Writing on Water: The Sounds of Jewish Prayer

282 Pages·2018·17.392 MB·English

by  Judit Niran Frigyesi

“Reading Judit Niran’s book is a unique intellectual, emotional and J Writing on Water is an attempt to grasp
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spiritual experience. She combines the scientist’s erudition and analytical the phenomenon of sound in prayer, that
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approach, deep empathy, and a nuanced, eye-opening and moving poetic i is: a meaning in sounds and soundscapes,
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language. Through her writing, she is able to probe into layers of reality N and a musical essence in the act of pray-
which are inaccessible to reason or emotion alone.” ing. Th e impetus for the book was the
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—Michael Mertes, German author and translator; ra Writing on Water author’s fieldwork among traditional
n Jews during the era of communism in Bu-
political advisor to Helmut Kohl, 1987–98;
F dapest and Prague. In that era the Jewish
Head of Israel Office, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 2011–14
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i religion and Jewishness in general were
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Photo: Dr. Marianna Graf y The Sounds of Jewish Prayer supressed; the rituals were semi-secret
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and became inward-turning. Th e book is
Judit Niran Frigyesi is a musicologist, “Jews sometimes refer to the place where we go when we die as oylem si
a witness to these communities and their
ethnomusicologist, writer, and teacher, haemes, the true world. This book is a fragment of that true world, a love W rituals, but it goes beyond documenta-
associate professor of Bar Ilan and Tel song to the tough, fragile, difficult and real people who remembered the
r tion. Th e uniqueness of the sounds of
Aviv Universities. Her research focuses melodies Judit Niran Frigyesi sought to capture decades ago. It balances i
t the rituals compelled the author to try to
on 19th- and 20th-century music and lit- memory and loss almost perfectly. For me, it was a bit of comfort i
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comprehend how melodies and sound-
erature, the music of Béla Bartók, ritual amidst the whirlwind.” g
scapes became the sustaining/protective
musics outside of the European tradition, o
—Jonathan Boyarin, Thomas and Diann Mann Professor of Modern n environment, as well as the vehicle, for
and the prayer chant of Ashkenazi Jews.
Jewish Studies, Cornell University W the expression of a world-orientation.
Her artistic works include: short stories,
poems, photographs and photo-montag- a Th e book is based on extensive inter-
t views, musical recordings, photographs
es, fi lm and multi-media. e
“Judit Niran’s book is beyond the scope of questions. I mean by this that r and scholarly analyses. It is unique in its

although one could speak about it like a work of literature, of visual art, Th choice of communities, its wealth of orig-

