Become a “Niggun of the Month club” member
We encourage you to listen and download the niggun, and get it into your head! Each month, the featured niggun will become part of our community fabric: sung at Religious School, in the ECC, at services and committee meetings and playing in the synagogue hallway display.
To listen to an MP3 below, please click on the link. To download the MP3, right-click on the link and choose "Save Link As."
June 2010 Niggun: Modzits (MP3)
High Holiday Song #1: Luleh He'emanti (MP3)
High Holiday Song #2: B'sefer Chayim (MP3)
May 2010 Niggun: Soul Catcher (MP3)
This month, a slow, peaceful niggun: one that inspires dveykut, cleaving, to God. Recorded by our Ruach Am’cha Ambassadors, this is one of the first niggunim that we learned together. Why a quiet niggun? because praying to God is not always flashy, catchy or ecstatic: prayer can bloom from silence and contemplation as well. This is the character of this month’s niggun: it is a musical centering breath, a return to home, a resort of calm – a quiet celebration of the soul.
April 2010 Niggun: Ya Ribon (MP3)
This niggun comes from the Jewish community of Calcutta (Kolkata), India, whose members came primarily from Syria and Iraq. At its height, the Calcutta community numbered 5,000 Jews, with three synagogues and two Jewish schools. After World War II and the establishment of the Israeli state, many Jews ultimately left India for North America, England and Israel, but a small pocket of Jews remain, as does the historic Maghen David Synagogue, established in 1884.
The words you will hear are from the praise hymn “Ya Ribon Olam” whose Aramaic words extol Yah – God, the Master of the World. “I shall praise You day and night, God who created all life!” In many Ashkenazi communities (including ours!) these words are sung on Shabbat, as part of z’mirot around the table. Journalist Rachel Musleah, who was born in Calcutta and who edited a book of music from the community, writes that this niggun was not sung on Shabbat, but rather as part of “daily morning hymns.” She points out that the words themselves do not specifically reference Shabbat, but is simply praise of God! With that in mind, may we use this niggun to praise God at all times of the day, with words or without words, in the morning or evening, with instruments or a cappella, in community or alone.
March 2010 Niggun: Sunrise Niggun (MP3)
It is winter in Southern California. It is the early morning, with such a
thick darkness that you can't see what is in front of you, so the thirty or
so Cantors who are silently climbing up a ridge cling to one another in the
dark. As the group approaches the summit of the ridge, they pass grazing
horses, crowing roosters, and an avocado grove, its fruit in various stages
of ripe and un-ripe. The sun is not yet up but the sky lightens
incrementally. The group arrives at the ridge, still silent, but prayerful,
thankful for the cold morning air, and for bodies that regulate heat so
miraculously. After what seems like an eternity, the first fingers of
sunlight creep over a corner of the ridge's eastern crag. Then the blinding
light melts over the horizon like liquid mercury, and the sky turns from
gray-blue to orange, purple, pink, yellow, red.
Our teacher hums this niggun: the first sounds of the morning that match
those first brilliant lights and colors. We join in the niggun, softly at
first, clearing the cobwebs from our voices and awakening our souls. I
imagine that is is our voices that escort the sun as it rises into the
brilliantly blue California sky, soaking and saturating the hills around us
with color, light and warmth.
So during this month, the time when the cold of winter begins to thaw, the
time where we pass from the darkness of slavery to the light of freedom, may
this nigggun escort and embrace you with the same color, light, and warmth
as the sun.
February 2010 Niggun: Magen Avot (MP3)
Sometimes a niggun can live in my mind for a while, and it stays a niggun, with ya-la-la words, and sometimes it finds a home in the liturgy, and I make a “shidduch” between music and words. Here is such a case, where niggun and liturgy, in an original combination, illuminate and enhance both text and music. The “Magein Avot” (or M’ein Sheva), sung on Friday nights, is a condensed version of the Shabbat Amidah, working in all the themes of God’s majesty, strength, holiness, sanctification of Shabbat, ending with our thanks and praise – all in one short paragraph. This niggun, from the Hassidic tradition, uses repetition of rhythm and notes in a particularly delicious way, making it easy to catch on to - and easy to get stuck in your head. It can be sung fast, or slow, or slow-to-fast, as the recording suggests (thank you, Shabbat Rinah band!).
Warning: While singing this niggun, you may be compelled to sway back and forth. This is a completely normal and desired side effect.
January 2010 Niggun: Kol Han'shama (MP3)
This tune was introduced to Hazzan Dulkin by Dr. Nechemia Polen, a professor of Hasidut at Hebrew College in Boston. He used the tune in morning prayers to the words of Psalm 150, which ends with “Kol Han’shama t’hallel ya, Halleluyah!” – everything that has breath will praise God, Halleluya! This tune is best accompanied with homemade percussion: hand-clapping, table-banging, plate-tapping, class-clinking, foot-stomping – and, as you see from the recording, when it is sung around the Shabbat table, we use any available vessel to make sound. You can even take out a few notes of the tune and fill it in with your own rhythms, and it sounds great. Let everything that has breath – and everything that can make sound, make a joyful noise to praise God, Halleluya!