Search results for Joey Weisenberg

Joey Weisenberger’s Building Singing Communities: A Practical Guide to Unlocking the Power of Music in Jewish Prayer, with a Foreword by Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, 2011; a Publication of Hadar’s Minyan Project
Reviewed by Shoshana Brown

Published in the Journal of Synagogue Music, Vol 37

This book, launched together with an accompanying CD (Joey’s Nigunim: Spontaneous Jewish Choir) which is sold separately, is timely and much needed. To use it, however, you have to be willing to take a plunge, for Weisenberg—Music Director at the Kane Street Synagogue in Brooklyn, NY and Music Faculty member at Yeshivat Hadar in Manhattan—describes a vision of synagogue-singing/praying that most of us have never witnessed. I had heard Weisenberg give a presentation at an Independent Minyan Conference, and so, was not surprised at what he describes in his book. But I suspect that neither hearing nor reading about it can give one a true grasp of what it’s like.

One probably needs to attend either a service at his synagogue or a class at his Yeshiva in order to understand the essence of his approach: “...every congregation that aims to take its singing energy to the next level must develop a core group of singers who stand close together, directly surrounding the ba’al t’fillah. I like to call this group the “Spontaneous Jewish Choir” and its participants “musical gabba’im. But this singing core is not a new idea at all. In many ways, it’s actually a return to a centuries old synagogue practice whereby choristers (m’shor’rim) would stand near the hazzan to sing spontaneous harmonized responses.”

Yes, I had heard of m’shor’rim (and seen them on Youtube), but Weisenberg is not really endorsing a return this late medieval set-up. We are not talking about a handful of grown men with a sprinkling of young boys here. We are talking about a much larger group of adult layfolk, men and women, clustered around the sh’liah tsibbur at a floor-level, centralized prayer amud (he stresses the importance of not having prayer led from a frontal, raised bimah) for the duration of the service—who would support the prayer-leader’s singing, and simultaneously take their cues from him/her—and most importantly, encourage lustier singing/davening from the rest of the congregation. At least that’s the best I can figure it out from Weisenberg’s self-described “manifesto.”

Here too, there is a caveat for anyone teaching the “spontaneous singing choir” a congregational melody in preparation for an actual service. Weisenberg’s well-taken advice is to avoid introducing harmonies until people have mastered the tune by singing it together in unison some 30 times. Once they really know it, harmonies will develop on their own.

The centralized-amud concept also raises certain logistical questions and may require some reconstruction of our sanctuaries. (In my home shul we do have a floor-level amud, but there is no room there for such a large singing-group crowding around it for most of the service). It is also difficult to understand the logistics of this arrangement. Do all the “spontaneous choir” members remain standing the whole time the hazzan is davening? Are we meant to hear the sh’liah tsibbur’s voice above the crowd as the distinct leader, or are all these folks, in a sense, “leading”? Once the congregation is able to carry a particular melody, can the hazzan harmonize with them?

These are just some of the questions that are bound to arise in readers’ minds as they try to imagine putting Weisenberg’s ideas into practice. It is beyond question today that increased participation and enthusiasm by members of the congregation during a service is the sine qua non of their engagement in prayer; it will also enhance their ease with the language of t’fillah. But what about the “ease” of the prayer leader? Will the hazzan feel comfortable with so many people hemming him/her in so closely, awaiting their cue for the next congregational melody? How will the rest of the congregation feel if they cannot see—and possibly be unable to hear—him/her? Might the harmonies so overwhelm the melody line that some daveners would not be able to recognize what the basic tune of the prayer is?

Certainly a field trip to Joey’s kahal in Brooklyn, or to Hadar in Manhattan, might help one to understand how all this works. Most of our congregants have not yet attained the same level of Jewish knowledge and engagement as Joey Weisenberg’s regular worshipers or students. It strikes me that just as he came to his methods in an organic way while leading/teaching worship, so too, his readers might have to discover through their own process of trial and error exactly which of his suggestions will work most effectively for them—and perhaps along the way develop additional methods of their own. I vividly remember Craig Taubman’s visit to the CA convention in Los Angeles a number of years ago. He did not have his whole band; it was just Craig and his guitar, and still he had the whole room in the palm of his hand, singing with fervor. Afterwards one of the cantors asked him, “But what do I do about the fact that I am not you?” Taubman answered: “You are not supposed to be Craig Taubman. You have to be the you that God meant you to be!”