of documentation, ethnography or musicological discourse, at every point e Judit Niran Frigyesi inal documents, and in its novel interpre-
of the writing, its author penetrates her themes—or rather dimensions or S tation of sound.
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spheres—so deeply that there remains no space for everyday journalistic u
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questions… There is a special atmosphere around this text. It is as if an air d
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of the sacred would hover over its lines.” o
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—András Forgách, writer e
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Central European University Press
Budapest – New York
Sales and information: [email protected]
Website: http://www.ceupress.com
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Judit Niran Frigyesi
Writing on Water
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Judit Niran Frigyesi
Writing on Water
Th e Sounds of Jewish Prayer
Budapest–New York
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© by Judit Frigyesi Niran, 2018
photos ©Judit Niran, 2014
Originally published in 2014 as Jelek a vizen by Libri Kiadó
Published in 2018 by
Central European University Press
Nádor utca 11, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary
Tel: [phone] or 327-3000
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.ceupress.com
224 West 57th Street, New York NY 10019, USA
Tel: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the permission of the Publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Frigyesi, Judit, author.
Title: Writing on water : the sound of Jewish prayer / Judit Niran Frigyesi.
Other titles: Jelek a vizen. English | Sound of Jewish prayer
Description: New York : Central European University Press, [2018]
Identifi ers: LCCN 2017048944 | ISBN 9789633862575 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Jews—Europe, Central—Interviews. | Oral tradition—Europe, Central. | Orthodox Judaism—
Europe, Central—History—20th century. | Judaism—Europe, Central—Customs and practices. | Judaism—
Sudy and teaching—Europe, Central. | Jews—Europe, Central—Music. | Music—Performance—Europe,
Central—20th century. | Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)—Europe, Central. | Communism—Europe,
Central—History—20th century.
Classifi cation: LCC DS135.E83 F7413 2018 | DDC 296.4/509439—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.
loc.gov/20170489440
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Preface
Th is book is an attempt to grasp the meaning of sound in prayer. I became fi rst aware
of the tremendous importance of sound in prayer, and possibly in all human spiri-
tual expression, during my research among traditional Jewish communities of Eastern
Europe. Th e Sounds of Jewish Prayer in the subtitle of this book refers to the sounds
of these communities. For these traditional Jews, it was an unspoken axiom that the
essence of existence (of God) cannot be grasped by words and logic but only by the
heart. Th ese people lived by a philosophy of the heart.
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Philosophy is the study or contemplation of the fundamental nature of reality and
existence. Th e word φιλοσοφία means “love of wisdom” or “friend of wisdom”—per-
haps there was an emotional element embedded in the name at the birth of the dis-
cipline. In the course of the centuries, however, philosophy—at least Western phi-
losophy—developed its method by using a systematic approach, rational language,
argumentation and logic.
But what happens when we realize that logic, rationality and words do not lead us to
the understanding of the fundamental nature of existence? What happens when we real-
ize that the human mind is unable to grasp, through logic and arguments, the essential
nature of concepts such as eternity, infi nity, nothingness, soul and death? Eternity and
death cannot be understood; they can only be felt (or thought to be felt) through sensa-
tions. But we do have sensations—even a child can experience the fear of death.
In the culture of traditional Jews in Eastern Europe, words and arguments had enor-
mous prestige. Yet at the same time, there was the tacit understanding that the essence
of existential phenomena lies beyond words. And more: if the believer is not capable of
transcending the rational and logical meaning of words, then words become a barrier to
the higher reality that he or she is trying to reach.
It appears to be the consensus in many cultures that in order to grasp the existential
phenomena our sensations hint at, one needs to arrive at a transcendental state. Tran-
scendental states can be achieved by a variety of techniques and take on the most diverse
forms within religious rituals. East European Jews had their own unique ways.
Could the anthropologist, who, as it often happens, becomes “half-native,” con-
vey anything of this experience? Should she translate an experience impossible to ver-
balize and systematize into the language of systems, logic and words? Most scholars
would answer this question in the affi rmative. Yet many of us suff er from the demand
of scholarship to clarify what is not possible to clarify and to systematize what is not
possible to systematize. I collapsed under the weight of this demand. I began to feel
that by sticking to the rules of scholarly writing, I betrayed the people who entrusted
me with their music, culture, thoughts and philosophy. My scholarly writing failed to
transmit what was most important to the practitioners of these rituals: the poetics in the
sound of prayer.
Th e French philosopher Gaston Bachelard opens his work Th e Poetics of Space with
the following lines: “A philosopher who has evolved his entire thinking from the fun-
vi
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damental themes of the philosophy of science, and followed the main line of the […]
