‘God is in the detail’: a composer’s perspective

on crafting modern Jewish sacred music

Alexander Massey, 6 Feb 2018

Prayer, words and music

For 40 years, I have been exploring the relationship between prayer, words and music.

Music makes an impression on us. What do we want to impress on our senses, our psyches,
our souls? What sensory, emotional, intellectual and spiritual impression of our prayers and
texts do we want to be left with? How might music enhance or undermine our religious life?

As for words, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1954, p.78) wrote: “We must learn how to
study the inner life of the words that fill the world of our prayer book. … It is not enough to
know how to translate Hebrew into English … A word has a soul, and we must learn how to
attain insight into its life.”

Heschel (1954, p.70) also wrote: “Prayer is of no importance unless it is of supreme

importance.” “[In] prayer, words are commitments, not the subject matter for aesthetic
reflection, … prayer is meaningless unless we stand for what we utter, unless we feel what
we accept. A word of prayer is a word of honour given to God.” Heschel 1954, p.79

As I hope will become apparent in today’s talk, despite being a professional musician for
around 35 years, for me, music actually comes last, and prayer comes first. And words help
provide the link between the two. So: prayer – words – and music. In that order.

This framework has proved helpful for me when navigating the literature on music and
worship, and sacred music. Sacred music appears to be given the job of being all things to all
people. Variously, it has been required to:

• Foster community spirit, cohesion and a sense of belonging

• Resolve and prevent community fragmentation
• Create and sustain spiritual community
• Help overcome disaffection with synagogue/church or Judaism/Christianity, and
crises of faith, and offer a ‘way in’
• Help attract and enlarge congregations across the whole age range
• Aid a sense of rootedness, and be an engine for cultural transformation and spiritual
renewal
• Aid emotional expression and release, and communication
• Entertain
• Help interpret text, engage intellect and instruct
• Entertain
• Uplift and encourage
• Provide familiarity, predictability, sameness, and connection to tradition, as well as
provide variety
• Make the worhip space and experience ‘accessible’
• Enable freedom and discipline
• Enable people to tune, and tune out and unwind

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 • Supply distraction, even enabling a way to avoid prayer or significant engagement
with religion, theology, belief, faith, God, oneself of others
• Enable frequent emotional highs (frequently), and immediate gratification
• Create ‘spiritual’ experiences
• Engage body and breath
• Validate religious rituals
• Promoting kavanah (directing attention towards God) and devekut (cleaving’ to God)
• Be means to build intra-faith and interfaith links;
• Enable participation, whether that means giving people a chance to belong, to do
something, or being given a voice in prayer and God-relationship
• Make or reinforce memories (and providing spiritual nurture in remembrance);
• Broaden vision and horizons

This is a bewildering list of requirements. And despite my many years of experience as a

composer and liturgical musician, I find myself still ill-equipped to meet all those demands. I
am still trying to work out what music is doing, or could do, in the context of prayer, and the
religious and spiritual life of a person.

‘Reaching out without dumbing down’

The UK Reform Rabbi Jonathan Magonet has suggested: “We are in a supermarket, so we
have to offer good services that are interesting and accessible.” (Borts 2014, p.100) Pope
Francis, in his Vatican sermon on Christmas eve 2017 lamented: we don’t know if we are in
the House of God or in a supermarket” Pope Francis sermon, the Vatican, December 24,
2017. Clearly, there is some confusion, even at the highest levels of Christian and Jewish life.
It is not difficult to find instances where choice of music for services is based more on
personal musical tastes and preferences, than appropriateness to the text, the moment in
the emotional, intellectual and ritual arc of the service, the point in the liturgical week or
year; or the current spiritual needs of the community.

The ethnomusicologist Malcolm Chapman (1994, p.35) warns: “music offers a pleasant and
easy participation for the dilettante.” Harold Best, in ‘Music through the eyes of faith’
(1993), asks: "… what shades of beauty and nuances of spirit have we taken from our
children, our young people, our fellow outpourers in the name of the idiocies of mass
culture and easy Christianity?” And Charles Davidson (1995, p.16) points out in his article
‘Amerpop tunes in the Conservative synagogue’: “music which is appropriate to Disney-
movies and TV is not necessarily music which is appropriate to prayer no matter how
comfortable the familiar patterns and harmonies may make some worshippers feel.”

It is perhaps worth picking up on Best’s mention of the word ‘participation’. Participation by

lyricists, composers and instrumentalists is to be welcomed, as long as it enhances rather
than distracts people from prayer and learning. Joining in singing is a critical part of ritual
and religious experience. But while communal singing that ‘feels good’ has merit, it is not
always the same as having conscious spiritual directedness. Not all excitation of the nervous
system is religious experience, and not all singing is praying.

