Dec 11th, 2008 by admin
Some questions linger after Passover is gone. First: What is our freedom for? Ask any Jewishly-educated youngster (or Charlton Heston fan) what Moses is instructed to tell Pharaoh and you will likely get the answer, “Let my people go!” While accurate, this demand is actually only the first half of a sentence. The Torah text itself (Exodus 7:16) is clear about what freedom is for: “Let my people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness.” Freedom is primarily about the right kind of labor, not about idleness or ease.
That we are liberated in order to serve raises another question for me: How can we go about finding out what particular mode of serving is best for each of us? What is my unique contribution? In the wilderness of each of our lives, what gifts can each of us give? This same question is a constant companion in my work as a voice teacher. When I help students find their own voices, I am serving as a guide on their quest to discover their own unique way of serving. One key to this quest is helping students to liberate themselves from the narrowness of the self-definitions they carry with them. For example, many people come to me already convinced that they are “bad singers.” Over and over I hear stories along the lines of, “I really love to sing but my fifth grade music teacher said I should just mouth the words.” Well into adulthood, they are still holding onto the enslavement of this past judgment. My job is to help them move into the wilderness of curiosity, focusing, for example, on how singing feels rather than what they imagine it sounds like. Letting go of these assumptions, if only for the brief period of one lesson, allows for students not only to feel better about themselves but actually to sound better as well.
Finding authentic voice is an ongoing process even for experienced or accomplished singers. Some of the most challenging students are those who think of themselves as “good singers” and, because of this self-image, cling fiercely to ways of using their voices that don’t actually sound good outside of their own heads –Don’t believe me? Ask my voice teacher about all the bad habits she’s tried to break me of. Self-satisfaction and self-denigration are equally detrimental to finding authentic voice because both assume something fixed and unchanging about ourselves. Neither allows us to approach self-discovery with open curiosity, with the willingness to be surprised.
The months following Passover, specifically the seven-week period of the counting of the Omer, are the perfect time for asking these kinds of questions. Not only does the Passover tradition teach that we are freed in order to serve, but at the end of the seven weeks of the Omer, we are instructed to “present a new offering to God” (Leviticus 23:16). Whether through finding authentic voice, or some other path, there is no better time for discovering what our own new offering might be.