Featured Post
Free The Hostages! Bring Them Home!
(this is a featured post and will stay at the top for the foreseeable future.. scroll down for new posts) -------------------------------...
Apr 4, 2007
one tune for all
We were on our way home after yomtov tonight and we were listening to the radio. Radio Kol Chai to be exact.
They had a program in which children called in and sang the Mah Nishtana and got some sort of prize. They had children calling in from all over the country, each with different backgrounds. Sephardic, ashkenazic, hassidic, haredi, dati leumi, and everything else.
What I found interesting was that every single child, bar none, sang the Mah Nishatana to the same exact tune. We did not hear even one sing it differently.
The Mah Nishtana tune is universal. Where we find other customs and tunes changing over regions and locations, while we find in the range of our liturgy no uniform tune in one neighborhood let alone from amongst sephardic and ashkenazic communities or from different parts of cities, countries, continents, the Mah Nishtana stands alone in the fact that it cuts across all regional divisions, all cultural divisions and all custom divisions and is uniform among everybody.
I do not know what it means, but it was interesting to note.
They had a program in which children called in and sang the Mah Nishtana and got some sort of prize. They had children calling in from all over the country, each with different backgrounds. Sephardic, ashkenazic, hassidic, haredi, dati leumi, and everything else.
What I found interesting was that every single child, bar none, sang the Mah Nishatana to the same exact tune. We did not hear even one sing it differently.
The Mah Nishtana tune is universal. Where we find other customs and tunes changing over regions and locations, while we find in the range of our liturgy no uniform tune in one neighborhood let alone from amongst sephardic and ashkenazic communities or from different parts of cities, countries, continents, the Mah Nishtana stands alone in the fact that it cuts across all regional divisions, all cultural divisions and all custom divisions and is uniform among everybody.
I do not know what it means, but it was interesting to note.
Labels:
mah nishtana,
pesach
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Related Posts
We all went out of egypt as jews..
ReplyDeletenice
ReplyDeleteNice to see some real unity for a change.
ReplyDeleteMy husband, who grew up with a different tune, said it's because all of those kids were educated here.
ReplyDeleteIn our (Sephardic) synagogue, we sang both Kel Adon and Adon Olam to that tune over Yom Tov.
ReplyDeletethere is actually one melody that I've heard that's different.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the children are all taught the "standard" at gan!
The sing song one is the same, as kids in miami we were taught that to be "the israeli one" I remember in pre 1 a these israeli girls knew the song.
ReplyDeleteIn yidish it sounds more like a gemara tune, in my home in miami we do the yidish one..
Tatte ich vil bei dir fregen fir kashyes.
Hi, and Mo'adim le-Simchah! Haven't visited your blog for a while, but was interested in the subject of 'Mah Nishtana' tunes; I originally learned a chant for the Mah Nishtana-I bet it's the 'gemara tune' that Elchonon wrote about in his comment. Later, I learned the actual niggun that is almost universally sung. At our seder, I asked our guests whether they were familiar with the 'gemara chant,' and the older, more traditional ones were! It brought back childhood memories...
ReplyDeleteyou know, we noticed the same thing at our seder and commented how certain tefilot like v'hi shemda and manesh tana are al sung to the same tune regardless of one's background. Dad
ReplyDeleteDad,
ReplyDeleteI am not so sure, I tyhink avadim hayinu and hai lachma anya are universal, but chabad has a specific nigun for vehi sheamda, its very deep and penetrating, I had the honor to watch it being song by holecaust survivers and its heart wrenching.
Another amazing thing is watching chasidim sing tehilim #23 mizmor l'david hashem roei lo echsar, I remember a seuda shlishit in miami beach at the keresteer shteibel with both the bobov and satmart rebbe and perhaps 50 other survivers, and when they hit "kam ki elech b'gai tzalmaves..." you feel your entire neshama on fire... these men were in the "gai tzalmaves"
I over the years have seen many survivers sing it and it always makes me tear, this one guy lipshitz from chicago / miami was in almost every death camp. Treblinka, aushwitz, dauchau, buchwald...
Thats where I got my emunah!!
He told us about how they went one winter in the warsaw ghetto and smashed the ice to toivel in the mikva, forget about icy water! if they were caught theyve have been shot..
I would love to hear all these little known tunes people have in their families...
ReplyDelete