One rabbi interviewed by Borts suggested: “Music gives wing to prayer; nothing happens
liturgically until it is sung.” (Rabbi Mark Winer, in Borts 2014, p.126) And Rabbi David
Mitchell insisted: “If we can’t sing, we can’t be spiritually engaged.” (in Borts 2014, p.135)
Although I am a composer of sacred music, and I have led sung musical prayer for over 30
years, I cannot agree with either Winer or Mitchell. There are many prayerful paths to God;

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music is only one of those paths, and joining in singing is only one of many possible ways to
experience meaningful musical prayer. Arian (2004, p.160) teaches that “...music can help
level the ‘praying field’” That’s true. It can also dumb it down. And to pursue her analogy, I
would suggest that it may be time to ‘raise the pray-er’s game’ and help them enhance their
prayer literacy, and develop a more nuanced musical palette.

In her book, ‘Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down’, Marva Dawn (1995) advises us to resist
treating religion as a ‘lifestyle choice’, and something that needs revitalizing through
marketing techniques. Hoffman (ReThinking Synagogues: a new vocabulary for
congregational life, 2006) and Ron Wolfson (Spirituality Of Welcoming: How to Transform
Your Congregation into a Sacred Community, 2007) took a similar view.

We must find ways to get beyond a retail model of religious life, a model of providers and
consumers. Of course, religious and ritual life must comfort the afflicted, but it must also
afflict the comfortable1. And it must take us closer to an alive, curious, and intimate
relationship with ourselves, with others, with our faith tradition, and with God. In his
address to the 2017 International Conference on Sacred Music, Pope Francis said: “it is
necessary to ensure that sacred music and liturgical chant … are able to … embody and
translate the Word of God in songs, sounds, and harmonies that make the hearts of our
contemporaries throb, also creating an appropriate emotional atmosphere that disposes one
to faith and arouses a welcoming and full participation in the mystery that is celebrated.”
The Jewish composer Michael Isaacson (2007, p.187-88) writes: “Worship music need not be
devoid of intellect or critical assessment. We need not turn off our brains to turn on our
hearts. Like every other example of elevated music that we cherish, worship music needs to
be crafted with skill, knowingness, and sensitivity for language.”

‘Music as Theology’ and ‘Music as Midrash’

The first part of this subheading is a 2012 book title by Christian theologian and musician,
Maeve Louise Heaney. The second part is a 2007 book title by the eminent Jewish composer
Michael Isaacson.

Heaney argues that “… music offers a form of approach to or comprehension of faith that is
different to our linguistic and conceptual understanding of the same, and for that very
reason is complementary to it, in theological discourse.” (Heaney 2012, p.1) She also points
out that music is important in revelation, faith transmission, “and indeed in other ways for
our faith journey.” (Heaney 2012, p.10)

Ariel (1998, p.171) gives an eloquent description of midrash (pl. midrashim), which is worth
quoting at length:

“Midrash literally means to search out implicit meanings by means of a biblical passage.
Midrash is also an original Jewish literary technique of explaining textual nuances such
as puzzling words and phrases, gaps in the text, curious repetitions, contradictions with
other verse, and obscure meanings. It is also an imaginative process of uncovering new
meanings and interpretations in familiar verses. Midrash is also a spiritual process of
attempting to hear the voice of God in the received text. Midrash tries to uncover the
original experience behind the recorded text so that we might feel as though we are
present at Sinai alongside the 600,000 and more who stood there. It is an attempt to

1
Finley Peter Dunne 1902, satirical article, describing the role of journalism

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 overcome the barriers of time and place that separate us from the immediacy of the
experience of standing at Sinai. Finally, Midrash is also how each generation keeps the
Torah alive by reading it through its own lens. ….. As the tradition itself says, ‘the gates
of interpretation are never closed’.”

As a composer of Jewish sacred music, I find both Heaney’s and Ariel’s comments inspiring. I
am also encouraged, and daunted by what the Reformed Church in America (RCIA, 1996) has
to say: “Through congregational song God's people learn their language about God; God's
people learn how to speak with God. Songs of worship shape faith.” This is an opportunity,
challenge, and responsibility for a composer of sacred music.

