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COMMENTARY
BY CANTOR ARLENE BERNSTEIN
APRIL 2006
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Create Musical Memories to Enrich Your Seder
Will This Night Be Different From All The Others?
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Chris Gaines |
Ma Nishtana
halaila hazeh,
mikol haleilot?
When you see those words from the pages of our Haggadah, you will likely hear them as you are reading – even before they are actually sung. Perhaps the refrain you will remember is the old lernen-steiger melody (study mode) reminiscent of the "old country" (or at least, farther east).
Or perhaps, the melody you will hear is the modern Israeli melody the children bring home from religious school, practicing it over and over to be able to do their job as one of the youngest in the family. It is theirs to ask why – not once, but with four distinct questions. Why is Leil HaSeder, the seder night, the most different, celebrated and undoubtedly the most beloved of our holy days? It is a night of remembrance, feasting and most notably, a night of singing.
Through chant and song, it is a night that we transport ourselves back, as if each of us had been liberated from the tears of a shackled slave to the triumphant heart of one who crossed over, bound no more. Ilu hotzianu miMitzrayim – Dayeinu. For this coming out of Egypt, it would have been enough.
I have been told that there are sedarim (seders) without music – wonderful family dinners with the reading of the story of the plagues, the four children, along with the recitation regarding the "bread of affliction." Perhaps it is that many of us are too shy to lead the singing, or that some of us never learned these rich melodies sung only two nights a year. Another possibility is that for many, the seder night was simply not part of the fabric of our lives. Or, it could well be that the voices which once lead these lively and poignant melodies are no longer with us to share their gifts and love of Pesach night. There are many reasons that a musical seder may not exist for us this year.
However, if this is the case, I would love to offer you the following possibilities to create musical memories for yourselves and for your families. Music has the exquisite ability to lift the spirit, beyond where we ourselves dare to reach. The melodies of the Passover seder give us the possibility to connect with Jews around the world. It is, then, a powerful connection to know that they, like we, are opening our souls to the collective memory; that when Moses and the Children of Israel crossed the Reed Sea, we were there singing — even dancing — with Miriam. We too crossed over on that different night.
Create Musical Memories To Enrich Your Seder
It will be our pleasure to help you enrich your seder night with song. If you read music or play an instrument, please e-mail Susan Hutchison and request a "Musical Seder" that you can pick up at CBI with sheet music for many seder songs, or contact the following web sites for CDs of the music of Passover, and sing! Sing long into the night.
Soundswrite is located in San Diego and offers several Passover CDs.
Tara Publications Sells
several Passover CDs online. Search for "Passover CDs" or "Passover sheet
music."
Congregation B'nai Jeshurun, NYC "The Music of Pesach at BJ"
I wish for each of you and your families a sweet and meaningful Passover.
Cantor Arlene Bernstein
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