rabbi ari lev: Speak with your own voice!
Written in collaboration with Rabbi Mónica Gomery
Let My People Sing! Shabbaton
Parashat Va'era
January 28, 2017
If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Ever since I was a little kid I have know that if I could have one super power, it would be to sing!
I have always thought of myself as someone who cannot sing. Now musicians and singers are quick to tell me that everyone can sing. It even says it on the back of your Let My People Sing! Program. And while I appreciate the sentiment, that has not been my experience.
While I have wanted to be a rabbi since I was a young person, I always feared that my inability to really carry a tune was a reason not to be a congregational rabbi. I know that song transcends and transports, and is essential to both meaningful prayer and Jewish tradition. Not only as a leader, but a as a participant, as a Jew in the Pew, I so value as a spiritual tool. And so for this reason, I spent my 6 years in rabbinical school taking a weekly voice lesson.
I don’t know what I expected when I signed up for voice lessons. But I hoped there was some magic little mermaid muscle I could acquire that pretty much turn me into Arielle. Ahh ahh ahh, ahh ahh ahh…
Alas, after some nervous small talk, my teacher asked me to kindly lie down on my back and bend my knees, and breath. I kid you not, I spent 6 full months lying on the floor trying to find my breath. It was months before I ever even tried to speak, nevertheless sing a tone or hum a pitch. That was followed by months of training my ear and learning to discern if a sound was higher or lower. Months learning about octaves and scales, augmented seconds and Jewish modes. Then months spent trying to relax the muscles in my neck, control the passage of air from my diaphragm. It was years before I dared to match words with melodies. What began as singing lessons, was in truth, much more primal. I was learning how to breath. And then relearning how to speak, before ever braving to sing.
I didn’t have aspirations of excellence. I just wanted to be able to start a song and have people recognize the tune. Mind you, I am the person who tried out for a large gospel choir in college because I so love music. It was before I had consciousness about cultural appropriation. And when I realized we had to audition, they asked me for a song and the only thing that came to mind was, “Zippity Doo Da, Zippity Ay, My oh my what a wonderful day.”
Beyond humiliation, I felt bereft.
It is in this week’s Torah portion, Va’era - still just moments into the book of Exodus, that God says to Moses, “Go and tell Pharoah king of Egypt to the let the Israelites depart from his land.” And Moses responds, “If the Israelites won’t listen to me, why would Pharoah?![1]
Moses declares, “Va’ani Aral Sefataim” - Literally, My lips are uncircumcised. Often understood to be that Moses had a speech impediment, perhaps a stutter or stammer, maybe a lisp. But in truth, we don’t quite know what stood in the way of his ability to feel heard. What we do know is that Moses continually falls back on this insecurity, perhaps a disability, as Lauren Tuchman suggested at the tisch last night. What we know is that Moses felt limited by it in his leadership.
I too have felt aral sefataim - blocked in my voice.
When I first saw that Kol Tzedek was hiring a new rabbi, I took the risk and pursued the position. After my first interview they invited me back for a Shabbaton. After some back and forth, they decided that I would need to lead services unaccompanied, without musical support. I was truly terrified. I wept. I am almost sure Rob Auritt could hear my fear and apprehension over the phone. I considered canceling the interview. Being asked not just to sing, but to lead a community in song, in front of a large group of people, unlocked a well of shame and fear.
I heard the words of Moses, “Lo shamu elai” - literally they won’t hear me. In that moment, Moses was worried that they wouldn’t hear him, or perhaps that follow his lead. I too worried you all wouldn’t follow my tunes. But even more so,
“Lo shamu elai,” I didn’t want you all to hear my voice…
I share this story with you today, as we spend an entire shabbat steeped in song, as we call forth the beauty of each of our voices.
I share this story with you at Kol Tzedek, a community named for the power of its voice to bring about justice.
I share this story with you as a trans person, and I know I am not alone in this room. It is has been the project of my lifetime to breath into this body, to recognize and affirm the sound of my own voice, to call myself into existence.