‘Prayer: the lost art’

I have suggested that we need to rise above a consumer mentality and arguments over
musical tastes and preferences. We would do better to address the question of what sacred
music is for, what Borts calls shifting the focus “from melodies to meaning-in-melody” (Borts
2014, p.236). Julian Resnick, the Director of the Living Judaism Initiative in the UK asks: “Is
[music] an addition to prayer, is it prayer?” (RSGB Music Handbook). Around 250 years
earlier, John Wesley, in his practical rules for congregational singing, advised: "Have an eye
to God in every word you sing. … attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that
your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually" (cited in
Lovelace and Rice, 1976, p. 157).

So, the primary purpose of sacred music is to serve prayer. In his 1967 article in the Journal
of Synagogue Music, Samuel Rosenbaum, the then Executive Vice-President of the Cantors
Assembly of America, feared that prayer was a lost art. 30 years later, Leafblad (1998) wrote:
“In church history, no major renewal has ever come from forms and formats, and so it is
today. … Our greatest need today is to recover the priority of God in our music and in the
whole of life. The crisis in worship today is not a crisis of form but of spirituality.” 20 years
later, I still wonder whether they were right in their own time, and how well we might be
doing now.

If there is work to be done, Rosenbaum was clear that the revitalisation of prayer in his time
was failing “since they focused on changing the tools of the worshipper instead of changing
the worshipper himself.” (Rosenbaum 1967, p.5) He wrote:

“A Jew cannot come to the service spiritually naked, intellectually bankrupt and
liturgically unskilled and expect ‘to get something out of it.’ Prayer cannot be
achieved by merely being in a synagogue. It takes wanting, it takes preparation, it
takes knowing. We cannot hope to revitalize prayer by pandering to the lowest level,
or by changing the rules or the liturgy to accommodate the inept. We serve them
better only by conducting the most authentic, the most sincere, the most genuine
service which can be mustered.” (Rosenbaum 1967, p.6)

In Jewish tradition, prayer is referred to is avodah shebalev. Avodah means both service and
work, while lev means both heart and mind. Together, avodah and lev imply deep
commitment from the whole self, an idea echoed by George Herbert: Prayer is “… God's
breath in man returning to his birth, The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage, … Softness,
and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss, … the soul's blood, The land of spices; something
understood.”

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Heschel (1954, p.13) wrote eloquently and at length about prayer. Perhaps one of his most
beautiful and concise definitions was: “… prayer is an act which makes the heart audible to
God.” God is always tuned into us. Prayer tunes us to God, both so that we can properly
transmit to God, and so that we can listen. A question that exercises me is how music can
help, or hinder, us tuning to God.

What do we want to say to God? Will our new musical prayer settings be limited to just
adolescent love songs to God and sentiments of ‘wow, you’re great!’? Musical settings can
give an emotional ‘hit’, like a drug, but leave us quickly waiting for the next high (just like in a
pop concert), without leading us to greater insight, or a shift of consciousness? As we
mature spiritually, or perhaps, in order that we don’t arrest the development of our
relationship with God, we may need music that will express our deepening selves.

Our music will need sophistication, nuance, subtlety, layers. We need to be stretched, and
not get used to being spoon-fed and instantly gratified, led down unhelpful paths, or
anesthetised. It would be a terrible shame if we never discovered that we could do more.
We must care about what we are saying, the content and implications of our words. And we
must care about our tone of voice, how we say things. In worship, our tone of voice is
evident in what music we put to those words. As Isaacson put it: “To do less is to be less.”
(Isaacson, 2007, p.242)

Making music ‘holy’ - kodesh

When Moses encountered the burning bush, he first had to ‘turn aside’, and contemplate
what was before him. Only then did God speak to him, and tell him, “The place where you
are standing is holy ground” (Ex. 3:5). From this, we learn, in Judaism that, in order to have
true encounter with God, we must first raise our awareness. Jacob, after his awareness-
raising dream of the ladder, realised: “God is in this place, and I did not know it.” (Gen.
28:16) The Rabbis of the Talmud taught: “One who says the T’fillah [daily prayer] should wait
[sit] an hour before his prayer and an hour after his prayer.” (Berachot 32b) To pray, to
encounter God, we must make time and space, and shift our consciousness.

Catherine Bell explains: “ritualization is a matter of various culturally specific strategies for
setting some activities off from others, for creating and privileging a ... distinction between
the ‘sacred’ and the ‘profane.’” (Bell, 1992, 74.) The Hebrew word kadosh is usually
translated ‘holy’. While this English word often hints at something numinous, its Hebrew
meaning is more grounded. It simply means ‘separate’. Jews are commanded to keep
themselves ‘apart’, in the sense of delineating religious and ritual spaces and moments.