growing rationalism of contemporary science as closely as he could, must forget his
learning and break with all his habits of philosophical research, if he wants to study the
problems posed by the poetic imagination. For here […] the long day-in, day-out eff ort
of putting together and constructing his thoughts is ineff ectual. One must be receptive,
receptive to the image at the moment it appears: if there be a philosophy of poetry, it
must appear and reappear through a signifi cant verse, in total adherence to an isolated
image; to be exact, in the very ecstasy of the newness of the image […] [Th e poetic
image] emerges into the consciousness as a direct product of the heart, soul and being
of man, apprehended in his actuality.”
I was dealing with the poetic imagination. It was the poetic imagination that created
the terrain and the paths that led towards grasping existential problems. I experienced
atmospheres, colors, sounds, and melodies, and in spite of the fact that this was not
poetry in the narrow sense of the word, these were “poetic images.” Th e sounds of the
ritual aff ected only those who were receptive “in total adherence to an isolated image
(sound) […] in the very ecstasy of the image (sound),” in the moment of their emer-
gence “into the consciousness as a direct product of the heart, soul and being of man,
apprehended in his actuality.”
At some point during my research, poetic fragments began to infi ltrate my writing,
parallel to or sometimes replacing the scholarly formulations of my subject. Simple fac-
tual details of my observations took on metaphorical meaning. My writing gradually be-
came a journey toward a poetic language that echoed and emulated the spiritual poetic
sound-milieu it attempted to describe.
Th e spirituality of the sound I lived through in the Jewish prayer compelled me to
move beyond it. Over the years, my research has become the search for an understand-
ing of an essence in sound and an essence in prayer. What matters to me is not the spe-
cifi c functions of elements within the framework of formal religion, but a fundamental
human experience: the soul’s journey toward the sensation of what is incomprehensible
and inexpressible in our existence.
Of course, it is impossible to compose an entire book merely of poetic images, and
there are numerous sections of straightforward, sometimes even humorous prose that
recount events. But mainly, this text is a series of prose poems, and the images are met-
aphors for the music through which I descended to the depths of prayer. Th e tone of
vii
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poetic imagery is set already with the motto (“… Th e taste of river. Behind the wall an
old man prays …”) and by the fi rst scene: “‘You have not seen anything yet. Come to-
morrow at a quarter to seven.’ I prepare my coff ee in the dark. My parents and brother
are asleep. Th e street’s morning tumult is muted by the wall of water around my senses,
as if what I was about to hear were already protecting me.”
Th e reader will discover multiple meanings and themes in these sentences, which
reoccur throughout the book. Th e “wall,” the prayer from “behind the wall” (or “behind
the curtain”), dawn and darkness, the enigmatic invitation for an early morning gath-
ering, the sense of an invisible protective padding, water and the “wall of water”—these
are metaphors for the soundscapes and atmospheres of the prayer houses. Th ese sound-
scapes penetrated all corners of everyday life, theirs and mine, and it was precisely this
penetration that gave them meaning.
I am embarrassed and reluctant to write what I have just written, because the imag-
es were not constructed logically, nor were their metaphorical meanings planned, and
I feel that it may be wrong to explain them the way I have done above. I often only
realized such meanings after my readers noticed them: the above analysis is from one
of my reviewers, to whom I am indebted for her observations. At the time of writing
I did not think of metaphors and connections. I wrote the fi rst version of this text in a
trance, while colors vibrated around me, and the space of the synagogues resounded in
my head. I was inside an atmosphere, as I was during those years when I carried out the
core of this research.
Everything in this book happened—nothing has been invented for the sake of poet-
ry. Apart from skipping a few details, I have altered nothing in the course of the events.
Similarly, the photographs were taken at the places I describe in the book. All the char-
acters are real and most of the texts I attribute to them are transcriptions, sometimes
word for word, in translation, from the tapes I recorded. Th e poetic aspect concerns the
form and the style, not the content.
It is possible to read this book only for the information it contains. But readers in-
terested only in facts and technical analyses will fi nd much of the text to be fanciful
digressions from the subject. Many parts were sketched originally as poems or as poetic
prose. I hope I have succeeded in molding these fragments into a story, but the end re-
sult is still, and is intentionally, like a succession of short stories. Th ey could be read in
themselves, and perhaps even out of order.
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I would like to ask the reader to suspend the expectations one has when dealing with
a scholarly text, and read this book as if it were poetry—poetry that transmits knowl-
edge. I ask this because, paraphrasing Bachelard, the day-in, day-out eff ort of construct-
ing a logical system proved to be ineff ectual for the author of this book. In dealing with
the subject of her study, she could not but follow the call of the imagination, reliving
the ecstasy of a new poetic image in each sound.
I thank you for opening this book and hope that you will enjoy what it tells you.
Judit Niran Frigyesi
ix
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