah must first be synthesized through the hierarchy of vowel values, All of the vowels must be pulled
through the oo socket, the oo vowel is the key.
Q: What about the lower register in singing?
A: I always avoid the chest voice because it is the devil for the singer, the reason we like it so much is
because we, the singer, can feel it and hear it. Im not saying that we shouldnt sing with chest. I have a
lot of chest in my voice except that it has been mixed with the dominance of the head voice. So when I
rise I dont rise from the chest, I use the chest as nature intended, as the power, what is the head voice?
The head is the voice. How do I know that? I know because the head voice has no limitations.
Remember Ima Sumac? She could practically sing off the piano. How did she do that? Did she do it with
the chest register? No, she did it with her head voice. We call that vocal resonance the third register,
which is not a singing register, but a building register for the head voice. It produces whistle tones, which
can be brought all the way down to the base of your shoelaces. If you leave your ego at the door and do
this long enough, your entire voice will become structured, it is analogous to the shaft of an elevator. The
throat is the shaft, and the head voice, the elevator, once you build that, you start putting in the vowels
and purifying them. Why the vowels? Because every vowel has a muscle tension in relationship to head
voice and chest voice. Stop seeing it as music- its not. The reality is that it is an illusion. Its alchemy. It
is falsetto. Does that peak your interest? Its pure falsetto and it plays with your head because you all
think it is chest voice. The chest voice is powering it, but it is not dominating it. The lower register is
increasingly important, but it is voix mix, all of it is voix mix. Listen to Bjorling sing. He had a teeny voice
but it was so loud that he could deafen you.
Q: How do you keep the voice healthy?
A: This is a good question to end with. My wifes father was a very famous immunologist. He taught me a
lot about virology. He always said to me: Donald, viruses always want to attack weak spots in every
body. People who are weak or sick usually get viruses first.
Therefore if the throat muscles are weaker than someone elses, the chances are that you will get more
viruses and colds. I havent had a cold in probably five or six years and its abnormal. The reality is to
keep your throat strong and keep yourself in good health. I think if you keep your body in good shape and
understand the theory of viruses and weakness then the chances are you will probably keep your vocal
health.
Sing from the gola, which consists only of the larynx and the pharynx, and everything funnels through the
head voice column from there. The mouth is a negative tension; you must keep it out of the way as if you
are a ventriloquist. I have no comments about anyones vocal methods, Im not here to disprove anything.
Voice is not about a method. There are no methods. They are all the same. You can buy them in books,
but you just have to know how to use them. Im not a technique man. I am a mystic. This is my science,
my philosophy, my nature and my life.

48

Contract Issues
Wednesday May 10, 2006 10:45 a.m.
Presenter: Hazzan Howard Shalowitz
Morton Shames
Were delighted youre here this morning and were delighted that Cantor Attorney Shalowitz is with us
this morning, as well. I often think about what it means to be a Placement Chair -- and to be a Placement
Chair for as long as Ive been. And I think one of the benefits of it is to be a Placement Chair for all these
years, because one brings a history with them of what Placement history was. And, at one time, it was a
question whether a Hazzan could also be of another interest. In other words, would the position he had
outside of being the Hazzan could he also be in a job situation that related to the Hazzan. And, at the
time, it would only be something like a teacher. I believe attorney was part of that. And so, our friend
here this morning certainly fell into that category. But we were very strict about it at the time. It was very
careful. If he had another position, you could not be a Hazzan and you certainly couldnt be a Hazzan in
the Cantors Assembly.
However, were delighted we do have a history of other attorneys who were also Hazzanim. One of the
most famous was Charlie Bloch. Did you know him at all, Howard? (Howards response, Yeah, yeah.)
And he was a very famous Hazzan and an excellent one, as well. And only recently passed away in his
mid-90s. He was quite a gentleman. Anyway, this morning we are fortunate in that we have a member
of our Assembly who is also a very well known and established attorney, as well as a well-known Hazzan.
Hazzan Howard Shalowitz received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He
then received his law degree from Washington University School of Law. He is the past President of the
Bar Association of Metro St. Louis and the St. Louis Bar Foundation. He is on the Executive Council of
the National Conference of Bar Presidents and serves on the American Bar Association Lawyer Referral
and Information Service Committee.
Howard practices law in Missouri and Illinois and has represented synagogues, churches, Rabbis,
Cantors, and Priests in contract and employment issues. And, as a side bar, his mother loves that hes a
Hazzan. (Laughter)
Howard Shalowitz: Thank you Morty. Thank you.
Morey: Youre very welcome. Lets welcome Howard. (Applause)
Howard Shalowitz: Thank you; thank you. Actually the funny story behind that, I told Morty there was a
funny story. It was the last day of school at the University of Pennsylvania when everyone goes around
and, of course, says, What are you doing next year? What are you doing next year? This one says Im
going to med school, this one to business school, this one Im working, going to law school. So I had
applied for law schools and deferred because I wanted to go to the Cantors Institute at the time. So I
wanted to go to Cantors Institute and study there before going to law school. So people said, What are
you doing next year? And I said, Im going to Cantorial School. Im going to be a Hazzan. And almost,
almost in a state of embarrassment, my mother said, But hes going to be a lawyer, too. Hes going to be
a lawyer. (laughter) So now she says she doesnt remember that story, but I remember it vividly. But
she the most nachas that she gets is the fact that Im a Hazzan more so than that Im a lawyer.
But anyway, what were going to talk about today and I want to make this a discussion rather than a
lecture. What I dont want to do until the very end at the very end I dont mind taking personal stories.
People will say heres what happened in my situation because those things do help but if you have a
general question as we go along the way, feel free to ask the question. At the end well open it up and,
unlike some other presenters, Ill be more than happy to give you the free legal advice. And I always tell
my clients, the free legal advice is you get what you pay for. Okay? So No, Im more than happy to
help you out.

49

Lets start out the very first thing, do any of you have the this thing. Thats all right. If you dont, dont
worry about it. Were going to go through this. Were going to talk about two different areas. One is the
contract and one is an employment issue that eventually either youve dealt with these problems or youre
going to deal with the problems. (I think Im probably talking loud enough. Am I? Its probably
reverberating up Does it? (Comment from audience member) Maybe I should sing instead.
(Laughter) No; then youll walk out.
All right, the contract Negotiating A Contract. It says initial stages. The first thing you should do when
youre employed at a synagogue, youre going to renew a contract, youre going to get a contract, youre
going to get a new job. The very first thing you do is, you get something in writing because an oral
contract isnt worth the paper its written on. Think of that! Okay?
When a synagogue talks to you and negotiates, tell them to send something to you. Its kind of a waste of
time and a waste of your money for you to send something to them because they pretty much have it
down pat. I mean, unless they say, We dont have anything, if they dont have anything, then But
see kind of where they are and, if they send it to you, they probably have a previous contract from a
previous Hazzan, and you have (from the Cantors Assembly) theres a standard contract thats put out.
All of you should have received one or seen one. Or you could just send them that kind of contract.
But once you send the contract to them, youre bound. Thats your offer. And if they accept it, youre in.
So I would suggest that when you start negotiating that you take a look at what theyre trying to offer,
what they propose to offer you, and from there thats at least a starting point. But the first thing you
should do when you get a contract is get a what? Get a lawyer. Get someone who knows the law to do
it.
And this is not a self-promoting thing. If you, God forbid, have something physically wrong with you,
where do you go? To a doctor. If youre sink bursts a pipe, who do you call? A plumber. If something
goes wrong with the electric in your house, a light fixture thing, youd call an electrician. Why in the world
do people not call lawyers from the beginning when they have a contract? I dont know. They always call
them after the fact and say, I should have called you I should have done this before they get deeper
and deeper. The best way to prevent something from happening at the very beginning, and make sure
youre going to have a happy and long career where you are, call a lawyer. And make sure you have the
piece of paper in front of you that is iron clad that makes you happy, that makes the synagogue happy.
Ok!
So, the second thing is how do you find a lawyer in that area? I was talking with Hazzan Shames before
about a different issue, but almost every single city has a lawyer referral information service called LRIS.
The American Bar Association has a committee (I serve on that committee) and every Bar Association,
every municipality, almost every state has a Bar Association that has a lawyer referral information
service. This is how inexpensive it is. You call them. They have lawyers who are qualified in those
fields, they carry liability insurance, theyre pre-screened, and for a 30-minute consultation you can get a
free lawyer. And theres sometimes an administrative fee, maybe $20 or $30 that goes back to the Bar
Association for that referral. This is in any area. So if you have a workers comp issue, if you have an
issue as a Cantor, I doubt therere going to be many lawyers out there who say, Yes, I deal in contracts
dealing with Hazzanim. But they deal with entertainment law and, I hate to put us all in that category, but
its the category of entertainers.
By the way, as a sidebar for when you go on cruise ships. If you ever want to be a Hazzan on a cruise
ship, you call the Entertainment Department of the cruise ship. Thats where they list the Priests and the
Cantors and Rabbis. (Laughter) I dont know why. (Question from audience member) LRIS, Lawyer
Referral and Information Service. And wherever you live, whatever Bar Association if youre in
Minneapolis, thats (what county is that? Theyre going to kill me) Anyway, in Pittsburgh its Allegheny
County. The Allegheny County Bar Association has one. Santa Cruz Bar Association in Phoenix, they
have one. The state Bars have it; so no matter where you are, youre going to have a Bar Association
and, within those, there' a Lawyer Referral Information Service. And you tell them, Im a clergyman. Ive
got a contract and I need someone to look over the contract and discuss the issues.

50

Im one of the a few lawyers, or many lawyers who deal in these things. So, if you have any questions,
at the end Ill give you my e-mail address just for simple issues, and I can either refer you to someone, I
could do it, or whatever. But you need to have a lawyer. I cant stress this enough.
The second reason being that, aside from that, youre probably not qualified to look at these contracts
and do them you dont want anybody (even if you are qualified). Because they say a lawyer who
represents himself has a fool for a client. You never represent yourself because you get emotionally
involved. Plus, they wont have as much respect for you. This way, say, My lawyer will deal with it.
And if your lawyer is ah (I cant use the word because were recording this session), but he or she is a not
so nice person, theyre not going to take it out on you. Theyll say, You know, your lawyer really played
hard ball with us. And youll say well hey, you know, thats business. But if you go in there and do it,
theyre never going to forget that. Theyre going to say this is the way this person dealt with us, and they
didnt return our calls immediately let the lawyer be the one to blame. We get blamed for everything, so
you might as well let us get blamed for this. Thats why you pay the lawyer.
The next issue is the lawyer negotiation and review of contract we talked about that. And, yes, yes
(Recognizes female audience member): A third reason why you should always have a lawyer is, at least
in my congregation, 90% of the people on the Board are lawyers. Theyre lawyers so why should I try to
go up against them? Its crazy!
Howard Shalowitz: Yeah. Aside from unequal bargaining power, you dont want to do it even if
(comments from female speaker They know what theyre doing and I dont.) Right, right! Steve
(Steve audience member): A lawyer versus an accountant.
Howard Shalowitz: Great point, and were going to get to that later with tax issues. Youll have to have
these things reviewed before you sign them. Talk to a tax lawyer or your accountant. Those issues are a
little bit more difficult for me to answer because all I know about taxes is I pay them. And you should too.
No, I know a little bit more about them, but everyones situation with taxes is different. I mean you go
down the row here and no two are going to be the same. So you have to go to an accountant also. But,
generally, the issues dealing with contracts and with employment issues and with lawyers across the
board is generally going to be the same. So when we talk about things like parsonage and tax issues and
reimbursements and all that those are issues you have to discuss with your own accountant. So, thank
you for mentioning that. Who else had a question?
(Audience member): We I just wanted to make a comment on another thing about having a lawyer
represent you. There is a certain terminology and a certain perception of communication that, from my
own experience, where you might be thinking the same thing but I cannot communicate it in the same
way that a lawyer can communicate it to other lawyers so that they really understand the point.
Howard Shalowitz: Right, cause we get paid by the word. (Laughs) Actually if you look at the contract by
the Cantors Assembly, its very good. Its worded very well. Its not they dont use convoluted terms or
anything. Its done very well. But youre right. The lingo is different because you might want to say
something about severance but youre not really talking about severance, youre talking about disability.
You might get some, terms confused.
(Female audience member): At the previous convention, I think it was last year, in a similar session, a
person did say, Oh, you should negotiate your own contract because then the people will respect you
because you were strong enough to negotiate your own contract. But your advice is much better.
Howard Shalowitz: Its the total opposite. Yeah. I dont know who it was last year, but you dont you
never fight your own cause.
(Male audience member): I hear you saying youre not necessarily saying, Have a lawyer negotiate
your contract. Youre saying, When you get a contract in hand, make sure a lawyer goes over it and
does the fine tuning. Are you also saying that you get a lawyer to do all your negotiation for you? Cause
youre talking about two different things.

51

Howard Shalowitz: Ok. Right, they are two different things. All right. First thing is, if you get a contract,
or you go over a contract, or you have a lawyer go over it thats a given. I dont know anyone who
wouldnt. All right. You have the lawyer go over it, all the provision in the contract. If youre happy with it,
youre finished. You sign it and youre done. Right? If there are some other issues lets say youre
already employed and thats whats coming down the road here for the employment issues. Or youre
negotiating a contract and you cant get to the final solution of having a signed contract, and you have to
get a lawyer involved for that final negotiation. You get a lawyer for the final negotiation. So its both.
So the initial step is, get one to review it. If youre happy with it and things go smoothing and most of
them do, actually then you sign off on the dotted line. They dont even know you had a lawyer and then
youre finished. If you cant get to that point and youre going to debate how much of a severance, what
are the terms of it, lifetime contract versus 20 years, etc., and you go back and forth on major issues
what house youre going to live in. Then you get a lawyer to do it. Dont start negotiating with the
synagogue on your own, for a variety of reasons. They will have more respect for you if you get someone
else and the unequal bargaining power we were talking about.
(Male audience member): Sometimes they dont want to deal with someones lawyer.
Howard Shalowitz: That actually were going to talk about, too. That actually is a telltale sign of things to
come, okay. That and things like, we cant give you a raise because that means youre going to be
making more than our Rabbi. You say, yeah, but Ive been here 20 years and hes been here 2 year.
And because they think the Rabbi is thats a telltale sign of things to come. There are certain issues
and, actually, thats next. How to get out of one before they get you.
If they say to you, you know, we dont deal with terms why dont the two of us just talk. Say, You know
what, I just never made it a practice. And never put it on yourself. You can always say, The Cantors
Assembly recommends Because its true. Right, Right. My spouses, my kids, my cousins brothers
Bubby Zaddy was a lawyer and he once told me that whatever.
Put it on someone else. Dont say, Its not me. Im going to go get a lawyer. Explain to them, and theyll
have more respect for you. That this is what the Cantors Assembly, United Synagogue, this the standard
practice among all Hazzanim. I would love to negotiate with you. I would love to talk to you directly
because I really would like to have a job here, and Im sure you would like to have me here, but this is just
the way thats its done in the business and its a business. Its a profession, its a love, its a calling but
its a business.
(Female audience member): If youve been negotiating with the same congregation for other contracts
and youre up for a new one and youve done it yourself, how can you, at that point, bring in someone
when you havent done it before and not make them nervous about it?
Howard Shalowitz: If theres an issue I mean, if youre going to get a raise in salary and parsonage
things and, of course, youve got to talk to an accountant and talk to a lawyer, you do that behind the
scenes. They dont need to know you have a lawyer. But if theres a bone of contention dealing with
parsonage, you say, You know what, this is beyond my comprehension, dealing with all these convoluted
tax issues. Anybody get this? Ministeryou all got this, right? All right. Honesty cause Ill be
honest with you. How many of you have read this. (Few responses from audience) Really! Mazal Tov!
(Laughter)
Now, for those people who read it, how many of you understand it? (More laughter) Its very good, but it
really is geared for a lot of information for laymen and a lot of information for accountants. Whats it say,
inform whatever, in line, you know, Roman numeral 7.B you put in I dont need to know that. You give
it to your accountant. But there is great, great information in here. Youll be able to glean something out
of here. (Comment from audience member could not understand) Yeah and sometimes they dont. I
mean sometimes they dont know and sometimes they dont need it. But its really a great resource.

