Isaac Bashevis Singer was born in Radzymin, Poland near Warsaw. It was typical, that among the writers Singer read at an early age who influenced him and accompanied him through life were Spinoza, Gogol, Tolstoy and Dostoiewsky, in addition to the Talmud and Kabbala.

Singer emigrated to the United States in 1935 and he was to see the world and life of East European Jewry destroyed by the Holocaust - such as it was –life in cities and villages, in poverty and persecution, and imbued with sincere piety and rites.

He, like many other unfortunate Jewish writer- onlookers were witness to Kristalnacht and the destruction of the very spiritual nerve centers of the Jewish People – the synagogue and most importantly, for the purpose of this essay – the destruction of one of the greatest Jewish spiritual forces of Europe - the voice of its Cantors. 		   
           
Great Synagogue of London, circa 1809 Ruins of Great Synagogue of London after the blitz, 1941

“Singer's father was a rabbi, a spiritual mentor and confessor, of the Hassidic school of piety. His mother also came from a family of rabbis. The East European Jewish-mystical Hasidism which combines Talmud doctrine and a fidelity to scripture and rites.”

Singer had witnessed the intellectual world of Krackow, Vilna, Warsaw, Kiev and Odessa where he undoubtedly knew of the great Hazzanim (Cantors) like Moshe Koussewitsky and Gershon Sirota. He knew of the Great Synagogue of Tlomatsky in Warsaw and the Great Synagogue of Vilna. As a journalist in Warsaw between the world wars – he was perhaps one of our truly gifted voyeurs of the unfortunate truth about the danger of the aftermath of the Holocaust and that is the quiet acquiescence to the purveyors of revisionist thinking, both religious and secular.

What was at the heart of this Jewish revisionist thinking?

“Ven heibster on tzu davening musaf – es iz schoin tzelef azeiger? Yiddish – the language of Singer – “When do you begin to daven (pray – chant) musaf it’s already twelve o’clock?" Basically, the length and breadth of the service, especially having to hear those elaborate orchestral and operatic renditions of the musaf service were unbearable to some of the arbiter mentchen – working class people.

They wanted to pray to God and be done with it so that they could get back to the slave shops of the lower East Side were they could start the whole cycle of subservience over again on Monday mornings.

The same is true today of those that find themselves enslaved by work, professions, societal pressures and the entrapments of cyberspace. To the Hazzan, Shabbat was a celebration of all those things we should be doing on Shabbat – singing praises to God in the most elaborate fashion imaginable.

The chulent, an overdone stew which lay dormant in an oven for days, tasted all the more succulent after surviving a tour de force of davening with the cantor at shul on Shabes. And of course, without side-stepping the issue – there is the financial question. I will answer this question in true Jewish rhetorical fashion: “How is it possible to have a $3.5 million budget and not have enough for a fine cantor and choir?”

In the picture we see the great Cantor Yosele Rosenblatt with the world renowned opera singer, Tito Schipa in the 1920s. Both of these artists had an enormous respect for each other and both were of the traditional Scuola di Bel Canto – the Italian school of beautiful singing.

                 
Aside from being well versed in Nusach HaTefilah, Torah, cantillation, customs and laws of our people; the cantor first and foremost must possess the fundamentals associated with good singing and the health and care for the human voice. This training was recognized by Hazzanim – bimah kunstlers – bimah artists – of the past. It was not only important to have a wonderful voice to be a Hazzan in the Jewish tradition, it was important to know how to handle that voice and make the best of it while ‘davening’ for the olam (world – congregation).

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