The Songs of the Season - The "Chassidic" Kaddish

Today is the 15th of Elul - the middle of this month of preparations. I've been very involved with clearing the physical spaces around me - my apartment, my office, my car - of all unnecessary clutter. It seems to me that I cannot in earnest begin a new year while still surrounded by the last year's (or years') mess of things.

One website I was reading for suggestions about doing this kind of cleaning gave an absolute rule - you can only touch something one time and in that one time you must either deal with it, get rid of it, delegate it, or file it away. What you cannot do is pick it up, say, "I'll figure this one out later" and then put it right back where it was. Imagine if we could follow the same process as we pick up the various pieces of our lives over this past year. Imagine if not dealing with something was not an option. It is an inspiring, if difficult to accomplish, idea. The potential however... to walk into this new year with a clean home and a clean spirit - well, that seems worth it to me.

Today's melody is the famous "Chassidic" Kaddish.

Download Cantor David Berger - Chassidic Kaddish

This melody, originally just for the last Kaddish Shalem at the end of Ne'ilah (the final service of Yom Kippur) has spread in many communities to pretty much every service of the High Holy Day season.

It is fun, lighthearted, and is able to change the feeling in the synagogue almost immediately. After all the hard work we've all been doing throughout the service, this "Chassidic" Kaddish provides a much needed relief.

But should High Holy Days be the time for fun?

The Zohar reminds that Yom Kippur (sometimes called "Yom Hakippurim" in Hebrew) can also be a "Yom K-Purim" "A day like Purim." Somewhere amidst the chest beating, self-reflection and prayers for forgiveness should be a little of the spirit and energy of Purim. I think this kaddish melody helps make that happen.


The music was written by Cantor Jacob Gottlieb (1852-1900) and was made famous by the "King of Cantors" Yossele Rosenblatt (1882-1933). Pretty much every other famous cantor also included the melody into their own repertoires, leading to a certain amount of confusion over the original authorship. Sometimes you'll see Roseblatt listed as the composer, sometimes Moshe or David Koussevitzky, sometimes it will be listed as "folk" - anyway - now you know - Jacob Gottlieb (also known as Yankel der Heizeriker (Jacob the Hoarse) deserves the credit.

The piece is made for cantor and congregation to sing together - with the famous "v'i..i..i...m'ru u u" refrain. Give it a listen and get into the Day Like Purim feel.

This year let's try and bring some real joy to our High Holy Day prayers. If we do the work I talked about above and really give ourselves a thorough physical and spiritual cleaning - we can come into 5771 ready to do the hard work and ready to celebrate the new year that is beginning.

Download Cantor David Berger - Chassidic Kaddish

The Songs of the Season - B'seifer Chayim

It is the 8th of Elul - which is to say that we are in the second week of preparation for the Days of Awe. Every day of Elul presents us with another chance to begin anew our inner process of self-reflection - what our tradition calls "Cheshbon Hanefesh" - an accounting of the soul.

This week I want to turn our focus to a short petition that is inserted into the last blessing of the Amidah (the central prayer) from Rosh Hashanah all the way through the end of Yom Kippur.

The last blessing of every Amidah is a prayer for peace. In the morning service it is "Sim Shalom" and in the evening and afternoon services it is "Shalom Rav." There are many melodies probably already going through your heads for those blessings we encounter each time we come together to pray.

During the High Holy Days, we add a bit to the end of those prayers for peace - as if to remind God (and ourselves), just before we end our Amidah, that our prayers today are directed with a different, and special kavanah (intention).

We say:

In the book of life, blessing, peace and prosperity,
may we and all Your people, the house of Israel,
be remembered and inscribed before You for a life of goodness and peace.
Blessed are You Adonai, Maker of peace.

Download Cantor David Berger - B'seifer Chayim


What is this book - and, indeed, how many books are there? If you look through the High Holy Day Machzor (prayerbook) you'll see a lot of books listed. Are we to imagine a heavenly library with all different kinds of phone books (and I don't mean the yellow pages vs the white pages)?

Can we actually believe that our fates are pre-ordained and written down from year to year? Too many times our experience of the world has shown us otherwise - life is by its very essence unpredictable, unexpected and ever changing. If I tried to sit down today and write down what I think (now) was my compiled entry in all of those heavenly phone books from last year...

What bookkeeper could possibly have inscribed the citizens of Haiti for the year they have had? What entries are being prepared for those displaced by the floods in Pakistan? These questions are enough to shake my faith to its core.

Still - I like the books. It helps me feel like I know what to pray for. Praying for a good year for myself - for peace, serenity, prosperity and the like feels somehow selfish and silly. The book helps me to focus my thoughts - as preposterous an image as it might be.