52

Once youve read it once, if its been a few years, read it again. Things have changed. Theres a famous
case from the 1960s with Cantor Salkov thats actually mentioned in here. But the question is, if youve
already been dealing with a congregation for five, six, seven years and you have a new contract coming
up, how do you all of a sudden bring a lawyer in. It depends on what its for. If its for something that you
need to have the help of a lawyer to negotiate a major provision of the contract, bring a lawyer in. And
you say, Listen, you know, things are moving along (whatever) I had someone review it, just as I did
six or seven years ago. You know, let them know there was someone involved six or seven years ago
that they might not have known about. Would you be amenable to meeting with that person and with
me. You all just sit down. Thats all.
That stuff you see on TV is like LA Law, you have a client come in on Monday, you take depositions on
Tuesday, you have the trial on Wednesday, and then on Thursday you collect a check. Right? No, its
not like that. If onlyif only!
(Female audience member): Do you recommend sitting in on a session with a lawyer and not just leaving
it to the lawyer?
Howard Shalowitz: Absolutely! And havethats also another point. Not only should you be there I
mean when youre getting close to yes. All right, theres a book called Getting to Yes (its actually a
pretty good book) that, when you get to almost there, you absolutely should be there. Otherwise, theyre
going to say something to the lawyer and they might be saying something in a lingo that the lawyer
doesnt understand. The lawyer may not be Jewish, may be Jewish and never go to Shul, or whatever,
and they might say something about davening musaf and the lawyer thinks thats cooking a meal after
Shabbos or something. Who knows. You have to be there to understand the lingo and just so that you
make sure youre on the right tract.
The same thing goes for them, that whoever is in there for the synagogue, make sure that the person
youre talking to has the authority of the synagogue to bind you in that contract ok, to bind the
synagogue in the contract. Because Ive dealt with situations where the President of a congregation says
youre going to be hired for x terms (either a holiday job or for a year or two years), youre going to be
hired and were going to take it to the Board. I talked to the Ritual Committee person, well send you a
contract, and all of sudden you find out it has to go to their Executive Committee. And the President of
the congregation or whoever was head of the Ritual Committee didnt have the authority to bind the
congregation to the contract. And the Ritual Committee guy sends you a letter, and then you find out that
letter is worth nothing, because it has to be the President of the congregation after resolution of the
Board. So, whenever you have something and actually make sure I dont think its in the Cantors
Assembly Contract that saysI mean it has a Secretary of the Congregation and by the President and
all that, so thats good enough. But generally theres a line that says The undersigned President of the
Congregation has authority to bind the congregation to this Contract. Something like that.
So generally, make sure that all the parties are there. You all sign off. You all shake hands. You hug,
you kiss, you sing Havanagila and you walk away.
So, next part What to Include in the Contract. The contract that the Cantors Assembly puts out is, as I
mention, very good actually. Parsonage and other tax consequences how many of you deal with
parsonage? Either you receive it -- you get it somehow, OK. So you generally know how it works. The
general overview of parsonage depends on if you own your own home, if its a Shuls home; how much
you could write off, up to what percentage of your income for normal housing expenses. So if theres gas,
theres electric there are certain things. If you like dogs and you have 10 dogs, and you say theyre
guard dogs, thats not parsonage. OK? (Laughter)
I talked to my accountant about this. I said, I have a dog at home and I have an office in my house. Can
I write off the dog for all the expenses? You know shes 16 . Her medical expenses are getting up
there. So, I said could I write off the dog, teasing, as a guard dog. He said, yeah, and you can discuss
that with all of your friends who are behind bars with you. (Laughter) There are certain things you just

53

cant do. And there are certain things its a gray area, but chances are you probably shouldnt try to do
it.
But for the most part you know what parsonage is and you know about how much you could write off.
Those are issues that you should talk to an accountant about. Absolutely! And for the most part the
synagogue knows about it and how to deal with it and your accountant should know.
Other Tax Consequences -- Are you an independent contractor or are you an employee of the Shul;
Social Security matching; do you pay self-employment tax; who does the pension; etc. and well talk
about pension in a second. Those are all issues, again, for accountants. Have any of you faced any
issues dealing with parsonage questions or about tax consequences. Reimbursements to synagogues
reimbursements is a big issue because, when you go out of town or in town on some sort of conference
that they reimburse you, is that part of you salary? In which case, you declare it and later you write it off
as an expense for taxes, or do you pay it and they pay back immediately?
(Audience question): Wouldnt the accountants need to balance that?
Howard Shalowitz: Yeah. And thats more of something that you have to discuss with your accountant. It
generally comes out about the same way. I mean, you either put it in as your income and you pay tax,
but then you write it off your expense or you leave it out of all of that and then you just submit it to the
synagogue. But sometimes synagogues give you more than what your actual expenses are. You know,
theres car allowance, other types of allowances. Theyll give you something to go to a convention.
Instead of going to a convention for four days you only go for three, so the extra money, if you pocket it, is
that considered income? Not if you spend it on massages here at the spa (Laughter) cause you got to
relax before you sing. Right?
(Audience comment): Well, if it comes from the same hotel bill, its the hotel bill.
Howard Shalowitz: Rightwell, but if you start getting audited, its a problem. So keep everything
never cheat Uncle Sam, never cheat your Shul. Youll go to sleep at night and youll never have to worry
about it.
(Audience member): You know, when you mentioned parsonage before, you brought up utilities and
things like that. Was that a slip?
Howard Shalowitz: No, theres some that you cananything, well lets say.
(Audience member): My understanding was that the law changed that we no longer could take utilities.
(Another audience member): Since when?
Howard Shalowitz: Im going to give you the advice that almost every lawyer will give you. Consult an
accountant. Its actually in here, dealing with that, and Im pretty sure that the Ministers Guide for 2005,
at least, said that things like electric, gas, all sorts of utilities, that you can. But check with an accountant.
You and I will go afterwards. Whatever the book says. Im going to go by what the book says.
(Audience member): I thought the law changed.
Howard Shalowitz: Actually it got a little bit more liberal, for some things for what you can and cant do for
taxes. But there is this whole thing I will tell you this, down the road beware, because this whole
separation of church and State the people who are afforded things are clergy. And some say its not
really a good separation of church and State. Why are clergy, why are ministers and Rabbi and Priests
why are they allowed to write off a home (youre gonna have to live somewhere anyway), why are they
allowed to write off utilities and other expenses of a house? Well, used to be in the olden days the way
olden days they lived in the residence, the rectory, the parsonage was right there. Now, when you live
10 miles away in a home, its a whole different ball game, but theyre still allowing it. There are going to

54

be some test cases, I guarantee you, down the road, testing the separation of church and State to get rid
of parsonage. Its coming, Im telling you.
(Allen): Apparently theres a movement for executive directors of synagogues to be able to claim
parsonage.
Howard Shalowitz: Right. Yeah, there is something with that that executive directors (as a clergy) and
I think there was a recent case about this that says executive directors are not
(Allen): Also the JAA is challenging that. They want the educational directors
Howard Shalowitz: Right. Yeah, theyre trying to expand it and that generally isnt going to happen. What
did happen, as far as they went, was have a deacon of a church. The deacon is the highest lay person of
a church not a clergy and some have allowed that the deacon can be included in that because of all
the pastoral duties the deacon has.
(Female audience member): Im just a little confused because I think that the line slipped. You said, what
to include in a contract and then we were off and sort of running on parsonage and Social Security and
employment tax.
Howard Shalowitz: Oh, were finished with what to include in contract?
(Female audience member): I just want to understand if were still on what to include in a contract.
Howard Shalowitz: All right, here we go.
(Female audience member): We havent talked at all about
Howard Shalowitz: Oh no, no, no! Weve got a whole list here. Ok, yeah, yeah. So parsonage and other
tax consequences those are the things were going to pass off to an accountant.
Vacation always have something dealing with vacation in there. How many terms, how many weeks
again refer to the Cantors Assembly model contract. But for vacation time, it varies. It depends how long
youre been there; it depends on the needs of the congregation. Youre not going to schedule vacation
during Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, I hope. So its always mutually acceptable between the Cantor
and the congregation. Generally people dont run into those problems. Even if its us to you and you
want to schedule a vacation sometime around lets say Thanksgiving, but theres a Bar Mitzvah of the
Presidents son dont do that. Youre just slicing your own throat. So, I mean, use some seichl here
when you take your vacation. But do put it in writing and do give it to the Executive Director or the head
of the congregation well in advance of when you want to have the vacation. Give the dates Im going to
be leaving five months from now from this and this and you give it to them and you make sure its in
your employment file, or whatever. So that a week before your vacation when they say, Oh, you cant
go. You tell them that you gave them that notice.
Are there any questions about vacations or how much vacation. Minimum one week, maximum 52.
(Laughter)
(Female audience member): Not about how much, but how its expressed. My congregation seems to
like days. I think its an advantage because then I dont count my day off as an extra. They let me say 20
days in a year.
Howard Shalowitz: Yeah, thats a good point. Instead of weeks because if you take off whatever it is. If
you take off lets say Mondays and Tuesdays, or you take off just Wednesdays, or some congregations
just need a Hazzan on the weekends, and you say thats a week, what constitutes a week. Does that
mean youre allowed seven Shabbosim off? Or you allowed just one week of one Shabbos? So, its a
good idea Its what

55

(Audience member says something the mike didnt pick up)

Howard Shalowitz: Absolutely. And thats why you should get a lawyer to put these things in. If you have
a workweek that constitutes five days, then put it how many days how many work days you have off in
your contract. So if youre off a Monday, Tuesday, and a Wednesday to go out of town, that doesnt
count as 3 days, it counts as one day. So make sure that you put that in there.
Sometimes youll put in there or congregations will that they cant be consecutive, you cant take more
than two consecutive weeks. Lets say with exception of a sabbatical or something pre-approved by the
Board, or whatever. And you dont want to take more than that because, if you take 3 weeks off or you
take 4 weeks off of a full-time thing, not only are you going to come back to a ton of work when you get
back with teaching, but If a congregation sees that Haim Yankle davened musaf and he was pretty
good and Susie Schwartz over here davened shahrit and she was pretty good, whats going to go through
their mind? Why do we need a Hazzan? Theyve been gone for a month and weve worked out fine
here. So take as little vacation in chunks as you can a week here, two weeks there. But you generally
shouldnt take a whole month.
(Female audience member): I grew up with Cantor Avery and I dont ever remember him taking time off, I
swear. He was there every single Shabbat.
Howard Shalowitz: And hes a great guy.
(Female audience member): Thats a model I admire.
Howard Shalowitz: Yeah and you show your fact, and thats what they want.
(Male audience member): If youre going to put vacation in then the question you also need to talk about
is roll-over. I have yet to take all the vacation thats in my contract.
Howard Shalowitz: Right. Some contracts have use it or lose it. That you either use it by the end of the
fiscal year, by the calendar year, or you lose it. The obvious advantage to the Hazzanim is that it rolls
over. The best thing that you would have is that it all rolls over to the following year and you could keep
rolling and rolling and rolling your vacation. So if youre there 10 years and you dont take a vacation, you
have a lot of vacation time coming up or compensation.
(Female audience member): What if you dont call it vacation you call it sabbatical?
Howard Shalowitz: Thats a whole other issue. You might be entitled to sabbatical also. But if you dont
take it and congregations, to their advantage, they probably want use it or lose it. You either take the
vacation or youre going to lose it. As a good compromise what theyll say is, whatever vacation you have
not take this year, half of that amount of time will be rolled over. And thats usually a good compromise
for the congregation. But the way to maximize it is to do roll it over and keep rolling it over.
(Male audience member): Im dealing with, I get a day off on Wednesday and Im noticing that every other
month the Board meeting is on Wednesday night and funerals and Shivas. This is the first year I went
back and said, Gentlemen, Im looking for compensation for those days off. And were in negotiation
now whether it in the form of a contract or its just an understanding with the President and Executive
Committee that were not going to that this is your official leave. But if theres a Tuesday where you
have a light load and you want to take off, were not going to. You know, our policy will be, were not
going to be checking on you. Thats whats being basically talked about. Thats another concern, that if
you have a day off, you have a day off.

56

Howard Shalowitz: Just leave. Turn off your phone and go. Have it say your thing, This is Hazzan so
and so. Today is whatever. I will be out of the office. I will be returning all phone calls tomorrow. But
always have a back-up plan. God forbid someone dies and you missed it and such.
(Male audience member): I found two things. First, on a number of occasions, Ive found that
congregations tend to be (or my congregations have tended to be) very generous with giving me vacation
time. Because its something that, in a negotiation situation, they can offer freely and have it seem that
they view it as an extra benefit and theyre being incredibly generous. Basically, it doesnt cost them
anything. Theyll happily give me an extra two weeks of vacation but, of course, I have to cover all the
(could not understand because of background noise) and all the lessons. But they feel really good about
themselves because theyve offered me all of this extra time.
Howard Shalowitz: Plus, you know what else it is for the congregational benefit. You always have to put it
in the light most favorable to them, because you dont want to go in saying, I want vacation. What are
my benefits? Its like going into a contract and saying, Yeah, Id love to have the job. Now tell me, what
are my health things and my vacation. They dont want to hear that.
The way its phrased, and a good negotiator will do this for you, is you say, You dont want your Hazzan
being burned out. There are too many Hazzanim being burned out now. They work an entire year and
they say, you know what, this place isnt for me. Maybe this profession isnt for me. You need to keep
Hazzanim happy. In Europe, you know, they give weeks and weeks, months, of vacation that are
mandatory. You have to take your vacation just to get out. Its a growth process; it keeps you happy; it
gets you out of town for a little bit. So you tell the congregation that a vacation is something for the
congregations benefit. And thats the way you couch that.
(Male Audience Member): The other thing that I worry about in our situation is that Ive always put some
sort of a flex time or a comp time clause in my contract that specifically says that my presence is not
required if my duties dont demand it. So that if, for example, for one semester the way the soccer
season worked out Im not going to have a whole lot of kids on Monday, then, all right youll see me for
minyan. But when soccer season is over and those kids start playing flag football and theyre all playing
on Monday, then Ill take on Tuesdays now. That I can flip flop the schedule or I can take an extended
lunch. And as long as its clearly stated and clearly agreed and as long as my responsibilities are fulfilled,
that there is no requirement to be there to cover other duties like pastoral things and things like that,
because my presence is not necessarily required in the building.
Howard Shalowitz: And as a sub-set, by the way, to all of this, whenever you do things that are extracurricular but are still within the realm of Hazzanos (you know weddings, Bar Mitzvah showing, whatever
it might be -- something outside of the synagogue that isnt part of your duty necessarily), send a
confirmation letter. Dear So and So, Mazal Tov on the up-coming wedding. This is to confirm that I will
be officiating. Im supposed to show up at such and such time and Because people call you and they
get nervous. Will the Cantor be there? Then they call you 20 times. You send a letter, theyll leave you
alone. Also, its to confirm they want you, because some of the grooms family might call you and brides
family didnt talk to them, and they went and hired another Hazzan. Send letters. It doesnt cost that
much and the time saving is incredible, just to send a confirmation letter. And Mazal Tov once again, Ill
see you thereda-da-da-da-da.
By the way, before we go on, I would be remiss if I didnt mention one attorney in particular who has been
a great, great asset to the Cantors Assembly, and thats Herb Garten. And I spoke to Herb last week.
He sends his regards to everybody and you know that his son had passed away. Herb is just a great,
great man and I see him at the ABA meetings all the time. And hes a wealth of knowledge about Cantors
and about Cantorial contracts, so Id be remiss if I didnt mention him. Herb Garten. Then hell refer you
to me. (Laughter) No, hes a great guy, he really is, and hes very hes in Baltimore. But they have
airplanes.
(Comment from audience member could not hear)

57

Howard Shalowitz: I dont know. Is Jeff practicing still. Is he still practicing Jeff Nadel? I think he is,
yeah. (Audience member confirms he is still practicing.)
(Male audience member): How are you supposed to handle if you have to go away for a family affair, a
Bar Mitzvah or wedding? They consider this as a week vacation? Depends on
Howard Shalowitz: Its whatever you deal with you congregation. I mean a lot of these things I will say
this. There are some agreements that you have to deal. Its like the Constitution. These are the
guidelines, these are the hard and steadfast rules. But the other things that come up from time to time, if
youre a mentch and your Rabbis a mentch and the congregation is full of mentchen on the Board, youre
not going to have a problem. But, you know, how they deal with these specific problems is up to the
congregation. Ill have one more and then well keep going down.
(Male audience member): I hope Im not getting off the subject but I was just thinking about something
you said, David, about flex time and that if youre working more one afternoon then you take an extra time
at lunch. Is your congregation really watching hour by hour like that? Are you punching a time clock?
(David): No, of course not. But I also know that its important for me to cover my tracks in case at some
point in the future theres a Board member or a President or somebody like that who wants to set me up
to drop me. If I have, number one, a traditional way of doing things Ive always done it this way so the
precedent is on my side. And, especially if I have a clause in my contract that says its ok, thats one less
thing they can use against me if they want to drop me.
Howard Shalowitz: So, next weve kind of covered vacation. Pension -- Pension plans, again, talk to an
accountant about it. There are various ways of dealing with pensions. Are you an independent
contractor? are you an employee? Depends on a lot of things. If you want to be deemed an employee,
theres a kind of four-five-step process. Whose direction are you under; are you totally independent; are
you allowed to work in other places; the manner of dress that you have; do they dictate that in some
employment areas? You know, if you have something that says, Tell-a-Tune Singing Telegrams and they
direct you to go somewhere and youre not free to work anywhere else and youre working there 40 hours
a week. Generally youre an employee.
If, on the other hand, you go to a one-time gig and youre allowed to work somewhere else. Its when
Steve walks in, it happens. People start warming up. You bring sunshine into the room and everything.
(Comment from Steve in background)
Howard Shalowitz: Its what happens when lawyers start talking. Its like all the hot air. You know. So,
anyway, deal with that with your accountant as to whether youre an independent contractor or whether
youre an employee. Dealing with pensions, there are KEO plans, there are set plans, money purchase
plans, profit sharing plans, how much you can contribute. I will tell you this. As much as you can
contribute, contribute it, because its tax deferred, its savings down the road. You dont have to pay the
taxes on it now. Do as much as you can with whatever works out the best for you.
But if you can contribute lets say $15,000 to your money purchase plan or $10,000 to a profit-sharing
plan or vice versa (I forget which ones the larger one), do it whatever the maximum amount you can do
that year.
(Male audience member): If you have in your package money designated in various places and, when
you find that you dont use money from a given area or all of it, is it simple enough to just be able to
switch that? And, lets say, contribute to your pension that way? Generally the congregation isnt
interested in the breakdown, theyre interested in the total package bottom number thats going to impact
them. So, if you designated $6,000 for convention in a 3-year situation and you use $4,000 as long as
your plan allows it. Is it easy enough to just move that to your pension rather than?
Howard Shalowitz: It depends on what kind of pension. If you have a SEP self-employment plan; if you
have a KEO plan; if you have a money purchase. Money purchase and the profit-sharing plans, theres a

