ACUTE ANGLES: Does It Matter How The Chazan Davens?
Hi Rabbi Ingram. You knew me back in the day when I was fit as a fiddle! Now I have severe arthritis and can’t manage the distance to my own shul on Shabbos. The only shul close enough to walk to has a chazan who sings the davening to inappropriate tunes. I can’t stand it and I think you will sympathise! Wouldn’t it be better for me to stay at home and daven? Yours in frustration. Brian
Dear Brian,
Sorry to hear of your pain on both counts!
With regard to your question whether not liking your chazan would justify missing davening with a minyan, that’s best addressed by your own shul rabbi!
Thank you, however, for affording me the opportunity to ride one of my hobbyhorses! In my very first article for the shul magazine following my appointment as chief chazan to Central Synagogue, Sydney in 1992, I articulated one of my core beliefs: an effective chazan must always ensure that the tunes he utilises serve as the handmaiden of the text, not the mistress; that the text not be twisted or manipulated to fit the needs of the melody. Such manipulation will often lead to distorting or repeating words which, in the opinion of most poskim presents a halachic problem of hefsek (interruption) if done during a part of the service where interruptions are prohibited. Moreover, in the incisive words of Maharam Schick (1807-1879), it is “not the way one addresses a King!”
You mention “inappropriate tunes”, but you don’t elaborate, so I don’t know if the melodies to which you refer are banal (like parts of Musaph Kedusha sung to Three Blind Mice as I once heard) or – worse perhaps – serious texts sung to inappropriate light-hearted melodies. For example: the late, lamented Yigal Calek’s Mar’ei Kohen is a wonderful piece and captures quintessentially the ecstatic mood of the Kohen Gadol as he emerges unscathed from the Kodesh ha-Kedashim. But to hear that upbeat melody sung (as I also sadly experienced once) to the words of L’Keil Orekh Din, a piyyut depicting G-D sitting on his Throne of Judgement on Rosh haShana and Yom Kippur is …well, totally inappropriate. By the same token, I dislike it when the gloriously exultant passages of Hallel are sung to slow, sombre dirges.
If, on the other hand, you are merely unhappy that the chazan is using chasidish nigunim, Carlebach melodies and compositions sung by Chasidic pop artists like MBD, Avraham Fried and Yaacov Shwekey, then, provided the shul is one in which these melodies are known and sung, then, well, it may not be your ‘cup of tea’ but I’m not sure you can call them inappropriate. Even non-Jewish tunes, provided they are refined and their original lyrics aren’t salacious or erotic, needn’t be beyond the pale. (Many Chasidic march-tunes are reproductions or adaptations of Cossack marches.)
The most important role of a shliakh tsibur (prayer-leader) today is to inspire his Kehila to become full participants in the spiritual experience of prayer and song. Someone once said that the difference between a chazan and a baal tefilla is that a chazan sings at you whereas a baal tefila sings with you (or, perhaps more accurately, inspires you to sing with him). The days of chazanishe “performances” for the “public” in the context of a shul service (as opposed to a concert-hall) are thankfully over in most parts of the Jewish world and numbered in others.
Of course there can be overreach. There are parts of the service where the congregation must not drown out the voice of the chazan. It has become strangely customary in some yeshivish shuls for the Kehila to loudly dai-dai-dai along with the chazan even in Kaddish to the extent that one cannot hear the chazan in order to respond amein. And to sing the whole davening to chasidishe or modern tunes to the exclusion of nusakh (traditional prayer-modality) is also setting a perilous precedent whereby the nusakh will be forgotten. A generation is in danger of growing up not being able to distinguish the ahava-raba (freigish) mode of Shabbat Shacharit from the more exalted Mixolydian mode of the Musaph Kedusha; or Shabbat nusakh from Yom Tov.
I am very grateful that I had an outstanding nusakh teacher of the old school (sadly long departed) and I perpetuate much of what he taught me, particularly on Rosh haShana. He would probably disapprove of many of the Chasidic-pop tunes that are sung today. No matter: times and generations do change. But some things must never change, and distorting the holy words of our tefilot is one of those things. We dare not hold ourselves open to Heavenly accusation of bringing eish zara (as again highlighted at the start of this week’s Torah portion) into our shuls.
Finally, Brian, my hope is that your dilemma is resolved in the best possible way, namely that your physical health improves sufficiently for you to once again attend your own shul where you are most comfortable!