If prayer time is time apart between ourselves and God – whether it is individuals with God,
or the community collectively engaging directly with God – then ideally, sacred music must
help achieve this separation from everyday time and space. That would mean that sacred
music should feel different from secular music. Leithart (2011) writes: “I can hardly imagine
a more worrisome sign of worldliness, or clearer evidence of the church’s identity crisis, than
our eager renunciation of our own soundscape and our determination instead to reproduce
the world’s.” Without careful management of the sacred soundscape, ““Music, touted as the
medium which enhances prayer can also preclude it.” (Borts 2014, p.22) The music for
prayer must not be a counter-movement to the prayer itself. Sacred composers have to use
the common musical tools at hand, so this 'separation' in order to make the music 'holy' is
not so easy. Our job is not to mimic current culture, but to offer a sacred alternative to it.

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Somehow, we must find ways to relate the elements of music to the language and purposes
of prayer, and, as Borts says, “sonically carve out the space as ‘sacred’ (Borts 2014, p.117)”.

In 2008, Anthonay Esolen wrote a two-part essay for Catholic World News about the plight
of liturgical music. In the first part (‘Pop Goes the Mass’, 2008a), he wrote:

“Whenever I complain about the vanity of our contemporary church music, someone
replies that it's only a matter of taste, or that whatever uplifts the hearts of the
congregation must be good. But is that so? … though hearts may be "uplifted," shouldn't
we be asking: uplifted where? Uplifted in whom? Uplifted for what purpose? Prayer is
sometimes exciting, but it doesn't follow that all excitations of the nerves, even when
set to lyrics with "God" in them, are fit for liturgical prayer.” (Esolen, 2008b)

A year earlier, Isaacson (2007, p.242) wrote: “It is simply not adequate for Jews to employ
music to swoon. The wayward Israelites were swooners at the Golden Calf. We must do
better ...” In some respects, it seems that Christians and Jews are singing from the same
hymn sheet!

We should also be concerned about the lyrics that are written for liturgical music. Esolen
wrote: “even when the lyricists limit themselves to Scripture, they fail to read the verses
with the theological and doctrinal depth that Scripture displays and demands.” (Esolen,
2008a) And in his advice to ‘The Budding Hymnwriter (Wren 1995), Brian Wren warned:

“whereas the good hymn reminds you of what you knew to be true, what you are sorry
to have forgotten for the moment, and what you are glad to have the new chance of
asserting as your belief or your aspiration, the bad one is that which either leaves you in
doubt or subtly misleads you. If the good one makes you say, ‘Ah yes, I now see that that
is what I wanted to say’, the bad one makes you say either ‘That doesn’t apply to me’ or,
‘I still don’t believe that’, or, ‘Oh yes, that is true’ when it isn’t true at all.” Wren 1995

‘God is in the detail’

So, as a composer and occasional lyricist for sacred music, I have tried to articulate some of
my key questions. These questions are not just about what might make the music and lyrics
‘holy’, but also what might ensure they are of sufficient high quality, and fit for purpose. My
questions are guided in particular by two pieces of advice from the composer and lyricist
Stephen Sondheim. The first is: “Content dictates form. Less is more. God is in the details.”
(Sondheim, 2010) And the second piece of advice is: “the ear hears things that the mind
does not know” (Horowitz 2010, p.117) What he means by this is that, even if our mind is
untutored in the fine detail of language or music, our subconscious mind registers and
responds to every detail in the words and music, and their combination. And therefore, as
writers, we have to care about everything. So, on to the questions:

1. Should I write for now, or for the future as well? Should I be expressing echoing the
Zeitgeist, or contributing to shaping a new one?
2. Does this vocal piece have “something to say, and say it economically, modestly and
directly”? (Wren 1995)
3. What theology is being expressed through a) the words, b) the music, c) this
combination of words and music?
4. Could this music-words combination address a spiritual need in the community?