58

formula thats used up to a maximum amount. If youre already got the maximum, you cant. If its an IRA
where theres a remember the IRAs used to have $2,000 maximum. If youve already achieved that
amount, then you cant. It depends on what plan you have.
(Male audience member): Lets take one step back, then.
Howard Shalowitz: You take that money, the extra money, you mean.
(Male audience member): Say moneys been allotted in a certain line, but thats part of a total figure that
theyve agreed to pay you. Is there flexibility to be able to move that somewhere else? You do have that
right to be able to?
Howard Shalowitz: Yeah. The moneyif you spend $4000 on convention and theyre given you $6000
for convention, the extra $2000 generally (generally, talk to your accountant) will be deemed extra
income. You have to. You cant say, well its convention expense when you never spent it. Its income.
Or, what you could do which many Hazzanim do, put it in the Cantors Discretionary Fund, which is
through the synagogue. You could use their tax ID number if its a 501, if its tax exempt. If its a
charitable organization 501c3, then you put it in there. People can get a tax write-off by putting it in
Discretionary Funds if its a 501c3. And then you use that money.
(Male audience member): Discretionary funds are very questionable in terms of congregations and how
they want to use that money. If youre getting it through the synagogue, I mean gratuities, etc., its very
hard to use it outside of how they specify you are to use it. And once you retire (I use that as a personal
example), I had quite a bit in my discretionary funds but once I retired it was left at the synagogue. I was
not able to take it along with me.
Howard Shalowitz: Yeah. It depends on whose control its under. If its under your control, if its money
that was left over from something you had earned and you take that, really the way youre supposed to do
it is you declare that $2000 on your taxes. If you want to say, I put it in a 501c3 (a charitable thing), then
you write it off as a charity. But youre right about who controls the discretionary fund. What I would say
is, if you have a lot of it, and its under the discretion of the congregation, if they want to give you a nice
parting gift at the end, but then is that taxable? And the answer is yeah, it probably is taxable, depending
on how much it is. If its a gift here or a gift there but if theyre going to buy you a Cadillac that
(comment from audience thats in-discretionary) yeah, youre right. Thats in discretionary. (Laughter)
That youre going to be talking to Bubba about behind bars for 7 or 8 years.
(Male audience member): What Im concerned about what I understood is that you have a package and
you have $2000 left in your package, the choices you have if the congregation will allow you to roll it
over to recover some of the benefits in the next year. Thats a possibility and thats legitimate.
Howard Shalowitz: Right!
(Male audience member continues): You also can get that as a bulk sum, but then it becomes taxed as
salary.
Howard Shalowitz: Exactly!
(Male audience member continues): The other this is you can move it to another line item, as long as its
within the benefits. But if you put it in your discretionary fund, thats no longer your money.
Howard Shalowitz: Right!
(Male audience member continues): You could maybe use it for education or convention or pulpit (could
not understand) congregation, but its not money that you could use at its face value.
Howard Shalowitz: Correct! Right! But ask the congregation if you can do that because, if they designate
$8000 for convention and youre not using $8000 for convention youre using $6000. You cant just

59

pocket the money and secretly put it wherever you want to put it. You tell them what youre doing and if
you say you want to put it in the discretionary fund because you want to take the kids bowling on Sunday
after Hebrew school, thats fine. But you cant use it for your benefit.
(Male audience member): You cant go out and buy flowers for your (couldnt understand word).
Howard Shalowitz: Exactly! Exactly!
(Female audience member): If one has all those sources of money, like convention budget I have a
book and music purchasing budget and convention budget up to a certain amount per contract year (not
to be rolled over). So this means that if I dont use it, I lose it.
Howard Shalowitz: Right!
(Female audience member continues): So now if I sign up for this convention and another convention and
theres $200 left over, I cant use that if I cant use it for convention. Unless I can get them to designate
that that full pile of money is for me to use in a more flexible fashion?
Howard Shalowitz: Right! What you should do, actually my suggestion is this. Its kind of a doubleedged sword. Its like what Congress does. If you dont spend whats allotted, theyre going to cut you
the next year. OK? So if they allow $1500 for convention and you're only spending $800, the next year
(the next contract term), theyre going to say well only give you $800 cause you only spent $800. So
thats what Congress does. You know, you allot a million dollars, you spend 1.2 and then they give you
1.4 the next year. But, on the flip side, if you come back and say you allotted $1500 but we only spent
$1200 I saved the Shul $300. Next time around Id like to take that extra $300 and put it toward x or
if you split the difference and the extra $150 you give to me as a perk or bonus, whatever. So I dont
know if that answers your question or not.
Ill tell you, let me go through this and then well catch some of these questions at the end. Thats
pension.
Termination -- Termination, again, is contained in the document in the contract. There are ways of
termination. Obviously, is it up to the Cantor, up to the congregation? Usually this is whats called
Specific Performance, that you can never ask someone to provide a service or enforce someone
standing there and doing it. If I hire you to paint a painting for me and I say Ill give you $1000 and then
you decide youre not going to, no court is going to say Im going to force you to sit there and paint that
painting for me. But what they do is, they give you money damages. So no one is going to force you to
stay in the synagogue. If you want out chances are youll get out. There are termination ways to get out,
despite the fact that you have a contract for a certain number of years. Are you liable on it? Yeah, if the
day before Rosh Hashanah comes and you say, You know what, I want to get out of here. I want to
leave, and you walk off. And dont laugh its happened! And then they have to last minute go hire
someone for $15,000 cause thats the only person they can find, and they did whats called mitigate their
damages.
Theyre not just going out and hiring, converting Pavarotti and then hiring him. They would try to find
somebody and the only one left is $15,000, you might be on the hook for that $15,000. So, you know,
st
there are certain things with termination you give certain notice, six months notice by January 1 , lets
say, before the contract year ends. Most contracts how many of you are on calendar year contracts
st
ending December 31 .
(Male audience member): I was.
st

Howard Shalowitz: Were you? For all those years its still December 31 .
(Male audience member continues): Not all those years. It changed in about the middle.

60

st

st

Howard Shalowitz: Till what, about September 1 or August 1 right?

st

st

(Male audience member continues): Always September 1 but then it was January 1 .
st

st

Howard Shalowitz: Wow! Thats interesting. How many of you are around August 1 September 1
somewhere like that? Right before Rosh Hashanah? (Male audience member shouts July.) Well, that
gives ample time. And then it says, Before July give x number months notice and all that. So, with
that, with termination, make sure there are good provisions about notice -- not only for you to the
congregation, but the congregation to you at the end of the term.
Now, how many of you have congregations in Canada? How many of you have been in congregations in
Canada? Okay. Canada is very strange because there have been two cases that I know of, of Rabbis
who have signed contracts for a finite number of years (3 years on one, 5 years on another). When those
terms were up the congregations said, all right you ran the term. We dont want to renew. And the
Rabbis sued the congregation 2 different cities in Canada saying I had an expectancy that I was going
to go beyond those 5 years or beyond the 3 years, even though it just says (clearly) from 1999 to 2002.
And they won! Its Canadian law. Ok!
One of them sent a Rabbi out. They said, youre not a Rabbi yet. We want you to go get smicha. Were
going to send you out for a year. And they did. They paid for him and everything. He came back to a
smaller place in Canada (I wont say where) and he came back there and for 2 years he had a 2-year
contract. He had family problems, he wasnt this, he wasnt that, and apparently they didnt teach him
how to give sermons or read Torah, or paskin sheilas (Laughter) or learn Talmud. So they said, ok
thank you very much for the 2 years. Its not working out. You know, you get to live in the house for
however long (another year if you want), but were going to go look for someone else.
He sued them. He said theres was an expectancy that I was going to be here more than one contract
term even though there was nothing in writing (no oral thing even). He said it was my expectation and
he won! And then theres another similar one at another place.
(Male audience member): Does anyone know what the statute of limitations is on that?
Howard Shalowitz: Statute of limitations goes by state. You mean Canada? (Audience member replies,
Yes.) No. Thats one place I dont practice. But statute of limitations goes by state. So generally, Ill
tell you what it is in Illinois and Missouri. Generally, if you have a written contract, the statute of
limitations is 10 years, on written contracts. If you guarantee something I guarantee to provide
service and theres a breach of the contract 10 years. If its a negligence case, in Illinois its 2 years
Missouri its 5 years. Some states have a 3-year wrongful death (I hope you never have to deal with
that!) Its 3 years. So it goes by state and usually some intentional torts (battery, assault) in some
states its one year, in some states its two. All right, thats your lesson on the law
(Male audience member): Those that have December or January
Howard Shalowitz: Oh, for the contracts. If you have those generally its six months. If you give six
months its in the Cantors Assembly Contractit tells when. But if you give an intention of renewing a
contract, some of you how many of you have provisions that say, youre x number of years and then
with an option to renew for x number of years after that? Thats up to your discretion. OK.
Well some is at the discretion of the Cantor and some is the congregation and some is mutual. But at
least youre locked into the terms so that six months before the expiration of the contract you say, weve
already locked in x number of dollars and the terms for the next two or three years down the road. Do
you want to renew?
(Male audience member): Just one aside and that is that this is where the placement commission gets
into trouble. If you have a contract, if the Cantor has a contract, and the congregation has the same
contract, we have to make you abide by the contract. We have to be as fair to the congregation as we

61

are to you. So if you want to break your contract in the middle you cant just do that. We cant say, ok
you can do that because that congregation will say, well why are we dealing with the Cantors Assembly.
Howard Shalowitz: Right. Its a bad reflection on you as a Hazzan. Its a bad reflection on the Cantors
Assembly. Right! If you and I didnt mean to construe this before as youre free to go whenever you
want. You have a contract, you have an obligation and chances are youre digging your own grave. Not
only with that congregation but also with the next one and the next one. And its a bad reflection on the
Assembly, because theyll say this person came from the Assembly, why should we go to the Assembly
again? Stay with your contract. And were going to get to this about how many years or life-term, etc.
And Ive had many clients who had life terms, but that was a different case. (Laughter) That was the
criminal aspect. (Much laughter)
(Male audience member): But if the contract is with the Assembly you have to wait (garbled) to get
another position.
Howard Shalowitz: Yeah. It depends on I mean you could write that in your own contract.
individual circumstances, Ill talk with you afterwards about, but well go through the general things.

The

Buy-out and Buy-in of Another Congregation -- Again, thats in the Cantors Assembly contract. Generally
the Cantor who has seniority at both of them congregations are there. But, you know, maybe that
Cantor who has seniority wants to retire or they want to buy out that Cantor and you stay on. But there
are problems with that because many, many congregations are selling and theyre merging. It happened
in Chicago with Beth Hillel and the Bnai Emuna in Skokie and those were two huge congregations 20
years ago. And Bnai Emuna just was going down so they merged with Beth Hillel and theres a problem
where the Rabbis go, where the Cantors go, etc. etc. So make sure you have a buy-out and buy-in of
another congregation terms. And, again, the model for it is in the Cantors Assembly contract.
Arbitration and Mediations -- All right. This is something that I want to talk to you about to make sure that
everybody understands this. In the Cantors Assembly Contract (its paragraph Roman Numeral XI,
Resolutions of Disputes) there are three little paragraphs A, B and C.
A says, It is hoped -- Its is hoped. Those were what are called precatory words. That means like
when you do a will and you say, Its my desire that my nephew take care of my dog when I die. Well,
thats nice. Thats your desire, but if it says, My dog is deeded (as personal property) is deeded over to
my nephew. Thats a different story. It becomes the nephews property. But I would like for so and so
to hire Attorney Steve Berke to be my attorney for whatever. Well, they dont have to. Its my desire.
Theyre called precatory words.
So here it says, It is hoped that in the event of any disputes arising out of or in connection with this
agreement, the synagogue with Hazzan shall utilize the offices of the Cantors Assembly to help resolve
the conflict. Ok, what that is, is just giving a guideline -- the congregation says ok thats nice. We go to
the Cantors Assembly and we hope that the Cantors Assembly can facilitate something to work out
something between the Hazzan and the congregation. But if youre getting to that point where you cant
resolve it on your own, I dont know? Do a lot of congregations come to the Cantors Assembly and start
You know, were going to go to the guy whos on, the organizations thats on the side of the Hazzan?
If it gets to that point, you go to the next step. So theres B.
Should the above process not result in a resolution, then the synagogue and the Hazzan agree to submit
any such dispute to mediation and, following that if unresolved, to arbitration, either with the United
Synagogues Committee on Congregational Standards or to any such bodies as mutually agreed by the
parties. So the successful party may submit the arbitration award to any court with competent jurisdiction
for enforcement. All right, first, mediation. Mediation is not Judge Wapner or Judge Judy. (Laughter)
Mediation means the parties come together with a mediator, a neutral party, and they try to resolve this.
And they talk about the issues, they do a lot of mediation, the issues. First with everybody together. You
tell your side, they tell their side, and then you go in separate rooms and the mediator talks to you first.
Tell me the story. Tell me what youd like. The mediator listens and then you kind of confide in the
mediator. The mediator never tells the other sides what each one is thinking. And then the mediator

62

goes in the other room and starts talking. I think I can get them to this. I think I can get him or her to
this. I think. And then you, through the mediator, start talking and you finally get to, we hope, to Yes.
Its non-binding. Mediation is just youre sitting there with some neutral person whos trying to help you
out with the process. If you cant do mediation, then theres arbitration. Arbitration is Judge Judy and
Judge Wapner and all that, where youre saying, Im not going to go to court. Im going to have some
arbitrator (could be a retired judge, could be a well-respected person in the community, could be any one
or any three people, you could have a panel). Generally what happens is, if you cant agree on one
arbitrator, you pick one, the other side picks one and those two people agree on the third. Or, if you want
to have a panel of three, you can.
Just like Dinei mamono bishloshah, right, in the Talmud, you have money matters dealing with courts of
three. So thats how they get that. The problem is here that, it says, Either with United Synagogues
Committee on Congregational Standards or to any such bodies as mutually agreed, the successful party
may submit (may submit) the award to any court of competent jurisdiction. It doesnt say shall. When
the word is shall or the results of the mandatory of the binding arbitration doesnt say binding here
will be enforceable in a court of law. In my opinion, thats what it should say. Thats what your contract
should say. If youre going to go through that whole process, you dont want to then say, Well, it may be
submitted or its non-binding, cause someone could say these are non-binding arbitration clauses. You
have to say theyre binding and enforceable in a court of law in a competent jurisdiction.
Also, who pays for this alternative dispute resolution? Who pays for the mediation? Who pays for the
arbitration? Its not in here. So you should always have that in there. I had a case recently where it said
that the winning party, the winning party pays for the arbitration which is actually an interesting
(Male audience member): What if neither party wins?
Howard Shalowitz: Everybodys a winner. No, no, no! Yeah, it depends on who the winning party is. Its
a matter of what youre winning, because if one says well we only ended up paying $50,000 but he
wanted $100,000, how do you determine who the winner is. So you just say the parties shall split evenly
the cost of arbitration but its not in here. It doesnt say who pays the cost. And sometimes people think
theyre going to be on the hook for arbitration and mediation costs.
(Female audience member): Typically, how much can arbitration cost? I dont even understand what the
costs might be in that case.
Howard Shalowitz: Theres a place called United States Arbitration Mediation, or the Triple A theres
another one, not the Automobile Club, but the other one. And they charge like a $300 up front fee just to
use their facilities, and theyll order lunch for you, whatever. And then the arbitrators can run anywhere
between $200-$300 an hour, which, you know, in some places thats cheaper than your lawyers in
some places more expensive than where you are. So if youre there in arbitration for 5 hours and its
$200 an hour, the arbitrator gets $1000 but in advance you submit papers to the arbitrator that says this
is my position, this is his position. This is our high, this is our low, that kind of thing. So that could run
another couple of hours. Arbitration could run $500 to $1500, something like that.
(Female audience member): For all 3 arbitrators?
Howard Shalowitz: Oh, for all three? No, per person! My suggestion is get one get one good one.
(Male audience member): What happens if the congregation -- without going to arbitration -- just fires the
Hazzan? What option has that?
Howard Shalowitz: And you have a contract?
(Male audience member continues): Yes!
Howard Shalowitz: You sue him. You go to court without an arbitration clause.

63

(Male audience member continues): But the contract says you should go to arbitration.
Howard Shalowitz: Right. Oh, and if you sue in court the court will throw it back and say your contract
says you go to arbitration.
(Male audience member continues): Yes, so!
(Male audience member new): And if it doesnt work, I guess you could sue or
Howard Shalowitz: No, no! If its binding arbitration, whatever the arbitration decision is, youre bound by
it. And heres why I suggest arbitration. First of all, it is.
(Male audience member continues): Thats the issue. That they congregation, they can fire me, but you
cannot go to the court, you must go to arbitration.
Howard Shalowitz: Right!
(Male audience member continues): Right, but now you are without any job, sometimes you dont have
any income
Howard Shalowitz: Thats why you should go to arbitration
(Male audience member continues): You dont have any money, and face it, youre going to United
Synagogue and they drag you for months without any parnasah.
Howard Shalowitz: Do you have any idea how long the judicial process is if you go to court? Thats why
you go to arbitration. Arbitration is, you pick an arbitrator within x number of time. What Im saying is,
in this contract, it should have who pays for it (binding arbitration), how much time you have to pick an
arbitrator, etc. You go through arbitration and you can be finished in a matter of a couple of months. You
dont have to go through all the discovery process, the interrogatories, and you have 30 days to answer
them, then you get another 30 days for an extension and depositions and all. You go through arbitration
and you need to move on with your life and get a job. Not you, I mean whoevers.
(Male audience member continues): Why you cannot make the contract this way, that they both sign the
Cantor cannot be fired(could not understand remainder of sentence). It has to be both sides. Thats a
fair thing. You cannot sue them without going to arbitration; they cannot fire you until you go to
arbitration.
Howard Shalowitz: There are certain things about termination about firing.
theres without cause.

