Musical History

A few days ago, I was traveling through the mountains of Pennsylvania. During my drive, I was listening to a radio station that was featuring one-hit wonders. Often, as I drive through the mountains, my radio will pop in and out of Christian radios stations. So, I wasn't shocked when I was suddenly listening to one of my all-time favorite songs from my Catholic high school days - The Lord's Prayer by Sister Janet Mead. I couldn't help but break out into glorious song. It was 3 minutes of unbridled joy for me - singing one of the songs of my youth. When the song ended, I was surprised that the station had not switched. The Lord's Prayer was one of the one-hit-wonders.

I love to sing. When I was teaching in a Catholic school, I learned to play guitar well enough that I could play the hymns at Mass. I led the singing in one of the schools, and I was the folk group leader in my parish each Sunday. My parents loved to sing in church as well. There was no mumbling the words in my family. You sang out strong, or you didn't sing at all. We believed in the axiom, "He who sings prays twice."

As a new mother, when my babies woke up in the middle of the night, the songs that came to mind as I rocked them back to sleep were always those I grew up with like Let There Be Peace on Earth, Hail Mary, Gentle Woman, The Prayer of Saint Frances, and The Lord's Prayer. I knew all of the words and the melodies. In the middle of the night, I had an internal debate. Did I sing these songs to my newborn babies? Was it wrong? Should I change the words? I was a Catholic mother singing to my newborn Jewish babies, struggling for the words to sing.

When my children grew into toddlers, we had new songs to sing - You Are My Sunshine, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and the songs from Disney Channel - Bear in the Big Blue House and Out of the Box. One of my most wonderful memories as a mom was a visit to the local mall to see the Playhouse Disney tour. I felt such a sense of camaraderie with the parents and children in that mall. We shared a common thread in our lives as parents; it gave me chills as we all sang the songs of our children's youth.

When my children were toddlers, my husband began to get more involved in our congregation. He offered to play the piano for services. In no time, he was composing liturgical music. So our home was filled with Shabbat music throughout the week. As he played more often, the songs and blessings became more a part of our daily lives than I ever imagined they would be. These were songs that, until a few years earlier, I had never heard. He knew every version from multiple Jewish movements - Reconstructionist, Reform, and, in some cases, Conservative and Orthodox. He could go into a congregation and sing along with almost any prayer. It was sort of like me being able to sing versions of Holy, Holy or Lamb of God from the 60's, 70's and 80's. Yet, I was still struggling to sing Lecha Dodi or the Shema. To this day, I still refer to the prayer book for the words.

This is the music I was hearing at home.

In my mind, I sent my preschoolers to a Jewish day school to provide them with a history that I couldn't give them. I wanted them to learn the songs and prayers that have meaning in Judaism. When they came home singing those songs, I realized that the lack of shared musical history was not a problem for my children; it was a problem for me. I was the one missing out, and I had no musical history to share.