What Cantors Do All Day
A Timeless Question Answered
I recently posted something which generated some feelings among my colleagues:
This is a timeless issue because, for almost of all of us, preparation happens in private. Studying, planning, practicing, and even parenting — these are things that you often don’t think about when you arrive for a bar mitzvah lesson, a counseling session, a service, or a concert.
Our engagement with so many professionals in life is through the window of an incredibly short experience. Elite athletes like Simone Biles know this well, as their thousands of hours of daily training translate into just a few ninety-second spurts of high-intensity athleticism watched by millions.
Yet somehow, for both scholars and singers, the delta between preparation and performance seems harder to bridge. We expect the cantor to sing beautifully and with intention, but not to practice. We expect the rabbi to preach beautifully and to communicate Judaism with depth, but not to study intensively. I am sure that there are other professions where this delta is significant, perhaps because the work of mental muscles is not as visually obvious as the athlete’s physical ones.
Consider this a call to curiosity: For anyone performing a service for you, professionally or informally —what could their work lives be like? How much time did they need to take to prepare for this moment?
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I love studying cantors because this type of curiosity is especially rewarding. How did cantors change over the years? What was daily life like for a cantor one-hundred years ago? What about two-hundred, or even three-hundred?
These mysteries still remain pregnant with possibility, as there are significant gaps in our knowledge of this history. And I think it’s partially because cantors have been, well, rather unremarkable to many generations of historians. Like the cantors who appear in film over the last fifty years, the profession is often viewed like a piece “sacred furniture” in the house of synagogue history — a secondary role deserving of as much comment as a wooden cabinet.
We are fortunately now living in an age of renewed curiosity, growth in Jewish musicology, and also incredible digital access to the past. Which means we can learn way more, and read things like this:
If the news cycle doesn’t do it for you this week, then I invite you to read the German-language cantorial newspaper Der Jüdische Cantor, or The Jewish Cantor: Weekly journal for the general interests of all cantors and religious officials, as well as for the general interests of Judaism. This trade journal, held in its entirety by the Hebrew-Union College Klau Library1 , ran weekly for nearly two decades (1879-1898) out of the Prussian region of Bromberg, shipping within Europe and even to America. It is one of many cantorial periodicals published in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, describing the glorious books, debates, and daily concerns of your average European Ashkenazi cantor.2 One could write a juicy novella or an amazing PhD based on these publications alone.
The above issue, dated February 26, 1886 (here’s the whole German thing in PDF), runs the gamut in topics, the main ones of which were serialized across many weeks:
“On Vocal Analysis" by the Oberkantor of Prague, Moritz Wallerstein (1847-1905).
“The Moral Teachings of Judaism” by Dr. Abraham Loewy, district rabbi of Bučovice, Moravia .
“Domestic and Social Life of the Ancient Hebrews” by S.M. (sent in from British-Mandate Palestine).
“Women in Jewish Antiquity” by Cantor Bloch-Lyon
Miscellaneous updates from the cantorial worlds of New York, Gotha, Prague, Rizza, Pest, Constantinople, and the larger Ottoman Empire.
Feuilleton (a place for literary sparring and criticism)
…and a riddle!3
But my favorite part of these journals are the advertisements. They may not be as exciting as the super bowl, but they reveal a whole world of interests and stories.
Need a new piece for Tal, the spring prayer for Dew? Write to the Oberkantor H. Berggrün of Hannover for his new choral setting (Some of cantor Berggrün’s personal music manuscripts, incidentally, were recently cataloged and scanned by the University of Pennsylvania and the efforts of Dr. Edwin Seroussi)!
Wanted from London! A religious girl with good character to be a housekeeper and cook for a childless couple. Annual salary increases guaranteed! Write to Mrs. S. Münz at 30 Thornhill Crescent in Barnsbury. In case you are in a small pulpit with few prospects for your unmarried daughter you can send her off to London!
But wait — don’t forget the food!
Here’s the price list for Silberberg’s Kosher Meats in Hamburg, under the supervision of Chief Rabbi Stern, for all of your meaty needs for the upcoming Purim celebration. And for birthdays and weddings, don’t miss the tropical fruit and nut delicacies of J.H.F Buchholz. And finally:
A job opening in the Mehlsack! A single candidate is desired to be be the cantor, Torah reader, ritual slaughterer, an school teacher. Salary is 1350 Marks per year, but no reimbursement for transportation.
This last advert in keeping with the small-town cantorate of the medieval and early-modern era, and one which lasts down into today. Cantorial factotums, then as now, served as a one-stop shop for Jewish life, operating in every way possible to support the community. As my colleague, Cantor Hinda Eisen Labovitz, put it in her masters thesis about the modern cantorial profession4:
A Cantor is…:
(1) ... the chief sheliaḥ tsibbur of his or her congregation, responsible for engaging his or her members through song and chant, at the pulpit and from the pews.
(2) ... a member of the clergy and an employee of the synagogue.
(3) ... in service both to the synagogue to which he or she is employed, but also to the wider community in which that synagogue resides.
(4) ... a musician.
(5) ... responsible for the administration and implementation of programming that benefits the synagogue community, whether to teach, to encourage arts appreciation, or fundraising.
(6) ... both the preserver of the tradition and an innovator within it, and thus the Jewish community’s resident expert on nusaḥ and the musical traditions of the Jewish people.
(7) ... responsible to teach both children and adults in those fields in which he or she is expert — cantillation, nusaḥ, music, et cetera.
(8) ... in partnership with the rabbi and other clergy colleagues to minister best to members of the congregation.
(9) ... responsible for his or her own self-care and authentic practice of Jewish ritual and life, in whatever way that resonates for him or her.
(10) ... responsible for the continuity and legacy of the cantorial profession.
So the next time you are wondering what the your rabbi or cantor is doing, consider it a great opportunity to be curious. Your Jewish jack-of-all-trades could be preparing or performing any of these responsibilities, and then some.
Alas, the links are no longer working. Please write to them directly for information about the digital copies.
Others include the Austro-Hungarian Cantors Journal, Der Khazonim Welt (Yiddish), and many other smaller and short-run journals. For Hebrew speakers, here is an overview by the great cantorial scholar, Akiva Zimmerman z’’l. The Austro-Hungarian Cantors Journal (Östereichische-Ungarische Cantoren-Zeitung) is fully digitized online and was indexed in the 2000 Masters Thesis of the cantor and author, Melanie Fine).
Vier Zeichen sind's die ich Dir gebe / Und welche durch des Schöpfers "Werde"/ Am zweiten Tage Dir erschien /Nimm diesen jetzt daß letzte Zeichen /So wirst Du damit schnell erreichen /Was Engeln gleich -- mit Erdensinn /Doch bleiben nur die ersten beiden /Ist's dunkel um Dich, wi in Leiden. —Joseph Cohn, Braunschweig
There are four signs which I give you / and which through the Creator's “Becoming” / appeared to you on the second day. /Take this now the last sign / So you will quickly reach / What angels equal -- with earthly sense / But only the first two remain / it is dark around thee, as in suffering.
Please write in with your solutions to this 140-year old German-Jewish riddle!
Hinda Eisen [Labovitz], “The Qualifications and Vocation of the 21st-Century Cantor,” (Masters thesis, Hebrew College, 2014).
No no I don’t. But on reflection, I now recall the quote was “ ich studiere astronome” meaning I’m studying to become an astronomer!
Max Wohlberg, z”l” told a story about a famous cantor who was asked by his rabbi, “ what do you do all day?” The cantor answered, “ Ich studiere
Astronome” I am studying to become an astronomer.”