Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday March 16, 2007

A few well chosen tales from the bimah

Cantors using tricks of the trade to help students

by joshua brandt
correspondent

As a cantor, Marc Dinkin is naturally aware of how important the breathing process is to Jewish ceremonial life.

Therefore, when something happens during the course of his duties that takes his breath away, the event is naturally seared into his consciousness.

And so, Dinkin clearly remembers a young man who prepared for his bar mitzvah in the early 1970s, when Dinkin was a cantor in Montclair, N.J.

The boy had an incredibly busy schedule, Dinkin recalled, and it took two weeks of back-and-forth calling to finally arrange a meeting.

“The initial rehearsal took place at ten o’clock at night, which struck me as very odd,” recalled Dinkin, who has been the cantor at Walnut Creek’s Conservative Congregation B’Nai Shalom for the past 16 years.

“Then he started to sing,” Dinkin continued. “I would have given him guidance, but I was speechless.”

Evidently, no one had taken the opportunity to tell Dinkin that the young man was then starring in a Broadway production of “Oliver.”

Of course, not every child is starring in Broadway musicals, and a superior singing voice may have little bearing on the process itself, conceded Dinkin.

“Even the most challenged singers — the ‘Johnny One-Notes’ — can make the chanting very close to what it should be,” concurred Cantor David Margules of Congregation Rodef Sholom in San Rafael.

“The real challenge and beauty lie in chanting in an ancient language that reveals the deeper meaning of a holy text.

“I compare it to an opera. On one level, you have arias, which are all about emoting. On another level, you have recitatives, which carry the messages and story lines of the opera.

That’s what’ so enchanting about the ritual of a bar or bat mitzvah — digesting the story of the Torah and bringing it forth in a meaningful way.”

Yet another salient issue commonly confronting teens (besides a silver set of pipes), is frayed nerves.

Cantor Roslyn Barak, who will soon be celebrating her 20th anniversary with San Francisco’s Reform Congregation Emanu-El, assuages young nerves by donning a different yarmulke, so to speak.

“My students become the teachers during their b’nai mitzvot,” she said. “I tell them that they’ve reached a level of learning and comprehension that enables them to teach everyone in their communities about Jewish traditions.

“And we, as a community, thank them.”

If that doesn’t quite soothe a bad case of the jitters, Barak does have a secret weapon of sorts — her schnoodle, Bijou. The pup is often at her side when she works with the kids on their Hebrew.

“Bijou has been thanked by many kids at the bimah,” Barak said with a laugh. “He has a very soothing effect on kids.”

Cantor Devorah Felder-Levy of Congregation Shir Hadash has sung duets with students and encouraged them to use musical instruments.

“I try to play to their strength,” said Felder-Levy, a cantor at the Los Gatos Reform synagogue for the past 11 years.

“I try to teach the individual student and not the process.”

According to B’nai Shalom’s Dinkin, nerves are not only natural, but they’re beneficial.

“All nervousness is healthy, and anyone who tries to talk a child out of that nervousness isn’t doing them a favor, in my opinion. A lot is eliminated when you take away that nervousness …

“It’s a wonderful tool for focus and concentration. If a kid loses that, he or she may start to drift, or wave to their buddies in the audience, for example.”

The doubt that occasionally accompanies the ceremonies can be positive, as well, Dinkin adds.

“I’ve had a few kids recently who were struggling with the concept of God, or why they should be doing a ritual that’s primarily at the behest of their parents.

“That gives me a wonderful opportunity to explain that not everything we do in life is because we’re enthralled by it.

“Sometimes the role of a committed Jew is to ensure that the traditions live on.”

That’s a concern shared by Margules.

“The challenge many synagogues face is that many families sign up for a membership so that their children will receive that very important rite of passage. And that’s certainly a wonderful tradition.

“But the question becomes, how do you build relationships and communities that last long after a child has gone through that ritual?

“In other words, the task is getting beyond the concept of a synagogue as a bar and bat mitvah ‘mill’ if you will, and as the fulcrum for a lifelong Jewish journey.”

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.