Chanting has a long history in several religious traditions. We have evidence that Jewish mystical masters incorporated chanting as part of their meditative and healing practices. Niggunim, wordless (usually) songs used in prayer and celebration differ somewhat from chants. Chants are simpler and more repetitive, with easily recited words designed to help the chanter to focus on a short sacred phrase often taken from liturgy. The chant is repeated until the group feels it is time to move to the next. Many chants have two or more parts that blend together in a round-like way. The chanter may repeat a single part (relying on others to chant the other parts), or may alternate between parts in order or at random. Drums are used by some groups, and can add greatly to the intensity of the experience. The silence following a chant possesses great power, and should not be disturbed.

I have recorded a few chants. I did not compose these, but I invite you to learn them so that we may chant them together on shabbat morning. Some were composed by Rabbi Shefa Gold, a leader in Jewish chanting.

Click here to go to her website:(http://www.rabbishefagold.com/) and
here (http://www.rabbishefagold.com/OnChant.html) to go to her page on chanting.

She also offers some audio files of phrases from the psalm for the day here: http://www.rabbishefagold.com/PsalmsPractice.html.  Learning them may help your own individual prayer practice (indeed, our tradition teaches that any moment one feels inspired to pray is an 'Eit ratzon', a favorable time to speak with the One), so one need not be in shul or even in a group to use these chants.Rabbi Goldie Milgram offers some tips on using chanting as a personal spiritual practice on her website http://www.rebgoldie.com/chanting.htm . However, Judaism has always valued group prayer over individual prayer, and these chants help to create an introspective and deep individual mood as well to establish a powerful group experience when sung together.

As Rabbi Gold writes: "The practice of chanting cultivated in me a garden of devotion, yearning, joy and vision- reminders of my connection to God. Gradually I became familiar with the wide range of mind-states which the chants engendered. I was drawn especially to the ecstatic states which were both healing and empowering. At some point in my training I became less attached to those ecstatic states, and began to notice the silence which followed the chant. I felt myself drawn into that silence. I had known that the chant was a doorway, but before I really understood the invitation of the silence, I had not really entered."

The recordings are .mp4 files and should be playable on most recent media players including Apple's iTunes, QuickTime player, and others. you may download them and save them on your computer, or play them directly from the website. I have added my own comments to a few of the chants. Enjoy!

- Jeremy Golding BI Ritual Committee Chair.