Lots of Jewish songs
Nov. 20th, 2007 05:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bnewmanFour Jewish songs — one is new, one was written back August but was kept under wraps until now for seasonal reasons, one was posted before but now has an MP3 up, and one has been in the MP3 directory on my website for some time and I simply neglected to mention it.
"My People's Story" (MP3) was inspired in large part by this post, and by a top-secret plan I'm working on which will be revealed in due time. It's about the journey of the Jewish people through history and layers (upon layers upon layers) of sacred text, up to and including these very songs, and beyond.
"Dedication" (MP3) is the Chanukah song I've been meaning to write — I actually wrote it at the NHC summer institute, but I've been saving it until this season. I've been writing my way around the Jewish year with songs that approach the story of each holiday in a certain way, but certain holidays had been eluding me, and, at about midnight on the last night of the institute, I finally figured out why.
The Jewish mystical tradition recognizes four levels of meaning of sacred text: pshat (literal meaning), remez (figurative meaning), drash (allegorical meaning), and sod (mystical meaning). Together, they form an acronym for pardes (orchard), the same word from which we get "paradise". According to the usual usage of these terms, sod usually refers to mystical insights based on permutations or numerical equivalences of the original Torah text, and my songs fall under the heading of remez or drash, depending on whether or not they incorporate connections to other texts (like "Starlight Through Woven Branches" and "Cracked") or not (like "Masquerade" and "Dedication").
However, in his kabbalistic novel The Seventh Telling (which I heartily recommend as both a novel and an introduction to kabbalah, except for that annoying bit near the end where... but that would be telling!), Mitchell Chefitz offers an alternative understanding of what sod might be: sod is the level of understanding you reach when you become the story. Traditionally this means becoming the text, i.e. opening to the possibility that seemingly minor or coincidental features of the literal sequence of Hebrew letters may have transcendental significance. But it could also mean becoming the narrative — the kind of understanding you can only reach if you tell the story as your own story.
My previous attempts to write songs for Chanukah (and Pesach) have foundered on a certain level of resistance on my part to really entering into the story on that level. I've already discussed why the Chanukah story is difficult for me, but it's useful to see from what perspective it's difficult. The story is about a conflict against an external oppressor, but also about an internal conflict between one's true self and the false self imposed by the oppressor. I've read several different exegeses of the story, from both left and right extremes of the Jewish political spectrum, that really bothered me, and I finally realized that it was because someone else was telling me where the line was between those true and false selves. That, too, is in the story — a priestly elite imposed their view of which national self was true and which false on a not-entirely-willing populace. That's not a part of the story that I'm comfortable entering into.
But, if the true and false selves are national selves, then, to make the story mine, I become the whole nation, and that priestly elite isn't "someone else", but my own conscience. Aha! So that was the secret. After that, the song mostly wrote itself. Considered simply as a personal story for which the Chanukah story provides an allegory, it's about someone who has been abused and picked on because of his or her identity or deeply held convictions, whose true self has been hidden as a coping mechanism, who finally breaks out and stand up for him- or herself. Now, I was picked on a lot in elementary school, but never so badly and never on account of my deepest self, so this song isn't about any experience I've personally had — it's simply my take on the Chanukah story.
I've finally posted an MP3 of "Cracked", which was posted and discussed here. (Also, "The Ballad of Surf and Turf", also posted there, is finally linked from my main songs page.)
"Modim" is a musical setting of the thanksgiving prayer from the daily liturgy. This blessing has an awful lot of big words with many syllables. In order to make it all fit, I had to rearrange it a little, but this is basically the whole thing.
"My People's Story" (MP3) was inspired in large part by this post, and by a top-secret plan I'm working on which will be revealed in due time. It's about the journey of the Jewish people through history and layers (upon layers upon layers) of sacred text, up to and including these very songs, and beyond.
"Dedication" (MP3) is the Chanukah song I've been meaning to write — I actually wrote it at the NHC summer institute, but I've been saving it until this season. I've been writing my way around the Jewish year with songs that approach the story of each holiday in a certain way, but certain holidays had been eluding me, and, at about midnight on the last night of the institute, I finally figured out why.
The Jewish mystical tradition recognizes four levels of meaning of sacred text: pshat (literal meaning), remez (figurative meaning), drash (allegorical meaning), and sod (mystical meaning). Together, they form an acronym for pardes (orchard), the same word from which we get "paradise". According to the usual usage of these terms, sod usually refers to mystical insights based on permutations or numerical equivalences of the original Torah text, and my songs fall under the heading of remez or drash, depending on whether or not they incorporate connections to other texts (like "Starlight Through Woven Branches" and "Cracked") or not (like "Masquerade" and "Dedication").
However, in his kabbalistic novel The Seventh Telling (which I heartily recommend as both a novel and an introduction to kabbalah, except for that annoying bit near the end where... but that would be telling!), Mitchell Chefitz offers an alternative understanding of what sod might be: sod is the level of understanding you reach when you become the story. Traditionally this means becoming the text, i.e. opening to the possibility that seemingly minor or coincidental features of the literal sequence of Hebrew letters may have transcendental significance. But it could also mean becoming the narrative — the kind of understanding you can only reach if you tell the story as your own story.
My previous attempts to write songs for Chanukah (and Pesach) have foundered on a certain level of resistance on my part to really entering into the story on that level. I've already discussed why the Chanukah story is difficult for me, but it's useful to see from what perspective it's difficult. The story is about a conflict against an external oppressor, but also about an internal conflict between one's true self and the false self imposed by the oppressor. I've read several different exegeses of the story, from both left and right extremes of the Jewish political spectrum, that really bothered me, and I finally realized that it was because someone else was telling me where the line was between those true and false selves. That, too, is in the story — a priestly elite imposed their view of which national self was true and which false on a not-entirely-willing populace. That's not a part of the story that I'm comfortable entering into.
But, if the true and false selves are national selves, then, to make the story mine, I become the whole nation, and that priestly elite isn't "someone else", but my own conscience. Aha! So that was the secret. After that, the song mostly wrote itself. Considered simply as a personal story for which the Chanukah story provides an allegory, it's about someone who has been abused and picked on because of his or her identity or deeply held convictions, whose true self has been hidden as a coping mechanism, who finally breaks out and stand up for him- or herself. Now, I was picked on a lot in elementary school, but never so badly and never on account of my deepest self, so this song isn't about any experience I've personally had — it's simply my take on the Chanukah story.
I've finally posted an MP3 of "Cracked", which was posted and discussed here. (Also, "The Ballad of Surf and Turf", also posted there, is finally linked from my main songs page.)
"Modim" is a musical setting of the thanksgiving prayer from the daily liturgy. This blessing has an awful lot of big words with many syllables. In order to make it all fit, I had to rearrange it a little, but this is basically the whole thing.
