Yesterday, my daughter discovered a pile of CDs in my car. She slid in Indigo Girls’ Closer to Fine, the soundtrack of my angst-filled 20s, and listened attentively. After playing the song over and over again, she started to croon in her eight-year-old soulful way:
I went to the doctor
I went to the mountain
I looked to the children
I drank from the fountain
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
I was reminded at that moment of the way that music holds the power to transport me to a different time, elevate my soul, and also connect me to my daughter. While she didn’t understand the meaning behind that song, when she hears it again when she is older she will. She might even find some comfort in it.
We can all find comfort and understanding in the lines of a song. With Yom Kippur coming up (the holiday begins at sundown Wednesday night, September 15th, and continues until nightfall September 16th), I find myself looking for ways to open my heart. Prayer is also called in Hebrew, avodah she’b-lev, the work of the heart. We need to prepare our hearts sometimes so that we can stand honestly and openly as we examine our lives and the people and parents we are and want to become.
One way I am doing that work these days is through music. I find myself playing more music in the car and around the house that relates to the themes of this holiday season – missing the mark, mending relationships and the potential that can lie in renewal.
For those children and parents who may feel distant from prayer, music and the poetic lyrics that accompany it can be a much-needed opening to help us prepare for Yom Kippur.
While my personal playlist contains mainly Israeli artists (and are in Hebrew), I have translated some key lines that move me. I have included some of my favorite English songs as well:
Look at me, give me a hand
I am one who is willing to change
Come and shine light on my days
A beautiful light, that also has been hidden for a million generations.
Ishay Ribo – Seder Ha-Avodah
(The Avodah service is the central service on Yom Kippur)
The priests and the nation would stand in the courtyard (of the Temple in Jerusalem)
When they would hear God’s name explicitly recited
By the High Priest
They would bow down and fall on their faces saying,
“Blessed is the name of God forever”
Shuli Rand – Ha-Neshama Yordet L’tokh Ha-Guf
The Soul Descends Deep within the Body
(from the Chabad tradition)
The soul descends deep within the body
It cries “Vay! Vay!”
This descent is for the purpose of elevation
Until everything is worthwhile
If you knew that you would die today
If you saw the face of God and Love
Would you change?
Would you change?
If you knew that love can break your heart
When you’re down so low you cannot fall
Would you change?
Would you change?
Leonard Cohen – Who by Fire?
(based on the Unataneh Tokef prayer recited on both Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur)
And who by fire, who by water
Who in the sunshine, who in the nighttime
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial
Who in your merry merry month of may
Who by very slow decay
And who shall I say is calling?
Ayeka Questions
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What traditional or secular songs move you most?
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Focus on one of the lyrics and repeat it like a mantra/prayer.
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Ask your children which lyric they like the best and share what is meaningful to you too.
On this day before Yom Kippur, I invite you to listen to more music, listen to it with your children, dance, sway and sing the lyrics that touch your heart the most.
When you find yourself in a prayer setting over the day ahead, you will be prepared to listen, dance, sway and sing the words of the prayers that stir your heart and may even propel you to live differently.
Warm wishes for a Gmar Hatima Tova, and so many blessings for the journey,
Dasee
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