I share this story with you knowing that song is at the heart of Jewish liberation, both in our mythology and in our movements.
According to the Torah, when the Israelites reached the other side of the Red Sea, Miriam took up her timbrel and the women began to sing and dance. But a midrash, an ancient rabbinic teaching on the Torah, tells us that the Song of the Sea, was actually sung during the crossing itself not afterward. It was song that enabled the Israelites to face the unknown. Song that filled their lungs and came tumbling out of them as they walked, their voices shaking and stuttering and rising.
I love this midrash because it completely rewrites the Song of the Sea, not as a victory tune, but as song of protest, determination and hope. Singing in this way allowed the Israelites to endure something so threatening and supernatural, to believe that something existed for them on the other side of the Sea, to believe in their own liberation.
When we sing together, we affirm for one another what is possible, we tell each other a story of a new kind of future. And when we sing together, we bring our disparate, individual voices, in all their resonant diversity, into one communal voice.
We are braver, perhaps, because we have song.
What I learned laying on the floor of my voice teacher’s living room is that song is prayer. Not in the ancient words, mumblefest kind of way. But in that singing requires that we stay with each note, that we feel its resonance, that we support our voices with the power of our breath. Singing is both a path and a practice of attuning to the Divine. It medicine and magic, it is vibration. It has the power to the heal trauma in the brain, to open hearts. Singing is vulnerable and empowering all at once.
Learning to sing has taught me to trust my ear, my judgment and truly, myself.
Learning to sing has been a pathway back into my body, and into my breath. It has required courage and encouraged me to take risks. Ultimately it has been a journey into vulnerability, and taught me to the lead from that place.
I believe this is why we are here this weekend at Let My People Sing!
We are here to find our voice at Kol Tzedek and as Kolot Tzedek -
We are here to build trust and vulnerability with one another, and with ourselves. We are here to take risks, to expand our leadership, to honor our voices and to bring our song to the streets.
Now mind you, when Moses first encounters God at the Burning Bush, just a few chapters earlier, God assure moses, even before he has expressed any insecurity, “They will listen to your voice.” Moses listens silently to God’s speech and then bursts out in response, in fear, “But they will not believe me, they will not listen to my voice.” [2] On the face of it, Moses cannot accept God’s reassurances.
I have so been there. So many people, including my voice teacher! telling me that I have what I need, that I can in fact do this work. And still, so much fear.
The nineteenth-century commentary Ha’emek Davar suggests a different understanding. What if God’s assurance, “They will listen to your voice!” is not a promise. What if it’s a condition, a demand. “Only if you speak WITH YOUR OWN VOICE will they listen and join you in challenging Pharoah.”
In the words of biblical scholar Avivah Zornberg, “Precisely Moses’ voice, in all its fragility and power, its whispers and rumblings, its tones and cadences and faltering, is wanted by God”. [3]
Even more so, precisely our voices, in all their imperfect glory, are what is needed to speak truth to power, to bring healing, transformation and wholeness into the world.
We are called to this moment. Yes, we have gathered for Let My People Sing! On one of its namesake Torah portions. In which Moses declares on God’s behalf, Let My People Go! [4]
We are both crying out unto Pharaoh and crossing the sea in song. Our songs are protest and prayer.
This is the moment to remember that Jews were never meant to sit quietly in their seats. Shabbat services are not a performance. These ancient words are not for someone else to learn. We are not counting on a voice more angelic their our own to carry us home. There is a deep well of Jewish song calling back to us, coming through us, calling us back to ourselves.
Please repeat after me!
It is our task to take risks.
It is our task to be brave and vulnerable.
It is our task to create beauty.
It is our task to sing out with our own unique voices.
It is our task to pursue justice.
It is our task to be kindness and peace.
It is our task to sing ourselves across the sea.
Shabbat Shalom!
[1] Exodus 6:12
[2] Exodus 4:12
[3] Zornberg, Avivah. Moses: A Human Life, p. 56.