Theres cause and then

(Male audience member continues): They can always give you a cause. I promise you. You know?
Howard Shalowitz: I know, they can make up causes.
(Male audience member continues): I here 16 years and nothing like this has happened to me, but I know
it happens. You know?
Howard Shalowitz: All right, lets do this. Lets not do the personal ones till we get yeah, we got 20
minutes. Well run through it.
So you get the idea with arbitration and mediation, that you should do it. Its quicker; its easier; its a lot
less expensive than going to court. Trust me, and its only to your benefit to do that.
Salary -- Make sure your salary is delineated, obviously. You want to have a graduated scale, where you
have x number this, x number that year. Put down how many times youre paid. Are you paid 24?

64

Its kind of funny because, I think, in here it said 12 payments or 24. Does anyone get paid once a
month? Oh you really do? Well, ok.
All right, sometimes they have twice a month, sometimes its every 2 weeks. So make sure, because in
divorce cases I say to my clients, Ok, check the box. Are you paid monthly, are you paid semi-monthly,
bi-weekly or weekly? And they check off bi-weekly or semi-monthly thats twice a month. So, ok you
get 24 paychecks? And they say, no we get 26 paychecks. I say, no. Thats bi-weekly; thats not semimonthly. Whateverthey checked the wrong box. Anyway, make sure you know if youre paid every 2
weeks or twice a month, so it works out.
Health Insurance Make sure you have major medical and dental (this is a huge negotiating thing).
Some congregations will say, No, no, no! Thats up to the Cantor to do it, or we dont want to give dental.
We want to give medical. For you and your family! Its important that they do that. And, again, you
couch this in terms of this is to the benefit of the congregation. Why? You want your Hazzan to be
healthy; you want your Hazzans spouse to be healthy because, otherwise, the Hazzan is going to be
away on family medical leave. Or you want the children to be healthy. And you want your Hazzan to
have teeth like Steve Stoher. OK? (Laughter) Its too bad he left! I mean, really. You want to have a
good smile.
One of my parents friends passed away recently. Right before Cantorial school he says, I hear you want
to be a Hazzan, and I said yeah. He said (he was a dentist), he said one piece of advice for you and he
was great golfer, too, so I thought he was going to say perfect your golf game and go out with the Board
of Directors. You know this kind of thing. He says, Make sure you always keep your teeth nice and
white and clean. Nobody wants to hear a Hazzan with bad teeth. I thought, if Im facing the other way,
whos going to see me anyway. But he was a great golfer.
(Male audience member): My congregation, Im sure like everyones weve been talking about, they say,
We dont care health insurance, whatever. Heres the number and you do what you want with it. Do
you recommend that, even in that case, you still make the congregation specify the amount of money that
theyre paying.
Howard Shalowitz: In other words, theyll give it to you to pay, or are
(Male audience member continues): Yeah.
Howard Shalowitz: Again, thats an accounting question because, if they give it to you and then you can
write off a certain amount of your health insurance for you, your family and that changes every year.
Almost always, about how much you can write off. Or they just have a package. It depends on tax wise
what is better and what kind of package is better. If you go with United Health Care Plan or a Blue-Cross
Plan, or whatever, that might be really inexpensive on your own and they reimburse you. And tax wise it
comes out well and its a good plan. Go with it. But otherwise, some of these congregations have great
major medical and dental and psychiatric and everything kind of plans. And those are the onesand
some dont have any. Right! And then you have to take care of it yourself and then you write it off.
Actually you reminded me of something. I was just going to tell you this. Im having a junior moment.
(Laughter) Itll come back to me. Go ahead.
(Male audience member): I just want to ask a quick question because theres this tension between those
who have a salary and prescribed, itemized benefits in their contract. And, like me, the congregation
gives me a gross income in the contract and you do what you want which they call a cafeteria plan.
Can I just ask this just for my own Who has sort of the cafeteria plan and is struggling with that kind of
cause thats something that ammm.
Howard Shalowitz: Yeah, the cafeteria plan is more like a pick and choose? Right!
(Female audience member): In other words, were going to give you $100,000 and you can divvy it up any
way that you want?

65

(Male audience member): Right

(Female audience
words)whatever?

member

continues):

In

other

words,

parsonage,

(could

not

understand

(Male audience member): You go to them and basically you say, ok this is what my salary and my
parsonage will be, and then my benefits package will include vacation, and da-da-da-da line items, and
this is the amount. And then their bookkeeper takes your chart and portions it out.
Howard Shalowitz: Yeah, again, thats something to take to your accountant. Now, I remembered my
junior moment. COBRA if you are terminated for whatever reason you quit, they fire you, and its
over. You can get, you have to under Federal law you get COBRA coverage, which is, you pay in to
what their plan was. It is so expensive! I cant even begin to tell you. So the Federal Government, when
they want to make sure people just werent stuck without insurance after they left a job, so they want to
make sure there was some sort of insurance. Its very, very expensive for COBRA coverage. Make sure
that in your contracts (this is another little perk to be negotiated) that, in the event of termination or
whatever it is with the Cantor (the Cantor leaves or the congregation terminates, whatever), that for
period of x number of months or a year, or whatever it might be to negotiate, that the Cantor is still
covered under the major medical plan. And then you dont have to deal with that very expensive COBRA
coverage.
Have any of you dealt with COBRA before? Is it outrageous! So, letswe got 10 minutes. Well run
through this.
(Female audience member): Im sorry. Thats terminated during your contract or just they dont give you
your contract?
Howard Shalowitz: Say again.
(Female audience member): Early termination.
Howard Shalowitz: Yeah, early termination. If youre contracts over, its over.
(Male audience member): Along those lines (which is going to come up in severance), there is this
understanding that termination and non-renewal is the same thing. But is that separate for insurance?
Howard Shalowitz: Really, you could do whatever you want, but generally if someone says, no, the
contracts over and youre moving on. Why should we pay? I dont think anybody would pay. But its
early termination. Thats what Im talking about.
(Male audience member continued): I know, in your situation. But they claim that they were not renewing
the contract, although we knew there was more to it than that. But clearly the understanding is that nonrenewal and termination is the same thing. So in the matter of severance, the congregation is expected
to pay the severance package even for non-renewal of the contract.
(Male audience member): After so many years of service.
Howard Shalowitz: Yeah, right, right! Termination Im using is if they termination before the end of the
contract. Severance is, lets say the contract is up. So, in the Cantors Assembly Contract its up to six
years, I think seven years, theres nothing. And then 7-to-10 its a quarter of a month for every year,
and then its and . And then, from 1994, if you were employed since 94, its one month for every
year youve been there if they dont renew. So thats to protect you down the road. If youve been
somewhere for 20 years and you started in 1990, and youre going to end in 2010, youre going to get 20
months (according to this model), 20 months of severance. Thats not for being terminated. Thats if they
dont renew your contract.
(Female audience member comment could not understand.)

66

Howard Shalowitz: If its not renewed, period. Ok?

Job Description, Delineation of Duties with Rabbi Make sure it just doesnt say hes in charge of all the
music, etc. They might want a little more specifics. Oh, Cantor, didnt you know youre supposed to be at
minyan every single Shaharit and we want you to hashkama minyan on Shabbos and the regular minyan
on Shabbos. So delineate as much as you can what your duties are. And if its not written there, youre
not responsible to be there. But it is nice to show up; trust me show your face.
Liability Insurance If youre taking kids on a trip, you make sure you have a release from the parents, or
at least one parent. In a lot of divorce situations, make sure that its the one who has the legal custody of
the child who signs off, because, God forbid, a bus turns over or whatever, and youre the one who
organized the trip and got the bus company. You know where the fingers going to point. Its going to
point at the bus company. But then, if they go broke, theyre going to say, Youre the one who got the
bus. Didnt you know the driver was drunk? And didnt you know you organized it? Da-da-da! Get a
release from everybody. Also get whats called E&O, Errors and Omissions Insurance (E&O). The
synagogue should pay for it for you that any duty you have for the synagogue (field trips, whatever it
might be) on premises or off premises.
Lets say you turn on a light that says do not turn on and it causes an electrical fire and someone is
injured whatever it is -- Errors & Omissions Insurance for the Cantor. It doesnt really cost them a lot of
money. Its a very inexpensive policy.
Term of Contract Life versus Years Again this is something I go over for my criminal clients all the
time. (Laughter) When you do life in a synagogue, you do life! In the Federal, it 85%. So youre better
off being a Federal prisoner than being a (Laugher!) No! My suggestion is and some of you might
disagree with me never take a life contract. Ok, never offer one as a synagogue, never take one as a
Cantor. Some of you might disagree -say, no I want to have the comfort; Ive been here 30 years
alreadya lifetime. Get a finite number of years. Get 10 with a 10-year renewal, or something.
The reason being, I cant tell you how many times Ive dealt with Cantors as clients, dealt with Rabbis and
the flip side on synagogues, that they have a life-time contract and the Cantors voice is whatever. Or the
Cantors work ethic is or the Rabbis work ethic and they just nobodys coming and theyre tired of
the Rabbi, tired of the Cantor. The synagogue is going to go bust, going to go bankrupt no one is
showing up. And you have a life-time contract and nothing hanging over your hear. So they want to get
you out. So what do they do? Whos the one who said or they come up with some little story about I
heard the Cantor di-di-di-di-di whatever. Because its their way of getting you out. And if you think it
doesnt happen, then trust me it happens. And the stories arent too nice, either.
Theres no incentive for you to do your job and no incentive for them to want to keep you because if
youre not showing up anyway, or shes not showing up. Dont take a lifetime contract. Its not got for
the congregation; its not good for the Cantor or Rabbi. Some of you may disagree with me but, for the
most part, there have been too many problems with that.
Jurisdiction In here it says, Make sure you have the jurisdiction in the State youre in. You could get a
lawyer to negotiate the contract, because negotiating is kind of across the board anybody can do it from
any State. But when you deal with the actual laws of that State, if youre in New York, youre going to
deal with the laws of New York.
If theres a Breach of the Contract -- The contract doesnt say, and this is what I think should be included
in the Cantors Assembly Contract. In the event of a breach of a contract and you do go to court and you
do have these expensive depositions and you do have attorneys fees and you do have all these things,
who pays for it? It should be the non-breaching party. Ok, gets paid, and the breaching party (the one
whos fault it is, ultimately). So if you sue the synagogue and you win, the synagogue is going to pay your
attorneys fees. So it gives an incentive to settle the case early on. Because if they know, uh oh, were
going to have to pay our lawyer and, if we think were being not so nice about it, well have to pay for the
other lawyer; its good to have who pays the attorney fees.

67

Blue Penciling in a Contract That just means if theres an unenforceable provision, the whole thing isnt
thrown out. It just means they blue pencil through the one thing.
Ok, very quickly, Im going to go over this in a matter of five minutes. All right, dont worry. Therell be
plenty of food for everybody. This is food for thought. You ready?
Cases of Employment Discrimination Age, if youre over 40 years old. Gender, including harassment,
which is probably the most commonly filed form of discrimination. Age is the easiest one to win of all of
them, but none of them are easy to win. National origin --lets say in this case theyre only hiring Israelis
or someone says, You know what, we only want to hire American Cantors. We don't want an Israeli. We
know hes qualified, hes an American citizen, but he came from Israel. You know how they are. They
could have, seriously, a suit against you.
How to spot it; how to fight it; what to do. The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) has
whats called a Charge of Discrimination. You cannot just file a lawsuit. You have to file a Charge of
Discrimination with the EEOC. Almost every State has a Commission on Human Rights that has, like a
smaller version of the EEOC. So you file with the EEOC and then you check a little box that says I also
want to file with the State Commission in Maryland or in New Jersey, and then both of the files. And then
you give your grievance and then they give their answer and it goes back and forth.
After you get whats called a Right to Sue letter. Do any of you know about this? Ok, good, I hope you
never do. But if you get whats called a Right to Sue letter by the way you have to file within 180 days,
so its a quick time turnaround. If you wait a year to file or a year and a half, youre out of the box. You
have to do it within 180 days and then you get whats called a Right to Sue letter down the road. Then
you have 90 days to file a lawsuit either in your State court or in Federal court claiming whatever kind
of discrimination. So thats if youre the one being discriminated against.
Ways of preventing it? Some innocuous terms that you might Say you might come into the office and
you might be male and theres a nice young woman whos just hired and you come up and pinch her
cheek and say, Hi Sweetie. Oh, do you look cute today. Ok! I cant tell you how many times little old
ladies come up to me (they must be blind) because they say, Cantor youre so cute and they pinch my
cheek. So they must be blind women, but you know, Im not offended by it. I mean their husbands are
standing right there. However, the flip side. If you do it to someone whos younger, and they are new in
the office, or whatever. So just be careful because anybody they could file these complaints and
everything. And its the last thing you need. Be careful what you do; be careful what you say. All right!
Lets see. How to Get A Job and Keep It; Answer Calls; Responses; Getting Out in the Community we
dont need to go over this stuff. This is all obvious stuff.
Five Responses to Irate, Nervous Parents Rob Lieberman, who Im rooming with here was my
roommate at the seminary said to me, What are the five responses? I said, What? He said, Yeah,
it says five.
I think it might have been a type-o either that or just respond five times. Tell them five times; itll sink in.
No; no; no! Really, what I was going to do was open it up to you, but we really dont have a lot of time to
do that. The best thing to do in that is just listen. And then tell the person, I know what youre going
through with a Bar Mitzvah. This happens all the time with people. Its a natural response that youre
nervous, youre this; youre that. Its your oldest child. Everythings going to be fine. I promise dont
promise! Everythings going to be fine. And just add confidence. And tell them you know where they
are. Youve gone through it yourself. You went through it with other students, etc. But listen! Dont be
combative. Just listen! listen! listen!
Ill give you a quick story. One Rabbi in St. Louis (whos not there any more) he retired after many,
many years in service. Someone went in to him and just chewed him out. Were not going to say what
they did because its being taped, but you get the picture. They chew this guy out, up and down, and this

68

and that. And he sat there and he just looked at them and he says, Thank you very much for sharing
your thoughts. OK! (Laughter) What are you going to do? Theyre going to go home and say, And all
he said was Thank you for sharing your thoughts. He was a mench! Yeah! So as much as you want to
just want to(sound of fist hitting hand) let em have it, just go home. Talk to your spouse about it. Dont
start saying in the community, this and this and this, and then the gossip goes Just, as much as you
can, keep your mouth shut, except when youre singing!
What are you legally allowed to domarriages out of State, out of Country, without a license, without a
civil divorce, with a Get, commitment ceremonies. All right, in a nutshell, most States have criminal laws if
you are performing a marriage without a license or, you know, that two people that you cannot
solemnize or attempt to solemnize a marriage. For instance, lets say people have a Get but theyre not
yet divorced but they want to have a commitment ceremony. But they send out wedding invitations and
theres a Chupa and they want you to sing the Sheva Brochos Say, you know what, Ill do the religious
aspect of it, but not the civil because they cant have a license because theyre not civilly divorced. You
will go to jail and be fined! Its usually a misdemeanor youre in jail or its a $1000 fine or both. Ok, in
most States (except Utah, where blah-blah-blah) (Laughter) and if youre Mormon.
But I had a situation with that, where people had a Get and the divorce was not final. They said, well the
Rabbis going to, you know, just say some words, a commitment thing, da-da-da-da After I informed
them its illegal to do that he said, well it wont be a real marriage. Itll be a commitment ceremony man
and woman, Jewish, you know, everything kosher. I said but theres going to be a Chupa and hes going
to break the glass. Big deal! And it says wedding invitation and the wedding of, the wedding of. I said,
it sounds to me like youre doing (many comments from audience members)
Thats right!
(Male audience member): It should be the other way around. The Get shouldnt be issued until the civil
decree is.
Howard Shalowitz: Youre right. There are some that flip that do both. Thats a whole other issue.
Come to our Chabad continuing legal education classes in St Louis. We go over that whole issue. But
anyway, the thing is, you have to have a civil license in your hand to do it. You have to make sure that
you, as a clergy from out of State, are allowed to go in that State. Some States dont allow it if youre not
a clergy in that State. Theyre kind of opening it up now for everything. Make sure the civil divorce has
been granted. Dinah Dmalchutah Dina the law of the land is the law!
Thank you for your time and attention and now I will answer specific questions privately.

