THE BEAT GOES ON: A Jewish Perspective on Music, exploring the spiritual significance – Rabbi Skobac

[Music] as you all probably appreciate we live in a world that is pulsating with music you see people sitting on a bus ear pods in place and their playlist accompanying them on their ride if you call consumer service customer service at any company music will fill the silence as you wait probably a very long time for your call to be answered our minds can probably all recall the jingle of commercials that we may not have heard in many years and the theme songs from television shows of our childhood I haven't seen Hawaii 5o in over 50 years but just saying the name of that program triggers its musical introduction in my head music is heard at sporting events at Pary in shopping centers in elevators and at airports music is pervasive and it serves countless purposes in our world for Judaism music is primarily associated with the spiritual realm the Torah describes music being developed not long after the creation of the world it's actually described as one of Mankind's earliest Technologies just a few verses after the story of Cain and Abel the Torah relates the birth of someone named yav who was the ancestor of all who dwell in tents and keep herds and his brother's name was Yuval and he was the progenitor of all who play harp and flute now Shepherds were involved with producing food to nourish our bodies musicians were engaged in producing sounds to nourish our souls rabbi benit better known as Rashi the French Torah commentator writing about a thousand years ago explains that yuval's instruments were not designed for entertainment they were used for idolatrous worship misguided of course but it was ancient mankind seeking Transcendence that was the purpose of his music one of the Hebrew words for song or music is zimra and it's significant that this Hebrew word also means to cut or to prune and these Concepts music and pruning are related music has the ability to strip away away to cut away the superficiality of our material physical world when you prune a tree you are cutting away the extraneous and dead branches that impede the growth of the tree music has the ability to lift us out of this mundane world and to connect us to to the spiritual realm the great Rabbi Sage of the 18th century Rabbi Elijah of VNA the famous VNA goon the goona vilna maintained that the language of our souls the very language of our souls the language of the spiritual realm is music music expresses that which cannot be adequately articulated with words we see in the Bible that music has the ability to restore our souls to health when our connection to God has been interrupted in 1 Samuel the book of 1 Samuel chapter 16 King Shaul King Saul became tormented by a spirit of Melancholia depression and to treat this David was brought to play the harp before Saul and his Spirit was restored the midrash teaches that our patriarch Jacob lost his powers of Prophecy because of the profound sadness that Afflicted him after being told that his beloved Son son Joseph was dead yet the midash explains that he regained his prophetic connections after his granddaughter Sak the daughter of Asher relayed the news that his son Joseph was actually still alive and she relayed this news to Jacob by singing to him while playing the harp there are many times in the Bible where we see music helping people to achieve prophecy in 1 Chronicles 25:1 we see that David and the generals of the army set aside the sons of Assaf of hmon of udon who prophesied with Harps and liars and with symbols the T explains that divine inspiration only rests upon a person when they're in a state of Joy Elicia was a noted prophet and a protege of Elijah but when Elijah departed Elicia was plunged into a state of depression and he lost his prophetic abilities in the book of 2 Kings chap 3 3:15 he asked that a musician be brought before him and when the musician played the hand of God Came Upon him once again he was had his prophetic abilities restored in 1st Samuel 10 veres 5 and six we encounter a group of prophets who were inspired to prophesy when they heard musicians playing the liar the drum the flute and the harp music for the sake of enhancing spiritual experiences was institutionalized in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem it was in the temple that the Levites would sing and play music to accompany the sacrificial services that were carried out by the priest by the kohanim according to one view in the talmud the sacrifices would be invalid if this musical accompanyment was omitted the Hebrew name for the levitical tribe was Ley and this name has the connotation of attachment or accompaniment Ley was Leia's third son and when she named him she explained the meaning of the name Ley she said now my husband will accompany me or my husband will be attached to me and thei famous biblical commentary explains that she could handle her first two children by herself she had two arms one to hold each of her first two children but when her third child came when Ley came her husband Jacob would now have to help her and that's why she names the third child Ley and says now my husband will be attached to me the levitical music and song that accompani the sacrificial Services served to uplift the participants and to connect them to God that was the purpose of this music attachment is the ultimate goal of the spiritual life the Biblical word for this spiritual attachment to God is deut deut De in modern Hebrew means glue the temple ritual sought to get us glued if you will to the Creator that was the purpose of the temple ritual to get us attached to God and deut is actually a very daring word for the Torah to use here and it's used a number of times in the book of