Indeed, those who share Joey’s goal of taking their people’s “singing energy to the next level” will ultimately have to find their own ways to achieve it. With a willingness to experiment (and with support from the rabbi and synagogue lay leadership), perhaps Weisenberg’s recipes will work better than most of us can imagine. Yet, it might also be prudent to gradually feel our way in developing a “spontaneous Jewish choir” as we discover what seems “right” to the rest of the congregation whose leadership in prayer is our responsibility. (It is worth noting that at Kane Street this more intensely participatory approach to davening was first developed in an alternate minyan before gradually entering the main service.)

Weisenberg includes many other “recipes for success” in his slim book, including tips for how to learn and retain a new melody and how to teach it to others. His suggestions for a novice ba’al t’fillah in how to lead services are excellent, and chapters on “Politics and Diplomacy” and “Expanding the Musical Culture of the Community” are indispensable for our brave new world.

I greatly enjoyed listening to the companion CD of Joey’s Nigunim, (the author’s spelling; all melodies composed by him as well), but I suspect that for many congregants, this kind of music would only be an acquired taste. Weisenberg’s melodies gravitate towards the plaintive; even his faster ones share this quality. In that sense they resemble meditative hasidic d’veikut niggunim, particularly those of Lubavitch. I happen to be a fan of this musical genre, but I don’t think the same is true for the American Jewish mainstream. Nonetheless, whether we choose to enrich our davening with Joey’s melodies, with Debbie Friedman’s, Solomon Sulzer’s, or Mizrahi piyyutim tunes, the aim is to bring enthusiastic congregational involvement to our t’fillah b’tsibbur.

Joey Weisenberg is doing his part in pointing the way—but he needs our help. And we need his. Buy the book. Read it. Listen to the CD. Then, with your mitpall’lim, take the plunge. Join the good fight to transform our synagogues into arenas of engagement and commitment, aided by the power of music to elevate our prayer as—more and more—we become “singing communities.”

Shoshana Brown received her cantorial s’mikhah from the Alliance for Jewish Renewal in 2011. Her article, “Nothing New under the Sun: What’s Still Wrong with our Synagogues?,” appeared in JSM 2008; and her interview, “The Amidah and Atsilut: A Dialogue with Zalman Schachter-Shalomi,” appeared in JSM 2009. She has served as hazzan or Jewish music teacher at Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative and Unaffiliated congregations, and currently resides in Huntington, New York.

 Our very own Joey Weisenberg appeared this week (April 8th, 2014) in the New Jersey Jewish News, working with the Highland Park Minyan. You can read the full artile below or at this link.

Noting that Jewish worshipers have rediscovered the power of song, musician and teacher Joey Weisenberg molded 30 members of Highland Park Minyan into his trademark “spontaneous Jewish choir” during a workshop on March 23.

Weisenberg started the two-hour program by teaching an original niggun, or wordless melody, which he returned to throughout the afternoon, often accompanied by the slapping of knees and the stomping of feet.

“With singing we listen and learn and pay attention to the world around us,” he said. “It is that idea that we are together moving toward the divine, although we all have our own ideas about what the divine is. But we are all in tune with the same prayer. We are all responsible for creating a fertile ground for prayer…. I know you in Highland Park have been doing this for 40 years. You’re sort of leading your own adventure.”

Weisenberg, a New York-based musician, singer, and composer, travels the country conducting workshops. He is music director and ba’al tefilla (prayer leader) at the Kane Street Synagogue in Brooklyn, creative director of the Hadar Center for Communal Jewish Music, and author of Building Singing Communities: A Practical Guide to Unlocking the Power of Music in Jewish Prayer.

Program chair David Goldfarb said the minyan was already “a very participatory davening community” and that it brought in Weisenberg to help it “step it up a notch in that regard.”

“Joey has a great reputation as a musician and ba’al tefilla,” he said. “We love singing and dancing in our prayer services, and we thought he could add to our own ruach [spirit] and services.”

