Shavuot and World Jewry’s Poetic Revelations

Whenever Jews need to sanctify time, we use three things: wine, text, and song. Even if we always partake of the same dusty bottle of boiled-down Manischewitz every Friday night, it is the combination of familiar voices, familiar words, and Louis Lewandowski’s familiar melody that brings Shabbat in to us. On one particular Friday night about seven weeks ago, at Seder tables across the globe, Jewish voices welcomed both Shabbat and Passover with slightly different words, using a slightly different melody. And on this coming Saturday night, they will adapt those Passover words and melody to usher in the holiday of Shavuot, celebrating the revelation of Torah.

LOOK
http://bit.ly/Kiddush_Shavuot_MT (Mishkan T’filah)

LISTEN
http://bit.ly/Kiddush_Shavuot (Traditional, JB)

The descending series of notes on the words asher bachar banu mikol am (“who chose us from all peoples”) has become the traditional leitmotif Jews use to chant the Kiddush on all Three Festivals: Shavuot, Passover, and Sukkot. But our ancestors associated that motif with Shavuot alone, as it was first used to chant a 90-line liturgical poem (Hebrew: piyut) written by Rabbi Meir ben Yitzchak in Worms, Germany nearly one thousand years ago. Rabbi Meir wrote his piyut in Aramaic, the Hebrew vernacular of the day, beginning with the words Akdamut milin v’sharayut shuta, “Before I begin to read the words [of the Ten Commandments].” And to this day, we use Rabbi Meir’s opening word - Akdamut - to describe this distinctive melody.

LOOK
http://bit.ly/akdamut_text (Aramaic/Hebrew)
http://bit.ly/akdamut_eng (English)

LISTEN
http://youtu.be/XSatAdSCqq8 (Eliyahu Schleifer)
http://bit.ly/akdamut_1 (Arie Goldberg & Avraham Hoizman)
http://bit.ly/akdamut_2 (Gershon Kanai)

Whereas other piyutim are sung by Jews all over the world, Akdamut is particular to Ashkenazim alone because of the circumstances in which it was composed. According to folklore, 11th century Worms (the heart of medieval Ashkenaz) was ravaged not just by the Crusades, but also by an evil black monk-sorcerer. In the days leading up to Shavuot, the Jews beseeched Rabbi Meir to summon the mighty Dan (leader of a Lost Tribe of Israel) to vanquish the monk, and he did so by reciting Akdamut. In gratitude, the Jewish community of Worms added it to their Shavuot Torah liturgy just before the 1st aliyah.

At the same time as Ashkenaz was besieged by crusades, Sepharad - Spain - was enjoying an unprecedented period of cross-cultural, cross-religious creativity, thanks to the many Christians and Muslims in its midst. The 11th century Sephardic Rabbi David ibn Bakoda composed Amon Yom Zeh (“Trust in this day”) as his community’s own allusion to the Ten Commandments. Unlike Akdamut, Amon Yom Zeh contains much briefer stanzas, each one ending in the Divine epithet Elohim. And although it is impossible to pinpoint with certainty the most “authentic” way to sing it, today’s many Sephardic communities have adopted ibn Bakoda’s words to the indigenous music of the locales in which they came to live.

LOOK
http://bit.ly/amon_text (Hebrew)
http://bit.ly/amon_eng (English)

LISTEN
http://youtu.be/0E28iFM_zso?t=11s (Aleppo [Syria], Yaakov ben Avraham Yekutiel)
http://bit.ly/amon_yemen (Yemen, Nissim Matari)
http://bit.ly/amon_greece (Greece, Haim Borbolis)
http://bit.ly/amon_persia (Iran, Tuvia Nagari)

For us as progressive American Jews, many of whom have little to no experience with Shavuot, what are we to make of these poetic traditions from far-away lands? Do they reveal anything relevant to the way we celebrate the holiday? I suggest that they can and they do. We do not lack for ways to sing of Torah, nor do we need much of an excuse to sanctify with wine. And so I suggest that Mipi Eil, another piyut of Sephardic origin, one much simpler and more familiar than Amon Yom Zeh, might marry the Akdamut tune in our Kiddush for Shavuot:

LISTEN
http://bit.ly/mipi_jlem (Jerusalem, Moshe Ner Gaon)

“By the mouth of God, all Israel is blessed. None are as mighty as ADONAI, as blessed as [Moses] the son of Amram, as great as Torah, or as inquiring as Israel.” In preparing to bless the great Revelation at Sinai, may we, the people Israel, continue inquiring with all our might, ever gaining in wisdom from our friends and neighbors in the larger Jewish community.

For more on these and other Shavuot piyutim, visit http://bit.ly/ACC_NWK_Shavuot (Cantor Breitzer’s Dropbox) and http://bit.ly/piyutei_shavuot (“Invitation to Piyut,” www.piyut.org.il).