Spirituality

Your People Will Be My People (Ruth)

Ruth 1:16-18 Composition, lyrics and audio © Alexander Massey, 9 Nov 2011 BUY the sheet music (solo & pno) – $4.95 BUY the sheet music (duet & pno) – $6.75 (3 copies @ $2.25) Vatomeir Rut al-tifgi-bi, l’azveich lashuv meiachara’ich: ki el asher teilchi eileich, uva’asher talini alin – ameich ami, veilohayich elohai; ba’asher tamuti …

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Yedid Nefesh

Composition and audio © Alexander Massey 2011 BUY the sheet music (1 or 2 vces & pno) – $4.95 The poem of Yedid Nefesh is usually attributed to the 16th century kabbalist Rabbi Elazar Ben Azikri, although he never claimed authorship. The text is often sung at Kabbalat Shabbat, the service bringing in Shabbat on …

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Tree of Life Nigun

Composition and audio © Alexander Massey 4 May 2007 BUY the sheet music (lead sheet, optional pno part) – $1.95 This nigun was written to mirror the movement of the angels on Jacob’s ladder, ascending and descending between earth and heaven (Gen 28:10-19). I originally thought of the melody spanning 10 pitches (B to D), …

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Before we ever said hello

In Lev. 10, Aaron’s two sons are consumed by fire, and die. There is a cryptic sentence in the text: “Vayidom Aharon.” This is often translated as ‘Aaron was silent’, or ‘Aaron held his peace.’ But neither of these does justice to the Hebrew verb, which really means, ‘Aaron was struck dumb / became still’. Rabbi …

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