So we sing together - this prayer, as you may have noticed, is in the first person plural - the default voice for Jewish prayer. We ask that if there are indeed books up there - that we find ourselves written in the right ones and that we continue to receive the blessings of life, blessing, peace and prosperity that have been with us till now.

Interestingly, this blessing usually ends with "Blessed are You Adonai, who blesses Your people Israel with peace." During these Days of Awe, our tradition reminds us that our vision must be wider and our hopes grander. We cannot pray for peace only for ourselves and our people - we must praise God, the Maker of peace for us, for our people, and for the entire world.

The melody we usually sing for this text was written by Israel Goldfarb (1879-1967). Goldfarb was a Rabbi, Cantor, and professor at both the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Hebrew Union College. His melodies fill our homes and synagogues every week - "Shalom Aleichem," "Magein Avot," "V'ne'mar" and others have achieved the status of "Misinai Melodies" - tunes that seem to have been given by God to Moses at Mount Sinai.

Listen to the melody here:

Download Cantor David Berger - B'seifer Chayim


B'seifer chayim b'rachah v'shalom ufarnasah tovah,
Nizacheir v'nikateiv l'fanecha,
Anachnu v'chol am'cha beit Yisra'eil,
L'chayim, l'chayim tovim ul'shalom.

The music is in a minor key and has a sense of melancholy - but it turns optimistic at the phrase "anachnu v'chol am'cha beit Yisra'eil" "May we and all Your people, the house of Israel" as if to remind us that we are stronger and happier when we are in community.

Perhaps Goldfarb, a great community builder, wanted to teach us that if we can come together here - in prayer, song and action - we can partner with God and do the work to open the books of life, blessing, peace and prosperity for this coming year for ourselves and, indeed for the world.

The Songs of the Season - Achat Sha'alti

Today is Rosh Chodesh Elul - the 30 day countdown to Rosh Hashanah has started. Our (Ashkenazic) liturgy brings this to our attention in two ways.

1) For the entire month of Elul, the morning service ends with a Shofar blast (except on Shabbat). Hearing that clarion call every day forces us to do the spiritual work of "Cheshbon Hanefesh" - accounting of the soul.

2) We include Psalm 27 in every service.

To read the whole psalm in English and Hebrew, check here:
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2627.htm

This is a sort of tricky one to understand. What is it about this psalm that makes it THE psalm for the "Penitential Season?"

I think to answer the question of the psalm we have to start with an even more basic question - Why does Rosh Hashanah come before Yom Kippur?

It sounds crazy - but it would make so much more sense if it went the other way. If Yom Kippur was first, we could come clean from all that we've done wrong, wipe it all away, and then come to Rosh Hashanah and begin our new year with a clean slate.

Well - as much sense as that makes - it doesn't actually work out that way...

As it usually happens we start with this grandiose holiday filled with BIG music, BIG prayers, and Shofars blasting away and then have 10 days to recuperate before we come back to beat our chests and ask for forgiveness.

So - why do we do it that way?

I think our tradition is telling us that we can't just expect to be able to authentically come before God and ask forgiveness without a lot of preparation. We need to remember who God is - and what we hope God does - and who we are when we stand in God's presence. Rosh Hashanah gives us that preparation and reintroduces ourselves to the longing and hope that lives inside us. Only then can we enter Yom Kippur and access the part of us that asks for forgiveness.

With all that - I haven't mentioned Psalm 27 yet.

This psalm CRAVES God's attention. It starts out proclaiming that "God is my light and my help" with a certainty that belies our real experience of life in this world.
Reality enters the picture with verse 4 -

One thing I ask, only this do I seek
To dwell in Your house all the days of my life
To behold Your loveliness, in the light of Your temple dawn.

We have only one request - to live with the knowledge that we are with God. Whatever situations life gives us, good or bad - we hope and pray that God will be with us in them. We start singing these words today, on Rosh Chodesh Elul - and keep going all the way through the "closing of the gates" at Hoshanah Rabba (at the end of Sukkot).

We try - using the words of this psalm, to bring ourselves into God's presence - so that we can find the parts of ourselves, however deeply buried they may be, that know how to ask for forgiveness.

Here is the melody we use to sing these words:
Download Cantor David Berger - Achat Sha'alti

This melody, written by Israel Katz, is arranged for 2 parts by my dear friend and mentor Joyce Rosenzweig.

Achat Sha’alti mei’eit Adonai otah avakeish (2x)
Shivti b’veit Adonai kol y’mei chayai
Lachazot b’no’am, b'no'am Adonai ul’vakeir b’heichalo (2x)

We will be singing it a lot over the coming month, and the melody will be with us throughout our journey from the beginning of Rosh Hashanah till the Shofar blast at the end of Yom Kippur.

Psalm 27 ends with a simple blessing - some words of encouragement for the work we all have before us.

Hope in Adonai
Be strong and of good courage!
And hope in Adonai.

Chodesh Tov,
the Chazzan