[4] Exodus 9:1
Let My People Sing! Shabbaton
Parashat Va'era
January 28, 2017
If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Ever since I was a little kid I have know that if I could have one super power, it would be to sing!
I have always thought of myself as someone who cannot sing. Now musicians and singers are quick to tell me that everyone can sing. It even says it on the back of your Let My People Sing! Program. And while I appreciate the sentiment, that has not been my experience.
While I have wanted to be a rabbi since I was a young person, I always feared that my inability to really carry a tune was a reason not to be a congregational rabbi. I know that song transcends and transports, and is essential to both meaningful prayer and Jewish tradition. Not only as a leader, but a as a participant, as a Jew in the Pew, I so value as a spiritual tool. And so for this reason, I spent my 6 years in rabbinical school taking a weekly voice lesson.
I don’t know what I expected when I signed up for voice lessons. But I hoped there was some magic little mermaid muscle I could acquire that pretty much turn me into Arielle. Ahh ahh ahh, ahh ahh ahh…
Alas, after some nervous small talk, my teacher asked me to kindly lie down on my back and bend my knees, and breath. I kid you not, I spent 6 full months lying on the floor trying to find my breath. It was months before I ever even tried to speak, nevertheless sing a tone or hum a pitch. That was followed by months of training my ear and learning to discern if a sound was higher or lower. Months learning about octaves and scales, augmented seconds and Jewish modes. Then months spent trying to relax the muscles in my neck, control the passage of air from my diaphragm. It was years before I dared to match words with melodies. What began as singing lessons, was in truth, much more primal. I was learning how to breath. And then relearning how to speak, before ever braving to sing.
I didn’t have aspirations of excellence. I just wanted to be able to start a song and have people recognize the tune. Mind you, I am the person who tried out for a large gospel choir in college because I so love music. It was before I had consciousness about cultural appropriation. And when I realized we had to audition, they asked me for a song and the only thing that came to mind was, “Zippity Doo Da, Zippity Ay, My oh my what a wonderful day.”
Beyond humiliation, I felt bereft.
It is in this week’s Torah portion, Va’era - still just moments into the book of Exodus, that God says to Moses, “Go and tell Pharoah king of Egypt to the let the Israelites depart from his land.” And Moses responds, “If the Israelites won’t listen to me, why would Pharoah?![1]
Moses declares, “Va’ani Aral Sefataim” - Literally, My lips are uncircumcised. Often understood to be that Moses had a speech impediment, perhaps a stutter or stammer, maybe a lisp. But in truth, we don’t quite know what stood in the way of his ability to feel heard. What we do know is that Moses continually falls back on this insecurity, perhaps a disability, as Lauren Tuchman suggested at the tisch last night. What we know is that Moses felt limited by it in his leadership.
I too have felt aral sefataim - blocked in my voice.
When I first saw that Kol Tzedek was hiring a new rabbi, I took the risk and pursued the position. After my first interview they invited me back for a Shabbaton. After some back and forth, they decided that I would need to lead services unaccompanied, without musical support. I was truly terrified. I wept. I am almost sure Rob Auritt could hear my fear and apprehension over the phone. I considered canceling the interview. Being asked not just to sing, but to lead a community in song, in front of a large group of people, unlocked a well of shame and fear.
I heard the words of Moses, “Lo shamu elai” - literally they won’t hear me. In that moment, Moses was worried that they wouldn’t hear him, or perhaps that follow his lead. I too worried you all wouldn’t follow my tunes. But even more so,
“Lo shamu elai,” I didn’t want you all to hear my voice…
I share this story with you today, as we spend an entire shabbat steeped in song, as we call forth the beauty of each of our voices.
I share this story with you at Kol Tzedek, a community named for the power of its voice to bring about justice.
I share this story with you as a trans person, and I know I am not alone in this room. It is has been the project of my lifetime to breath into this body, to recognize and affirm the sound of my own voice, to call myself into existence.
