A Legacy of Song

The Jewish community lost a remarkable presence today. Debbie Friedman died early this morning.

Debbie has always been a presence in my life. Even before I met her in person at OSRUI in 1991, her music had a deep impact on my connection to prayer and Jewish life. 

But tonight, as I put my kids to bed, I realized her most lasting impact on my life.

Each night, we sing a bedtime Shema.

We sing Debbie's Shema.

And then, upon further reflection, I realized that we sing the Alef-Bet Song almost every morning.

And Havdalah each week. And I know that there are many many more...

Talk about a legacy. My kids will always know her, even without her physically present.

May her memory be for a blessing.
She will not be forgotten.

How Good {Review & Giveaway}

I'm a big fan of Craig Taubman. Not just because I think he's a cool guy, but because I really like a lot of his music and also the cool projects he gets involved in, like the Jewels of Elul. (P.S. on his website right now, there's a free download of the month and it's one of my favorite of Craig's songs, so go check that out.)

So when I was given a chance to review his new CD, of course I said yes!

The new CD is called "How Good" and it was written as a companion CD to a new siddur from Behrman House. (I did not receive the siddur for review, but I ordered one and I'll let ya know what I think when it arrives. The siddur is billed for children ages 5-10 and their parents, which I tried to think about as I listened to the CD, too.)

The CD jacket bills itself as "14 original melodies" for the new siddur. This means that (I think) some of them are new versions of some of Craig's familiar standbys. I really like the new additions to Adonai S'fatai - an English verse that helps to illuminate the meaning and purpose of this line of prayer. (I'm not sure I'll be able to use the new part effectively in a service, but it's nice for learning and singing along in the car.) I also liked Rise Up and Acceptable...and my husband and I were groovin' along to Out of Zion, which had a great beat! Craig's earlier Romemu has become pretty standard synagogue fare, but I really liked the new version on this CD!

I didn't love every track, but it had enough gems to keep me listening all the way through. Plus, I do think that some of Craig's music is perfect for tefillah (services) when adapted - sometimes I'll take out the English parts and just do the Hebrew, or just the chorus. But for listening, most of it was really nice.

Overall, I would recommend this CD as a great addition to any Jewish listening library!


I'm giving it away...would you like to have this CD for your very own? Leave me a comment, I'll choose one lucky reader by random drawing to win it. I'll post the winner on Friday...so you have until then to leave me a comment and tell your friends!

Reunion by Julie Silver - Review & Giveaway

I just want to start off by saying that I earned this CD.

Julie Silver, a sweet-voiced gem of a singer, is also pretty lively on Twitter and Facebook these days. And during a presenation I made at the recent URJ Biennial, she dared me to pinch the cheek of one of my co-presenters. She told me she'd give me a CD if I did it. How could I refuse!? After all, it was for you, my dear readers, so I could offer up this giveaway. So, in the spirit of full disclosure: I earned this CD and now I'm giving it away to one of you, lucky readers. See below for how to be entered to win.

 

Julie's CD is lovely. It's a pleasant and heart-warming mixture of liturgical music and what other reviews call "story-songs" (I just love the sound of that phrase....I want to tell story-songs!).

My favorite track is Halleluyah, a rendering of Psalm 150, is singable and lively - definitely a new favorite for me! I love how she mixes personal words in English with the prayerful words of Yih'yu l'ratzon and looks for shelter in a re-telling of part of the Hashkivenu prayer.

One of the most interesting songs on the album is Where Am I? This song puts into words the struggle that so many women feel when they read Torah - how can I find myself in these stories that for generations have left me out? How can I respond to statements that the Torah makes like "If a man should make a promise, his word must never fail/if a woman makes a vow to God, the same does not hold true/Her husband or her father must decide what she should do..."? Julie asks the question but doesn't really give an answer - and as she says at the end of the song - "surely this is what our tradition's all about" - we seek answers that we haven't yet found.

Each time I listen to the album, I find a new treasure in Julie's words and music.

It's available to buy here at SoundsWrite but it's a smidge less expensive to download from Amazon.

So...you know you want this CD. Of course you can buy it somewhere else, but you can also WIN IT here!

