![]() ![]() There we were for a brief few precious moments, Jews, heralding no doubt from a whole variety of different places, united in song. I started humming it quietly without any desire to draw further attention but little by little, the tune ignited a chain reaction throughout much of the restaurant as other tables joined in. That evening in a restaurant, one of us round the table asked if we could remember it. We had joined a Sephardi minyan on the Shabbat morning and heard a psalm sung to the beautiful melody of erev shel shoshanim. I remember some years ago on holiday with my family in France. This was the people’s first act together since their departure from Egypt and through their song and music a powerful union was achieved. Perhaps the most remarkable musical event ever recorded in literature was the Song at the Sea, the poetic tribute to Israel’s momentous deliverance from the pursuing Egyptians. Judith celebrates the defeat of the Assyrians with song and dance accompanied by hand-drums. Deborah sang following the victory of the Israelite forces over Siserah. In the depths of depression, and with an evil spirit upon him, Saul would call upon David to play the harp for him which would restore his soul and dispel the evil spirit. We mainly encounter music in the bible ‘’to express the full range of human emotions, consciousness and experience’’(5) On giving birth to Samuel, for example Hannah sang. Every melody declares to us that the past can be there without being remembered, the future without being foreknown.’ It is as if to say that musical notes contain the possibility of what was, is and will be all at once! Further pointing us in this direction is the philosopher of music, Victor Zuckerkandl, who wrote, ‘Hearing a melody is hearing, having heard, and being about to hear, all at once. It is only music that can possibly give us an allusion as to how ambiguities may be reconciled. In the podcast this week for Yitro, Professor Benjamin Sommer explores the ambiguities inherent in revelation. Indeed we learn in the the Book of Kings: ‘’as the musician played, the hand of the Lord came upon him.’’(3) The Book of Samuel also gives us an inclination as to the powerful effect that it may have as we recall ‘’a band of prophets coming down from the shrine, preceded by lyres, timbrels, flutes and harps….speaking in ecstasy.’’(4) Jewish tradition certainly recognises that link between music and the transcendent. In a Bach fugue, or to an almost suspect degree, in a Mahler adagio the immediacy of the transcendent, the wealth of felt meanings in the unsayable are manifest to us.’’(2) The fact that we can neither explain rationally nor verbalise coherently this reaching into ‘otherness’ points precisely to the limitations of all discourse. It is the musician who opens pointing to the limitation of language and appealing to music as the opportunity to reach beyond our empirical lives: ‘’Listen to the andante sostenuto of Schubert’s Opus 163. In the late polymath, George Steiner’s Tritones and the Three Majestic Tongues he sets out an imaginary conversation between a musician, a mathematician and a poet each defending their respective positions as to the greater claim to profundity. It would be unbearable to imagine a world without music. ![]() On that day, in that shul, for the congregation of Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, the music temporarily came to a halt. This weekend in London’s Barbican, two musicians, inspired by the traditional music of the region, perform an invigorating improvised collaboration in a concert to raise awareness for the plight of Afghanistan and its musicians, who now live in terror. As they did back in the 1990s once again the Taliban have effectively banned music across the country. ![]() Since the Taliban’s seizure of control in Afghanistan, its music has remained completely silent. As the columnist and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali has argued, it is unfortunately a sign that we have let our guard down and there is still a threat that looms large.(1) If this could happen in a synagogue in the United States then frankly it could happen anywhere. Whatever the conclusion, It would be all too simplistic to regard the event as some have done, as a triumph of humanity, a tale of bravery. The debate now rages as to his motivations whether it be fundamentalist Islamic ideology or his mental health. On this occasion, it was the terrorist, Malik Faisal Akram, who was the only person to lose their lives. The horrifying stand off with the attacker was brought to an end when Rabbi Charlie Cytron Walker threw a chair at the gun-wielding assailant and was then able to escape with the other hostages. It was extremely distressing to learn of the siege last Shabbat in the synagogue in Texas. ![]()
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