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 5. Could this piece “help us connect with those words and digest their import more
clearly”? (Isaacson, 2007, p.131) Does the music make a midrashic point, and
heighten our awareness of layers of meaning?
6. Do the words or music call attention to the writer? Does the music call attention to
itself, or the words and prayer? Do the words call attention to the prayer?
7. Does this piece “give … ‘size’ to smaller ideas, and add … accessibility to greater
ones”? Isaacson, 2007, p.226 Alexander Knapp says that it is essential that “... music
reflect text, otherwise there will be a rapid loss of credibility in its practical function
as a true and viable vehicle for religious feeling...” (Knapp, in RSGB Music Handbook,
p.96)
8. Does this piece, or even the writing of this piece, help me grow? Could it help
anyone else grow?
9. Does the music fit the liturgical moment?
10. Could this setting help anyone meet themselves or others?
11. Could this piece help anyone turn towards, and meet God more deeply, and ‘let God
in’?
12. Does this piece (words and music) feel kodesh – holy and separate from everyday
life? “A useful rule of thumb might be to ask, ‘Am I hearing ‘cross-over’ music
imposed upon a sacred occasion, or is it music that is not usually or frequently heard
outside the synagogue, and was created specifically for this worship and
spirituality?” An ancillary question might be, “Does the timeliness of the music cloud
the classic timelessness of the spiritual connection?” (Isaacson, 2007, p.132)
13. Could this piece encourage a person to listen and consider? (Isaacson, 2007, p.130)
Could it “elevate one’s thinking, spirit and emotive life”? (Isaacson, 2007, p.14)
14. Could this piece revitalise individual or communal prayer, and enable greater
ownership of prayer?
15. Could this piece help a person face reality, rather than avoid it?
16. Is it a truly religious statement, that is, “a musical expression of man’s search for
God”? (Jospe, Forum, 1972, p.83)
17. Is this piece “lucid rather than childish”, and “engaging, rather than glib”?
(Leckebusch 2012b)
18. Is the level of difficulty appropriate for those who will sing and play this piece? Is the
piece vocally and musically satisfying to learn and sing?
19. Is the language in the lyrics inclusive?
20. Does every verse, not just the first one, fit the tune? (Robertson 2003)
21. Does each section build logically on what has come before it?
22. Does the language flow well, and is the vocabulary appropriate, in a way that people
would be able to connect with the words?
23. Do the word words and syllables fall appropriately on the stresses in the music?
24. Is it “plain and hard-wearing enough to stand repetition”? (Wren 1995) Will it “stand
up to being looked at, and read and sung through many times over, during a period
of years”? (Robertson 2003)
25. Does it show mastery of lyric writing and music composition? Is there high quality in
five elements: lyrics, melody, harmony, structure and musical arrangement? And is
there an internal consistency within and between all the elements?

PARDES (‘paradise’)

In order to be able to answer those questions, lyricists and composers must be prepared to
immerse themselves deeply in religious life and learning. I imagine they might have an active
prayer life, have contemplative time alone, and spend significant time with those of their

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faith community, study Scripture, midrash and commentary on it. In Jewish tradition, the
study of text can fall within the concept of pardes, a word meaning ‘paradise’, but also being
a mnemonic for four principles. I continue to experiment with how the practices of pardes
might be applied to creating liturgical vocal music.

Peshat, This is the ‘plain’ meaning of the text. Musically, I think of this as corresponding to
the general mood of the music, what might be called the ‘emotional’ reading of
the text. Of course, texts can be read emotionally in more than one way. The shape
and energetic trajectory of the music may be unconventional or unexpected for a
given text, but it can still ‘work’ if it sheds light on an authentic possible reading of
that text. The music must also match the mood appropriate to the moment in the
service, or the Jewish calendar or life cycle. Drawing upon nusach, the musical
shapes and modes of a particular strand of Jewish musical liturgy can play a role
here, as nusach has an elaborate system of correspondences and associations for
some Jewish lineages.

Remez These are the ‘hints’ to other meanings. Musically, I look for possibilities for
paralleling textual structure with musical structure, in grammar, and in rhetoric –
for example, chiasmus, climax, anadiplosis, isocolon.

Derash Meaning ‘searching’, this is where we get the word midrash. We can discover
connections between one text, and other texts, either from Torah or Tanach, or
from Talmud, commentaries and stories and traditions up to the present day
including the evolving liturgy and prayerbook. This might give rise to creative
connections with music from within or outside the Jewish world across time and
space – in the musical language or in specific musical quotations. It is these
external reference points and common cultural pool that composers partly rely
upon, in order to make an emotional and psychological impact on the listener.
Translations, while aiming to stay faithful to the Hebrew, might reveal a particular
or unusual understanding, albeit rooted in rigorous scholarship and respect for
significant sources. Melody, harmony, musical structure and even the arrangement
or choice of instruments may add to what is called musical ‘word painting’.

Sod These are the ‘secret’, esoteric and mystical elements (such as from Kabbalah and
the number symbolism of gematria) that may be deliberately embedded in the
original text, or that can be creatively, experimentally and respectfully read into it
anachronistically. This hidden elements can be echoed in more subtle aspects of
lyric or musical composition, such as in plays on words in English translations, key
relationships, time signatures, numbers of bars, and so on.