Deuteronomy to describe the attachment spiritual attachment of a human being to God and it's daring because it's the very same word that the Torah uses in Genesis 2: 24 where it says therefore each man shall leave his father and his mother and attach himself to his wife the Dak be isto and they shall become one flesh here the Torah is using the word Dak related to to describe the most intimate physical intimacy between a man and his wife and that's the word that the Torah uses to describe the level of attachment that we're supposed to achieve with God in the Holy Temple the Levites would sing a special song for each day of the week and these songs were all from the book of Psalms and commentaries explain that one of the primary purposes of the music and the singing of the Levites in the Holy Temple was to arouse a mood of joy in the service of God as I mentioned before when people are despondent and dejected and depressed rest that is not a state of mind that supports prophecy and so the purpose of the singing and the music in the temple by the Levites was again to arouse a spirit of Joy among the participants so that we could better attach ourselves to God according to the midash during the 22 years that Jacob tended the flocks of his father-in-law Lavan he would always praise God and pray to him with magnificent songs and we're told in the midash that the wind carried these incredible spiritual compositions for almost a thousand years until they were finally revealed to King David we're told that David would be awoken at midnight to the sounds of the northern wind playing the harp that was suspended over his head and David wrote about this in Psalm 119:62 he says I will rise at midnight to praise you and David went on to compose his beautiful psalms of praise to the almighty and these songs were not only Central to the temple experience they've inspired countless human beings for thousands of years many of David's Psalms were not just meant to be sung a capella he also composed a musical score for specific instruments to accompany these Psalms in the book of 2 Samuel 23:1 David is described as the sweet singer of Israel the sweet singer of Israel and even though we don't have the temple standing in Jerusalem today our synagogues were designed to perpetuate the spiritual emotions of the Holy Temple both through their architecture and in the structure of our prayer services the Psalms of David feature prominently in our synagogue services in our prayer books the talud and tractate Page 117a describes two kinds of musical composition by David some Psalms begin with the phrase mmore Le David a song to David other times the psalm begins let David M more to David there is a song and theet explains that when the psalm begins with to David there is a song it means that the divine presence rested upon David and from that connection with God a song burst out of him that first he was connected to God and that connection led to songs that just flowed out of him but when the psalm Begins by saying there is a song to David he first composed his Psalm and through that song the divine presence came to rest upon him when we go through the Hebrew scriptures we find numerous examples of songs they're all over the Bible the Hebrew word for song is Shir or sheir and these songs are invariably expressions of praise and thanksgiving to the almighty usually for a miraculous salvation for an individual or for the nation itself and the midash singles out 10 unique 10 special songs one of these songs was written by King Solomon and is called not just a song Aira it's called sheir hashirim the song of songs on the surface it's an erotic poem of eight chapters describing the passionate relationship between a man and a woman the song of songs is understood to be an allegory describing the profound loving relationship between an individual and God or between the Jewish people as a nation and God there was a lot of controversy about the song of songs was it something that was worthy of being included in the Bible Rabbi aka the Great great Rabbi Sage finally declared that all of scripture is Holy but the song of songs is the holy of holies in the tarum mik introduction to the song of songs we're told the following there were 10 songs spoken in this world this song the song of songs is the best of them all what were the other songs so the first song was sung by Adam when he was forgiven for his sin and the shabat arrived and came to protect him and he opened his mouth and he sang What became Psalm 92 a song for the Sabbath day the second song was sung by Moses and the children of Israel when the master of the world split the sea of reeds for them and they were able to cross on dry land and their pursuers were drowned the third song was sung by the children of Israel when there was a well of water that was provided for them in the desert we find this song in The Book of Numbers chapter 21 the fourth song Moses the prophet sang when his time came to depart from this world and he reproved he rebuked the children of Israel we find that song at the end of the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 32 the fifth song was sung by Joshua when he waged war in gone and the Sun and the Moon Stood Still for 36 hours we find this recounted in the Book of Joshua chapter 10 the sixth song was sung by Barack and d'vorah when they were victorious over cisar and his army we see that song in the Book of Judges chapter 5 the seventh song was sung by Hannah by Hannah when she was granted a son by God that was the birth of Samuel and we see her song in the first book of Samuel chapter 2 the eighth song was sung by King David and it was sung because of all the Miracles that God did for him and this song was Psalm number 18 the ninth song was as we