69

Spirituality and the Pulpit

Wednesday May 10, 2006 1:45 p.m.
Presenters: Hazzanim Jack Chomsky and Emanuel Perlman
Session began with a nigun led with Cantor Scott Buckner, Minnetonka MN.
(Music, singing/chanting, etc. here loudly to softly)
Manny Perlman
There, and then he took his last breath. Hazzanim, we must awaken and reinvigorate Rosenzweigs
words. And now it comes, the point of all points, which the Lord has truly revealed to me in my sleep.
The point of all points for which there is the knowledge that God exists in us. We are Gods name.
Rosenzweig was so deeply moved by the liturgy of the Yom Kippur services that he remained a Jew.
Nowhere is it written, but let us surmise that Franz heard a humble Hazzan in an orthodox Shul.
Hazzanim, we are with God Ki Emanu-El, for God is always with us. We need to know this and
communicate it the best way that we know, through our voices, by maintaining and enriching our musical
tradition and by being proud of it. Let us complete the words of Franz Rosenzweig with the bracha we
recite for a sacred moment, but let us add two words. Baruch Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech Haolam
Shehecheyanu Vkiymanu Vhigiyanu Lazman Hazeh .Bamakom Hazeh.
Jack Chomsky is co-president of an organization known as BRAD, Building Equality and Dignity. He
serves on the board of his local Jewish family service and coordinates social action programming in his
Shul. Through a life and career devoted to acts of kindness that have lead to a higher spiritual
awareness, Jack will discuss spirituality with us. We move from Yaakov Avinu to our own beloved Jack.
(applause)
Jack Chomsky
Thank you, Manny. And it occurs to me, before I begin what Ive prepared, that in some ways my own
personal discovery of Jewish spirituality, a large piece of it happened at Temple Emmanuel in Providence,
Rhode Island, where I sang in the choir where Mannys father, Ivan Perlman (who many of us know very well)
was the Hazzan. And I think of your dad singing Max Helfmans Kadshenu and I knew there was something
special in that moment. He also enabled me to then start working as a cantorial soloist in a Reform
congregation. When people would come up to me after services and tell me that, through my singing, they had
found God. This was pretty scary cause I didnt exactly know where God was, but this shows the power that
Jewish music and the music of liturgy can have. And I have to admit that this has not happened in many years.
Now that Im a full professional, nobody ever comes up and tells me they find God after the service. But, we
can continue to strive.
Let me begin by considering that fateful word spirituality
I will tell you from personal experience that not so many years ago, I dreaded hearing that word, as some of
you still may. It suggested to me a conversation in which someone would endeavor to make me feel that
spirituality was missing from the synagogue and from Jewish life -- and that it was to be found, instead,
somewhere else.
So it was with some trepidation that I entered into a 2-year program entitled The Spirituality Institute for
Cantors -- a program which is now engaging a second cohort of Hazzanim from across a fairly wide Jewish
spectrum in a series of 4 5-day retreats over a 2-year period, with weekly hevruta study connecting the
retreats.

70

I entered this program not because I was particularly interested in learning about yoga and meditation, or
because I felt that my own life lacked spirituality. I entered it because I knew that questions of spirituality and
spiritual practices were not far from the mainstream -- that they were relevant somewhere in the Conservative
Movement -- that my congregation was the only Conservative congregation in town -- that the other
professional staff in my congregation didnt seem to have an interest in this area -- and that someone on our
professional staff ought to know something more about it.
Having completed the program, and having continued my engagement with the Institute through continued
hevruta study, I will say first of all that this word spirituality -- (the S word) -- should not frighten any of us.
In fact, it is a word that we should love. It is a word that connects perhaps more than any other contemporary
word to what we do and feel as Hazzanim, and what we should be striving to inculcate in our congregations
and communities.
A dictionary definition of spirituality says the state, quality, manner or fact of being spiritual. Not much help.
So we go to spiritual: (1) of, relating to, consisting of or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material.
Sounds like us. (2) Of, concerned with or affecting the soul. Sounds like us. (3) of, from or relating to
God. Sounds like us. Join in any time. (laughter) (4) of, for of or belonging to a religion; sacred. (all
repeat) Sounds like us. (5) relating to or having the nature of spirits or a spirit; supernatural. I go for
sounds like us. Ill have to convince you a little bit.
What do I mean, sounds like us? I mean, it sounds like this is our agenda -- what we care about, what we
strive for, what turns us on, why we persist at this marvelous profession. As described in these definitions,
our work, our calling has to do with the spirit. Ours is not exclusively a material pursuit although, thank God,
we are actually paid to engage in it. It is totally connected to God and the soul and the sacred. The
supernatural? When I hear that word, I dont think of science fiction. No. Science fiction has never been a
personal interest of mine. Supernatural? I think of Pinchiks Roze dShabbos, or the voice and compositions
of Yossele Rosenblatt or the way that a hazzan calls to God on behalf of the kahal. I think of that moment
that was described in the Heshel lecture yesterday.
My point is, I feel confident that those of us who are gathered in this room, who have come to spend time
together this week at this Convention, are the most spiritually connected people to be found in our
synagogues. Our sacred task is to deepen the spiritual connection of our selves, of our rabbinic colleagues
and our congregations, so that we can all share in that marvelous journey.
As I undertook the journey of the Spirituality Institute, I hoped that the path would be compatible with what I
already valued. I am happy to report that they are more than compatible. The elements of contemporary
spirituality, when properly grounded and founded in Jewish practice, are, I believe, indispensable to enriching
your journey and the journey of those whom you serve.
The core focus of our retreats was in developing mindfulness the ability to focus on our bodies and our
thoughts, to experience the joy of life and of prayer, and to consider how these would impact our lives and our
music.
What could be more Jewish than an appreciation of the wonder of our bodies? Who knows this better than
us, the ones who know and teach tfilot, wherein we recite a prayer when relieving ourselves, and specifically
focus on the abilities of body and mind every day in birkot hashachar?
What could be more Jewish than to focus ones mind? Our Jewish minds have been the greatest minds in
history. I believe this is because our Torah-centered life has given us the mental discipline to master the
knowledge of our traditions and of the cultures and nations among whom we have been blessed or cursed
to live.
Although todays presentation is not a reenactment or recruitment for the Spirituality Institute, I think it will be
instructive to describe how we spent our time. At each retreat, we were strongly encourage to arrive as early
as possible on Sunday, in order to make that a working day, and to leave as late as possible on Thursday.

71

The fact that these retreats were held in a bucolic Connecticut setting during the summer and a sunny and
usually warm California location in the dead of winter certainly didnt detract from the experience. (laughter)
The typical retreat day began in silence. The only speaking in the morning was done in conjunction with our
daily services. The services involved a great deal of joyful singing, a heavenly earthly choir, as it were -- not
unlike that which we sometimes find at our convention. Last night Maariv service was a beautiful spiritual
experience on many levels. Of course creating these wonderful hazzanic choirs is a little bit of a challenge on
your home turf, where you dont have the beautiful sophisticated voices surrounding you that we do when we
gather together.
After a silent breakfast, during which one would endeavor to be more conscious of the sensations involved in
tasting and eating our food, most of which was quite delicious, we would have a period of meditation guided
by Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg. Some of my colleagues had a great deal of experience in this area and
perhaps strong ideas as to the particular benefits of one or another approach. For me, meditation was a new
venture. It was done sometimes stationary, sometimes ambulatory that is, a walking meditation. Following
our meditation, which was usually about an hour or 90 minutes, we would have instruction in Hasidic
teachings and traditions with Nehemia Polen, a visionary teacher with encyclopedic context from this aspect
of the Jewish spiritual world. Just as we began our session today with a nigun, Nehemia always prefaced his
teaching with a nigun, usually one not yet known to us. This provided a quietly powerful way to make a
transition or separation from the world of silence into the world of speech, from individual to group
consciousness. I have found the nigun tool extremely useful at other times to create a sense of holiness
or separation as we begin to study or learn together.
Sometimes the study would be of some of the musical implications of our spiritual search. Benjie-Ellen
Schiller, a well-known cantor and composer in the Reform movement guided this. In a sense, we were all equal
partners in this element of the program, as we were the first cohorts of hazzanim going through the process.
After the morning study we would break our silence with quiet conversation during lunch -- followed by a
session of yoga led by Rabbi Myriam Klotz. Again, there were wide variations in the amount of experience
among the participants. Myriam was a teacher of great range being able to stretch (literally and figuratively)
the experience of both the expert and the novice and placing this physical activity into a very Jewish context.
The value of the opportunity to discover yoga and meditation in Jewish context can hardly be overstated. For
many of us yoga and meditation may sound like foreign pursuits. I can recall a recent article in a national
publication about the marketing of new activities around synagogues that brought out some very negative
comments on Hazzanet from some of my colleagues. It is true that, as best understood my many, yoga and
meditation are activities associated with other cultures. Yet much of what is involved in these pursuits is not
only consonant with Jewish thought and action, but actually fits very well within important Jewish traditions
and has long-standing experience in Jewish traditions.
It seems obvious that the schedule alone, which so clearly slowed our pace from the frenetic routine most of
us keep daily and weekly, would be good for the soul and body. In other words, each of us benefited from the
change to our personal lifestyles. But the broader possibility and the long-term challenge for each of us is to
use these activities to deepen our own spiritual lives and enable us to develop the professional and
experiential vocabulary to deepen the Jewish spiritual lives of our congregants.
I will tell you that this experience has been hugely helpful to me -- both personally and professionally.
Exposure to and moderate mastery of these spiritual practices go a long way to improving our control over
anger in our lives, and anger can be destructive both internally and externally. It is destructive externally
because it puts us into conflict with those with whom and for whom we work -- almost always to our
disadvantage. It is destructive internally because it eats away at the quality of our emotional and physical
state. I didnt have a problem with anger per se before I went through this process. Maybe you think I did -
maybe you think I still do thats up for you to judge me, if you choose. But I find that I have a very
significantly greater handle on this issue now.

72

Friends most of us are often at the mercy of the power of others. We wont name them, butIve heard you
talk about them. Anger almost always exacerbates the disadvantage in that power relationship.
Ability to control anger can actually go a long way to empowering us and helping to turn adversaries into
partners.
Another area in which I have benefited tremendously is openness to new ideas and a willingness to make the
most of any experience. To be honest, one of our most positive Jewish traits often turns out to work to our
disadvantage. From an early age most of us learn to be very critical. We are highly praised for asking an
incisive question that strikes at a soft point in an argument. Unfortunately, too often we internalize the idea
that we have an almost sacred obligation to find fault with whatever we experience. Again, this really doesnt
benefit us or those we criticize. Somehow, as a by-product of my experiences through the Spirituality
Institute, I feel that I have learned to search for meaning and value in whatever I experience. Instead of
finding a flaw in a concert, service or idea, I can receive it more fully and reflect on what value is to be found
in it, even though it may be far from perfect. Again, this benefits me and it benefits the person or entity that
offers its thought or creativity to me. I have to tell you honestly that at least one colleague told me that its not
as much fun to sit with me as it used to be. (laughter) Ill just leave that there.
This alteration to my lifestyle and interaction means that, even when a person may approach me with what
seems like an alien or out-of-place idea, I can probably find a way to receive the idea in a positive way, and to
bring us closer together potentially to bring that person into the sphere of interest that Im trying to create.
I cant honestly say that Ive mastered these things well enough to draw a large number of people into the
same practices, but that is our challenge and our opportunity. I have continued my weekly hevruta study.
Encountering texts from within our tradition, which speak so powerfully to self-control, mindfulness, joy and
the desire to emulate the behavior of the tzadik helps to keep the right behaviors within reach most of the
time.
And the Institutes fully realized spirituality program for communities, Vtaher Libeinu, provides a potential
opportunity to teach these experiences widely.
Now this is the first part of that curriculum and the idea is that people who have gone through the Institute will
understand the routines, the procedures, and be able to use this material to create groups in their communities.
Its amazing and its all there. I havent done it yet. I mean I cant do it myself; I need partners for the
meditation, for the yoga. I havent looked hard enough for those partners yet, and I hope that maybe the spur of
an event like this will move me forward, so that we can develop this in my congregation and in my community
because these benefits that we can personally receive are things that others can as well. And this is a very
specific and intentioned curriculum that does a marvelous job of really connecting with a great deal of
traditional Jewish thought and content.
Again, I wish to stress that my desire in speaking to you today is not to enroll you in the program, so to
speak, and I will say that there are among us people who have a great deal of experience in one or more of
these areas, some through the first round of the Institute, some currently enrolled in the second round, and
some through other programs. There are many things going on, so my number one thing is to say, dont be
afraid. Check it out. Bring your full self to it. You will be exposed to things, some of which you might not
accept, but some of which you might find valuable. And boy do they need hazzanim to be there as ears and
eyes and mouths appropriately offering what we have in our heart and our experience.
So I will state as powerfully as I can that there are genuine traditional Jewish values to be found in almost any
spiritual practice that is becoming popular in your community. I would encourage you to educate yourself,
take some risks, and bring people close to you. The desire for increasing spirituality in our congregations and
communities is potentially a great boon to our sacred work, but only if we can learn to embrace it and connect
it to our work and our craft.

73

Its 2:30 now. Our session theoretically runs until 3:00 and, perhaps I should have told you at the outset so
that you wouldnt be too nervous, that I would talk straight up until 3 oclock. Ive described for you some of
my own experiences. I would like to take some time and invite a few of my colleagues, who went through the
program that I did, to offer their own insights and magnifications or denials of what I have said. And Scott
Buckner, in particular, has prepared a musical offering, so to speak. Ill let him describe it, but Id like to call
on Robert Lieberman and David Lefkowitz before Scott. Your guys have been hevruta partners,
sowhatever you like.

Robert Lieberman
Thank you, Jack.
(chanting)
This is actually a story from Reb Shlomo Carlbach of blessed memory. He tells a story about a very well
known professor of literature who was very well known and outspoken, that in his writings in his speeches -he would say the worst thing you could do for a Jewish child was to give them a Jewish education. Who
needed it? Feh!
One day this same professor walks into the office of one of the great Rabbanim in Jerusalem and says,
Rabbi and the Rabbi doesnt really want to interrupt his study so he peers above his glasses and says,
Yes. And this professor says, Rabbi, Ive come to dedicate myself to Jewish education. And the Rabbi
looks, knowing well who is standing before him, says, Are you for real or did you come here to mock me?
He says, No, Rabbi. Listen. I have a story. And the professor launches into this story that he was called
back to service and hes in the hills of Lebanon and hes shot. And hes lying on the ground and he feels
himself bleeding, and he knows that his life is pouring out of his body but, if he stays awake, he knows hell
be found by the search party and hell be saved. And he realizes all he needs to do is think about something.
Im a professor of literature; Ill think about Shakespearemaybe a little bit of Hamlet. No, that didnt work.
Ahad Haam is my favorite writer, Ill think about his writings. That didnt work either. And I felt a tear
coming out of my eye and I remembered a memory of walking to Shul on Erev Yom Kippur, holding my
grandpas hand as Im walking on the sidewalk. Then a tear came out of the other eye and I remembered
when my mama was lighting those shabbos candles, I was a little boy and she made the circles and when
she opened her eyes she gave me such a big smile, a hug and a kiss (one on each cheek). Oy!
Simchas Torah, Im on my fathers shoulders, and what are we doing were dancing, were laughing, were
singing, and Im enjoying my Jewish life and then I really cried, because I realized that Jewish education
isnt just for when youre a little boy. It isnt just for Bar Mitzvah. Its for every single moment of every single
day. And I was aware of that, and I could still feel the blood coming out, and I knew I needed to think of
something. And at that moment I realized I had it all wrong. God forbid, what would happen if my grandson
were shot and he was lying here on the ground. Ive given him absolutely nothing to think about nothing
from an entire life
And in that moment of being aware and feeling, I looked up to the heavens and I prayed like Ive never
prayed before. Yhi Ratzon Milfanecha.
If this one time youll save me, I promise you I will dedicate the rest of my life to Jewish education. And
Rabbi, the next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital and here I am, to dedicate my life to Jewish
education. (Nigun)
And so, friends, from what I gleaned from being a member of the Institute with Jack and a hevruta partner
with Jack, is I learned that its ok to receive, its ok to listen, its ok to share, and its ok to be silent. And I

74

also learned that, in my role, its more than ok to create opportunities to educate and to share and to
teach and to capture some moment in some way, all the time that people can take with them.
And one of the great things that has happened for me is that I started to write, and I began writing in email first, just to my board, to share with them what am I doing in my community and then it dawned
on me this e-mail could be an opportunity to teach something. And that grew into what I call a Shabbat
greeting, and I try to write this every Shabbos it doesnt happen every Friday afternoon, especially in the
wintertime when I run out of time but I try to find three things. One is a quote that might relate to the
Torah portion of the week. I share with them things that are happening with the community, and Ill share
with them a tidbit, a poem something from our learnings something from our stories something that
I think moves me and may just move someone else. That e-mail now goes out to about 250 people, that
includes members of the congregation, certainly the Board members, but family, friends, some
colleagues, some folks that Ive been in the Institute with, and certainly the parents of very Bar Mitzvah
student of mine.
So I brought with me just a few Xerox samples, and I would mention that the poem that I use for my page
and dedication of our esteemed colleague Hazzan Abraham Shapiro of blessed memory is something
that came out of my heart as a result of this work with spirituality. And, yes, it was first written for my
father, but I felt it was incredibly poignant and appropriate for Abe. Im not going to read these to you, but
if you would to, I did bring some Xeroxes and you are welcome to leaf through them and take a look at
what the e-mail does look like and, if you might be so moved to try a few of them, feel free to add your
name and an e-mail on a blank sheet.
Thank you very much. Thanks, Jack.
(Applause)
Jack Chomsky
One of the challenges, and I was discussing this with a colleague earlier, is that you can have these
experiences and you want to bring all of them to all of your people immediately and its very crucial to
find just a little shake to put on one or another moment in your professional life whether its in a service
or in a teaching or just event in a chance encounter. Robert, I thought you did a great job of that. I also
would like to call on Hasha, who went through the experience with us. David, did you want to say
something?
David Lefkowitz
Thanks. Robert and I have become very close and we study every Friday morning together, so as busy
as the week becomes, theres a certain time that we set aside every Friday morning and actually study
from the Parshat Hashavua.
(Nigun and clapping)
I deliberately just worked with the nigun without any words, because its the theme about what I want to
talk about today. I must say that this is one of the most profound experiences that Id ever undertaken in
my life. Ive had a long career and one that Ive enjoyed thoroughly and I enjoy it more now and its
given me the tools to understand the challenges that all of us face each day -- challenges that change all
the time.
Jack talked about obtaining certain attributes that give us more of a sense of control of anger, patience,
and the ability to understand to our congregants the ability to appreciate tfilah in a way that, even
though we get into the text with depth, we dont necessarily always see the beauty in the Siddur that the
conglomerations of so many generations.