Isaac’s wells and Jewish renewal

It is a tenet of both Judaism and Christianity that we should ‘shatter the idols’ whenever and
wherever we find them. We should no more idolize pop culture and what is new than idolize
old traditions or elite musical forms. Sacred music should not anaesthetise us emotionally,
intellectually, and spiritually, but sensitise us to God, ourselves and who and what is around
us. Sacred music’s proper role is to transform us, not chloroform us.

As I hope as become clear in this essay, I am not interested in any of the following:

• using only the music of the past, in preference to creating anything new at all

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 • creating a pastiche music by mimicking music from past Jewish liturgical forms
• creating Jewish sacred music that simply copies what is fashionable or popular in the
contemporary secular world – its sounds, rhythms and textures, or even glib,
intellectually suspect lyrics
• creating something so new and different that it fails to speak inclusively to a wide
and diverse group of worshippers

In the story of Isaac, we learn that he re-opened his father Abraham’s wells; we too, can dig
into our past, and find valuable forms and teachings. But Isaac did not ask people to drink
old water; the water in those wells was fresh, and we must be willing to refresh Judaism. In
Buber’s 1911 essay ‘The Renewal of Judaism’2, he wrote that we should not simply revive
and replicate old forms. Rather, he was encouraging us to respect and draw from the past,
while playing a role in the evolution of Judaism into whatever it needs to be now, and what
it needs to become. All ‘traditional’ music was new once. The music we create now may well
become the ‘traditional’ music of the future. One of our important tasks right now is to
create new Jewish sacred music, alongside the best from the past, that has relevance now.
My hope is for that music to have depth and substance, whoever uses it.

------------

Alexander Massey
6 Feb 2018
www.alexandermassey.com
alexander@alexandermassey.com

Bibliography

Printed articles

• ‘A forum on synagogue music (1972) “What makes synagogue music traditional: how is
our musical tradition to be maintained?”’, Journal of Synagogue Music, Cantors Assembly
of America, Vol 1, April, pp 81-98 - Erwin Jospe - Joseph Freduenthal - Herman Berlinksi
• Davidson, Charles (1995) ‘Amerpop tunes in the conservative synagogue’, Journal of
Synagogue Music, Cantors Assembly of America, Vol 24, No 2, Dec, pp. 13-16
• Eisenstein, Ira (1986) ‘The cantor in modern music’, Journal of Synagogue Music, Cantors
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pp. 17-27
• Gertel, Elliott B. (1975) ‘The challenge of synagogue music: a personal statement’,
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• Isaacson, Michael (1998) ‘How Jewish music in America changed during the 20th century:
a comparative list for thought and discussion’, Journal of Synagogue Music, Cantors
Assembly of America, Vol 25, No 1, Dec, pp. 20-23

2 Buber, Martin (1929) Drei Reden über das Judentum, Rütten und Leonig, p.97

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• Knapp, Alexander (1992) ‘Aspects of Jewish Music in Contemporary Britain’, Journal of
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• Lewis, C S (1978) ‘On Church Music’, Journal of Synagogue Music, Cantors Assembly of
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Reflections,” a collection of essays published by the Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,
copyright in 1967, and edited by Walter Hooper
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synagogue: the historical contribution of Hazzan David Putterman’, Journal of Synagogue
Music, Cantors Assembly of America, Vol 7, No 4, Oct, pp.7-14
• Putterman, David J. (1967) ‘Congregational singing’, Journal of Synagogue Music, Cantors
Assembly of America, Vol 2, Sept, 23-29
• Richards, Stephen (1979) ‘Music and prayer in Reform worship’, Journal of Synagogue
Music, Cantors Assembly of America, Vol 9, No 2, June, pp. 20-25
• Rosenbaum, Samuel (1967) ‘Prayer: the lost art’, Journal of Synagogue Music, Cantors
Assembly of America, Vol 2, Sept, p3-8
• Rosenbaum, Samuel (1972) ‘Epitaph for Jewish Music?’ [Delivered at the 21st Annual
Convention, May 1968] Journal of Synagogue Music, Cantors Assembly of America, Vol 1,
April, pp. 107- 116
• Rosenbaum, Samuel (1979) ‘Surviving future shock’, Journal of Synagogue Music, Cantors
Assembly of America, Vol 9, No 2, June, pp. 26-41
• Rosenbaum, Samuel (1995) The annual report of the Executive Vice President – Cantors
Assembly - “The American Synagogue: A Work in Progress” An exploration of the rapidly
evolving nature of faith, prayer choices, and Hazzanut, Journal of Synagogue Music,
Cantors Assembly of America, Vol 24, No 2, Dec, pp. 22-33
• Vinaver, Chemjo (1972) ‘Synagogue music – traditional and modern’ – ‘Traditional’,
Journal of Synagogue Music, Cantors Assembly of America, Vol 1, April, pp.4-9 [Delivered
at First Annual Convention, 1948]
• Wohlberg, Max (1977) ‘Hazzanut in transition’, Journal of Synagogue Music, Cantors
Assembly of America, Vol 7, No 3, June, pp. 5-16
• Wohlberg, Max (1977) ‘The emerging image of the conservative cantor’, Journal of
Synagogue Music, Cantors Assembly of America, Vol 7, No 3, June, pp. 17-42
• Wohlberg, Max (1995) ‘Elements to consider when composing synagogue worship
music’, Journal of Synagogue Music, Cantors Assembly of America, Vol 24, No 2, Dec, pp.
5-12

