The Contemporary Eclipse of Nusach

Were we to place a Jew of early-twentieth-century Eastern Europe into a time machine and deposit him in a synagogue of our day, he would be struck dumb by the transformation of prayer’s music. He was raised on nusach—the traditional chant of prayer, with its distinct contours for weekday, Shabbos, festival, and the Days of Awe. Each service had its pulse, its accent, its unique cadence.

In our synagogues, however, he would encounter a prayer leader who intones a Shabbos evening melody for weekday Ma’ariv, a High Holiday tune for Shabbos, and who even remembers what Rosh Chodesh is meant to sound like? For him, such prayer would no longer be prayer.

Indeed, the loss of nusach has become a fait accompli in many communities. Some cantors recite the liturgy to the cantillation of ta’amei mikra, others declaim the words without any melody at all—and their congregations scarcely object. Even those who have studied nusach often know it only as a song to be performed, not a chant through which to pray. For Yamim Noraim, countless melodies have become fair game in a Chazan’s repertoire.

The phenomenon is especially prevalent in Religious-Zionist circles and among immigrants from America, but it is also seeping into Charedi society. The root cause lies in our broader attitude to tradition. A worldview that rejects inherited forms in the name of shlilat ha-galut—the ideal of negating exile—will not grant honor to musical tradition either.

Once, the melodies most familiar to Jews were those of prayer and weddings. Cheder children hummed the nusach of the Days of Awe; the shoemaker sang Unetaneh Tokef and Kol Nidrei as he worked his leather

The erosion of nusach is hastened by the competition of contemporary song. Once, the melodies most familiar to Jews were those of prayer and weddings. Cheder children hummed the nusach of the Days of Awe; the shoemaker sang Unetaneh Tokef and Kol Nidrei as he worked his leather. Today, however, popular singers set the tone, and yeshiva students hum Yaakov Shwekey (to mention but one example) over the pages of their Gemara.

But the oblivion of nusach has another source as well: the adoption of a substitute—the entry of song into prayer. Melody, as an independent musical form, competes with and often supplants the memory of nusach. This is a modern development, unknown in the classical Jewish past. It appears to have originated in nineteenth-century Western Europe, gradually spreading eastward. The penetration of freestanding melody—first into Protestant worship and from there into Jewish liturgy—is the subject of this essay.

My call to preserve nusach ha-tefillah is not born of conservatism alone. Nusach is the accumulated chant of generations, the medium through which Jews poured out the chambers of their hearts. Always bound to the words, it gives voice to the specific emotion inscribed in each prayer—sometimes supplication, sometimes joy, sometimes exaltation. By contrast, the melodies that have displaced nusach in recent generations were never composed to embody the words of prayer. They stand apart, often borrowed from entirely different contexts. They may be full of feeling, but it is not the right feeling.

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Music as a Conduit of the Divine Spirit

Perhaps the most intense of religious experiences is mediated through music—whether in listening or in performance. Chazal gave this voice when they taught:

“The Shechinah rests not through sadness, nor through laziness, nor through laughter, nor through levity, nor through idle chatter, nor through vain matters, but only through simchah shel mitzvah—the joy of a commandment—as it is written: ‘And now bring me a musician; and it came to pass, when the musician played, that the hand of Hashem came upon him.’ Rabbi Yehudah said: the same applies to words of halachah.”¹

And yet, despite this association of music with prophecy, references to music as a vehicle of religious experience are rare until modern times. In earlier sources, music is often portrayed in a negative light or mentioned only in connection with mourning for the Temple.² Beyond passing references to nusach in the writings of R. Yehudah He-Hasid and later the Maharil, little more is said.

This changed in the eighteenth century. The Vilna Gaon, the Gra, offered a strikingly mystical appraisal of music:

“All the sciences are needed for our holy Torah and included within it. He praised the science of music highly, saying that most of the reasons of the Torah, the secrets of the songs of the Levites, and the mysteries of the Zohar’s corrections cannot be known without it. Through it, one might expire in ecstasy or revive the dead through the hidden mysteries of Torah. He said that several niggunim and modes Moshe our teacher brought from Sinai, while others were composed later.”³

The rise of Hasidism in Eastern Europe gave music a weight unseen in any earlier age. The Baal Shem Tov, the Maggid of Mezeritch, R. Michel of Zlotchov, R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the school of Karlin—each is remembered as the composer of his own niggunim. Even if these attributions are not historically precise, the very act of attributing melodies to individual masters was a novelty.

