July 1, 1997: My first day of work at Temple Beth El. I have short black hair, drive my children, who were 5 and 2 years old at the time, in my Volvo station wagon to their grandma’s house so that I can begin my journey as a cantorial soloist. A very young, dark-haired rabbi who likes to wear vests, takes me into his office every Monday afternoon at 3:00 pm to teach me all about life cycles, the order of the services and what the prayers mean. He looks like one of our bar mitzvah – his name is Dan Levin.
February 7, 2025: I have long highlighted hair, my kids are 32 and 29 and they live in New York and Philadelphia. My mom has been gone almost ten years. I have a different husband and am now the Senior Cantor at Temple Beth El. And Dan Levin still takes me into his office – but now it’s on Thursdays at 3:00. His hair has changed a bit as well.
So much has changed in the more than 27 years that I’ve served Temple Beth El. I’ve watched our congregation’s children grow from consecration to Bar/Bat Mitzvah to confirmation, off to college and into adulthood. And I’m now honored to officiate at their weddings and watch many of them now bring their children here to begin their circle of Jewish life.
We’ve prayed together through 911, hurricanes, a massive recession, a worldwide pandemic – and we’ve held each other and prayed for our people in Israel through the horrors of October 7th.
And our congregation has changed. Over the years so many have joined our Temple Beth El family, and some have moved on and moved away. Many beloved members have passed away – I look out at the sanctuary from my seat on the Bima and I see them still in their regular seats.
When I started leading services at Beth El, we sang accompanied only by an organ, wearing navy blue robes. Our siddur was Gates of Prayer and we still used some of the classical Reform hymns, “All the World will come to serve you…”
Over time, we have evolved and changed and grown. We ditched the organ and the robes. We invited congregants to join in leading the worship. We added instruments and a new prayer book, Mishkan T’Filah. Time does not stand still.
Just as times change, and people change, and the world changes. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the music has changed as well. How could we sing the same melodies when our lives and the world around us have changed so dramatically?
In our Torah portion this week, Beshallach, we remember how our ancestors yearned for strength in the passage we call, “The Song of the Sea.” Ozi V’Zimrat Ya, they cried – “With my strength and song to God, I was redeemed.” I don’t know what melody they sang, or what harmonies they added, but it flew out from their grateful souls as they passed through walls of water on their way to freedom.
We sing those same words today with a modern melody. We are not them. Our experience, our culture, our lives are so different. And yet we all know the joy of feeling free. We all yearn to be liberated from all that enslaves us. And so, it also makes sense that their words can be our words too, even if we say them differently. We sing them differently. We feel them differently.
Throughout time, composers have continually created new melodies in response to the times.
Melodies we all think of as “traditional” are more contemporary than we realize. Max Janowski wrote the familiar melody of Avinu Malkeinu in 1951. I would laugh when my mom used to ask me to sing the “traditional” Hashkiveinu which was written by Craig Taubman in 1999. And what would our service be without Debbie Friedman’s Mi Sheberach that she wrote in 1989. These newer melodies are becoming our new traditions.
In recent years we’ve started singing music by young composers like Elana Arian and Noah Aronson, whose melodies reflect contemporary popular music. And we’ve welcomed music that is filled with the flavor of Israel with the music of Nava T’hila and Josh Warshawsky.
Psalm 96 begins with these familiar words – “Sing to God a New Song!” Even our ancestors understood that when we call out to God, we must sing from the core of our authentic selves. We have to sing our songs in our age in our voice with our melodies.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z’’l wrote, “If we are to make Torah new in every generation, we have to find ways of singing its song a new way. The words never change, but the music does.”
May we continue to be inspired to sing out praise for the freedom that is ours, and to shout in our own voice a new song to God each and every day.
Shabbat Shalom,
Cantor Lori Brock
Join us for tonight’s Shabbat service at Temple Beth El’s Schaefer Family Campus or online on Virtual Beth El.