Books

• Ariel, David (1998) Spiritual Judaism: restoring heart and soul to Jewish life, Little, Brown
& Co
• Bell, Catherine (1992) Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, Oxford University Press, Oxford
• Best, Harold (1993) Music Through the Eyes of Faith, HarperCollins, San Francisco
• Chapman, Malcolm (1994) ‘Thoughts on Celtic Music’, in Ethnic Identity and Music: The
Musical Construction of Space, ed. Martin Stokes Berg Publishers, Oxford, p.35
• Dawn, Marva (1995) Reaching Out without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for
the Turn-of-the-Century Culture, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids

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• Heaney, Maeve Louise (2012) Music as Theology: what music says about the Word,
Princeton Theological Monograph Series, Pickwick Publications (based on PhD thesis)
• Heschel, Abraham Joshua (1954) Man’s Quest for God, copyright Susannah Heschel 1996
• Heschel, Abraham Joshua (1972) ‘The Vocation of the Cantor’ in The Insecurity of
Freedom: Essays on Human Existence, Shocken Books, New York
• Hoffman, Lawrence A. (1992) ‘On Swimming, Sound, and Canon’, in Sacred Sound and
Social Change: Liturgical Music in Jewish and Christian Experience, eds. Lawrence A.
Hoffman and Janet R. Walton, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, p.335
• Hoffman, Lawrence A. (2006) Rethinking Synagogues: A New Vocabulary for
Congregational Life, Jewish Lights
• Horowitz, Mark Eden (2010) Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions (2nd
edition), Scarecrow Press
• Isaccson, Michael (2007) Jewish Music as Midrash: what makes music Jewish?, ECM
Books and Music, California
• Jacobs, Cantor Zoe (2012) ‘Shirei Ha-T’fillot as a resource in action: notes for the sh’liach
tsibbur’, in Shirei Ha-T’fillot’ - Music to accompany the Reform Siddur, pp.4-8
• Knapp, Alexander ‘The Philosophy and Practice of Choice’, in RSGB Music Handbook,
p.96
• Lovelace, Austin C. and Rice, William C. (1976) Music and Worship in the Church,
Abingdon Press, Nashville
• Plato, Republic VII 522a
• Salkin, Jeffrey (2013) The Gods Are Broken!: The Hidden Legacy of Abraham, Jewish
Publication Society
• Sharlin, Cantor William (2008) ‘A Symphony of a Cantorial Life: The Notes and Reflections
of Cantor William Sharling’ in Jewish Sacred Music & Jewish Identity: Continuity and
Fragmentation, ed. Jonathan L. Friedmann and Brad Stetson, Paragon House, St Paul: p.
92
• Sheridan, Rabbi Sybil (2012) ‘Introduction to Shirei Ha-T’fillot’ - Music to accompany
Seder Ha-T’fillot – the prayer book of the Movement for Reform Judaism, pp.1-3, in Shirei
Ha-T’fillot’ - Music to accompany the Reform Siddur
• Sondheim, Stephen (2010) Finishing the Hat: The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim,
with attendant comments, principles, heresies, grudges, whines and anecdotes, Virgin
Books
• Victor Turner (2008) The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Aldine Transaction,
New Brunswick
• Wolfson, Ron (2007) Spirituality Of Welcoming: How to Transform Your Congregation
into a Sacred Community, Jewish Lights

