Singing God's Words: The Performance of Biblical Chant in Contemporary Judaism

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1. Introduction
PART I
The Tradition
2. Chanting Torah
3. The Torah Service and the Re-creation of Revelation
4. Performing Community
PART II
The Individual and the Experience of Chanting Torah
5. Singing Your Way into Sacred Space
6. The Same Act: Many Levels of Experience
7. Women Reading Torah
PART III
The Performance
8. The Power of Music in the Transmission of Torah
9. Music and the Interpretation of Meaning
PART IV
Torah and Technology
10. The Transmission of Tradition in a Digital Age
11. Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Appendix: Musical Notation and Graphic Symbols of Torah Trope

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Singing God's Words is the first in-depth study of the experience and meaning of chanting or "reading" Torah among contemporary American Jews. This experience has been transformed dramatically in recent years by the impact of digital technology, feminism, the empowerment of lay people and a search for self-fulfillment through involvement with community. At a time when worshippers seek deeper spiritual experience, many Jews have found new meaning in the experience of reading Torah, an act that is broadly accessible to Jewish adults even as it requires intensive immersion with the text of the Bible in Hebrew. This book examines why and how growing numbers of American Jews in all denominations see the public chanting of Biblical texts during the synagogue service as one of the most authentic and personal expressions of their religious identity. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with men and women, both professionals and congregants, Jeffrey A. Summit describes how the reading of Torah embodies their understanding of historical religious practice, even as it is shaped by contemporary views of spiritual experience. Through this act, holiness becomes manifest at the intersection of Biblical chant, sacred text, the individual, and the community.

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The author attends to a wide spectrum of practicing Jews, from those of the seeker-centered renewal movement to the more orthopraxic members of Chabad. Though Summit has a sharp eye for the sociological, he never loses sight of how chanting Torah provides contemporary Jews with spiritual experiencesallowing them to make personal connections through public intimacy with their sacred text

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