Ruth Wieder-Magan composer and performer of Songs to the Invisible God

Ruth Wieder-Magan composer and performer of Songs to the Invisible Cod interviewed by Andrew Young Ruth Wieder-Magan is a resident of Jerusalem and a critically acclaimed artist in the revival of the female voice in Jewish prayer and song. Her pioneering approach to the transcendental aspect of voice is founded solidly in the world's sacred cantorial Jewish traditions. Ruth's parents, both Holocaust survivors, were an important source for these melodies and intonations rooted in a lost world. In 1980, Ruth Wieder-Magan co-founded Theater Company Jerusalem with her colleagues Gabriella Lev, Aliza Elion-Israeli and Joyce Miller. Their musical and theatrical performances - influenced by cantorial, Hassidic, Eastern, and Western music - have met with both praise and controversy, yet their vision has remained the same: to rediscover the living wellspring within the ancient cantorial traditions and introduce them to a new generation of women and men today. In May of 1999, I spoke with Ruth from her home in Jerusalem, shortly after the completion of her first solo recording, Songs to the Invisible God, which arrived last Fall on the Sounds True label. Andrew Young: For those who are unfamiliar, can you tell us a little about Judaism's spiritual tradition in music? Ruth Wieder-Magan: That would be very difficult to do, because it's such an enormous and limitless tradition. There have been Jewish communities in every corner of the world, and they all have their own prayers and songs. There are also many religious festivals. There are prayers for the morning and prayers for the afternoon, prayers for the evening, and even prayers to be sung in the early mornings of winter. Many of the songs on the album, for example, are from what are called "the High Holidays" - Rosh Hashanah (the new year), Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), Sukkot (the Harvest Festival). The number of prayers and songs from the Jewish traditions all over the world really is uncountable. What particularly Nashim:A Journal ofJewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues, no. 3, 2000271 Andrew Young interests me are the mystical roots of some of these prayers and songs the magical use of voice and language. For years, I have been trying to uncover this tradition for myself. AY: I'd like to explore that further in a bit. But first, you have said that women have been silenced in the Jewish tradition. Can you tell us more about this censure? RW: Women have been silenced throughout history and all over the world, not just in the Jewish tradition. In Judaism, women have not been allowed to sing prayers in public. This is also true in the Islamic world. The Jewish prohibition is based on a Talmudic source, which likens hearing the sound of a woman's voice to seeing her naked (Berachot 24). What my work has been about is going to my tradition and freeing its captive female voice, to draw that voice out through careful study of the texts and songs and reclaim it, drawing it into myself. For me, the practice of learning and performing music are intertwined. AY: How so? RW: In both the Talmud and the Zohar, I believe there is a definite feminine voice. Both are non-linear texts: their movement circles and spirals in and out of many worlds and many, many layers of interpretation. Jewish liturgy has a similar undulating movement. Within the relationship of word and sound, layers of intention have been spiraled in. This is difficult to articulate, but I believe that this spiraling movement is definitely feminine in nature. It is the center of the creative power behind the great Jewish texts and liturgy. If you listen, both to the music and to the texts, you will hear it. Also in hazanut, the cantorial tradition, which has been totally male-dominated, one can hear inside the undulations and the movement of the music a very clear female voice. AY: What is hazanutl RW: Hazanut is the musical tradition that begins in the sixth century with the first cantors, the official singer-musician-poets of these early synagogues . For a woman to sing these songs is a new turning point...