Leave a comment and make sure I know how to get a hold of you if you win.

Winner will be chosen on Tuesday, December 22nd. Tell your friends!
Extra entry for tweeting but YOU MUST LEAVE A SEPARATE COMMENT to tell me about your tweets, pretty please?
Wouldn't it be nice if you shared it on Facebook too? I'd appreciate it. You know you love me. Thanks, y'all!

Holy Ground - Review and Giveaway

Craig Taubman, a wonderful Jewish musician (and a friend), published a new album recently.
I love the cover art:

I love the way the shoes are set next to a book - a mixing of the sacred and the ordinary that exemplifies the American Jewish experience.

The title track, Holy Ground, is beautiful. It reminds us that "all of life is holy ground" - wherever we are. What a powerful reminder for those days when we feel that our lives have become mundane and ordinary. It was commissioned in honor of the HUC Rabbinic Class of 2008, and I think it's a perfect song to help new (and veteran) rabbis (and non-rabbis too!) remember the sacred nature of every act they perform, even ones that seem trivial.

My favorite track on the CD is V'shamru. It's a rockin' rollin' awesome version of this traditional reading. And Craig writes in the liner notes: "Don't let PlayStation steal this chance to live and to love." I love this singable song and I love the reminder to carefully guard and protect the joys of Shabbat.

The other track I'm holding onto is Ki Hem Chayenu (not the least of which because it is dedicated to the memory of Grandpa Ben and Grammy from Ben, Anna, Noah, and Dorothy - a family that I hold dear), because it's a really beautiful reminder of the real meaning of the prayer Ahavat Olam. Teach us to number our days that we may have a heart of wisdom...

There are other great tracks that I'm going to learn...a musical setting for Birkat HaGomel, a prayer that Reform Jews have begun to embrace thanks to its inclusion in the new Mishkan Tefillah prayerbook, a Lecha Dodi that is also pretty jazzy (but I'm a fan of Craig's earlier Lecha Dodi too!), Love Your God, a setting for the Shema that is a perfect lullaby.

It's a great CD, would make a great gift, and no one even paid me to say this! (Actually, Craig himself handed me this CD at the Biennial and I told him that I'd be giving it away after I listened to it!)

So...you know you want this CD. I'm sure you can get it somewhere else, but you can also WIN IT here!

Leave a comment and make sure I know how to get a hold of you if you win.

Winner will be chosen on Tuesday, December 8th. Tell your friends!
Extra entry for tweeting but YOU MUST LEAVE A SEPARATE COMMENT to tell me about your tweets, pretty please?
Wouldn't it be nice if you shared it on Facebook too? I'd appreciate it. You know you love me. Thanks, y'all!

A Shabbat Tune....

Click over to read the lyrics.

Shabbat Shalom!

Chanukah Bamba!? A Musical Giveaway

I was so excited to get this CD, Shirlala Chanukah from Shira Kline because I've seen it and haven't yet gotten a copy. I have a pretty nice Chanukah playlist on my iPod, so I was happy to add onto it.

It didn't disappoint! This is a cute CD with nice music. Most of it is traditional but there are some great new songs. The first song, Chanukah Bamba....I must admit I thought the song would be about the Israeli snack, but instead it was a cute take-off on La Bamba. My kids got a kick out of it!

The kids singing with Shira are not always on tune or on time...which would be fine if they were my kids but they're not. They are slightly distracting from the music. But I like their participation, which invites little listeners to feel a part of the CD. I like her storytelling style, and the way she shares the songs and the story together. It's a great mix of musical styles and will get you moving!

Plus a cute comic book about Chanukah, which was a lot of fun to look through.

Her CD is out of stock at Amazon but the Shabbat and Pesach CDs are available also for download. (Maybe she'll give me a Pesach CD to give away come spring....) I must make to Shira as well as any other Jewish musician out there: a good Sukkot CD would make me pretty happy. Or how about a whole CD for Shavuot? I know, I'm pushing it....

Shira has given me one CD to listen to and then give away to one of you, my lucky readers!
How can you win?

To enter, leave a comment on this post!

Earn an extra entry by tweeting about it. Let me know below in the comments.

Comments will close at 8am Friday, December 19th.

