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September 19, 2008
Sacred Sparks
Meredith Jacobs
Special to the Jewish Times
I am the niece of Cantor Saul Z. Hammerman. Many of you may not know this, but it is a profound element of what makes me, me.
It’s different being a niece and not a daughter. I would imagine being the child of clergy, rabbi or cantor is a heavy burden. I’ve read books where children of rabbis talk about being always on display, always having constraints and expectations put upon them because of who their fathers are.
Because we are nieces and not daughters, my sister and I, during the congregation’s seder, got away with climbing up on stage behind Uncle Saul and singing “Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham.”
Uncle Saul simply scooped us up and continued to lead the seder. Before my parents joined our synagogue in Philadelphia, we would come into Baltimore and go to Beth El for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
I was little and Beth El was big. So very big. I got to sit next to my aunt in the chairs with my cousins’ names on them. My great aunts would pass me hard candies “in case I got a tickle in my throat” and my Uncle Saul would stand on the bimah in his white robe with his big white hat with the pompom on top and would daven in a way that only my uncle could.
It was, for a little girl, awe-inspiring. And it is, for a grown woman, what I compare every other cantor to.
And, no one has compared.
Because he is my uncle, perhaps I paid more attention to his singing than my peers. I had a reason to watch him and to remember what it was like. When he was interviewed recently in this newspaper because he had received the David Putterman Lifetime Achievement award from the Cantor’s Assembly, he spoke very passionately about something I have heard him speak about privately — the loss of the chazzanim, the style of the great cantors. It is not the same today and in some ways we have gained because of the change, but for the most part we have lost.
I didn’t always feel this way. Recently, I would have argued that the “Friday Night Live” kind of performances, the Debbie Friedman-type tunes, bring out the young families and create a sense of ruach. But after reading my uncle’s words, and sitting through his award ceremony, and hearing other cantors, like him, sing, I realized that I was wrong.
Yes, the guitar playing cantorial style of today creates ruach, but it is camp ruach. I am a huge proponent of informal Jewish education and its very necessary role in engaging Jews, but let’s be honest. Young families come to these services much as we would to a Wiggles concert. It is fun and entertaining and fleeting.
Ruach means “wind.” In Genesis we read that G-d created human beings by breathing wind (ruach) into our nostrils. Yet, animals are not described as being created in this way. So “ruach” also is translated to mean “spirit.” But it is a holy spirit, not singing around a campfire spirit.
To hear my uncle and others like him chant “Hineni” is to hear a supplicant begging G-d to forgive. It is to feel a sacred wind blow. It is to be moved and forever changed. This is the gift of the chazzanim.
We are fed with the words and the teachings of the rabbi, but we breathe because of the ruach. And for it to truly be ruach, it must be infused with holiness. •
Meredith Jacobs is the author of “The Modern Jewish Mom’s Guide to Shabbat” (HarperCollins) and is the host of Connecting Family on WYPR-FM. She is working on her second book, “Dear You, Love Me: A Mother-Daughter Journal” (Chronicle Books, Spring 2010), which is being co-authored with her daughter, Sofie.