Theses

• Borts, Barbara (2014) Mouths filled with song: British Reform Judaism through the lens of
its music, Durham theses, Durham Univeristy, Available at Durham E-Theses Online:
http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/10797

Online

• Esolen, Anthony Nov 2008a) ‘Pop Goes the Mass (part one)’, Catholic Answers, Inc., El
Cajon, CA -http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=8485
• Esolen, Anthony (Nov 2008b) ‘Bad Poetry, Bad Theology: The Curse of Bad Liturgical
Music (Part Two)’, Catholic Answers, Inc., El Cajon, CA -
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=8790

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• Goldman, David P. (2009) ‘Sacred Music, Sacred Time’ -
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/10/sacred-music-sacred-time
• Jernberg, Paul (2012) ‘An introduction to the Mass of Saint Philip Neri’, ‘The Logos of
Sacred Music’, New Liturgical Movement (May 4) -
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0486.htm
• Leafblad, Bruce H. (1998) ‘Worship 101’ - December 1998, p. 25 - Worship Leader
Magazine, Dec, p.25 - http://www.worshipleader.com/home
• Leckebusch, Martin (2012a) ‘What is the Point of Singing Hymns?’, April, The Hymn
Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Ref HSSG101 -
http://hymnsocietygbi.org.uk/2012/04/17/short-guide-no-1-what-is-the-point-of-singing-
hymns/
• Leckebusch, Martin (2012b) ‘What Makes A Good Hymn?’, April, The Hymn Society of
Great Britain and Ireland, Ref HSSG106 -
http://hymnsocietygbi.org.uk/2012/04/17/short-guide-no-6-what-makes-a-good-hymn/
• Leithart, Peter J. (2011) ‘How the Church Lost Her Soundscape’ (Nov 18), pastor of Trinity
Reformed Church in Moscow, Idaho, and Senior Fellow of Theology and Literature at New
St. Andrews College -http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/11/how-the-church-
lost-her-soundscape
• Pratt Green, F. (1971) ‘Hymn Writing Today’, The Hymn Society of Great Britain and
Ireland, Bulletin 120 (Winter) - http://hymnsocietygbi.org.uk/1971/01/11/treasure-no-
35-hymn-writing-today/
• Reformed Church in America (1996) ‘The Theology and Place of Music in Worship’,
Commission on Worship - https://www.rca.org/resources/theology-and-place-music-
worship#
• Robertson, Alison (2003) ‘A Few Thoughts on Hymn Writing’, The Hymn Society of Great
Britain and Ireland, Bulletin 235, April -
http://hymnsocietygbi.org.uk/2003/04/15/treasure-no-69-a-few-thoughts-on-hymn-
writing/
• Routley, Erik (1953) ‘What makes a good hymn?’, The Hymn Society of Great Britain and
Ireland, Bulletin 63 (Spring) - http://hymnsocietygbi.org.uk/1953/04/09/treasure-no-17-
what-makes-a-good-hymn/
• Schiller, Benjie-Ellen (2007) ‘The Many Faces of Jewish Sacred Music’ -
http://templebethshalom.wordpress.com/2007/04/30/the-many-faces-of-jewish-sacred-
music-by-benjie-ellen-schiller
• Schiller, Benjie Ellen (2009) ‘Some notes on the future of Jewish sacred music’,
http://urj.org/worship/worshipwithjoy/letuslearn/s9sacredmusic
• Scruton, Roger (2010) ‘Music and Morality’, American Spectator (Feb) -
http://spectator.org/articles/40193/music-and-morality
• Wren, Brian (1995) ‘To the Budding Hymnwriter’, The Hymn Society of Great Britain and
Ireland, Bulletin 202 (Winter) - http://hymnsocietygbi.org.uk/1995/01/13/treasure-no-
61-to-the-budding-hymnwriter/

Teaching materials, poetry and miscellaneous

• Arian, Merri Lovinger (2004) ‘Music, Prayer and the Sacred Community’, Teaching
Tefilah. ARE Publishing, Denver
• Bond, Edward ‘On Leaving The Theatre’
• Cohn, Cantor Richard (2003) ‘Module #2: Music and Text’, as found in Caro, Cantor Susan
et al, (eds) Divrei Shir/Words of Song: a curriculum for the study of synagogue music,
UAHC/ACC, New York
• Herbert, George (1593–1633) ‘Prayer’

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• Pope Francis (March 4, 2017) Address to participants in the International Conference on
Sacred Music, Clementine Hall
• Pope Francis (Dec 24, 2017) Sermon, the Vatican
• Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds’ (Sonnet
116)

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