R. Yaakov Yosef Katz of Polonnoye, one of the earliest Hasidic teachers, highlighted the sanctity of prayer’s chant. On the Days of Awe, Jews would say that “even the niggun is from Sinai, and therefore it may not be altered.” He affirmed the instinct, while redirecting it: melody itself is a bearer of Torah, no less than word.⁴ Elsewhere, he warned that as generations declined, the melody remained while the prayer itself was forgotten: “They sinned and caused others to sin. Woe to such disgrace! How can one stand as emissary of the congregation, a broker between Israel and their Father in heaven, before the great and awesome King?”⁵

Each wisdom in the world has its particular melody. From it the wisdom is drawn. As it is written, ‘Zamru maskil’—sing with understanding—for every intellect has its own song. Even heresy has its own melody

R. Yaakov Yosef also drew on R. Yitzḥak Arama, who described the upper and lower worlds as two instruments tuned to one another: when one string is plucked, its counterpart resounds. So too, David’s harp played of its own accord, as the lower melodies stirred the higher worlds.⁶

No Hasidic master explored this more deeply than R. Nachman of Breslov. For him, every wisdom had its own song: “Each wisdom in the world has its particular melody. From it the wisdom is drawn. As it is written, ‘Zamru maskil’—sing with understanding—for every intellect has its own song. Even heresy has its own melody.”⁷

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Halachic Critiques of Melody

Alongside suspicion of melody in halachic tradition, we find explicit directives concerning niggun. Already in the Middle Ages, Mahzor Vitry records instructions to chant piyyutim in known tunes.⁸ The Maharam of Rothenburg prescribed the niggun of Kaddish on Rosh Hashanah,⁹ and similar notes appear in the Maharil¹⁰ and R. Yitzchak Eisik of Tirna.¹¹

But from the fifteenth century onward, critique of excessive melody became sharper. R. Yisrael Isserlein ruled that Birkas Kohanim should not be divided into multiple tunes, lest confusion result.¹² R. David Segal (Taz) extended this to all of prayer.¹³ The Lithuanian Council of Communities in 1623 even limited cantors to three tunes per Shabbos, with few exceptions.¹⁴

In the seventeenth century, concern shifted to the origins of tunes. R. Binyamin Aharon of Slonik decried the adoption of melodies from theaters and gentile culture, warning that communities prized sweet voices over halachic competence

In the seventeenth century, concern shifted to the origins of tunes. R. Binyamin Aharon of Slonik decried the adoption of melodies from theaters and gentile culture, warning that communities prized sweet voices over halachic competence:

“Not only this, but they no longer chant even a single verse of the Torah with proper vowels and cantillation. They cannot distinguish right from wrong, for the communities choose cantors not for their learning but for their ability to extend a pleasant voice and a beautiful melody for the prayers and Kaddish. Month after month, week after week, new tunes multiply—tunes unknown to our holy ancestors, who would not consent to hear them—for they are borrowed from the songs of foreign children, from the theaters. The author of Sefer Ḥasidim (sec. 238) sternly warned against this. Yet no one pays heed, and the more a cantor embellishes, the more he is admired. And though many of them have never learned a single law of prayer or reading, and do not even rehearse the order of the service so it might be fluent upon their lips, still they ascend the platform.”¹⁵

In the nineteenth century, R. Chayim Halberstam of Sanz railed against foreign innovations in synagogue practice, from architecture to garments to song.¹⁶ The Maharam Schik lamented cantors who repeated words to suit the melody: each word of the liturgy, he said, was weighed and counted by the Anshei Knesses Ha-Gedolah (Men of the Great Assembly), and “whoever adds, detracts.”¹⁷

For both, the erosion of nusach stemmed from a foreign influence, a desire to imitate the nations. But as we shall see, another cause lay closer to home: the rise of melody within Chasidism itself.