Come back all week and next for some great Chanukah posts and giveaways!

Comments closed...the winner is @valerie2350! mazel tov!

Join in the Chanukah Countdown Party - feel free to grab my badge above and link back here with your own Chanukah posts! How do you celebrate, what's your favorite observance, favorite tips and tricks, etc...What's your favorite Chanukah music???

It's Alright to Cry

I was riding in the car with my kids and looking for something that everyone could agree on. Sam is insistent on listening to The Lion King soundtrack, but that gets a little old. We had listened to all of the Barenaked Ladies' new CD, Snacktime, and I started perusing my IPod for something else to listen to. David suggested our favorite Chanukah CD which has spoken stories along with singing but that seemed a little out of place to me...in June. So I hit on Free to Be...You and Me.

Perfect. I know the whole thing by heart, it's new to my kids, and hopefully no one would complain. It's like visiting an old friend!

I put it on, and a hush fell over the car.

The only sound was my sniffling.

Yep, that's right...almost every track brought me to tears! I haven't listened to it in a while, and I had forgotten how powerful the equality messages are, and how deep an impact these songs and stories had on my own self-image. These songs and stories have definitely held up over the years - I'd only add a few new ideas to an updated version to make it perfect.

Let's break it down...the 13 tracks (out of 18) that made me cry.

1. Free to Be...You and Me -- "There's a land that I see where the children are free and they say it ain't far to this land from where we are." Yes! This is what I want my kids to learn about and BE! Free to be themselves. "Every boy in this land grows to be his own man, in this land every girl grows to be her own woman..." Tears.

2. When we grow up -- "When we grow up, will I be a lady, will you be big and strong? I don't care if I'm pretty at all, and I don't care if you never get tall. I like what I look like and you're nice small. We don't have to change at all." We can grow up and not change, and we can change immensely. Tears.

3. Parents are People -- "When parents were little, they used to be kids, like all of you...and then they grew. And now parents are grownups. Grownups with children...Mommies are people, Daddies are people..." We live in a house that tries so hard not to differentiate things because "mommy is a girl" or "daddy is a boy" and I definitely work in a job that regularly gets the "women can do that!?" question. Perhaps I was just emotional that day...Tears.

4. Helping -- "Some kind of help is the kind of help...we all can do without." Learning how to pick your friends is hard. Knowing that they're going to be the kind of friends that will help you out and be good to you is super-hard. Tears.

5. Ladies First -- "Ladies first! Ladies first! And she was...and might tasty too." Oy that poor little sweet young thing who thinks that she should have it all because of her pretty dress and shiny shoes. How many people do we know like this and how often have we women worked to change this image in the world...yet there's still the idea that if we put on enough lipstick and show off enough cleavage we can get what we want. Tears of anger.

6. Dudley Pippin and the Principal -- "and he took out his little blue flute and began to play..." Oh how I love Dudley's Principal. A wise and warm and wonderful man who knows that boys need to cry too. I hope that my sons (and daughter) have such a wise mentor in their lives. Tears tears tears!

7. It's Alright to Cry -- "crying gets the sad out of you...raindrops from your eyes...it might make you feel better!" I catch even the most feminist of men saying things that indicate that boys need to "tough it out" and girls don't. We still have a long way to go, baby. Tears of frustration.

8. Sisters and Brothers -- "every mother's daughter every father's son..." We are all in this together, all related in the great family of life. Tears...

9. William's Doll -- "William wants a doll, so when he has a baby someday, he'll know how to dress it, put diapers on double and gently caress it to bring up a bubble..." That Grandma ROCKS. I love that she overrides the dad, who is so insistent that his son not have a doll. I definitely thought about this one when we bought our older son a doll. And I love to think about my children growing up to be parents. Tears. Lots of tears.

10. Atalanta -- "smiling with the pleasure of the race, they ran together, side by side, until together they reached the finish line!" What a fantastic story about a princess who refuses to be pigeonholed by her king-father, and her friend who "gets" her. Love it. Tears of joy.

11. Girl-Land -- "you go in a girl and you never get out!" This one always struck me as a little eerie and scary...what are they trying to say? I do think we've come so far in what girls can do that this song almost doesn't mean anything any more. But I still cried because of what so many girls lived through (and girls still live through in so many parts of the world)...

