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Overview"Singing God's Words is the first in-depth study of the experience and meaning of chanting or ""reading"" Torah among contemporary American Jews. This experience has been transformed dramatically in recent years by the impact of digital technology, feminism, the empowerment of lay people and a search for self-fulfillment through involvement with community. At a time when worshippers seek deeper spiritual experience, many Jews have found new meaning in the experience of reading Torah, an act that is broadly accessible to Jewish adults even as it requires intensive immersion with the text of the Bible in Hebrew.This book examines why and how growing numbers of American Jews in all denominations see the public chanting of Biblical texts during the synagogue service as one of the most authentic and personal expressions of their religious identity. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with men and women, both professionals and congregants, Jeffrey A. Summit describes how the reading of Torah embodies their understanding of historical religious practice, even as it is shaped by contemporary views of spiritual experience. Through this act, holiness becomes manifest at the intersection of Biblical chant, sacred text, the individual, and the community." Full Product DetailsAuthor: Jeffrey Summit (Assistant Professor of Music, Assistant Professor of Music, Tufts University)Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc Dimensions: Width: 15.50cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 23.40cm Weight: 0.454kg ISBN: 9780190497088ISBN 10: 0190497084 Pages: 304 Publication Date: 04 August 2016 Audience: General/trade , General Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: To order  Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us. Table of Contents1. Introduction PART I The Tradition 2. Chanting Torah 3. The Torah Service and the Re-creation of Revelation 4. Performing Community PART II The Individual and the Experience of Chanting Torah 5. Singing Your Way into Sacred Space 6. The Same Act: Many Levels of Experience 7. Women Reading Torah PART III The Performance 8. The Power of Music in the Transmission of Torah 9. Music and the Interpretation of Meaning PART IV Torah and Technology 10. The Transmission of Tradition in a Digital Age 11. Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index Appendix: Musical Notation and Graphic Symbols of Torah TropeReviewsScholar, teacher, person of faith-Jeffrey Summit welcomes readers to the spiritual world made resonant through singing God's words. Vast as that world is, Summit draws together its farthest reaches and its most intimate moments, revealing the center that forms around the chanting of the Torah. Philip V. Bohlman, Mary Werkman Distinguished Service Professor of Music and the Humanities, The University of Chicago, and author of Jewish Music and Modernity (OUP, 2008) With Jeffrey Summit as an expert and sensitive guide, the reader travels a pathway to understanding the public chanting of the Bible as both sacred text and spiritual experience among American Jews. A most impressive exploration of a fast-changing religious world. Kay Kaufman Shelemay, G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music, Harvard University Singing God's Words is an important and unique contribution to the study of cantillation, the art of chanting the Hebrew Bible. Jeffrey Summit delivers an insightful narrative that will engage musicians and sociologists, Jews and non-Jews, professionals and laypersons alike. Professor Joshua Jacobson, author of Chanting the Hebrew Bible Scholar, teacher, person of faith-Jeffrey Summit welcomes readers to the spiritual world made resonant through singing God's words. Vast as that world is, Summit draws together its farthest reaches and its most intimate moments, revealing the center that forms around the chanting of the Torah. --Philip V. Bohlman, Mary Werkman Distinguished Service Professor of Music and the Humanities, The University of Chicago, and author of Jewish Music and Modernity (OUP, 2008) With Jeffrey Summit as an expert and sensitive guide, the reader travels a pathway to understanding the public chanting of the Bible as both sacred text and spiritual experience among American Jews. A most impressive exploration of a fast-changing religious world. --Kay Kaufman Shelemay, G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music, Harvard University Singing God's Words is an important and unique contribution to the study of cantillation, the art of chanting the Hebrew Bible. Jeffrey Summit delivers an insightful narrative that will engage musicians and sociologists, Jews and non-Jews, professionals and laypersons alike. --Professor Joshua Jacobson, author of Chanting the Hebrew Bible Singing God's Words is an important and unique contribution to the study of cantillation, the art of chanting the Hebrew Bible. Jeffrey Summit delivers an insightful narrative that will engage musicians and sociologists, Jews and non-Jews, professionals and laypersons alike. * Professor Joshua Jacobson, author of Chanting the Hebrew Bible * With Jeffrey Summit as an expert and sensitive guide, the reader travels a pathway to understanding the public chanting of the Bible as both sacred text and spiritual experience among American Jews. A most impressive exploration of a fast-changing religious world. * Kay Kaufman Shelemay, G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music, Harvard University * Scholar, teacher, person of faith-Jeffrey Summit welcomes readers to the spiritual world made resonant through singing God's words. Vast as that world is, Summit draws together its farthest reaches and its most intimate moments, revealing the center that forms around the chanting of the Torah. * Philip V. Bohlman, Mary Werkman Distinguished Service Professor of Music and the Humanities, The University of Chicago, and author of Jewish Music and Modernity (OUP, 2008) * The author attends to a wide spectrum of practicing Jews, from those of the seeker-centered renewal movement to the more orthopraxic members of Chabad. Though Summit has a sharp eye for the sociological, he never loses sight of how chanting Torah provides contemporary Jews with spiritual experiencesallowing them to make personal connections through public intimacy with their sacred text. * G. Spinner, Choice * Jeffery A. Summit has produced a masterful analysis of contemporary synagogue practice, offering insights into how Torah chant is performed and how it is understood by chanters, scholars, and worshippers. It is a major contribution to the understanding of a significant ritual in contemporary Judaism across denominational lines ... Singing Gods Words has broad implications for those interested in Jewish continuity. It is a must read for scholars of ritual practice, congregational rabbis, and those interested in the future of the Jewish community in America. * Peter Knobel, H-Judaic * [T]he book remains a valuable source for documenting the transitions undergoing Ashkenazi Jewries in North America. It is the story of liberal congregations struggling to make the performance of Jewish identity through Torah chanting more accessible while being confronted with the standardization of Torah chant, the transition from literal to postliteral traditions (new means of orality that render musical notation superfluous), and new hallakhic challenges resulting from women's increasing involvement in what are still continuously evolving performances. * Notes * Scholar, teacher, person of faith-Jeffrey Summit welcomes readers to the spiritual world made resonant through singing God's words. Vast as that world is, Summit draws together its farthest reaches and its most intimate moments, revealing the center that forms around the chanting of the Torah. --Philip V. Bohlman, Mary Werkman Distinguished Service Professor of Music and the Humanities, The University of Chicago, and author of Jewish Music and Modernity (OUP, 2008) With Jeffrey Summit as an expert and sensitive guide, the reader travels a pathway to understanding the public chanting of the Bible as both sacred text and spiritual experience among American Jews. A most impressive exploration of a fast-changing religious world. --Kay Kaufman Shelemay, G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music, Harvard University Singing God's Words is an important and unique contribution to the study of cantillation, the art of chanting the Hebrew Bible. Jeffrey Summit delivers an insightful narrative that will engage musicians and sociologists, Jews and non-Jews, professionals and laypersons alike. --Professor Joshua Jacobson, author of Chanting the Hebrew Bible Author InformationJeffrey A. Summit is Research Professor in the Department of Music and Judaic Studies at Tufts University, where he also serves as rabbi and Neubauer Executive Director of Tufts Hillel. He is the author of The Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Music and Identity in Contemporary Jewish Worship (OUP). His CD Abayudaya: Music from the Jewish People of Uganda was nominated for a Grammy Award. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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