10 Minutes With … Debbie Friedman

c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) More than one Jewish song leader has introduced a haunting tune, “handed down from ancient times,” only to learn that Debbie Friedman wrote it in her 35-years-and-counting career. Friedman’s songs, which include “Birchot Havdalah” and “Mi Shebeirach,” are so familiar that it seems like they’ve always been part of […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) More than one Jewish song leader has introduced a haunting tune, “handed down from ancient times,” only to learn that Debbie Friedman wrote it in her 35-years-and-counting career.

Friedman’s songs, which include “Birchot Havdalah” and “Mi Shebeirach,” are so familiar that it seems like they’ve always been part of Jewish worship in its many expressions.


The popular composer, who lives in New York, has recorded 19 albums, and her work can be heard in Jewish circles and congregations around the world. Her music has accompanied television dramas and been belted out by Barney, the purple dinosaur, in an effort to teach children the Hebrew alphabet.

Between concerts and workshops, Friedman, 55, took a few minutes to talk about her work and how familiarity breeds contentment in her life. Her answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q: What does it mean that so many of your songs are so familiar to Jews that they think they are “ancient”?

A: I don’t care if they know that I wrote it; I just want them singing and participating in worship. My joy is knowing people can find a way into a spiritual setting and make themselves comfortable, that they can have conversations with the liturgy and not feel alienated from it.

Q: Is music critical to that process?

A: Music does have a way. There is a song that says music speaks louder than words. And it’s true _ music coupled with Hebrew is musical in and of itself.

Q: Which came first, do you think, prayer or song?

A: The prayer is the song, and the song is the prayer. They are inseparable.

Q: Can you give an example?

A: There is a prayer said in Conservative and Orthodox services when the Torah is opened. During the reading of the Torah, people would ask for healing for friends and family. The Reform movement never did this prayer.


I wrote this song, “Mi Shebeirach” (“The One Who Gives Blessing”), and introduced it to the Reform movement at a ritual for a woman turning 60 who wanted to embrace middle age.

When it was time to read the Torah, we made a hupah (or canopy). There were about 150 or 200 people participating in this event, and I invited them to take part in this blessing. When I looked up, there was no one left in the audience. Everyone had crowded under the hupah. We sang the song that day.

It took a little while for the song to catch on. But little by little, place by place, people started to realize how it was affecting them. No one had dealt with death, with the issue of illness and pain. People were closeted about pain, both physical and emotional. We needed to address that. If we were going to pray together, then we had to be real together.

Q: And the rest is history?

A: (Laughing) Yes. A friend of mine teaches Talmud, and she was in Jerusalem and met a man in the lobby of a hotel. He had been in Africa and he didn’t know that she knew me. He said he had been in a tiny African village where there was no electricity and the people had no prayer books. But when it came time for Havdalah (the service separating the Sabbath from the rest of the week), the people around him started to sing my melody.

Q: How amazing. Does it feel very humbling?

A: People know that I love them and that I want them to have it all. When I perform, I want them to sing with me, be with me _ but it won’t be a hootenanny. The whole atmosphere of the room changes. The room becomes filled with divine presence. There is a shift. The air isn’t thin anymore. It reverberates. When we sing, there is an intense beauty and power, the real kind of power _ not the kind that people try to acquire and apply _ but the power to move mountains.

Q: You’ve been writing sacred music for 35 years. Do you have a favorite song?


A: I think my favorite song is the one I’m singing in the moment. That sounds like a crack, but in the moment, I want to move as deeply as I can to convey the essence of a prayer.

Q: Some of your songs are included in the new Reform movement prayer book. What does that feel like?

A: It’s wonderful. And, you know, I’m not even dead.

(Nancy Haught writes for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore.)

KRE/PH END HAUGHT

Editors: To obtain a photo of Debbie Friedman, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

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