75

I recently wrote a journal article that actually just came out yesterday, this journal Rayanot. And it was on
this subject of people getting involved in synagogue through song and, perhaps, missing another aspect
of it. So I wanted to focus on that because it directly deals with something we face all the time. This
actually happened on Simhat Torah this past year. Im on the bema and Im watching the glee growing in
the congregation and Im saying, What is this? What is it? Was this partying, just having fun? And
Im just going to skip through a few parts here.
We are singing songs (and it doesnt matter what the prayer is), no matter what the song, its the energy
or emotion that is primary. The more rhythmic or exciting the song, the less significant is the prayer. And
so, I wondered. Are these words really prayer, or are they irrelevant. Now some of you who have known
me for a long time may be surprised at the direction that this essay is going. There are a lot of pointed
questions here, which could bring out a different kind of reaction than what this essay is about.
And so I thought if I wrote an essay about this, Id be quick to point out that Im not unaware of the value
of this experience. Im not criticizing people who are not paying attention to the text because, I know very
well, that there are times in Jewish life and I believe this is true historically that, while the text may be
very significant, there also may be tremendous value in the congregants just getting into the mood and
the spirit that it drives. And I call this a release; and I think that weve had this in Jewish life always.
If we look in medieval Jewish literature, well find that there are numerous insertions of poetic songs in the
Siddur for special occasions -- like Adon Olam and En Kelohenu, which are very popular and certainly
on the High Holy Days we have things that are much more involved wed call them piyyutim. And these
works have a built-in fun quality, with rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, and a form that historically produced a
huge quantity of simply, joyous songs. However, the texts are also quite significant. They often bring an
intellectually stimulating appreciation to the theme of the Piyyut. Most often these are sung happily part
of a release. We think of the Melech Elyon right before an Untane Tokef. Youre building up energy,
getting into this incredible spiritual moment. The most essential point, you know, before Kdushah of what
this holiday is Yom Hadin, you know. So what do we do? We sing a silly song. Laade Ad Yimloch
Melech Elyon
Well the text is not silly at all, but the tunes that we use for them are ridiculous. But, you know what its
ok. Its really ok. And I think it is intended to be that way. It lent itself. Its not about nusach, its not
aboutyou know, this was the only chance if you really think about a High Holiday service there
wasnt much chance for participation. But these piyyutim created these Melech Elyon melodies. Laade
Ad Yimloch Melech Elyon. You have these rhyme sequences that go through it and we sing songs that
sings a nigun Laade Ad Yimloch Melech Elyon. But its joyous. It releases us, relaxes us, and we can
come back to the seriousness of it.
Now, the musical effect of these inserted hymns, though, over a period or time, has resulted in what we
face today currently the desire to sing most of our prayers with these kinds of melodies. Even if the
texts do not relate to such phrasing or interpretation. And, of course, we use this in Hebrew School. A
song we sing like Birkat Hamazon. Weve been singing these songs for 60 years, to whats a pretty silly
melody, you know. And it doesnt have anything to do with the text. But kids memorize it. As a result
people know Birkat Hamazon by heart, or at least the parts that have a melody to them, and so there is a
value there.
Now, I think about music in general. You take a Beethoven symphony. There are a lot of different ways
to react to that symphony. When I was a child, I would play it on the phonograph, and I loved it. I played
it over and over again. Then when I was a sophomore in college, I had a music appreciation course, and
I thought, Wow, is that what its about! And, when I look at that now, I say, Yeah but, you know, its
okay there are different levels. So maybe I knew nothing about what the symphony really was about,
but I appreciated it on the 4-year-old level.
What about songs like Adon Olam. When we sing, most of the congregants may not be thinking of what
the prayer means at all. That being said, I think theres also the possibility that when we create music

76

properly, that it does follow the phrasing of the Hebrew that it does interpret the Hebrew that it helps
guide us to what this prayer is about. Then the music paints the text. Thats significant. Can it be done?
Sure, it can be done. We work at that.
OK, now, Adon Olam is it just being jolly? For me, its one of the most beautiful prayers in the whole
Secure. Its deep; its significant; its simple; but its also beautiful. And if you concentrate on the tfilah,
you really get what Judaism is about. The message is that we need to have humility, not think too much
about the powers that we have in life. We need to realize how small each of us is in the total scope of
time in the universe. And we can attain that by focusing on Adon Olam the sovereign of all.
More importantly, we realize that we are not insignificant, when we say a Vhu Eli Vhay Goali that
powerful God belongs to each of us. Each individual, each living thing is special and very significant.
The aim of music, and certainly so for prayer music, should be to bring out the meaning of the text and
how wonderful it would be if our singing of Adon Olam or Alenu could always enable us to feel connected
to God and to appreciate the gifts in our lives. And, sometimes, music can do this. There might be
settings of Adon Olam that could do that.
But, there may be times when we must forego these for the sake of joyful involvement. And for
congregants who dont read Hebrew and find this is an access point into the liturgy, there is value. As
long as we can encourage people to reach for increased knowledge and understanding, we must also be
comfortable with appreciating that each of us will receive these on our own individual level.
(Applause)
Jack Chomsky
This room, I think, is better for meditation than anything. And I was rather prone to sleep during my
meditation. I wasnt the best at it. You know, theres not much air circulating and were all doing the best
we can. The clock is running on and Im conscious that theres another session at 3:15 that I think many
people will want to attend. I want to be respectful of other presenters also the needs of the group. I did
want Hasha to have an opportunity to speak for a moment, but well have to try and keep it
What Id like to do is try somehow, by 3 oclock, to get to a point that we can have a little bit of questions
and discussions, but I think we really need to be on our way by 5 or 7 after 3:00, so we dont hold back
the afternoon. At least thats my plan.
Hasha Musha Perman
How many of you have some meditation practice would you please raise your hands, please. So look
around the room (you can put your hands down). The most surprising thing about being involved in the
Institute for Jewish Spirituality and the retreats that were twice a year for the first 18 months, was silence
as an integral part of the daily retreat. We were silent for about 2/3 of the day, and I thought that was
ridiculous. I thought, why would you go to a place, where there were hazzanim and cantors, to be silent.
I expected a curriculum of music, and it was not a curriculum of music. It was a curriculum of spiritual
process.
So, I would like to share with you for 3 minutes were going to do a meditation so you can relax. It
doesnt need to make you tense. What Id like you to do is put your feet on the floor and unfold your arms
and put them on your legs. Yes, breathing is good!
So people have been talking to you for the past several days and some you have heard, some you have
listened, some you have understood, and the goal of this meditation is to calm your mind. And the way I
suggest you do this is close your eyes. You can listen to your breath. You might nod off that
happens sometimes in the beginning -- but I encourage you to see your thoughts. They will come to you.

77

Youll begin to think about something. Let it go. And when another thought pops up, see it and let it
cross the screen, and let it go.
(Deep breath)
Listen to your breath. Take a deep breath it will help you relax. Were going to do this for 3 minutes.
(silence)
Open your eyes when youre ready.
The function of silence is very profound for me, because it created an atmosphere of safety.
Rabbis and cantors who have gone through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality
To experience the presence of God within you, and look at the other person you were paired, and to see
Ruach Elohim in them, and to use that as a model for listening.
(Applause)
Scott Buckner
None of us really knew exactly what the other was going to talk about or say a lot of wonderful things
have been spoken I just want to mention a couple things that were very powerful for me in this process.
Jack was talking about mindfulness and its really the art of paying attention, in a different way. Really
paying attention.
I think one of my biggest fears is letting things go by and kind of missing my life you know, missing my
children grow up. I mean, were so busy, were missing the things living life with intention. And that
what mitzvot is about the mindfulness of doing a brahah before an act. Its already built into Judaism,
this mindfulness. It changes the act we are about to you you know, eating the piece of bread becomes
something entirely different when its preceded by brahah. Sheheheyanu for something special and new
in our lives.
I had a profound fear of kind of sleep walking and missing a lot of things and, also, Jack mentioned were
brought up with a lot of criticism and I think a lot of that we turn on ourselves. So, this opportunity, this
crucible that we created of a supportive group of non-judgmental -- we helped each other kind of release
our own self criticism, because compassion for others and that deep compassion of listening that we also
really worked on compassion of listening exercises was one of the most profound things for me.
When we arrived, the first thing we did was sit in groups of 3. One-person talks and the other 2 just
listen. No feedback, nothing just listening. Accept that as an offering of what youre going why youre
here and what youre going through. It was cathartic to just let it out all the things, all the pains you deal
with, all the conflicts, and all the struggles of living and trying to be a spiritual leader. And a lot of times
were the shoemakers without the shoes. Were trying to be a spiritual leader but where do wehow do
we draw from the wellhow do we, you know, feel that every step that we take is a gift from God.
This helped me have that time to remember that to get back to that to return to it. And a lot of it, we
call spiritual practice its, you know, why do we say a hundred brahot a day, you know. If we were
really going to get somewhere and arrive there, wed say the brahot and wed be done. Its a returning,
right? I mean its a tshuvah its returning again and again to, hopefully, an appreciation of the gift of life
and a connection to God. So its about attention, its about Kavanah what Kavanah are you going to
bring to an interaction with someone.
I always had a lot of trouble looking people in the eye and really having the kind of connection you get
when you stay with the eye contact. You know. Well the people who leave these groups and have been

78

doing this for years I was amazed, you know. A lot of times you have to look away first at least for
me. And they would look at you and really see you, and you really learn to see them. Being seen and
seeing others thats part of what its about.
Nechemyah Pawn gave us this Hassidic teaching about the gaze of appreciation when you look, you
look with appreciation, the gaze of appreciation. I found in allowing myself to have this work in practice
and its work, its really work, its not easy. Its like all the things come up in that silence for you. But the
gift that I got is that I have more joy in my life than Ive ever had and more joy in my work than Ive ever
had. And, yeah, there are always lots more to do and lots more practice.
So thats that, but I want to give you a gift of one of the things that I found very powerful in the work is,
one of the retreats we had at Rabbi Shefa Gold, and we learned this little practice of sacred chant a
small verse. You know, the liturgy comes at us and it goes so fast, there are so many words especially
for congregants those words are overwhelming and I use these now in my congregation. Ive gotten
feedback from people who can connect with the liturgy now in a way they never did before, because all
the words were going by and its too fast for me and I cantwherewhat do I do? So it gave them a
chance to focus on one verse and then experience the meditative thing of repeating the same melody
over and over. I think Shefa makes it very interesting because she adds harmony to a lot of it, so it adds
another layer than just a straight melody of the verse.
So I started writing these chants and its nice. I mean, I have a Bat Mitzvah coming up and the family
came to me and said we want to do a nigun, they are very musical. So (it happens to be the up-coming
president of the congregation) I wrote them a chant. It was politically good, right. I wrote them a chant
its not the one I have for you here, but Im writing a third part and theyre gonna one part, everybody, all
of them, on the one part, and Im going to sing the harmony and have another singer from the choir sing a
third part. And then the congregation has a couple minutes of silence. The chant(Shefas practice
is) the chant informs the silence.
What Im going to do is have you hand this out and Ill briefly tell you about the text. Yeah, well do it.
Well do it. I want to be respectful for others, but they came here late and everybodyit wont take
longwell be respectful.
So this is Psalm 51, Verse 14. The Psalm deals with the outpourings of the human heart. These are
actually Richard Wohlbergs words because I came to him to ask him about the Psalm Id forgotten
where this verse was from but he says the Psalm deals with the outpourings of the human heart,
agonized by the consciousness of sin. So its Davids sins and they are bothering him. I talked about
self-compassion and this ties into that. Hes got this real agonizing heart and hes longing again for the
joyful sense of Gods saving power restore to me the joy of your salvation Hashiva Li Sson
Yishecha and let your spirit uplift me.
So theres 3 parts to the chant. It would normally be followed by a couple minutes of silence. In our
congregation, another thing we instituted was we have meditation before Shabbat services twice a month.
So people come for an hour, we have a group of people, and actually the leadership of it rotates because
Ive found, like the people in this room, youll find in any room and many congregations theres people
with experience in meditation, so we take turns leading it.
Shabbat morning before services Shabbat morning and then we bring that with us, that attention, that
Kavanah that we gained through meditation, into the service with us. Its another wonderful way. And we
usually begin with chant. So I usually bring them a chant and we begin with chant, we go into silence,
and we come out of silence into another chant a Nigun . So why dont we have 3 sections here. Voice
onevoice twoand voice three. OK.
Lets all sing the melody. The nigun that Jack and I started with was the voice one. I dont have perfect
pitch but whatever we start at is fine with me.

79

(Chanting Hashiva Li Sson Yishecha)

(Chanting and singing)
Second part is
(Chanting and singing)
OK, and the third part is just
(Chanting and singing)
Why dont we have the basseswhoever is a bass-baritone take that. OK. And then well have some
people over here do the melody, and the second part over here. And well all start
(Chanting and singing in three-part harmony)
One of the nice things about these chants, too, is theresalways an opportunity for me to add another
part, so if I have some strong singers in other congregations going on it, I usually invite people to close
their eyes because meditation
I was going to read you a quote but Jacks probably not going to let me do it. Were running out of time.
OK. But, theres a publication that was created within the Synagogue 2000 thing the Rfuah Shleimah,
its a book and in there my teacher, Shefa Gold, theres a wonderful 2-page explanation or thought
about how she thinks about chant and its use as spiritual practice. In that book, in the section of chant
thats in there (its a beautiful thingI was gonna read to you), if you want to look at it or read it I have
just one copy here. Yeah, I can send it on Hazzanet.

Jack Chomsky
I had another story to tell you to conclude, but well save it for another time. If youd like to stay and
speak with one of us informally and learn more about it, I think that would also be ok. Let me just get a
sense, though if we were to try and create a stream of programming in Los Angeles, to give some
opportunities for some more of this, how many of you would be interested in that?
And those of you who have experience that you would like to bring to bear on it, I guess since I was the
presenter Id be happy to be a focal point for those ideas.
Manny Perlman
We thank Jack and his distinguished panel for broadening our horizons with the word Ess.

80

A New Way to Teach Tropes in the Computer Age

Wednesday May 10, 2006 1:45 p.m.
Presenter: Hazzan Tzvi Taub
Sheldon Levin
We waited till Steve Stoehr came into the room. Were glad youre here. We thank you all for coming.
This should be a very fascinating session. As youve been hearing from Steve Steins talk yesterday,
from Howard Joffes talk this morning, the Cantors need to be learning new skills that will bring us into
st
the 21 Century. And so we give a great Kol Hakavod to Hazzan Tzvi Taub, who will be presenting for us
some of the materials hes been working on, to bring ancient texts into our modern technology.
Tzvi is a member of the College of Examiners at Royal Conservatory of Music. He is an associate
teacher there and he studied voice and piano, and he graduated both in performance and education.
Hes also a graduate of the Karen Byavneh Rabbinical Seminary. He studied Hazzanut with Cantor
Benjamin Unger and Yitzhak Eshell. He studied also at Bar Ilan University Musicological Department,
and hes been a member of the CA for over 20 years.
He served congregations in Canada and the United States and has held the position of Cantor and Music
Director at Temple Sinai of Toronto. Hes often been interested in computerized music composition and
that interest has led him to programming and to the formation of two computer companies Forments
and Bytes Corp. And he recently added Koltor Corporation, which focuses on software development for
Jewish education. Please give a nice round of applause to Hazzan Tzvi Taub.
(Applause)
Thank you Hazzan Levin. Good afternoon! Ill just wait a second till the last people find their seats. The
common tendency is to think of tropes as music. As such, they often challenge as sad-sounding or
lacking a beat. You likely have heard a perennial complaint Ah! Tropes. When Moses broke the tablets,
God punished him by giving him tropes. (Laughter)
Tropes as music alone are a legitimate musical exploration subject. As a distinct sound style of music for
culture, they merit further musical development and manipulation in all creative directions. Composers
have already done so, with varying degrees of success. I truly believe that there is room for inspiring
creation that can be exploited there.
Tropes, when used in their traditional role in worship are, by music standards, unfairly judged. Of course
it is a sense we are dealing with a complex system which harbors several tasks -- text interpretation, also
sentence division, grammar, memorization, musical tradition and so on. This last statement treads
dangerously close to Mark Twains comment regarding Richard Wagner. Twain stated, Richard Wagner
was a musician who wrote music that is much better than it sounds. Indeed, tropes melody by itself
could come under the same criticism.
Tropes are best described, not as music, but as a form of heightened speech and relating this to the
aphorism, speak that I may know your soul. When we listen to a heightened speech delivery by a Torah
or Haftarah reader, we listen to their interpretation. At the same time they communicate their intellect,
imagination, voice, manner of presentation, and their creative improvisational skills. And a whole person
comes through. The same as we judge them through a conversation.
My statement that tropes are really a form of heightened speech dates back to the system preceding the
Masorah. The system preceding the Masorah is usually classified into three. They are the
Jerusalem/Israel System, the Babylonian System follows and then the Samaritan System. The
Israel/Jerusalem and the Samaritan Systems are considered to be, by most scholars, pretty much the
same.

