From the Editor: Music as a Way to Tiferet

Charlotte Jewish News, June/July 2022

Shira Firestone, Editor CJN

I took an unusual amount of interest in one of the stories we’ve featured in this month’s issue of The Charlotte Jewish News — the story about the Violins of Hope, a collection of violins with connections to the Holocaust. After experiencing something I couldn’t put into words (then or now) at the community Yom HaShoah Commemoration, I went down the rabbit hole researching the Violins of Hope, which were featured in a concert as part of the event. I read two books, interviewed six individuals, watched dozens of videos.

I’m still not sure why I became so engrossed. I hold season tickets to the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra; I’ve been a lover of orchestral music for as long as I can remember; I was married to the concertmaster of our symphony back in Washington. But never have I been unable to stop thinking about a concert for weeks following the performance.

It is true, these instruments are unique, with complex and chilling histories. But it is more than that. Having the opportunity to see them as artifacts, under glass, is in itself a moving experience, but once they are played, it is as if those who once owned them slowly make their presence known — whispering in your ear. The violins, through their melodies, give voice to their stories. And not just their Holocaust stories or their survival stories, which may be part of all of us in some way, but also the stories that are intimately universal — the stories we all have of joy, fear, and love. This is what music can do.

Of a piece she was listening to, writer Charon Houri said, “The music triggered feelings that I wasn’t familiar with. The melodies were absorbed through my veins, and the beat pierced my soul. But what is behind the power of music? What makes it so undeniably irresistable to the gates of the soul?”

In my experience the answer lies in music’s ability to transcend our illusion of separateness. For those moments when we’re immersed, we experience ourselves as part of a collective. We have a deep encounter with the ineffable.

You may think I’m being a bit hyperbolic. I readily admit, that is not my experience when I listen to “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” no matter how much of a Beatles fan I am.

But think about the Kol Nidre, or Avinu Malkeinu. Especially if you don’t speak Hebrew, you’ll know what I mean. They are melodies we can embody. We experience them at a level beyond cognition.

When I tell people that I sing (I used to be the music director of our synagogue), they say, “What a coincidence! Your parents must have been prescient to name you Shira,” (which means song in Hebrew).

I tell them that my name did not set me on the course to have my mystical connection to music, but that it was the other way around. I wasn’t born with the name Shira. It was a name I stepped into (some would say “chose”) later in life. And it was the Sh’ma that set me on the course toward my true name.

Sitting in the back of a synagogue for the first time I heard — no I experienced — the Sh’ma. Stephen Merritt, my favorite male vocalist who later became one of my dearest friends, led the melody from the front on the bimah, and congregants wrapped me in it from all sides. I’d never heard a word of Hebrew, (I was intimidated when they greeted me with “Shabbat Shalom” at the door), but I could have told you exactly what the words meant.

From that moment forward, I followed the path that led me to my name. When I told Rabbi Ted the Hebrew name I’d chosen for my conversion, he said he already knew. I had always been Shira.

I remember a Yom Kippur years later, when I was the one leading the Sh’ma. I opened my eyes and saw all the eyes of the congregation looking at me. I didn’t understand why. This wasn’t about me. It wasn’t meant to be a performance. It seems a butterfly had flown in and landed on my shoulder. It stayed there throughout the melody, and when I was done, it departed. I like to think of him as a spiritual traveler, called by the melody, who stopped to join us during a shared recognition of Oneness. Because that is what music can do.

Shira