Introduction

After being appointed head of the Talmudic academy in Israel, the great Babylonian teacher Hillel was asked, "Master, we are obligated to bring an animal as a sacrifice for Passover. But what if Passover falls on the eve of the Sabbath? We know it is forbidden to do any work on the Sabbath, even to carry the slaughtering knife. If one forgot to bring the knife beforehand, how does one transport it to the Temple in order to fulfill the obligation to do the sacrifice?" As hard as he tried, Hillel could not remember the answer to their question. He finally said, "Let us see what the people do; if they are not prophets, they surely are the children of prophets!" On the next day, Hillel watched as people brought the animals they were about to sacrifice to the Temple. If it was a sheep, they stuck the knife in the sheep's wool. If it was a goat, they affixed the knife between the goat's horns. Thus the animals did the work of carrying and no prohibition was transgressed. "Ah, yes!" said Hillel, "That was the tradition as I learned it from my teachers!" (text after passage in the Babylonian Talmud [central text of rabbinic Judaism, redacted in the sixth century], Pesachim 66a)

This is a book about what Jews do, in one metropolitan setting at the end of the twentieth century, as they choose the music for the performance of prayer in communal worship. I begin with the story of Hillel because it lays out many questions that are crucial to my study How are traditions laws established: by legal ruling or by the people's practice? What is the relationship between what people do and what leaders, teachers, rabbis, and in the case of liturgical music, cantors, composers, and musicians, think they should do? Who leads and who follows in the establishment of ---aditions? Where is the locus of authority for a community's practices?

Across America, modern urban Jews come together every week to sing, and pray in a wide variety of worship communities. Through this music made by and for ordinary folk, these Jews define and redefine their relationship to the continuity of Jewish tradition and the realities of American life. Today Jewish ethnicity and identity are increasingly voluntary, a matter of choice. For many Jews, music and the choice of musical settings function as a basic, defining component of identity and affiliation.

This book considers Jews across denominational lines, including Hasidim, Modern Orthodox, Conservative college students in a university setting, Reform, and members of a "new age" havurah (fellowship group). It examines how choice of melody helps them present and maintain their religious and cultural identity. There is tremendous diversity within the broader Jewish community, and nowhere are the distinctions among subcommunities as obvious as in the approaches to the performance of liturgical and scriptural text. These Jews "vote with their feet" and with their pocketbooks, as they attend and support different synagogues with particular melodies and styles of liturgical performance. Even while members express strong loyalty to their own group, there is considerable interaction among these subcommunities. The musical choices in one community are often part of an unspoken dialogue with other subcommunities. Through song, members affirm who they are-and who they are not-as Jews.

Through oral histories and an analysis of recordings, this book shows the fluid interaction within this American musicsphere. Melodies are continually shared and borrowed, not only from traditional and contemporary Jewish sources, but from mainstream American culture and alternative sources as diverse as Sufi chant, Christmas carols, rock and roll, and Israeli popular music. While the same melody may be used in different congregations, its meaning and significance can vary dramatically from one community to another, even when these worship groups are located only a few miles apart.

I examine the construction of identity among these Jews in three ways. The focus throughout will be on Friday evening worship, which includes Kabbalat Shabbat (Welcoming the Sabbath) and the Sabbath Maariv (evening) services. First, I consider a single piece of liturgical repertoire, the popular hymn Lekhah dodi (Come, my beloved). An examination of this tune shows the extent to which performance has given way to participation as a value embraced simultaneously by congregants and leaders in all of these worship communities. Members collect, trade, borrow, steal, and compose melodies for this central hymn with an eye toward constructing a worship experience that expresses the values and ideals of their particular community.

Finally, I examine how Jewish worshippers choose melodies in prayer. There is tremendous experimentation, cross-fertilization, and interaction within and among these subcommunities. Here we see how the choice of melody helps American Jews to negotiate living in two cultures, to create or diffuse boundaries between themselves and other segments of the Jewish community, and to define their relationship with the non-Jewish American superculture.

Through close study of selected Jewish subcommunities in one metropolitan area, we will see issues continually arise that are common to the varieties of middle-class religion in America. Across denominational lines, these Jews exhibit local variations of larger American supercultural themes, attitudes and folkways. To illustrate, at the end of the book I briefly "walk across the street" and visit some of the Protestant and Catholic churches in the neighborhoods where these Jews live and worship. As much as these Jews are influenced by Jewish history and practice, they also present an American ethos, shaped by American history and culture. While this work explores the networks of musical interaction among Jewish worship circles in Boston, it also contributes to a larger understanding of American religious expression and Americans' accompanying search for cultural authority and spiritual meaning.