Stories from Joey Weisenberg’s Rising Song Singing Intensive
Post by Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
This week I am attending Hadar’s Rising Song Intensive in Manhattan. This gathering is described by the Hadar Institute as …”an experiential week that offers the opportunity to explore and cultivate the underpinnings of empowered music and prayer community…. This year’s intensive will explore the richness of poetry and song’s intersection in Jewish prayer. From ancient psalms to medieval piyyut, from the liturgy of the sages to the poetry of the kabbalists, we’ll integrate these spiritual sources into our musical present and future, through creative practice, skill cultivation, deep study, and communal song.” All this fancy language conceals what the intensive really is. 3 and ½ days of nearly continuous inspired communal singing with 200 strangers (and some friends) who love to sing and pray together.
I have been coming to the singing intensive many times over the past decade. I love the teaching of Joey Weisenberg, the intensive leader. He combines a deep liturgical knowledge with a high level of musicianship, brilliant song writing, and a gift of being able to read the room and to bring people together through participatory song. He is one of the main inspirations behind the founding of Shabbat with Friends and our musical Shabbat gatherings.
The people who attend are fascinating and have wonderful stories. At the first session I spotted from afar two dear friends, Stan and Carla, sitting at the opposite side of the singing circle. I was their matchmaker on a Shabbat afternoon in Seattle over 30 years ago. Stan was already a close friend who was visiting Seattle for the weekend from California. Earlier in the week, my wife and I had heard from another friend in New York City who asked us to invite to our Shabbat table, Carla, a daughter of her friend who was on a summer program in Seattle.
Carla joined us and together we had Shabat lunch after services in our home. As was our custom, we began to sing Zemirot (Shabbat table melodies). I knew Stan loved to sing, but Carla was conversant in the Shabbat traditions and loved singing as well. The harmonizing was so wonderful that we sang for 3 hours straight.
My wife leaned over to me after this marathon and said, “I think they are falling for each other.” We decided to offer them our Buick Skylark as Shabbat ended so they could go out on a date. When they came back later that night, Stan asked if he could borrow the car to go with Carla to the Olympic National Park, a half day drive from Seattle. Of course, we said yes. The rest is history. I officiated at their wedding a couple years later. We have remained life-long friends, but I did not know they were coming to the intensive.
When I spotted them singing at the opening session of the intensive, I thought to myself, “Of course, they would be here since from the very beginning I knew they loved to sing." We hugged and kissed and recalled that beautiful summer day around our Shabbat table when they first met. As we were hugging, Rebecca, one of their children, called her mom who handed over the phone to me. She cracked me up by thanking me for contributing to her existence
Shira-Song as it is practiced in this wonderful gathering is a prayer of profound connection, not only to other people, but to God. I find this gathering to be the most spiritually powerful and beautiful Jewish gatherings that I have ever attended. That is why I come back, year after year after year and find dear friends and make new ones through the bond of song.
RDG
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