Singing Across Space: The Limitations and Possibilities of Virtual Worship

As a professor of cantorial arts, I am in the business of training cantorial students to develop the skills and sensitivities they need for the cantorate. I guide them in their singing and musical expression, liturgical understanding and prayer leading skills. This process involves singing with and for one another, whether in class, individual coaching, communal prayer services, or other learning settings. Needless to say, it has not been easy to keep this work alive and thriving during these past months. Students have needed to record their voices over a pre-recorded instrumental accompaniment in order to build electronically engineered pieces. Together we have watched videos of synchronous prayer services and talked about the theory and technique of cantorial leadership. Yet at the end of the day, our students need to practice what cantors do: sing with people, lead prayer, engage the congregation. To continue to grow artistically and spiritually, they need to sing with a piano or guitar, in a choir, and with their teachers and fellow students, in real time. They need to hone their ability to listen to the congregation and respond in thoughtful and dynamic ways. These are exactly the qualities our people need from our prayer leaders in this time of uncertainty and loss.

In times of crisis over the millennia, our people has turned to prayer and music to express our deepest pain and yearning. Think of the kinot, those liturgical poems that lament the destruction of the First and Second Temples.  Think of the musical works composed in Terezin and other concentration camps. 

What texts and music will mark this painful time?  Esa Eynai, Psalm 121, “I lift up my eyes to the hills, whence comes my help;” “Ana r’fah na lah, (Numbers 12)” Moses’ cry for healing of Miriam, “Please God, do heal her;” Olam Chesed Yibaneh, (Psalm 89), “I will build this world from love,” are a few texts that come to mind, where our contemporaries have newly composed or revived compelling melodies to these standards from the liturgical reservoir.  

As a cantor in a congregation, my goal has been to raise peoples’ spirits and create meaning and connection among the members of the community. I try to utilize the musical skills and leadership sensibilities I have developed over time to engage the congregation and renew their experience of life, of prayer, of God, of mission. On some Shabbatot during these past months, there have been 150 people or so chiming in on Zoom or the live stream.  They tell me they sing, and indeed I can see them on their screens moving their mouths, clapping their hands, and even dancing in their living rooms.  Each one can do so in the privacy of their own space. Yet they cannot hear each other, and I do not hear them. 

I do believe we feel a presence (a Presence?), inchoate yet visceral, in this digital universe. I watch the comfort and joy on people’s faces as they see one another. I see how the chanting, singing and recitation moves them. In this time of disorientation and separateness, these connections remind us that we can and do share heartfelt moments together, in real time. I try to help people imagine the experience of singing together to the point where it could almost become real, even though in the physical sense, all of us are singing in isolation. When we clap together during “Dodi li” or chant “Sh’ma Yisrael” with closed eyes, we kindle sparks in one other. The singing and listening penetrate our physical separation. We dissolve into the moment and respond spiritually in ways only music and prayer can touch. Our aliveness resounds in our voices and in the quietness between the sounds. 

Here are a few aspects about communal prayer, prayer-making, and prayer leading I have discovered during this time. I hope to hold onto these when we enter back into a more “normal” existence: 

~ I have learned that making sounds together is a medium we rely upon to create relationships, foster community and sustain our spiritual selves. I knew this to be the case long before the pandemic, yet in a theoretical way. I know it now with every fiber of my being.

~ I have learned about the silences that substitute for singing, the isolation that substitutes for physical gatherings. In Jewish prayer tradition, silence itself is not the sole medium. While silence can, and I believe should play a critical role in the soundscape of communal prayer, I understand silence to be in relationship with sound. I see private versus communal prayer in the same way.  Each informs and complements the other. 

“I have learned what a community actually does when singing together. We make sounds that create spiritual energy. We support the presence of each other through these sounds. We say in effect: We are here.”

~ I have learned what a community actually does when singing together. We make sounds that create spiritual energy. We support the presence of each other through these sounds. We say in effect: We are here. We are engaged and invested in this moment with our mind, soul, breath; our entire selves. Through our melodies, harmonies and spoken words, we lend our voices and spirit toward a collective oneness of sacred expression.  This phenomenon cannot be so different from the experience of marchers for freedom or human rights, or against unjust wars or labor practices, who find their common voice galvanized by an uplifting song (e.g., “We Shall Overcome” or “Oh Freedom!”).

~  I have learned about the primacy of the sounds of communal singing in prayer. To me, our voices are the quintessential voice of holiness. They are synonymous with prayer itself. I believe I speak for my students and colleagues in saying that singing together in prayer is at the core of our being and the center of our work. When we briefly unmute ourselves to recite the Mourners’ Kaddish or share names for the Mi shebeirach prayer for healing, we hear the actual sounds of our community, isolated in space, yet “together” in prayer. That cacophony has never sounded as precious as it does now. 

~ I realize that to lead most effectively, one needs first to be present and focused within oneself. This is the paradox of leading prayer on a screen. True prayer is not primarily about bells and whistles, yet all of that is tempting over Zoom. Certainly beauty, proficiency and good timing are vital to a balanced, well-crafted prayer service. Yet prayer itself emanates from the soul, even when it comes through a screen and a microphone. Whatever the medium, the leader needs to be “in the prayer” within themselves in order to convey that spirit outward. This kavannah, true intention, of the prayer leader and of each of us is the key ingredient to meaningful, sincere prayer.   

 When we do return to the synagogue and can somehow sing together safely, I hope to be aware of the privilege of praying and singing in community every time I lift my voice and hear the cacophony surrounding me. May our physical absence from each other help us to grow in our appreciation of one other in radically new ways. May we return once again to participating in the daring, sacred act of prayerful singing together, joining our voices in real time and space, for the sake of sanctifying life and healing one another and this world.