81

Im going to the adult section of the course, by the way. This is not information that would be suitable for
bnai mitzvah who are 13 or 12 years old.
In here you see the table of the Samaritans. If I just may pause, please. The Samaritan System had 10
symbols. You see them around the table illustrated here. Five of them are typical punctuation symbols,
akin to what we have today Sof Pasuk, Etnahtah and so on. The signs in red indicate that they are
equal roughly to a period, colon (:) and semi-colon (;). A lesser-colon is something along the line of a
Zakef Katon or Gadol, and a question mark (?) in here. Those are five of the symbols of the 10.
The other five are the five listed below and if you see them can you see what Im marking with theis it
clear enough. Yeah. So this is, for instance, zeakah -- like in the Hebrew word zeakah (a loud, urgent
calling). And when a person would see it, he would express as he expresses that kind of speech. The
second one etmahu, like a mapah that we use today. Its a heightened, anxious question mark, or
marvel and oh!
The third, which I love in particular because this is slightly the opposite of a variable in computer
terminology usually it goes the colon and then the equal sign. So here they used already them; they
used something similar. This is zaff, and again it still regains the same connotation in Hebrew today
zaff, anger toruh from horaah (instruction). It looks like a zakef gadol of today a manner of teaching,
explaining or instruction. And baah (or baa) this is the only one that I cannot relate to todays Hebrew
perhaps somebody can suggest. I would be looking further to learn more about it. But, in any event, this
is some form of pitch descending into diminuendo expression.
So when the interpreter, the reader, would read, as he expresses in speech those emotions, he would
apply them to the reading of the sacred text. And this is where I want to show you that the concept of
heightened speech was the root of the tamim.
The Masarah, of course, have become a system. The very system that we use today is much more
complex than that, but it did not lose the essence of the system that it is there to express the text.
When we have to transmit this to students, we have to realize that (besides the connection to the long
heritage of chanting, and assuming personal responsibility to carry the tradition of reinterpreting the Torah
and Haftarot, passing it on etc.) they also master the skills of interpretation. The skills that are inherent in
the disciplines imbedded in the learning process of tropes. These complex skills are found in fields like
theatre, music, and speech arts. They incorporate improvisation, arrangement, vocal communication and
language skills. Study of these skills contributes, of course, immensely to the mental, intellectual and
artistic development of a person.
To give you an idea of the high level of the skill set demanded, consider the following. The style of tropes
is most akin to recitative in early oratorio or opera. While vocal students begin with vocals and then
progress to songs and arias, the last subject added is the recitative. The pedagogy in the leading
methods in conservatories introduces an easy recitative the first time at around grade 8, which is usually
the level demanded to enter college or university music departments. Therefore, artistic maturity to
deliver a simple recitative is assumed to be at the age of 16 to 18.
Tropes are also better categorized as a monody rather than melody. The term monody (or a monodia)
coming from the term equal singing or meaning singing alone, was coined during the Sixteenth Century
as part of the search to find the best setting to express the text.
via solo intonation, which felt rather lost. The text was rather lost in the immerging counter-point,
harmony and also being slaved to the meter. They felt that the text was disappearing, the meaning.
The best monody, according to Galilei, was to enhance the natural speech inflexion of a good orator.
Thats Vincenzo Galilei, the composer and father of the famous Galileo Galilei, the astronomer and
mathematician. In the same vein, during the late Sixteenth Century, composers who introduced opera as
we know it today, a group of them Perry, Cachini, Cavalieri and Reno Cachini they were searching for

82

the purest, most powerful form for text setting. Their inspiration was the classical Greek poem oration,
which used intonation.
It was actually Perry, the composer Perry, who invented the recitative, as we know it today. Explaining it
in his introduction to the opera Euredice (and I shall quote his explanation to the term recitative. The
recitative, said Perry, is a speech song; really an intermediate between the two. A system that takes
care to emphasize or intone the relevant important syllables that would be naturally stressed in speech.
This it is thought will bring back the art of the ancient Greens heroic poems declamation. I wonder if
these guys ever visited a Shul? We have quite a few adults and little kids who are well versed in this art
in the art of heightening the syllables or expressing the syllables or extending the speech.
So when we teach the subject of tropes, we are teaching the pinnacle of classical style, espousing the
purest text expression forms of Western civilization, which may have influenced (also likely affected)
tropes.
Still a difference exists between Bible chant and recitatives. Tropes are further stylized, also are put
together by the interpreter. The recitative, even as it leaves more room than a song for creative
interpretation, is far more pre-set than tropes. Even more important, there is a measure of improvisation
in timing. Any improvisation in a study subject is a tall order. It is both harder to teach and harder to
master.
Jazz, with its inherent improvisation, proved to be a formidable subject to teach. It took time and
ingenuity to develop a course that produced a viable jazz musician. The jazz piano series, put together
by the way by the American Association Board of the Royal Schools of Music in London, is a fine
example of how to pass on this art, its unique powers on its terms. They include creative improvisation,
training quick studies to master styles, aural exercises, etc., to develop a true jazz player who is versed in
the language of his craft and is able to further contribute and grow this art.
As a side note, it is interesting that a typical reaction of the classical piano teacher to a creative student
who is bored with the duties of classical piano practice, and requests study of jazz or jazz lessons. It
simply comes that this kid probably loves to improvise, loves to create. And the typical reaction of a
teacher will be, sadly, to provide a student with a set piece of music in a jazz style tortured into set meter
and strict notes, to be looking just like another classical piece. This, of course, misses largely the point
about jazz its inherent creativeness, and that was what the student was about. I said missing largely
the point, but not completely, since imitation is an important element of learning. Imitation alone, though,
st
as a method of pedagogy for the 21 Century is rather primitive especially in a subject meant to
encourage creativity.
In tropes, it is the equivalent of learning by heart, or mostly by heart, the Maftir and the Haftarah versus
learning the system and being able to create with it.
So lets see what weve got so far. The subject of the Tamim contains complex, important set of implied
learning branches. It espouses the finest expression forms and engages the faculties of knowledge,
creativity, sensibility, music, voice and presentation. Well, it sounds like an ad for the most exclusive
chorus in an elite private school or college. Its really there. Its really there. We, on our part, however,
need to build awareness of the multi-dimensional learning aspects that are involved in the process. And
they exceed the subject of tropes.
Also, teaching should incorporate state of the art teaching methods and technologies that incorporate the
best in pedagogy. Imitation alone, as we said, is not enough.
And, by the way, learning or imitating a computer is still an imitation. E-learning, or electronic learning,
has come a long way in the last 15 years. Navigation, hypertext and sound are now considered
commonplace. The field of CBT (computer-based training) evolved to include sophisticated training
through complex inter-activity, self-testing, etc. The computer-course flow, multiple disciplinary options,
and effective course models have become, themselves, a field of study.

83

These were the points in the back of my mind as I was setting, going into building a course or a method
for teaching the tropes. At that, our aim was that the chant of the Bible will feature thorough courses that
include ear training, interactive quizzes, games, puzzles, interspersed humor, rich background and
related resources to bring tropes to todays world. A course in which the background of our heritage
would bring this abstract discipline to guide a young person to become a stylized, confident presenter,
proud of her or his heritage and armed with life-long skills of knowledge and inspiring memories.
Some Cantors who, over the past almost 6-7 months when we presented this program, expressed a
concern to me that a program like this will replace them altogether. Well, as some of you have already
noticed, our High Holy Day Software allows for the Cantor to set his melody and also his voice into the
program. And, also, we are bringing this feature into the main yearly program. This solves small,
localized melody issues. Also deals with various teachers and traditions that may exist in one place. It
also will allow a teacher to add interpretation of the text or further instructions to the students, right there
in the program. But, in earnest, no teacher of English or Chemistry has lost his job due to the fact that
they employ excellent course software, which is widely available. All it does is actually elevates the field,
consolidates the subject and actually adds prominence to the office of the Cantor.
The same issue arose when publishers first came out with set books for schools. 150 or 200 years ago,
teachers used to be making their own books. They felt threatened by a published book in math and
language motif.
Consider what we talked about. I would like to suggest three things to employ in teaching tropes. One,
consider to expand the application of tropes to other texts. Consider non-sacred Hebrew and English
texts, in order to make it a living language. I know that some already experiment with this. Let the
students explore applying tropes to their chosen favorite texts. Let them incorporate it into the speech,
into the bar or bat mitzvah speech a little bit. As a thanking for the parents, let it be sung in tropes.
Two -- inspire the student for self-growth in interpretation and presentation. We should insist upon a
thorough understanding of the text and a prepared interpretation and presentation map of what the texts
are reading.
Three -- let us have each student introduce at least one new thing of his musical interpretation a small
declaration, elongation. And I know, especially the boys 12 and13, many of them are simply too young to
deal with it. Well, let them do something very simple so it will remain with them. That they have to add a
gasp at the end (gasp of surprise) at the end of the Iyeka or whatever -- at least a crescendo
accelerando, to drive the point of original interpretation.
With that I would like to go to the courses and show you some of the material there. We are currently
what you are seeing is the introduction of the course. I talked about multi-disciplinary and this was
something very important for us. Very often we teach tropes to adults, not only for children. We designed
the course in such a way that the magnifying glasses are designed only for adults. And so, for instance,
here at the beginning of the course, we have a one-page history of tropes for kids. But for adults we have
the section that you have seen some of, and it is quite fascinating. I think that many Cantors will find a lot
of valuable information there as well. Throughout the course those magnifying glasses give information in
depth, which is not available.
The little icon here is the kind of like so-called we call her Rachel or personal teacher. This is
information that should be always clicked. Its just like a home trainer that goes with the student at home.
And this is the jokes guy. Im sure you all have heard his jokes, so take a minute. OK!
The original joke, by the way did anybody hear this joke before with the Rabbi and the Cantor? The
original joke, I couldnt insert it so, in order not to clash with Rabbis, it was the Cantor. The Cantor has
said to the Rabbi the Rabbi is a liar, is a thief. So they took him, they took the Hazzan in front of the Ark
and told him, listen. Eventually they settled the fight between the Rabbi and the Cantor and they said,
well, listen. The Rabbi is responsible for the text, the Hazzan for the melody and thats that. And they

84

took that but the Kol Nidre insulted the Rabbi in front of the whole congregation. So they put the Rabbi in
front of the Ark, in front of the congregation and said, you have to apologize three times Kol Nidre, Rabbi,
to take back your words. (Couldnt dist) The Rabbi is NOT!
In any event, the section of the introduction, as any other section, contains inter-activity, during the course
and throughout the course you will see there are puzzles, games and interactive quizzes. So they are
even in the little introduction section. One page that they have there for the children is available here with
further information. The entire activity, such as we did here, we encourage in the introduction we
encourage the students to click on the various answers because they get more information.
So here it is. In the third question, do tropes have a place outside the Torah, referring to the first citing
there suggested to bring text into the, bring tropes into text different. So, here, I just would like to remind,
drive home the fact. Im sure many of you are familiar with the fact that many texts used to have tropes
applied to them. It was a common practice during the Middle Ages, and so on.
After the introduction, we go to the main course, lets say for the Torah. And the approach here is simple,
intuitive, interaction. They just follow the order of the lessons. And they are grouped in such a way that
there are two main lessons. First lesson groups the Mercha Tipcha ,Etnachta and Sof Pasuk unit and the
second lesson covers the Mapach Pashta Zakef Katon, Zakef Gadol unit. All the other tropes fall into the
other three lessons and, as such, within five lessons as you can see, there are only five lessons they
know the whole system. Itsthey can see the end of it very quickly the achievement of knowing the
system quite clearly.
So, the interaction is very simple. They click and listen (sings the tropes) the name (plays tropes on the
piano) and the music, and example of two and three (inserts actual Hebrew text). And, as I mentioned
earlier, were working on upgrading to the new version where you would be able to change the to insert
your own voice, your own melody, where it would be various songs.
Yes (recognizes audience member)
(Audience member): Are you exploring the technology to listen to the student and interpret what the
student is singing?
No. This is something you cannot do in this kind of course set-up. Are you talking, thinking about
something like a different application where perhaps via the Web you can connect your student after they
learn. Im sorry.
(Audience member): They also, they make technology where you can identify pitch from voice. Its still
not perfect but
Yeah. Its still not perfect. Well, well, thats the problem with it. Its quite poor. I know that Sibelius, for
instance, is working on something like that. It could be, they say, perhaps in two versions. And Ive
heard it said also that it will be in version three and version five and now they say it will be version six. I
dont that the technology is there. For my time, its quite far away and Im not sure, not sure that its
coming very soon. There are technologies, however, through the Web, where the student simply can
record himself and he can just listen to the and correct, and so on. But this is not part of the
(Audience member): Is this a web-based program?
No, this is a set, either a server-based or a CD-based
Sheldon Levin
Is it your vision that the family will purchase this and use it in the home, or is it something the synagogue
purchases and the child is sitting in a computer lab or something that the synagogue provides?

85

In the best kind of situation, each student has his own copy and you have several if you have a lab in the
synagogue, a computer lab in the synagogue. You have them here, so it is something that is always
good to have when teacher not showing up or teachers have timeor students have time, they can go
and practice their Torah and Haftarah, or whatever. And its, I think, most effective though in-home
studies, simply because, as human beings, we like to be in a private setting when we practice our voice
especially children.
(Audience member): Are you envisioning moving on to the inter-net based or web-based. I mean, the idea
of needing to set up a computer lab in a synagogue is becoming more and more not such a useful thing.
But, you know, if you could set up at least Intranet where they could sign in and then you can keep track
of their usage.
Tracking of usagethats another subject. Its not impossible
Your suggestion is not impossible. We are looking into it. Actually we have one
(Audience member): Economics is probably your biggest concern.
Well, it, yeah. It costs much more. If I may say this, there is no necessity for it even to be in a school
computer at all. The student can just take it and use in on his home computer. That was an additional
feature that I was talking about, is having set it in the computer as a possibility to have reference to it. Its
not impossible to do it Intranet for a synagogue, if the synagogue can put the whole program but its a
huge program. To load it over the Internet, even with high speed, at this point it will be very demanding
and quite taxing on any server application (especially synagogue servers, which are not designed for
multi-media at this point).
(Audience member): Whats the difference between your program and that of any other?
Ah, this is a very viable question. It would be unfair for me to comment about other peoples, other
vendors products. So, Im going to show you the product and perhaps, by the end of it, it will be selfevident. I think thats the only fair answer to your question. I apologize. Im not trying to avoid your
question. Im just trying to be fair.
(Audience member): You think this is as good as the other vendors then?
Yeah!
(Audience member): Do you have just the one approach in terms of the notes. (Could not understand
remainder).
At this point in the early set-up, we do have one. Well get, in a minute, to the high holidays which is
newer, the high holidays. It already incorporates the systems where you can insert your own voice, your
melodies. And we have several melodies already, as well as text reading already included in it. And it
will come to this. Its just that it takes time to insert it.
All the facilities by the way The wonderful thing about computers, of course, is that you can easily
incorporate many technologies into the page and they have all the reference in the world. (Male voice
singing in the background.) At any point they can go to this table that we clicked upon or, if they want,
they can go to a melody set here at the bottom of the page (which is available throughout the program).
They can view the CD notes, listen to them in a high flute (flute notes in background), or a low voice
(male bass voice in background), and so on.
I would like just to show you one comment. How to teach, I think, in tropes is the trope Munach. Since it
does so many things, the kids get confused about it. So, for instance, in here in the very first lesson that
they start with the mercha tipcha, we introduce the munach concept. Munachs melody is determined by

86

the trope that comes next. So we say here, think of it as munach etnachta melody. We will meet other
munach etnachta combinations later.
The next lesson (Im skipping, of course, a lot) is just a variation of those common sentences and
introduction of the Sof Aliyah.
Sheldon Levin
Question! Those little pop-ups do the kids have to read it themselves or does a voice read it for them?
Tzvi Taub
We didntdo you see it as a point? I mean we could insert it.
(Audience member): Some of the kids are used to the voices popping up and helping.
Tzvi Taub
Yeah! Thats a good idea. We could put it in. Thats not ajust reads it.
(Audience member): You dont want to be like scrolling over and all of a sudden voices pop up.
Hmmm Its something to consider, certainly.
This is Lesson 2 and I hear that munach concept. We thought about the Swiss army knife, the camping
knife metaphor, because here munach appears as a we show a munach, which is a very common zakef
katon and zakef gadol. So we show an example here of with the munach. (Male voice singing.)
One of the things that we take care of is the things that are most immediate, like the question of is it
kadma or pashta how come theyre the same size. So those comments will be straight on the page. You
dont go even to click on. They click on it right there because they see Yeah, how come, its the same.
If there are students who are more inquisitive then they will go in and they will read more about the
subject, and so on and so forth.
This is a reviewIll skip itits a review of machsikim the role of sof pasuk and of etnachta and so on,
and the location of the tropes. And Ill skip to some of the puzzles and games that come. So after they
learn this much and in here there is a puzzle where theyre going to match the tropes to the name. So
they have learned in the lessons where to locate them. And this is a very accurate system. It would not
accept, if we put it in the place of the beginning of the word, of course, as a ytiv or something, it will not
accept it. You have to put it only at the correct syllable and so on. As they fill up the whole page
correctly, its changing into color and they get information about this old synagogue in Bar Am, the history
of the Bar Mitzvah, how they came about and so on. And now they match the shape to the name, theyre
going to match the taam, the taste, and the sound to the shape. (Flute in background.)
We just used taamim, taste, so now they have to know that this is the etnachta and be able to bring it into
the and so on. And they get something in the end. Each time they finish a string like that, they get
something.
And here were starting to put little segments together. Now they have learned those two-piece
sentences and they (Male voice singing tropes) And then (Male voice singing text) and so on. So
theyre starting several screens of this nature where theyre starting to put together those little fragments
to know how to do it.
This is generally how the course layout continues. And now we cover the rest of the tropes. As I
mentioned about the munach, in here thats the one magnifying glass I would recommend to visit,
because this covers the lgarmey and details also the role which we are all familiar with. When we have

87

several, lets say munachim before a pazer, which are really interpretive munachim I would call it. I
dont think that anybodyor that most people would treat them that way.
(Audience member): What is the memory of (could not understand remainder of question).
At any point we can go to We mentioned that we have coming up a system where you would have a
choice to insert your melody, your voice, into the program. Also, there will be several melodies. The
current one that we have in the lgarmey is (male voice chanting).
We took care to insert all the little things as we had for the pashta. Also, here, one or two symbols.
(Audience member): (Could not understand questioner.)
Youre right! Youre right! Its absolutely true. Thanks!
Lets Thats correct, it should move Of the three-gazillion details we have a mistake here and there.
I apologize.
I just wanted to show you that we take care of all the little details, like to show themto make sure that
they remember what the tlisha ktana and gdola look like. Kids usually get confused with what is what
and this is an easy reminder, and so on. And these are the comments that you would see throughout.
These are more ear-training exercises. Lesson 3 did they listen. They have to identify the sounds and
so on. (Flute in background) They have a quick change and an example (male voice chanting) and so
on. I just wanted to show you something about the ytiv comment. (Piano note) Here is an example of
where the placement of the trope affects the meaning of the word and how it changes the meaning of the
word altogether. And in this case thefor instance, comments about presentation, how they are also
how to stand, how to sing
I mean, I served at one time in a synagogue where the Chairman of the Ritual Committee, who was hard
of hearing, held the rehearsal before the Bar Mitzvah. He would make everybody else yell. So we insert
those things.
The next three pages are a complex puzzle. The kids have to fill in the missing tropes. So, we have an
example here of the first sentence but the second one will be (male voice singing). So lets say that they
decide it is a tlisha gdola (flute), and the program will tell them that it is not. And its not here. If they
chose something else that is in this page, they would not be able to place it in there. Eventually they
listen again, and so on, and they put in a pazer (flute scale notes and male voice singing scale) Oh,
yeah! This is it. So then they have to place it. So they reinforce the sound, the name, the shape and at
this point also the location. Again, it would not accept it if they put it below or not in the front or at the
end. It has to go to the correct place.
As they finish the whole page, this takes about (for the average student), it takes about 30 to 35 minutes
to do this page. There are balloons, when they finish, balloons coming up. Its certainly not more It
could be frustrating to some kids and, for that, we have a quick hint, so they can cheat a little. Well, you
know, we have kids of all levels.
Second page, again, we have the same kind of thing incorporating other tropes again with a quick hint.
The third page is without a quick hint. You have to solve it!
The subject of rare tropes is covered in depth. There is very interesting information about the role of rare
tropes why do we have them, how do they came about, and why do you have so few of them, and so
on. How do they make sense in the system, at all, to have such few?
(Audience member): (Could not hear questioner.)

