Jewish Music—National Music

“There is no Jewish music!” Thus concluded not only our assimilationists but also most of our nationalists.

We will not argue with the former at all, since, according to them, because there is no nation, there cannot be any national assets. As for the nationalists, they admit the existence of the nation, but do not concede that it has national assets. If so, what do they concede? Can there be a nation without [cultural] assets?

It is well known that a nation is recognizable not only by its costume and its appearance, but also and primarily by its spirit. And the spirit’s mediums, that is, the means by which the spirit is revealed, are its language, song, and music. The people expresses every national wish, desire, and hope in its language, and when it awakens further, in its song, and when national enthusiasm reaches its peak, in its music. We see this in the individual, and the nature of the people is like the nature of the individual. Hence, a people with no music is a people without a will, desire, or hope!

When we look at the nations, we see that when a nation arises to new life, with new hopes, with the will of a nation, its language is enriched with new expressions and concepts, and its song and music are renewed with national songs and melodies, which are born of the spirit’s awakening.

Let us consider the example of the literature (belles lettres) of France, Germany, and Russia. We find that the best books, poems, and melodies were born in the days when the nations awakened to new life. [ . . . ]

Our nationalists, who believe in their people, who desire and wish and hope that the people will arise to live a new life, they nevertheless say that the people have no national music, which is like saying there can be light without rays, sound without an echo, fire without heat.

It was not long ago that the nationalists did not believe it was possible for there to be a national language, but the fact came and slapped them in the face. Our language, which was considered dead for two thousand years—the philologists embalmed it and buried it near the tombs of languages of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome. At the same time some of its people came to examine its breath, and they found that it was alive and sentient. And now no one can deny, including the nationalists, that we have a national language! (And readers certainly know that the Eighth National Congress decided that the Hebrew language is our national language.)¹

And in truth the language never ceased living, and neither poetry nor music ever ceased to be. For, during all the long days of exile, we do not find even a single moment of total despair. And in all the experiences undergone by this people, be they good or bad, the people’s musicians and national spirit and emotions never stopped nor did their creations. We would not go so far as to say that no national spirit and no national will of any nation is as strong as that of our nation. Thus, is it possible for the spirit of a people that has the strength to endure for two thousand years for its national character, that has the strength to hope throughout that whole time, that it would not express and articulate this hope and this will by the effusions of its spirit?

We have all of this! We have a national language, national poetry, and national music, which have always lived and always been nourished by the spirit of the nation, and the nation preserved it like the apple of its eye, for it was its consolation in its misery, always enabling it to return to hope after every suffering.

The history of the Jewish people should be divided into two periods: before the exile and after the exile. During the first period the people were independent and set out to fight for their own survival, proactive wars against its enemies—a vibrant people full of action.

Its spiritual shape, we find—in its fresh language, full of power and sensation, in its poetry, which has no similarity in another nation!—and Herder, Goethe, and Delitzsch² all support this claim. And as for its music—they claim that Jews have none. For to date, there are no surviving texts, meaning that they did not write down the melodies to be remembered the way they wrote poetry, and thus, people say it did not exist at all.

However, one must recognize that first, musicians knew nothing about musical notation, for this was invented by the Greeks at the time of their religious war against us,³ and then, it is known that they shut the doors of [Jewish] national [culture] from Greek influences, forbidding Greek thought and culture. Therefore, it is understandable that there was no place for the cantillation marks to enter [Jewish writings]. Josephus states in his Jewish Antiquities⁴ that the leaders of the nation preserved the customs of the Temple with its songs and melodies in purity with great devotion, and especially the latter were sung as they had been received in direct transmission going back to King David—and this seems true enough if we remember that our people are stubborn, and what they obligated themselves to preserve and do was more precious to them than their body or soul.

Second, though they did not leave us written melodies, by oral transmission we have melodies from whose form, nature, and content we must admit were preserved for us from that [Second Temple] period. And I could give many examples as evidence, but because it is hard for me at present to obtain musical notations and print them [because the press does not have the proper stamps], I will therefore keep these for another occasion. We see in the music of the first period [before the exile] a unique originality, and there is almost nothing like its form in the music of the second period of the nation [after the exile]. However, after investigation, we find in it what we find in all the cultural legacy of the nation: neither the people nor its spirit has changed from the first period to the second, aside from its [outward] form.