By Michele Alperin Special Writer
In western religious experience, song and melody are part of the language that allows human beings to reach toward the divine. As early as the biblical book of Exodus, Moses’ sister Miriam played her timbrels to thank God for the Israelites’ success in crossing the Red Sea.
In two Princeton prayer groups from different traditions, music plays a significant role in both enhancing the soar toward infinity and in affirming and praising God. Zamru, a Jewish congregation that uses music to propel its entire Friday night service, held its first service in December for the Princeton community and Princeton University graduate students; its next service will take place March 12. At Manna Christian Fellowship, an evangelical service at Princeton University, music plays a more secondary role — as perfect praise to God that sings back to Christ the truth He has revealed to His people.
The idea for Zamru came from Pam Edelman and her husband Dean, who wanted to recreate the Friday night services they had experienced at a synagogue in Manhattan. At B’nai Jeshurun, on the upper West Side, thousands would show up for these services whose intensive congregational singing stops only for the silent standing prayer toward the end of the service. In its first service at Princeton University in December, Zamru drew a multigenerational crowd of about 75, the majority of whom were in their 20s and 30s.
The most important role that music plays at Zamru is to nurture the spirituality of participants. Mr. Edelman talks about his own experience as one of the service’s four lay leaders who guide the congregational singing with the help of guitar support from Dan Nadel.
“What we try to do is, rather than rote repetition of prayers, to use melodies that we feel are spiritual and help us get closer to that feeling of God and Shabbos (the Jewish Sabbath),” says Mr. Edelman. “I feel like we all have the capacity to feel that sense of spirituality but need to create an environment where that pilot light can spring into flames.”
At Manna Christian Fellowship, music also plays a role in nourishing spirituality. As the Rev. Blake Altman, Princeton University chaplain, explains, “We use music that allows students in the most natural way to express their deepest longings back to the Lord; in a world of lies, we want to sing the truth of what Scripture says is real and true about the world.”
At Manna, continues Rev. Blake, the goal is to help students understand what their fundamental beliefs are and whether they are true according to Scripture.
“Music, therefore, is a way for us to experience, to know; and singing is an action that helps you to remind yourself of what’s true about the world and to praise the Lord,” he says. “You are what you sing, therefore, it is important that when you do sing, you sing truth about what the spirit has revealed about the world through Holy Scripture.”
At the same time that music supports the individual in search for the spiritual, it can serve as a potent draw into a communal experience. For Reiki therapist Debbie Freedman, who was among Zamru’s earliest participants, the group has drawn her back into a Judaism whose observance she had mostly dropped as an adult. Not too long before Zamru began, she had begun feeling the need to be part of a Jewish community and had visited some synagogues, but this “wandering Jew,” as she jokingly refers to herself, did not find a spiritual home until she came to Zamru. “Since I love music, it really speaks to me,” she explains. “Practically the whole service is singing, and I just love how I feel when I’m singing — the prayer and the feeling of spirituality.”
The role played by Zamru’s lay service leaders is to facilitate congregational involvement, but in the process they have found their own spiritual growth nurtured. As Ms. Edelman explains, “Leaders are volunteers, learning while doing and sharing that struggle to be more engaged with Judaism.” Avi Paradise, who had not led services for a long time before he got involved with Zamru, has also found the experience of leading services to be personally enriching. “I never feel the connection and spirituality as deeply as when I’m leading it,” he says.
Volunteer leader Margaret Berger emphasizes the importance of having leaders who are not trained musicians. “I have a good ear, and I am a good but not great singer. But one of the things we discussed was not having all of the prayer leaders sounding like professional singers, which sounds more like a performance,” she explains. “If you have people who can sing, but it doesn’t seem like they went to a vocal college, everyone feels like they can sing along. We don’t want it to be a Friday night concert.”
The musical accompaniment at Manna — usually a full band, with drums, acoustic and electric guitars, bass, keyboard, and violin and sometimes a smaller ensemble like a violin and cello or even just an acoustic guitar — stands in contrast to the self-described imperfection of the prayer leaders at Zamru. Rev. Altman explains, “Music must be done with excellence, so that when people hear music, they think, ‘This must be a beautiful God; our Lord is worthy of excellent music.’” Yet in the next sentence Rev. Altman emphasizes the secondary role of the music. “It’s not the music that gets His attention but because you’ve been changed by what He has done.”
Zamru developed first at Friday night potluck dinners and services in the homes of founders, where they talked endlessly both about the group’s vision and about selecting music that worked for them — a musical repertoire with a traditional feel that is a fusion of styles, including Ladino, Sefardic, and Israeli elements that would expand over time. Ms. Berger compares Zamru’s music to what she was used to in the synagogue where she grew up. “I love the traditional melodies, but at times they feel very rote,” she says. “We were looking for something different to shake it up, something you felt good singing to and clapping to and was more engaging than a traditional service, where you go in, sit down, and the cantor sings traditional melodies you’ve been singing for your whole life.”
Mr. Nadel, Zamru’s guitarist, sees music as essential in a Jewish service, especially for Jews who do not go to synagogue regularly and are not familiar with Jewish texts. “Music is a key that allows people to enter into the kind of spirit of prayer or meditation or community or whatever they want to experience at a prayer service,” he says.
Mr. Edelman agrees. Summarizing the impact of Zamru, both as a creator of spirituality and of community, he says, “By creating a service where the focus is on the way the prayers flow and the way the music uplifts people and helps them feel they can participate and get active in the service — that creates an environment where everyone starts to feel connected and allows that inherent spirituality that we all have as part of us to grow.”
On the Web: www.zamru.org, www.princeton.edu/manna