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The Meaning of the Musical Shift

The Baroque period (1600–1750) reshaped Europe’s musical consciousness. Music left palaces and cathedrals and entered bourgeois society. More significantly, melody separated from text, giving birth to “absolute music.”¹⁸ Wordless melody became a form in itself, recognizable to us today.

This shift entered Jewish prayer, provoking rabbinic criticism. Once melodies were seen as autonomous, they were imported wholesale into the liturgy, regardless of textual fit. Today, it is hard to imagine a world where nearly all music served words—whether in prayer or song—while autonomous melody was rare.¹⁹

Until the seventeenth century, the musical tradition of prayer was nusach: chant, prosody, the music of speech.²⁰ Idelsohn called it prosody,²¹ others termed it recitative.²² Prosody, the intonation of language, is learned, much as language, over many years. It can likewise be lost.²³

Once melody became autonomous, why not accompany it with music? Instruments, after all, can render melody as well as the human voice. Traditional bans were framed against Reform, but the deeper issue is the eclipse of nusach

The rise of absolute music had two effects. First, it eroded nusach. Second, it allowed for religious expression without words, as in Chasidic niggunim and even in the appreciation of the Gra. But the cost was steep. Prayer leaders began to sing rather than chant; congregants lost the ear for nusach and demanded melody. Women, in particular, who have become more present in synagogues, have found melody to be a potent vehicle for expression.²⁴

This also explains the push to introduce instruments into the synagogue. Once melody became autonomous, why not accompany it with music? Instruments, after all, can render melody as well as the human voice. Traditional bans were framed against Reform, but the deeper issue is the eclipse of nusach.²⁵

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The Importance of Preserving Nusach

As I have argued, the traditional chant of prayer—nusach—creates a living symbiosis between word and sound, between the weight and meaning of the text and its musical expression. A melody imported into the service, which seeks to replace nusach, severs this bond. Supplication expressed through nusach cannot be exchanged for a tune that bears no relation to the words. A chant of trembling awe cannot be replaced by a march.

When we cry, “Simchah le-artzech ve-sason le-irecha,” these are not festive lyrics but a plea that God bring joy to His land and gladness to His city. “U-kerav pizurenu” is not a song but a supplication that He gather our scattered ones. “Ochilah La-El,” entrusted to the sheliaḥ tzibbur as he pleads that his prayer be accepted, is not a chorus to be sung in unison. After the shofar blast, whose purpose is that “a shofar shall be sounded in the city and the people tremble” (Amos 3:6), one cannot march out the words “Hayom harat olam” to the rhythm of a parade.

Nusach—the traditional chant of prayer—is the sediment of generations, the careful embedding of the emotion proper to each liturgical phrase. Carlebach tunes, for example, used indiscriminately for Mizmor shir le-yom haShabbat and for psalms of an entirely different tenor, cannot possibly reflect the distinct feeling of each.

Of course, nusach itself has a long and evolving history. The chant we know today underwent many changes and continues to shift from generation to generation. Yet, until the nineteenth century—and in most communities, until the twentieth—freestanding melodies had not penetrated the liturgy. The change was advanced by renowned cantors. Yossele Rosenblatt (1882–1933) bore much responsibility for the melodies he wove into prayer, but already in the nineteenth century great figures like Solomon Sulzer (1804–1890), born in Austria, composed new tunes and embedded them in the service. Sulzer also introduced the choir into synagogue worship.²⁶ The very presence of a choir marked a turning point: no longer was the congregation alone supplanted, but the cantor himself was now accompanied, his song doubled and framed by music standing on its own.

This innovation ran counter to centuries of Ashkenazic tradition, which regarded its chant as “niggunim mi-Sinai”—melodies from Sinai, as Abraham Zvi Idelsohn put it. The phrase is late, but it captures an older instinct. The most forceful expression of this comes from the Maharil, who ruled:

“R. Yaakov Segal said: One must not change the custom of the place in any matter—not even in its melodies. He told how once, serving as sheliaḥ tzibbur in Regensburg on the Days of Awe, he chanted the service in the melody of Austria, for that was his custom. But he was pained to hear the haftarah chanted in the tune of the Rhineland. And he recalled how he once recited the seliḥah beginning ‘Ani ani ha-medaber’ composed by R. Ephraim, who was buried in Regensburg, deeming it a mitzvah to honor him. But the leaders of the community protested that it was not their custom. He ignored them. Soon after, his daughter died on Yom Kippur, and he declared that she was taken in punishment for his having altered the custom of Regensburg.”²⁷

Here, the Maharil drew a straight line between deviation from musical tradition and divine judgment. Though in this case it was the recitation of a piyyut, his ruling applied equally to melody: “One must not change the custom of the place in any matter—not even in its tunes.” Thus, the traditional chant was endowed with extraordinary sanctity, demanding fidelity across generations.