88

Ah, where is the key change? Is that?

(Audience member): If we have one in each flat? Like the Bar Mitzvah students. (Laughter)
I apologize; I just noticed it. How did this come about? (Laughter) Not only that, it end on the e
somehow the sharp Thanks for catching it!
(Audience member): Are those stored as jpgs; is it adjustable? Can you change the melody as? If you
decide? If youre using a different trope system?
No. You will have to enter it There is a utility. Were building a utility that you insert the notes
(Audience member): And that will change in all instances?
Yeah, it will change the instances. This is our mistake, obviously. Thanks for catching it. Thats what
happens when you present it to a room full of Cantors. (Laughter)
Finally, we have a quiz, which is tallied. This is and also information is given about well, Ill go
through it. And they get a real perspective if they understand whats in it.
We talked a lot about a munach, so we bring it here again. We learn again about the hyper-trope that
changes its melody according to what is ahead of it. It also can appear after itself in a row and have
different melody whether its first or second. Also it can fit more text into other tropes or be used to build
up excitement.
What was the student describingand daydreaming
Zakef katon of course this is the munach so this is kind of like the approach that we took to show the
munach and I have really Well I got only 60 on all of the tests, but.
This thing it gives real information to the kids in terms of where they are as far as They have to know
tropes follow the same type of structure. The recorded Torah is fairly straightforward. We have a tikun
included. In it all the versions of Nusah Sfarad Sorry, that for the Haftarah but Ill get to it in a
minute.
We have the JPS Translation included and the highlighted section is mentioned in here. So they just
simply click on the sentence (male singer in background). They can go back and forth (male singer in
background) and they can listen to the tropes to refresh their memory.
(Audience member): (Could not hear questioner.)
Absolutely! Yeah! Its not that youll have to do it all at once. I mean, you can provide one parasha to a
student and that Ill get to this utility in a minute. Ill show you how it works, and at that point only that
parasha will work. Try it! So youll build up over time.
(Audience member): (Could not hear questioner.)
No this is a human voice. (Flute)
(Audience member): If a kid is trying to keep up, that voice is going along at basically presentation pace.
Right! They can go back and forth and listen to it for several times.
(Multiple audience members speaking)

89

There is now technology existing of stretching voice -- the human voice. There is no viable technology for
singing that will do it in a
(Audience member): If you use something like, you know, protools, you can usually time stretch.
We work with protools. We have digital performer; we have a whole studio. Now, let me tell you in
earnest, the quality of what were talking about (of each one) if you wanted to yeah. We can do it in
protools to stretch something in protools, but the students will have to have protools to take this one
sentence and to work for six hours to bring it
(Audience member): Unless you stored it asyou stored a second copy at a slower speed. You did a
time stretch of the entire thing. I mean, you know, you can
Yes, but todayyeah! But, which speed? Yeah! Really, I mean a measure. I see your point. I wish
very much there was a technology like this and we could easily incorporate it. (Flute in background)
(Audience member): You could time-stretch it on the fly; you could time stretch it and store it so, for
multiple speeds, so that when you have it this slow, I mean.
(Audience member): Youd need to determine how many you actually want to be able to
Thats a good idea. Is it really a general consensus this is something really desirable?
(Audience member): This is a problem Ive had with students. I record things and then they complain, its
too fast, its too this. And so Ive actually madeIve recorded things and then Ive stretched them and
saved them again at speed or speed. You know, then youre talking about how much space you
have on the I dont know if its a DVD or CD.
Well, the program currently This is a very tight file. The program that for instance for the high holidays
is MP3s, so it takes a lot of room for the whole Torah and the Haftarot to be stored. Its something that
we could look into.
In a real voice, to maintain a program as a real voice, this is Right! Thats a lot of considerations there.
I just wanted to show that, at any point, they could click on a trope in the frame so to speak and listen to
it. (Flute) So they can work on the tamim on the page.
This is basically the frame, the structure of the whole Torah and then you go select chapter sentence, and
they can go from there. The Haftarot follows the same basic layout. The only thing is we also have the
small variations that exist with the Hertz and Eytz Hayyim variations. Also we have most of the variations
that exist in the Art Scroll and also the Plaut edition, which is the Reform. So all of these are there.
We have a unit about blessings and then a unit about grammar. Starting with the tropes, punctuation.
The role of mlachim Mshartim, and so on. The ranking order of explaining the concept. The ranking
order and a review quiz, as always, on any subject.
The subject of silent tropes, which is very important and often, often is neglected, is the issue. And here I
would recommend clicking on the magnifying glass. And this is something to teach in a class. Its very
good if you can bring your computer (the teacher) to the class and hook it up in some way to the screen,
and show it to them. And then they can review it at home or something like that, because this is a very
important thing. They see those signs; they have no idea what they do; and (male voice speaking)
exactly how they affect the pronunciation of the text. In the case of a meteg here, and so on. And this
review quiz which is a very typical situation that kids come tothe two sof pasuks
(Audience member): (Could not understand question)

90

(Another audience member): Well it certainly gives visual clues, but kids have to know what they are.
(Audience member): I said that I think that, I dont know; I may be wrong, but whoever is setting your
(could not understand).
OK! I see your point. Its a valid point. OK! Yeah. I think that Cantor Schwartzs point is good, that
terminology should be different. So if I mayam I expressing it correctly? I understand it. I probably do
not differ. Perhaps we should have chosen a different name to it.
(Audience member): (Garbled) means something like punctuation marks
Punctuation marksOK! Well, perhaps we should have called the whole unit as punctuation. We have,
of course, an intensive glossary, a comprehensive glossary not so much intensive as comprehensive.
And I talked about creating with tropes, that we should inspire the students to put texts other than sacred
texts into tropes. So we give some examples and this is something (male singer in background) or (male
singing in English What you dislike done to you, do not do to others.) And even more esoteric, as I
mentioned, the Bar Mitzvah speech. Why not let them finish or begin? (Male singing in tropes May we
all be able to gather together for many happy occasions.) May be all.
So this is basically the main application for the Bar and Bat Mitzvah. I would like to show you the high
holidays where you can switch select your own tracks.
(Audience member): Is this available in Mac?
Unfortunately, no!
(Audience member): (Could not understand questioner.)
I dont know about that.
(Audience member): (Could not understand questioner.)
Ill be glad to discuss it outside the room. I dont think it would be appropriate right now.
(Audience member): I have no problem with that because I think people want to know whether we have a
$5.00 item here or a $5,000 item. You know, we have to
No, usually the software sells for $159.99. Thats for one. During the convention its $129.99 and, of
course, for school volume, the volumes go to easily 40%, 50% and higher percent. So it depends on the
volume that you get. So its really competitive with anything on the market and its, I believe
(Audience member): Youre definitely filling a different niche than something like Trope Trainer. I think
that you both approach I think both tools have their own place.
Thank you.
(Audience member): Just one thing about the money For example, for those of us whore saying, OH
$125 is a lot of moneyto spend on one Bar Mitzvah kid As we saw in the film last night, were going to
spend tens of thousands of dollars, you know, on chopped liver and mother-in-law (laughter) Its less
than what theyll spend on one centerpiece. So you can ask the family to do that Ask the family to
develop a Bar Mitzvah theme that includes these kinds of materials, if you would want your synagogue to
do.
Thank you.

91

(Audience member): Is this really meant for self-study?

Self study for children I dont think it a especially 12 and 13 years old. I think its tough. They need
to be supervised. They all have questions. They need to meet in the same way, they need to meet
with the Cantor to sing to the Cantor. They will have questions. And the Cantor further will inspire and
give them more exercises in the areas that they need to include, and so on and so forth. I dont see it
frankly as a self-study completely for children. For adults, yes. For adults, its possible, but not for
Again, its very hard. Any self-study, to be honest, without a framework where there is somebody who
inspires, who challenges the students to see if they have done their work, is very hard. But so for
children I would say there must be somebody there. I mean if its somebody who is.
A remote student, who lives 70k away and can come once a month, I would certainly work with the
parents to bring them, to be involved, and to listen to the child and to supervise his work. But not other
than that I think that it pretty much. It changes the role of the Cantor from being the pushing machine
to be pushed to sing it again mercha,munach and mapach again and again for examplesto becoming
an inspirer, a supervisor and person who gives further enrichment on the subject or exercises, and so on
and so forth.
With your permission I would like to show you the high holiday of the multi-track so called options that
exist on the high holidays software that we have. Here you can see that we provide three tracks text
reading, the Lithuanian or Lita /Jerusalem, and also the Binder. And there are seven open tracks for you
to insert whatever melody And, as I said, this is what we are going to put into the main course as well.
(Audience member): How would you, lets says I have 40 students. Im getting them a copy. Do I send
you my tracks and you?
No! No! No!
(Audience member): I mean, how do they?
Ill show you what happens. Lets say we recorded initially the Lithuanian. So the program I
understand the questions, how its done practically. The program is programmed to receive the
information. You get a utilitythe teacher gets a utility in which you put your tracks into it. All the MP3s
that you record, you put it into a certain file in the program and either burn a CD or send it by e-mail to the
student. And in it there is a little you put in a line there is a little utility you type in what you want.
Cantor such and such nusah such and such.
(Audience member): Is there like an Install Shield, or do they have to find the right directory?
No, they have to put either I think its social desire way of looking All it does is, you have to put
the program into the program file that is already installed on the computer. They put it enter it. It will go
to the right places. All the files will be dispersed into the right place and now it will appear in front of you.
Instead of Future Melody Artist it will say Cantor such and such nusah such and such. And you click
on it, you select that, go to here, and that will be (male singer). And again, the same features of the go
back and forth on the (Flute)
You click on the sentence and drag on the We think it will add, perhaps, a counter here on the bar. So,
if they want to back to number 1, 2, 3, 4 or something to a specific point. We felt that clicking on the
word is, considering especially the fact many words have no tropes; they might click on an asher, yalda or
yaldah yal- dah actually in this case. Im not sure that its the best approach to it. And you have to also,
by the way, to record the tropes, you can whistle them, you can play them on your instrument, you can
record in..
(Audience member): Can you explain how we use a little microphone with our computer?

92

Sure. Yeah! Whichever program you record, your final outcome has to be on MP3 files. You put
(Audience member): Am I recording seven trope phrases, or am I recording these verses here?
Oh, you record the verses and then you record once for the whole program. You record the mercha
tipcha the way they go and they also will go to their respective files.
(Audience member): Do you have a recording feature of is that part of this or is this someones going
to have to go in and then do it on your own?
Do you mean do we supply recording software? No, we dont supply recording software.
(Audience member): In terms of naming technology of saving the files to
MP3thats all there
(Audience member): Im saying is it pazer MP3s
Oh. This is already made. You will record a pazer into the file so called pazer into the pazer that you
recordedyou put into the file that is in the program called pazer and it will change the name for you.
(Audience member): Oh, youll import MP3s and it will
Right! It will arrange for you. All you do, you just bring your finished MP3; put them in the file; it will do
whatever it needs to do and rename them to the program needs.
(Audience member): You still need to be someone technically sound.
Not really, its very, very simple. (Laughter)
Can I show? (Background We still have five more minutes.)
OK! Does anybody care to see the technology of it or is there something that you I think that Steven is
very concerned about the You know what, Ill show you up to it.
OK, all right. I just wanted to show you. Its really there is nothing there to do. Its less complicated
than using Word. So, for instance, if you chose text reading, or if you chose In that case, if you chose
to insert the whole interpretation text, you want to give to the Bar Mitzvah student ideas about
interpretation of the Torah. So, in this case, it will talk the whole time about whats the meaning (Male
voice in background) It will say whatever youve recorded in it. So you can insert.
We also most likely will insert a comment button someplace here along the line, where you can insert
your comments and thoughts about Well, in this passage were talking about such and such ideas to
prepare for your speech
(Audience member): Text?
No! No! No! For you to speak it. Well, do you prefer text?
(Audience member): Can you do pop-ups on there?
We could, if you want. Is this something that you would like to see? How many people would like to see
pop-ups? How about the comments speech comments the room to be able to insert comments about
the subject? No soohwellok. So, in any case, I think that I have covered most of what they
wanted.

93

I would like to just very briefly (in one minute) cover the following. If you are using it in a classroom in a
school setting, I would suggest the following Introduction to Tropesand Tropes Grammar, to be
introduced during grade six. I think this is about right and I think thats probably what most people do
anyhow. Am I correct?
(Audience member): In Day School we may do it earlier.
Ok! In Day School but Im saying, in a synagogue setting. Grade seven -- Haftarah Tropes and
Creating With Tropes.
(Audience member): at least introduce it to them earlier
All right! The other point I wanted to make is only about core notes versus decorations. Decorations are
great. When the kids add their little dreidle, they start to be interpreters. You know? Do not judge
them correct them. Let them do it. I think its very important. Lets not forget that trope is a living
system and that the melodies that we use today the melodies that we use today are different than the
melodies of 300 years ago. And, for sure, much different than the melodies that were used 600 years
ago at the time, perhaps, when the Minhag of Bar Mitzvah started.
The musical skills alone have changed since then. So the music itself will continue to change. I believe
that probably out of the melding of cultures in Israel will come something Today in Israel you can feel
so many variants of tropes that come from somebody that is a little bit of Moroccan and a little bit of
Algerian, with a little bit of a touch of Yemenite you know, at the same time. And still they are exposed
to the most common Lita/Yrushalayim that is most commonly used by Ashkenazim in Israel. And out of it
will come other systems. So, I think that we have to be open to it, to let it happen, and I think, therefore,
its very important that we keep an open mind about it.
(Audience member): Question! I know its probably very cumbersome to do it all in memory, theres a lot
of memory involved and obviously a lot of time and expense, but is there any thought given to (not the
high holidays) but to the Torah or other variation tropes?
Again, when comparing to Trope
TrainerTrope Trainer is about age 10 to 12, theyre pre-installed.
Pre-installedyes.
(Audience member): And this might be a great thing. You can set up an Internet database, where
Actually, yeah!
(Audience member): where that would be
Thats a very good idea. Both are very excellent. By the way, once you have the tracks for instance,
for the high holidays, if you know that you have a Cantor friend who is in the next town, who useshas a
high voice, and you need something with a very high voice for somebody, you can ask him Give me a
track, and you plunk it in, and you can give him yours an exchange. Its always available, so you can
use it You know, there could be a database of tracks to share.
(Audience member): I mean, to have all your users recreate the wheel may be cumbersome for a
significant number of users, but if you can have available, you know; really, what do you need 20, 30
users to resubmit their work on your website. And then you can have
Definitely, this is one of the things that we advertise. You can use other Cantors CTB, Chant the Bible,
tracks to insert into your program. But I think that Sheldons question was, why not pre-include the tracks,
if I understood.

94

Yeah, were thinking of for sure including the Binder in there. We have overwhelming requests from the
Reform Movement, using the Binder inserted. And, definitely we will insert and most likely will insert
text reading as well. So these are the two we will for sure insert pre-insert.
I thank you very, very much.
(Applause)
Sheldon Levin
We thank you very, very much for an amazing amount of project work youve done on this. Im sure hes
available still at the table or for individual private sessions if you want.
(Background comment from Audience member): I really liked the tutorials. The tutorials of your system
are so much better than anything else out there. The quizzes and the puzzles of your system have really
been a very good tool. Ive used them with my students.
Thank you.

95