Friday, January 05, 2007

Naomi Soetendorp: Ester’s voice

During the period of Shiva for Ester, members of the Minyan Hadash gathered to talk about her, to remember. We kept returning to the subject of her voice. Ester had an exceptional voice and with her singing she had heightened the experience of davening at the Minyan immeasurably. We tried to find words to describe Ester’s voice. Some people felt it had a ‘viscous’ quality, others felt it was ‘illuminating’ or ‘enervating’. Ester’s singing was, we felt, all of these things and more.

Ester brought some of the beauty and anarchy of Jazz to leyning and davening. When you learn to leyn, you have to learn the rules. Ester knew the rules so well that she could rise above them; subvert them, reinvent them. Picasso said that,in order to break the rules, you had to know them first and Ester was, it could be argued, the Picasso of leyning. In breaking the rules this way and finding something yet more powerful and beautiful in the prayers and writings, Ester encouraged all of us who were privileged to hear her, to rethink our own prayers. Not to be complacent, to revisit the texts, and find within them something new. To seek deeper meanings in words and music with which we may have become comfortably familiar.

There is a fear that in time we will forget Ester’s voice. I believe, however, that in the continuing effort to describe Ester’s music and singing, she will be remembered. We listen for Ester in the Minyan, remembering how her voice would have encouraged us to raise our own. There is a voice that is missing now and we must struggle to hear it. For our own sakes, it is important that we continue to listen to Ester, to remember never to become complacent. In this way, the beauty of Ester’s singing and the strength and power of her voice can continue to act as an inspiration and a guide to us.