Sign In Forgot Password

Chanting with Melissa Schaffer

Saturday, September 23, 2017 3 Tishrei 5778

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

The Poetry of Chant
 

A New Year, a new opportunity quickly approaches with the High Holy Days.
What do many of us usually do on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur? We come together and contemplate the last year we lived as individuals surrounded by community. We examine our sorrows, dreams achieved or forgotten. We are shaken awake by the voice of the shofar, it's song stirring memories from the first time we heard it and memories from our collective human unconscious. Many of us long for its wail--it strikes our hearts, shattering ambivalence, numbness, walls built up over time, instantly connecting us to our ancient relatives who are more like us than different. This is why passages and prayers of Torah and psalms resonate still. 
When we join together as individuals in community to chant sacred phrases from our liturgy we come to support each other in accessing our ancient selves and selves to be, in achieving old and creating new dreams, in examining and healing our sorrows and finding inspiration for the day, the week or month. We are gently awakened by the discovery of our own voice and the voices surrounding us. 
Might sound challenging but...it's rather simple. You come, you learn a Hebrew (or English) phrase, you repeat it. The chants become more comfortable as we practice them; they become a form of meditation. 
We feel more connected to the pathways of the Torah, to each other, to ourselves.

It's a new year. Come. Come as yourself, try something new, then come again.
We await you with open hearts.

From 9-10 am on Shabbat, September 23, 2017.

Melissa Schaffer trained with Rabbi Shefa Gold and has led Sacred Hebrew Chant at Bnai Keshet for nine years.
 
Bnai Keshet Synagogue, 99 S. Fullerton Ave, Montclair, NJ 07043
Share Print Save To My Calendar
Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784