Sound of Judaism Has Changed Radically in the Past 30 Years
By Jenna Weissman Joselit for forward.com
It should come as no surprise to anyone who reads the
Forward that American Jewish life is awash in change, much of it far-reaching
and monumental. Most of us can catalog those changes in a flash: intermarriage,
the waning support of traditional Jewish charities, an increasingly contested
relationship with Israel. But there are other, equally wrenching changes afoot
that have not yet garnered the attention they deserve, perhaps because they take
place right under our noses and within close range: I have in mind the re-tuning
of the American Jewish soundscape, especially that associated with prayer. Synagogues across the country, and across denominations, too, are rethinking the role of the cantor and with it the nature of the Sabbath and holiday service. Where once formally trained cantors, well-schooled in nusach (traditional liturgy), held sway, more and more congregations are dispensing with them altogether, placing their faith instead in one of their own. Formality has given way to informality; the guitar has supplanted the tuning fork and improvisation trumps stewardship.
Outside the precincts of the sanctuary, within the byways of middle-class, American Jewish life, professionalization is de rigueur. But within the sanctuary, the pendulum has swung in another direction, so much so that it wouldn’t be amiss to speak of the de-professionalization of the cantorate.
Some of this has to do with the growing popularity of independent minyanim, lay-led congregations whose members prefer to go it alone, relegating the clergy to the sidelines. It’s also a reflection, I suspect, of the open- or crowdsourced approach to life in the 21st century, whose enormous appeal inevitably spills over from the quotidian into the sacred. Then again, we might do just as well to look to the recent past for explanations, which is where a website comes into play.
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