Hava Nashira 2010

The 19^th Annual Song Leading and Music Conference, held at Olin Sang Ruby Union Institute in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.

This was my 16^th year attending this incredible event. Five days can feel like five weeks with so much music and programming jammed into each day. There were 230 participants from the United States, Canada, England and Israel. The participants are cantors, song leaders, music teachers, musicians, rabbis and educators and congregational lay leaders; all with a passion for music, education and Judaism.

The Faculty:

Peter and Ellen Allard, Merri Arian, Cantor Rosalie Boxt, Rabbi Ken Chasen, Cantor Ellen Dreskin, Joe Eglash, Eleanor Epstein, Debbie Friedman, Rabbi Noam Katz, Cantor Jeff Klepper, Shira Kline, Dan Nichols, Josh Nelson, Craig Taubman

The Program:

This year’s program offered a wide variety of choices and opportunities for learning and sharing in all aspects of musical leadership. There were 3 hour intensive sessions, 1 ½ hour elective sessions, choral singing, song leading led by the faculty and URJ song leaders from camps all over the country, and faculty composers concerts, during which the members of the faculty could share with us their latest original works. These are the sessions I attended.

Intensive sessions:

1. Music for Young Children and Families, led by Peter and Ellen Allard from Worcester, MA. Peter and Ellen are experts in the field of Early Childhood Education. This session focused primarily on Jewish music for Shabbat and holidays. All of the music presented was composed by Peter and Ellen. Their music and energy are infectious. You learn not only songs that teach children what being Jewish is all about, but through their explanations about what we are doing while we are singing the songs, you learn the rubrics of early childhood development. Through their music they help children with honing and developing skills such as cognitive, language, social/emotional, and physical development, and you don’t even realize you’re doing it until they point it out to you! And their music is just fun and incredibly accessible to all ages.

2. Breathing Life into Life Cycle Rituals, led by Cantor Rosalie Boxt from Kensington, MD. I may have been the only non-ordained person in this workshop. (The nametags I saw had Rabbi or Cantor at the beginning of them.) Cantor Boxt led us through her experiences in leading life-cycle events; wedding, Brit Milah, Bar and Bat Mitzvah and funeral ceremonies. She introduced many musical pieces and explained how you put them into the context of the ceremony. I came away a bit overwhelmed and with more resources than I may ever need in a lifetime. I’ve known Cantor Boxt since our first Hava Nashira together in 1994 when she was a camp song leader. I admire her growth as both a leader and an individual.

Elective sessions:

A. African Jewish Music, led by Rabbi Noam Katz from Thornhill Ontario Canada. Rabbi Katz has spent a lot of time in Uganda, working with the people in the Abayudaya Jewish community. The music he presented included original African music and also some of his own compositions written in the African style. I find the rhythmic intensity of this music exciting and mesmerizing. We sang songs in English, Hebrew and Luganda. There was plenty of drumming, clapping and stamping, and the music just reaches into you and makes you want to get up on your feet and move and sing. (Though I found the Luganda language a bit of a tongue-twister!) Rabbi Katz is an engaging, warm and inspiring teacher.

B. More Super Spectacular Secular Sometimes Silly Songs, led by Peter and Ellen Allard. Hoping to expand my repertoire of secular children’s music and just relax and have some fun, I again returned for more from the Allards. You don’t just sit in your chair for their sessions. And believe me, you don’t want to. They encourage (and sometimes demand) that you participate with your whole body, singing, dancing, clapping, jumping, getting down on the floor, using hand motions and body movements, all as a way of learning to involve and engage children with music. Baby Shark became and instant favorite and somewhat of an in-joke in subsequent song sessions. (I can’t wait for next year’s retreat!)

Worship Services:

Services at Hava Nashira are always an uplifting and highly spiritual experience. Morning services are led by participants. Shabbat and evening services are led by the faculty.

I went to an evening service on Thursday led by Cantor Ellen Dreskin and music specialist Shira Kline called “Exploring the Echad: Contemplative Prayer on One-ness”. This experiential spiritual service made use of some Buddhist texts and philosophy. It focused on the call and response element to Jewish prayer and making important connections to those praying with you.

Shabbat is a moving, renewing, reflective, emotional and rejuvenating experience at Hava Nashira. The services are incredibly spiritual, like nothing I’ve experienced anywhere else. I found myself moved to tears on more than one occasion. (When Debbie Friedman leads her Mi Shebeirach (prayer for healing) it’s always at least a three hanky moment) And the Havdalah service that ends Shabbat is truly expressive of its mystical origins.

My Contribution:

I participated in two sharing sessions, pre-school music and adult liturgical music. These sessions are facilitated by the participants.

In the pre-school music session I again shared my children’s prayer for healing, R’fuah Sh’leimah. This song is now published in “The Complete Jewish Songbook for Children, Vol. II”. I shared with the group the process of how the song went from concept to reality to getting selected for the compilation book and working with the editors of the book on the song’s content and meaning. (The way I originally wrote it and sing it, and the way it appears in the book are slightly different in wording, a compromise with the editors at Transcontinental Music Publications.)

In the adult liturgy sharing session I shared with the group Rabbi Andrea Cosnowsky’s composition of Etz Chaim Hi, written to commemorate our congregation’s 50^th anniversary this year.

I recorded over 160 new songs, reconnected with friends and colleagues, learned a few new tricks and refreshed my spirit. I am grateful to be a part of the entity that is the Hava Nashira community. And I thank my congregation for affording me the opportunity to attend this event that I find elemental and important to my own growth and development as a teacher and leader in my community.