If I had a bell. I’d ring it in the morning/
I’d ring it in the evening, all over this land/
I’d ring out danger, I’d ring out warning/
I’d ring out love, between my brothers and my sisters/
All over this land.
Pete Seeger wrote those lyrics with Lee Hayes over fifty years ago. Since Pete’s death two weeks ago, his voice and his music have frequently been in my thoughts.
Pete’s music was the soundtrack of my childhood. His records were played in my home. His songs were sung around campfires at sleep away-camp, and they remain music that I love to listen to and sing even today.
As I embraced Orthodoxy as a teenager, Pete Seeger remained a “rebbe” in music to me. Before I had fallen in love with singing Shabbat zemirot, and the musical creativity of that genre, where new melodies are constantly found for old lyrics, I already loved folk music and its own traditions of creatively borrowing melodies and lyrics. Folk music prepared me to appreciate Shabbat zemirot and the musical beauty of untrained, voices, singing together without any instruments. Before I had ever been to a Hassidic tisch, and experienced the transcendence of voices singing out together with yearning that combines love of God and love of one’s neighbors, before I had ever been transported to another spiritual plane by the harmonies of a congregation singing the Mussaf kedushah together, I had tasted that experience singing folks songs at summer camp – songs that expressed and exemplified community, values, and ideals.
We also read about bells in the parsha this morning.
לג וְעָשִיתָ עַל-שולָיו, רמֹנֵי תְכֵלֶת וְאַרגָמָן וְתולַעַת שָנִי–עַל-שולָיו, סָבִיב; ופַעֲמֹנֵי זָהָב בְתוכָם, סָבִיב. לד פַעֲמֹן זָהָב וְרמון, פַעֲמֹן זָהָב וְרמון, עַל-שולֵי הַמְעִיל, סָבִיב. לה וְהָיָה עַל-אַהֲרן, לְשָרת; וְנִשְמַע קולו בְבֹאו אֶל–הַקֹדש לִפְנֵי ה, ובְצֵאתו–וְלא יָמות
The hem of the high priests cloak was lined with golden bells. “Vi’Nishma Kolo b’vo’o el HaKodesh” – and the ringing of those bells should be heard as he enters and as he leaves the sanctuary.
What was the purpose of those bells? Who was supposed to hear their voice? There are fundamentally two ways that those bells have been understood. Some see the focus on the bells being audible to the other people, those standing outside the innermost sanctuary, so that they know that the high priest is fulfilling the mission that he was sent to perform. “V’Nishma Kolo” The sound of the bells, their voice, must be heard by those outside.
Others understand the sound of the bells to be focused on the One to whom the priest is approaching. One doesn’t “barge in on God” – as it were – we announce our presence and announce our taking-leave through the music of the bells. V’Nishma Kolo
These two interpretations can be understood as reflections on the role of music in Avodat Hashem – religious life. The sound of the bells connects the kohen to the broader community standing outside the curtain. This interpretation highlights the ability of music to connect people to each other and build community. Alternatively – and at the same time – the sound of the bells can be meant to be heard by God as they announce the kohen’s entrance. This interpretation highlights the way that music can prepare a path towards intimacy with God.
My father, whose yaarzeit – the anniversary of his death – is today – did not grow up singing American folk music. My father came to America in March of 1949 and was raised in a devout Orthodox home, albeit one with a European appreciation for culture. As a student at Rabbi Jacob Joseph Yeshiva my father excelled as a Talmud student, and taught his classmates – mostly American kids from the Lower East Side- that Beethoven’s 9th symphony was “the greatest music ever written.” Which is true.
Although he had been no longer religious for decades by the time that I was born, the massive tomes of the Talmud on display on my father’s bookcase set our home apart from every other home I knew and were a constant reminder of my father’s background. “Did you know, David,” my father once asked me, “that there is an entire book here, all about eggs?” Of course, the Talmudic tractate Beitzah is about a great deal more than just eggs. But that was as symbol of foreignness of the esoteric knowledge contained in those ancient books.
In elementary school, I entertained my friends withs tales about my Orthodox grandmother who had different dishes for dairy and meat and who didn’t switch electric lights on all Saturday – nobody among my friends had heard of anything so outlandish.
I fell in love with Shabbat as a 13 year old and refraining from melachah – creative endeavors – for 25 hours no longer seemed outlandish to me. After a year of saying kaddish as a 15-year-old, the weekday, Shabbat, and holiday, siddur was no longer obscure. In yeshiva for the first time after high-school, the Jewish library was opened to me.
Massechet Beitzah is no longer just a book with a funny name. It’s a crucial guide for how I live my life and for how all of us commemorate and celebrate the Jewish holidays. In honor of my father’s yaarzeit, I want to share something from Massechet Beitzah that has great halakhic importance, and also speaks to the theme of music as a tool in avodat hashem.
The Talmud tells us, on page 36b, that we don’t clap, stomp, or dance on Shabbat or yom tov, lest we come to violate Shabbat in a more severe way by repairing musical instruments. And, based on Massechet Beitzah – the book about eggs – the most influential code of Jewish Law, the Shulchan Arukh, concludes that any sound that emerges from a musical instrument is forbidden on Shabbat or on yom tov.
The Tosafot, writing in Northern Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries, were aware that a restrictive position against playing instruments could coincide with relaxed standards for clapping, stomping, and even dancing. This shows us that, as Jewish law developed, Shabbat became a day that was filled with song, with music, with clapping, and even dancing – but not instrumental music.
Does the absence of instruments limit the spiritual possibilities of the day? No. But it does create a challenge to sing louder and to sing stronger.
The kohen’s service in the mishkan and in the temple had a soundtrack. The ringing of golden bells let all who were gathered and waiting outside know that the kohen was representing them and was busy in the device of God. And the ringing of those golden bells, let God know – as it were – that the kohen, and the nation he represented, was seeking intimacy with God.
Our Shabbat also needs to have a soundtrack. Without an instrument to listen to and organize our singing, each of us has a need to use our voices, without self-consciousness, with the earnest sincerity of a folk-singer and the spiritual ambition of a Hassid, to create our own Shabbat soundtrack.
We don’t have bells. But we do have songs to sing. We can sing them in the morning, we can sing them in the evening, at the Shabbat table, and at shul. They are songs of love between our brothers and sisters. And they are songs of love between humanity and God.
Shabbat Shalom.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 