The 70-member multidenominational minyan meets for traditional, egalitarian, peer-led Shabbat morning services at space it rents from the Reformed Church of Highland Park. It also holds services on all holidays, as well as periodic Friday evening services.

Weisenberg said music, which has always been interwoven into Jewish traditions, helps connect people with the past and communicate “with the divine” in ways words can’t. Melody can also bring together disparate parts of the community.

Repeating his niggun, he explained, “You become the vessel of song. You carry the melody with you like a piece of Torah.”

Weisenberg said that synagogue services that draw on influences from churches, opera, and stage performances often distance many from the prayers.

As a teenager he used to sneak out and play guitar at the local black Baptist church, where members stood singing and clapping throughput the service. “They had neshama,” or soul, he said.

To bring that spirit into Jewish prayer, Weisenberg suggested that the ba’al tefilla stand in the middle of the congregation, drawing in others to be participants in prayer and song.

“The greatest prayer leaders know where they need to start and finish,” he said. “They know they have lots of options based on what they see and feel. They know what to do. They have a deep toolbox. They know a lot of melodies and in a split second can read the folks there and make a choice.”

Minyan board member Judy Richman said she thought it was a “wonderful” program. “Joey has such a genuine sweetness,” she said. “We learned a tremendous amount, which we will be incorporating into our singing and dancing. We learned some new skills to enhance our experience.”

by Renee Ghert-Zand

June 15, 2011, The Arty Semite, The Jewish Daily Forward

Joey Weisenberg, 29, is the musical director at the Kane Street Synagogue in Brooklyn and is in charge of musical education at Yeshivat Hadar in Manhattan. He plays guitar, mandolin and percussion and sings in 10 different bands, is an artist-fellow at the 14th Street Y’s LABA program and a faculty member at KlezKanada. He also teaches music privately. He does all this, and still spends half or more of his time teaching congregations around the country how to build singing communities and conduct spontaneous choirs.

Having spent the past eight years honing his techniques, Weisenberg is now sharing them in the recently published “Building Singing Communities: A Practical Guide to Unlocking the Power of Music in Jewish Prayer” (Hadar, 2011). The book, which provides advice on everything from melody acquisition to room set-up to shul politics, is accompanied by a CD of a spontaneous choir, directed by Weisenberg, singing 15 nigunim based on the Shabbat liturgy.

Weisenberg recently spoke to The Arty Semite about his passion for Jewish communal singing and how it fits into a larger vision for Jewish music.

Renee Ghert-Zand: Is the interest in communal singing a recent phenomenon, or is it a revival of an older one?

Joey Weisenberg: Well, it’s a little bit of each. A lot of the things that I am trying to get across are traditional notions. For example, I advocate putting the amud, the table from which the prayers are led, in the middle of the room, instead of having a frontally oriented bimah. That’s really the way the shul was set up for hundreds and hundreds of years. It makes sense to do it that way because you’re close to everybody. On the other hand, historically there might not have been as much communal singing as there is today. It used to be that the cantor and his choir were located in the center of the room, and now I advocate that the entire shul should be the choir.

Why do you emphasize wordless nigunim of the 19th and 20th centuries, and some even as old as the 17th and 18th centuries?

It’s a visceral response to what I find deeply beautiful and moving in these old melodies. Even the new melodies I write sound like they’re old. You study the tradition and then open yourself up to all of the new possibilities. The first priority is to spend years and years studying the material, studying the old things. So, I spent a lot of time studying hazanut (cantorial music), old nigunim and old settings of liturgical music — mostly in the Ashkenazic tradition, because that’s where I’m from. I spend a lot of time immersing myself in the old music and that gives me a depth from which to create new music.

Is there a relationship between your musical background growing up and your interest in building singing communities now?

I grew up in a traditional Jewish home in Milwaukee, Wis. We went to a Conservative shul and our hazan did most of the work, but he taught me all the stuff I know about leading Musaf, and other things. At some point I started going out to the west side of Milwaukee, where the Twerski shul was. Rabbi Twerski, a famous Hasidic rebbe, is an amazing composer and singer. He would sing the most beautiful melodies and they captivated me. When I would see how he would sing and how everyone else would sing with him, I saw what a tremendous potential there was in this kind of process, and I wondered why this didn’t happen everywhere.

