Tzav – Do Re Mi

I first learned the system of chanting Torah when I was eleven years old.  My teacher, Mr. Rothchild – whose first name I either never knew or simply forgot it in the passage of so much time – was the shamesh of the day school I attended in Brooklyn circa 1971.  Once a week or so, I quietly left class and went to Mr. Rothchild’s office.  There, he instructed me for 45 minutes in the music of the Torah and Haftorah melody of notes.

I learned that the מַהְפַּ֤ך (Mahpach) and יְ֚תִיב (Yetiv) look alike in a vacuum only, as do the פַּשְׁטָא֙ (Pashta) and קַדְמָ֨א (Kadma).  But because they are positioned differently on the word or in a different grouping of notes; they are musically distinct and they guide the meaning of the text differently.

Every now and then, Mr. Rothchild would put away his chart of notes and scales.  He would reach into his drawer and set up a chess board.  He pointed out that the 16 white pieces and 16 corresponding black ones were like the Torah notes in that some pieces repeated, and others were unique.  Sometimes they worked in harmonious groups, and at other times they marched alone.

We would play a few games, alternating colors after each game, and he would take the opportunity to point out that just as different pawns have different values to the player in the game, so too does the מֻנַּ֣ח note in a given verse.  “They don’t even start out equally”, he would say, “even though they look the same”.

This week we have the privilege of hearing one of the rarest of Torah tropes, the שַׁלְשֶׁ֓לֶת (shalshelet).  It appears only four time in all of Torah, and only once after the narrative stories of Bereishit.  It looks and sounds unlike every other trope.

In each instance, this elongated series of notes appears on the first word of the verse, which is, in each case, also a verb.  If you look at the notes’ symbolic representation atop the second, bolded shin above, you will see that it is shaped like a jagged vertical line.  But if you follow the chanting in shul, you will notice that the cantillation mark in the printed chumash is positioned 90 degrees off-course.  For those familiar with the trope system, the shalshelet is a thrice-repeated פָּזֵ֡ר (Pazer).  Rather than sounding like a rising series of upwards moving steps, the shalshelet sounds like a three-peat of the musical scales.  A pictorial view of the note (in English, left to right) is better represented thusly:

It takes about thirty notes from start to finish to belt out the shalshelet.  That is also the reason, I believe why the shalshelet’s cantillation mark is rotated.  It is simply a matter of convenience, as the series of notes are intoned over the single vowel.

From the picture above, we also get a sense as to why it is called a shalshelet, which comes from the root shalosh, three.  The shalshelet climbs and falls three times.  It ends, after much struggle, on the same vowel and on the same key where it began its journey.

The rarity of the Shalshelet, coupled with the length of the notes and the three-fold rising and falling scales, combine to give the listener a clue that something remarkable is taking place that is not at all obvious from the printed text itself.

Let’s take a quick look at the four shalshelet verses:

The first verse involves the story of Lot leaving Sodom right before its destruction.  The second verse concerns Avraham’s servant, Eliezer, who pleads to God to be able to fulfill his mission to find a wife for Isaac.  The third verse tells of Joseph’s refusal to accept the unholy invitation of Potiphar’s wife.  Our fourth verse describes Moshe’s coronation of Aaron as High Priest.  The lyrics of the verse describe four occasions when resolute, proud, principled, positions were taken.

But what becomes of the narrative when the sacred music is added?

All of a sudden, the stories become more nuanced, more complex.  Our heroes are now confused.  One minute they are high, the next they are low.  They are wrestling with themselves, and struggling to do the right thing.  Lot, after all, chose Sodom knowing full well that its rich lands were populated by evil folks.  And he was he not keen on leaving.  Eliezer was conflicted, because if he succeeded in finding a wife for Isaac, his chances of being named the successor to Avraham would decrease to zero.  He was praying for success but hoping for failure.  And Joseph?  Well, let’s just say that he was indeed tempted by the offer in front of his eyes.

Moshe was happy that his brother was about to become the Kohen Gadol, and there is not even a hint in the text itself to suggest otherwise.  But the music tells a different story.  Moshe was, after all, a human being, and he could be happy for his brother and a little bit envious of him at the same time.

Perhaps this is also why in each of the four shalshelet verses, the melodic verbs are accompanied by neither the proper name of the person nor even a pronoun.  Instead, it leaves the distressed verb unattended.  The reason is both simple and elegant.  At their moment of indecision, struggle and confusion, Lot, Eliezer, Joseph and Moshe are not quite themselves.  They are struggling with who they are and who they want to be.

Their names are omitted because they are engaged in the process of searching to find themselves!  They grapple with the pluses and minuses of their actions.  Even as they are stuck in one place, they move up and down a single syllable as if to say: “shall I go rise up high, or sink low down”?

It takes a while, but they find their footing.  They do the right thing.  They regain their composure, and the text resumes.  Right where it left off.  On the same syllable.  On the same vowel.  On the same note.

The Talmud (Eruvin 21b) teaches that the musical notes are at least as old as Shlomo HaMelech.  There, Rava interprets the verse in Kohelet:

What was the great knowledge that Kohelet (aka Shlomo) taught?  Says the Talmud:  דאגמריה בסימני טעמים, he taught the cantillation marks, the music of the Torah.  Shlomo HaMelech, the wisest of all men, knew that the music was a key that unlocked a hidden dimension to God’s Lyrics.

Shlomo HaMelech, after all, understood music like no other.  His father, King David, played the lute and composed poetry.  Shlomo authored the erotic poem Song of Songs, Shir HaSHirim.  Moreover, the midrash teaches us that Shlomo HaMelech spoke “siach hatzippurim”, the language of the birds.  On a simplistic level, Shlomo was “Dr. Doolittle-like”.  More profoundly, they Sages wanted to convey the idea that the wisest king understood the music of the heart, the unspoken emotions that often – though not always – accompany words.

When Arnold Benner wrote about music that “its language is a language which the soul alone understands, but which the soul can never translate”, he could easily have been speaking about the Torah.  We can certainly translate the words of Chumash from Hebrew into Greek, or English, or Russian, but not her music.  And without the melodies, part of the story is untold.

One day, about fifteen years ago, I drove past my elementary school.  On a whim, I parked the car and went inside.  The institution had changed names (and affiliations) and Mr. Rothchild had long since died.  But not his Torah.  I looked around at the iconic building on Ocean Parkway and it dawned on me that Mr. Rothchild taught me more than merely the skill of Torah reading or the game of chess.  He taught me about life, I just didn’t know it at the time.

Like the shalshelet, time marched on but I was back where I started.  Much had changed and much had stayed the same.

To this day, there are very few things I love more than listening to the Torah being chanted and playing a friendly game of chess.

Shabbat Shalom!