And yet, for all I have written, melody too has its place in religious expression. It is among the most potent of artistic inspirations, and at times, as the Vilna Gaon observed,²⁸ it can carry a soul to ecstasy—“through it a person might die, as his spirit expires in its sweetness.” The question is not whether melody has value, but whether its proper place is in the liturgy of the synagogue. Prayer is, first and foremost, supplication—pleading for mercy. Even if “the gates of prayer are locked, the gates of tears are never locked.”²⁹

It is right to grant melody its own sacred domain. The zemiros of Shabbat and Yom Tov are examples of song that can bring a person to ruach ha-kodesh. Wordless Hasidic niggunim deserve honor and place of their own. The Tzemach Tzedek said of the Arba Bavos attributed to the Alter Rebbe of Liadi that to sing it on weekdays rather than sacred days could “arouse accusations in heaven, God forbid.”³⁰ Such melodies must be treated with reverence, oriented toward ascent in holiness.

But we must beware that melody does not eclipse chant. However inspiring, melody must not cause us to forget the nusach, and above all, the capacity to pray through it. To lose nusach is to lose the very language of prayer. Through it, a Jew pours out his heart before the Master of all; without it, he is left mute. Song will never take its place.

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1. Shabbat 30b; Yerushalmi Sukkah 5:1.

2. Gittin 7a; Sotah 48a; Sanhedrin 101a.

3. Yisrael of Shklov, Pe’at ha-Shulḥan, Introduction.

4. R. Yaakov Yosef of Polonnoye, Toldot Yaakov Yosef, Ki Teitzei.

5. Ibid., Tzav.

6. Ibid.; cf. Yitzchak Arama, Akedat Yitzchak, Noach, Gate 12.

7. R. Nachman of Breslov, Likkutei Moharan I:64.

8. Machzor Vitry, sec. 905; cf. Worms Mahzor, fol. 59.

9. Maharam of Rothenburg, Teshuvot Tashbatz Katan, sec. 119.

10. Maharil, Sefer Maharil, Laws of Yom Kippur.

11. Yitzchak Eisik of Tirna, Sefer ha-Minhagim, Rosh Hashanah.

12. R. Yisrael Isserlein, Terumat ha-Deshen, sec. 26.

13. Taz, Orach Chaim 128:16.

14. Pinkas of Lithuanian Communities, 1623.

15. R. Binyamin Aharon of Slonik, Masas Binyamin, sec. 6.

16. R. Chayim Halberstam, Divrei Chayim, Addenda, sec. 12.

17. Maharam Schik, Orach Chaim sec. 31.

18. Carl Dahlhaus, The Idea of Absolute Music.

19. Yehudit Frigishy, “The Unique Character of Ashkenazic Synagogue Music,” in Kenesset 2.

20. Ibid.

21. A.Z. Idelsohn, Jewish Music, p. 68.

22. Idelsohn, Jewish Music, pp. 177–78; M. Breuer, “Uniqueness of Ashkenazic Prayer Customs.”

23. Pauline Larrouy-Maestri et al., “Pitch Units in Music and Speech Prosody.”

24. Remark of Malki Rotman.

25. R. Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, Seridei Esh II:39.

26. Idelsohn, Jewish Music, pp. 136, 177; Y.Y. Lifshitz, “To Hear the Song and the Prayer,” Akdamot 21 (2008).

27. Maharil, Sefer Maharil, Laws of Yom Kippur; cf. Sefer Chasidim, sec. 907.

28. Gra, cited above (note 3).

29. Bava Metzia 59a.

30. Sefer ha-Niggunim, p. 30.Picture: Bigstock