Are there any other musical influences on your compositions?

I grew up in a world music kind of way. My father’s a flamenco guitarist. My mother played Bach. I grew up playing blues. All kinds of music have been moving through my head and my family and the world I’m in. On the CD you’ll hear elements of blues, flamenco, Macedonian brass band music, bluegrass, African choirs, gospel and Bach. But all of these things are disguised within the spirit and musical structures of old nigunim.

What are the difficulties of introducing communal singing to synagogues and independent minyanim?

The hard part is dealing with the institutions. Most of our shuls have been doing the same thing for 30 or 40 years and there’s all kinds of resistance to making changes. This is an ongoing challenge and it will be for a long time.

With the independent minyanim it’s a tremendous opportunity because you get all kinds of young people coming in who are looking to create something beautiful, deep and meaningful. But what’s been pleasantly surprising is that there’s also a big proportion of people in shuls who are looking for this kind of experience. Not everybody. But it’s been a very pleasant surprise to get to meet all these people and to work with them.

How does communal singing fit into your larger vision for music and musicians in the Jewish community?

It’s been something I’ve been dreaming about since I was a teenager, wondering how I could break down the walls between performers and participants. While I do enjoy getting up on stage and performing, I’ve always felt that I’m missing something when everyone else in the room is passively watching. I’ve also wondered about ways to make more use of creative musical talent that I experience in the Jewish music scene. I often find that the greatest Jewish musicians feel alienated from the Jewish community and they’re underutilized from a teaching point of view.

What I’m trying to design is a profession in which musically inclined people can become resources and teachers for the community. I imagine that the hazan of the future can be more of a teacher. I imagine that hazanim can be the people who carry the songs and who everyone in the community wants to learn music from.

To learn more about Building Singing Communities and Joey's Nigunim, click here.

Joey Weisenberg and the Center for Jewish Communal Music were mentioned in this article from JTA, by Uriel Heilman, appearing on April 8th, 2015. You can also read more about Rabbi Dollin's story and influences from Hadar here.

Conservative shuls turning to musical instruments to boost Shabbat services

NEW YORK (JTA) – When Rabbi Bruce Dollin first talked to the board at his Conservative synagogue about launching an alternative, singing-centered Shabbat morning service that would use musical instruments, he didn’t encounter much resistance.

Over the two decades he had led the Hebrew Educational Alliance in Denver, attendance at the synagogue’s regular Shabbat davening – a traditional egalitarian service – had declined by almost half and most of the 200 weekly worshippers were over age 50. Dollin had just returned from a sabbatical and wanted to test some fresh ideas.

Called Shir Hadash, Hebrew for “new song,” the new service cut out certain prayers, was held in the round, encouraged participatory singing and featured drums.

“I would have used a guitar in the service, except the guitar didn’t work well with the kind of service we were trying to create,” Dollin said. “Guitar is a loud instrument that draws a lot of attention to the guitar player, and we wanted our emphasis to be the congregation itself.”

The new minyan was an instant hit. Within months, dozens of regulars from the traditional service had switched over, and at least 70 people new to the synagogue had become Shir Hadash mainstays.

“I wasn’t a good synagogue-going Jew for many years,” Denver native J.J. Slatkin, 32, told JTA. “Then I started going to Shir Hadash. There’s something about the music that allows me to turn off the rationalism in my brain and just connect to my spirituality in a way that I can’t do otherwise.”

A growing number of Conservative synagogues across the country are turning to music – and musical instruments, which many once considered taboo on Shabbat – to rejuvenate their Shabbat services.

“Congregations report that for most places it’s a pretty good long-term gain,” said Rabbi Paul Drazen, who conducted a 2013 study for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism on the use of instruments in Conservative synagogues’ Shabbat and holiday services.

“What we found universally is the question is not so much instrumental music or not, the question is good music or not,” Drazen said. “The predominant use of music in the Conservative movement is as congregational singing support rather than a performance.”