12. Dudley Pippin and His No-Friend -- "he doesn't have a friend either. We can have a club. We can call it the No Friends Club..." Poor sweet, sad Dudley Pippin who cries with the principal and now has to move to a new town and he doesn't seem to understand how to make a friend. After all the other tracks, I was just a mess. You gotta cry for this poor kiddo.

13. Glad to Have a Friend Like You -- "fair and fun and skipping free...glad to have a friend like you and glad to just be me." I have lots of friends. But there are those few friends who are the ones that help me to skip free, help me to just be me. I hope for my children that they have at least one friend like this in their lives. Thinking about their futures, their friends, their growing up....tears.

If you haven't listened to FTBYAM in a while...definitely go check it out. It's now on CD and DVD and I think the whole thing has weathered the test of time well. Let me know what you think.

And see more Thursday Thirteen here.

Passover Musical Adventures!

Part of preparing for Pesach (Passover) in our house is to pull out all the Passover music/cds. (Actually, now that I have an iPod, I made a Passover Playlist in my iTunes...but that's another post, I think.)

In no particular order, some of our favorite Pesach songs/albums:

1. Paul Zim's Seder Night, which has some great traditional songs rendered in a listenable format. I really like this one! (This is the one we listen to the most and it's helpful for teaching the Four Questions)

2. Celebrate Passover, put together by Craig Taubman, a little eclectic but worth a listen.

3. Reggae Passover do I need to say more?

4. A Taste of Passover with Theodore Bikel (who my parents dragged me to hear when I was in high school and I wish that I had appreciated it then...)

5. The So-Called Seder: A Hip Hop Haggadah with Matisyahu and others

6. The Passover Lounge, also put together by Craig Taubman

7. ShirLaLa Pesach! by Shira Levine

8. Miracles: Chanukah and Passover Songs for Kids by Jill Moskowitz (this is where the iPod comes in handy! Half the album is in the Passover Playlist and half is in the Chanukah Playlist. Perfect.)

9. Let my People Go! A Jewish and African-American Celebration of Freedom by Kim & Reggie Harris

10. Peri Smilow and the Freedom Music Project - she is great!

11. The Journey Continues, by Debbie Friedman (the First Lady of Jewish Music)

12. Rabbi Joe Black's Alef-Bet Boogie has 2 great Passover songs: Afikomen Mambo and a nice version of Dayenu.

13. And don't I wish some of these Chanukah cd's had Passover versions?????

What Passover music do you like? How do you get your family in the Pesach mood?

P.S. Looking for How to Lead a Seder? Check out my guide on Amazon.
And here are some of my favorite Pesach cookbooks...
More coming...it's that time of year!

More Thursday Thirteeners here...

Only one day left to enter! Chanukah Countdown Continues...

The Chanukah Countdown continues....with the eternal question: Applesauce or Sour Cream???



All comments will enter you into the drawing which closes tomorrow (Sunday) at 5pm...

Make sure to look for all my Chanukah Countdown posts...you can comment on each of them for additional entries into the giveaway (sorry, I'm posting on a friend's mac and it definitely is more work to make links...you can find the posts yourself, I promise...)

happy Chanukah and Shavua Tov!

They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat!

We were happily listening to Rabbi Joe Black in the car (more on our favorite music in another post another day), beginning with Dayenu and then the CD moved onto some other holiday songs. David pointed out to me that we were no longer listening to Passover songs, but instead a song about Chanukah, because this was a holiday songs CD. But then...

D: You know, Chanukah is just like Passover.

Me: Why? (expecting: both long)

D: Someone saves us in both holidays.

Me (impressed and amazed, but wanting to know more): You're right! Who does the saving in Chanukah?

D: Judah Maccabee

Me: And on Passover?

D: Moses

Me: And can you think of another holiday where we get saved?

D: Purim!

And you see where this went...isn't that amazing? Who knew the connections could be made by my 5-year-old.

Me: And who helped Judah, Moses and Queen Esther?

D: God.

Now it's really good, eh?

Who knew that these would be the things that would bring tears to my eyes.