I share this story with you knowing that song is at the heart of Jewish liberation, both in our mythology and in our movements.
According to the Torah, when the Israelites reached the other side of the Red Sea, Miriam took up her timbrel and the women began to sing and dance. But a midrash, an ancient rabbinic teaching on the Torah, tells us that the Song of the Sea, was actually sung during the crossing itself not afterward. It was song that enabled the Israelites to face the unknown. Song that filled their lungs and came tumbling out of them as they walked, their voices shaking and stuttering and rising.
I love this midrash because it completely rewrites the Song of the Sea, not as a victory tune, but as song of protest, determination and hope. Singing in this way allowed the Israelites to endure something so threatening and supernatural, to believe that something existed for them on the other side of the Sea, to believe in their own liberation.
When we sing together, we affirm for one another what is possible, we tell each other a story of a new kind of future. And when we sing together, we bring our disparate, individual voices, in all their resonant diversity, into one communal voice.
We are braver, perhaps, because we have song.
What I learned laying on the floor of my voice teacher’s living room is that song is prayer. Not in the ancient words, mumblefest kind of way. But in that singing requires that we stay with each note, that we feel its resonance, that we support our voices with the power of our breath. Singing is both a path and a practice of attuning to the Divine. It medicine and magic, it is vibration. It has the power to the heal trauma in the brain, to open hearts. Singing is vulnerable and empowering all at once.
Learning to sing has taught me to trust my ear, my judgment and truly, myself.
Learning to sing has been a pathway back into my body, and into my breath. It has required courage and encouraged me to take risks. Ultimately it has been a journey into vulnerability, and taught me to the lead from that place.
I believe this is why we are here this weekend at Let My People Sing!
We are here to find our voice at Kol Tzedek and as Kolot Tzedek -
We are here to build trust and vulnerability with one another, and with ourselves. We are here to take risks, to expand our leadership, to honor our voices and to bring our song to the streets.
Now mind you, when Moses first encounters God at the Burning Bush, just a few chapters earlier, God assure moses, even before he has expressed any insecurity, “They will listen to your voice.” Moses listens silently to God’s speech and then bursts out in response, in fear, “But they will not believe me, they will not listen to my voice.” [2] On the face of it, Moses cannot accept God’s reassurances.
I have so been there. So many people, including my voice teacher! telling me that I have what I need, that I can in fact do this work. And still, so much fear.
The nineteenth-century commentary Ha’emek Davar suggests a different understanding. What if God’s assurance, “They will listen to your voice!” is not a promise. What if it’s a condition, a demand. “Only if you speak WITH YOUR OWN VOICE will they listen and join you in challenging Pharoah.”
In the words of biblical scholar Avivah Zornberg, “Precisely Moses’ voice, in all its fragility and power, its whispers and rumblings, its tones and cadences and faltering, is wanted by God”. [3]
Even more so, precisely our voices, in all their imperfect glory, are what is needed to speak truth to power, to bring healing, transformation and wholeness into the world.
We are called to this moment. Yes, we have gathered for Let My People Sing! On one of its namesake Torah portions. In which Moses declares on God’s behalf, Let My People Go! [4]
We are both crying out unto Pharaoh and crossing the sea in song. Our songs are protest and prayer.
This is the moment to remember that Jews were never meant to sit quietly in their seats. Shabbat services are not a performance. These ancient words are not for someone else to learn. We are not counting on a voice more angelic their our own to carry us home. There is a deep well of Jewish song calling back to us, coming through us, calling us back to ourselves.
Please repeat after me!
It is our task to take risks.
It is our task to be brave and vulnerable.
It is our task to create beauty.
It is our task to sing out with our own unique voices.
It is our task to pursue justice.
It is our task to be kindness and peace.
It is our task to sing ourselves across the sea.
Shabbat Shalom!
[1] Exodus 6:12
[2] Exodus 4:12
[3] Zornberg, Avivah. Moses: A Human Life, p. 56.
[4] Exodus 9:1