The use of instruments in Conservative synagogues is not new. Some have used organs for decades, and at least 31 percent of the movement’s synagogues have been using instruments for more than 12 years, according to the study. But the practice is growing in popularity, and today roughly half of all Conservative synagogues use instruments — ranging from conga drums to guitars, keyboards, woodwinds and strings — in Shabbat and holiday services.

A combination of factors has fueled the trend: the rise of Carlebach-style, song-centric prayer services across multiple denominations; the Reform movement’s transformation from operatic-style worship to the guitar-centric, sing-along approach championed by the late Debbie Friedman; the success of musically focused services at independent synagogues such as IKAR in Los Angeles and B’nai Jeshurun in New York (both led by Conservative-ordained rabbis); and the willingness by Conservative synagogues facing declining and aging memberships to experiment.

One of the pioneers was Temple Sinai in Los Angeles, the Conservative synagogue led by Rabbi David Wolpe. In 1998, Wolpe and singer-songwriter Craig Taubman pioneered a tremendously popular Shabbat-eve musical service called Friday Night Live that offered a concert experience mixing traditional prayers with new tunes. Attendance soon soared from 300 worshippers to a peak of about 1,500.

Adas Israel, the largest Conservative synagogue in Washington, inaugurated an instrumental service three years ago. While the main Shabbat service had been using instruments for decades, its style was traditional liturgical music. Associate Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt wanted to appeal to Jews in their 20s and 30s with a more participatory, Carlebach-style service filled with chanting and niggunim, or Hasidic melodies.

Launched on Kol Nidre, the new service was an instant hit. The synagogue expected 200 worshippers for the alternative service on Yom Kippur evening, but 600 showed up. Now Adas Israel holds singing services one Friday night and one Saturday morning a month, utilizing guitar, violin, cello, keyboard and drums. Unlike many of the synagogue’s other worship services, the new ones are popular across the age spectrum.

“People want it. There’s an aspect of this they feel like they need,” Holtzblatt said. “We need to think about what are we doing with davening to get people deeper into the experience.”

The use of instruments on Shabbat is not without controversy in the Conservative movement, which is divided over whether they are permissible according to Jewish law, or halachah. Though instruments were used on Shabbat and holidays in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, their use in worship was outlawed after the destruction of the Second Temple in deference to the state of mourning imposed for the temple.

Some Conservative synagogues adhere to the traditional injunction, but others rely on a 1958 ruling by the movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards allowing the use of organs and a 1970 opinion permitting guitars and other instruments. More than a few Conservative synagogues restrict the use of instruments on Shabbat and holidays in some way, such as using only acoustic instruments or instruments that can’t break, like hand drums.

During the musical Friday night service at the Montebello Jewish Center, a Conservative synagogue in New York’s suburbs, the band plays only during the Kabbalat Shabbat portion of the service, shifting to a cappella once the evening Shabbat worship service formally begins. Rabbi Adam Baldachin, who launched the instrumental service shortly after he was hired in July 2013, wants more instruments on Shabbat, but for now he’s going slow.

“A lot about leading a synagogue is keeping people comfortable: Too much change too quickly and they’ll lose their confidence in me as synagogue leader,” Baldachin said. “But the service is electrifying. People get up in the aisles and start dancing, and when you have music in the background, more people sing.”

Joey Weisenberg, a professional musician who helps congregations create more musically oriented services, says instruments are “a double-edged sword.”

“They can be used to create a lot of beauty or a lot of noise,” said Weisenberg, the creative director of the Hadar Center for Communal Jewish Music. “With instruments, people often stop singing and start listening. They start to see it as a concert, and davening is fundamentally different from a performance or concert. Davening is an internal and communal process that requires a good deal of spontaneity.”

The most important ingredient for creating singing communities, Weisenberg says, is for people to be physically close together and for the song leader to be in the middle of the room. In most Conservative synagogues, he notes, people tend to sit at the far edges of rooms that are too big for them, leaving a hollowed-out center.

“The underlying issue is people have to come together to create something beautiful and spiritually uplifting together,” he said. “If a shul is going to use instruments, the people who play them need to consider themselves to be one of the singers, as if they’re just another voice in the mix.”