When you run a non-profit organization called PunkTorah, it’s fairly easy to get pigeon-holed. I can’t count the number of times that someone has raised their hand in my face, made rocker “devil horns” and said, “yeah, PunkTorah guy” in a Sid Vicious voice. It’s for that reason that people might be surprised that my new favorite Jewish album is “The Threshing Floor”, a choral masterpiece by the musicians that make up Congregation Bet Haverim of Atlanta, Georgia*.
What, no Jewish punk? No Heebie hip hop? Patrick, shul is the “establishment”!
Before you get your undies in a twist, let me tell you a little something about Congregation Bet Haverim: their rabbi is a gay body builder, and the lay cantor screams Earth Goddess when she wails on hand drums. At Friday night services, you’ll find yourself wedged between a black, lesbian college student and a retired hippie couple, craving the organic, locally sourced vegetarian oneg prepared by a Sephardic family while adopted Asian children run around at your feet dropping crumbs of challah on the floor.
Am I still a sell out? Didn’t think so.
Less talk, more rock. And the Threshing Floor rocks!
The album kicks off with “Dodi Li”. Lay cantor Gayanne Weiss has this kind, maternal voice that later booms to life as hand percussion and choral background dance together in harmony with melodic guitar and make your spirit shoot out of your chest. Moving on to ballads by Will Robertson (who also produced the album), world musical influences with Iraqi, Ugandan and Indian flair, Sephardic and Hasidic incantations and African American call-and-response, this album breathes new life into congregational music.
It doesn’t surprise me at all. Bet Haverim is Atlanta’s “misfit” Jewish community, a rag tag group of people united under the banner of diversity. It’s no wonder that “The Threshing Floor” is equal parts Civil Rights spiritual and Shabbat liturgy, features covers of Michael Stipe (REM) songs and folk music inspired midrashic interpretations of Lamentations. “Solu, Solu” could easily be an homage to the Benedictine monks, while “Ken Es Akeyo De La Meniana/Wayfaring Stranger” could be the missing next single by DeLeon. In the back of my mind I heard the voices of my friends say, “if I could hear this kind of music, I would come to services.”
The kicker for me is track five, a cover of Mosh Ben Ari’s “Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu”. The warm strings are like a parent soothing you to sleep while guitar picks up the tempo. Suddenly you’re hypnotized by the percussion creeping beneath the choir’s mantra and without warning, you’re a True Believer.
The Threshing Floor shows me our greatest strength as a people: our collaborative nature. Across genres, languages, cultures and styles, this album is a love poem, a psalm, to our higher power. I love it, and I think you’ll love it, too.
Visit www.congregationbethaverim.org to order the album. Available on iTunes soon.
*Since the Feds are cracking down on bloggers accepting gifts and the whole “ethics” thing, I should in full disclosure admit to being a member of this synagogue. But even if I weren’t, I’d still review this record because I love it.
