This year, we celebrate the Jubilee anniversary of women being officially recognized as Jewish clergy (Rabbi Sally Priesand was ordained by the Hebrew Union College in 1971). My kavannot this week will highlight some of the unique and inspirational female voices from our tradition.
All music is transcendent. Music goes beyond the ordinary limits of verbal or physical communication and can transport us through time and space in deep prayer or mindfulness. For me, there are certain songs that ring distinctly of a specific memory, and when I hear that song again, I am miraculously transported to that exact moment in the past. Music is an access point that allows us to connect with and even revisit memories and stories that might otherwise be forgotten in time.
Eleven years ago, when I lived in Israel, I fell in love with the poetry and lyrics of Rachel Bluwstein (often referred to just as Rachel). Rachel moved from Russia to the Holy Land in 1909, where she lived out the rest of her short and often sickly life along the shores of the singular Kinneret in Northern Israel. Whenever I hear her songs or read her poetry, I am myself magically transported back to the place where she wrote, as if I am overlooking and can smell the trees on the shore of the spectacular Sea of Galilee.
What are your favorite melodies, and is there a specific memory, moment, or place that you associate with the tune or the words or both? I’d love to hear from you, or perhaps you’ll share with a loved one or friend some time this week.
I hope you’ll enjoy Rachel’s beautiful Zemer Nugeh (A Sorrowful Song), a piece about her namesake (the biblical Rachel), with a recording below from a concert at the Jerusalem campus of the Hebrew Union College.
Watch the Video
Read the Lyrics
— Cantor Emma Lutz