mentioned Solomon's Song of Songs which was composed through divine inspiration and the midash tells us that the 10th song has not yet been sung the 10th song will be sung by the Jewish people when they will be redeemed from Exile and we see this future song spoken about in the book of Isaiah chapter 26 but it's not just that there were these 10 songs and maybe others that we had throughout history the entire Torah itself is described as a song The Five Books of Moses is described as a Shira in Deuteronomy 31: 19 God commands us now write for yourselves this song and teach it to the children of Israel place it in their mouth so that this song will be a witness for the Israelites and this is considered to be the 613th Commandment of the 613 Commandments in the Torah according to RAB naali Berlin a great 19th century SC the Torah is called a song because it is complex and it's subject to numerous interpretations music as well is not onedimensional it's an extremely rich language the language of music is extremely rich as we mentioned before it can express things that cannot be expressed just with Words and Music is open to many ways of experiencing it we've all seen you can have the same piece of music played by different orchestras in different ways the same exact notes but that Symphony can be played in many different ways another reason we call the Torah a song is that it's not just written as Pros scripture has a traditional Melody a traditional musical notation that conveys more than just a plain reading of the text the musical notation which is called trup conveys complexity and emotion and other insights into the text the music that accompanies the Torah is actually a commentary to the Torah one of the dramatic notes in the Torah is called the shalel it looks like a line that zigzags back and forth and the word for this note sh shet derives from the word shal which means three because the sound of this note shifts dramatically back and forth up and down three times and what does this convey this note conveys wavering and hesitancy for example when potifar wife tries to seduce Joseph in Genesis 39 we're told in verse 8 that Joseph refused he turned her down the Hebrew word is he refused but the musical note that is accompanying this word v is the shalet it wasn't so simple for Joseph to turn her down he was a young man she was very attractive he probably had to go through a tremendous amount of inner turmoil to resist and not to succumb and the truth is he may have come close he may have been very severely tested and very severely tempted by this trial and so when it says that he refused it wasn't so simple he himself probably went through this back and forth this wavering so the Torah is a song because it's not just read when you come to the synagogue you'll hear the Torah is sung it's chanted according to this musical system of notes not only is the Torah a musical expression but existence itself is a grand Symphony Psalm 19:2 says that the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament proclaims his handiwork and the rabbis in the midash explain that these declarations are through the daily music of the heavens and the Earth which actually sing to God all of nature is singing to God everything in the universe is constantly singing to God angels are always praising God with their song and the entire natural world every Star every blade of grass praise their creator by Faithfully fulfilling the purpose for which they were created how does nature praise God by obeying God by doing exactly what God created it for that's our shalet for tonight Rabbi schlomo alets the Great cabalist the great Jewish Mystic explained that the human soul our souls love music why because all we heard was music all the time while we were in heaven in the spiritual realm before coming down into this world and taking on a physical body by putting on this Earth suit and coming down to live in a Physical Realm for 60 70 80 90 100 years our souls existed prior to coming down into this world and what did our souls experience in heaven all of these incredible songs of praise to the almighty the cabalists wrote of the planets being moved by musical waves my mind ities in his famous Guide to the perplexed explained how the Stars create different sounds now these ancient writings may have appeared bizarre to many people but modern physics May provide some insight super String Theory suggests that the matter found in the atomic proton is composed of minuscule strings of energy and that the vibration of these strings produces all physical reality it may be that the entire universe is sustained through sound through music the music produced by the vibrations of the infinitesimally small atomic strings the world is vibrating and this is its music the idea that all creation sings is reflected in an ancient text called perek Shira the chapter of song this work cites the biblical verse that is the song of 85 different Creations it lists 85 different Creations from the son to the ant from from The Lion to the Cockroach and it provides a different verse in the Bible That's the Song of this creation and the basic premise of the peric Shira is that the creation as a whole sings praises to the Creator their song is a reflection of their divinely ordained Mission and they continuous ly perform without interruption the mission for which they were created we've seen tonight that in Jewish thought music serves the highest spiritual purposes reinman of breast love advised that music has tremendous power to draw Us close to God for this reason rabman says we should get into the habit of always singing a tune he says it will give you a new life and it will send joy into your soul and then you'll be able to bind yourself to God [Music] [Music]