My father’s shema is rough and low, like wind gusting over rocky sand. He chants in a whisper, crouching next to me at my bed. Eyes shut, head bowed slightly. His voice has a quality that mirrors my own—childlike, in awe. I love that he chants it as though it were very special, as though each word is imbued with a magical essence that he is lucky to be able to touch simply by speaking the word aloud. He cannot speak Hebrew, but the words are not meaningless bundles of sounds; they are items he carries in his voice and delivers to me, each one a new gift. My own voice, high and thin, to me still a child’s voice, blends with his. We chant together. Even as a toddler, when we had this nightly ritual, even then I sensed the words’ power.
My great-aunt’s shema is rapid-fire, fluent Hebrew that is still shot through with a Marathi lilt, the emphasized “s” and the careful “r”s she could never quite shake. She whispers it fast and tuneless, a time-worn habit before bed each night. When I sleep over at her house, she whispers it over me, and after “amain,” I get three kisses, all in a line—forehead, nose, chin. “I love you. Goodnight.”
My congregation’s shema is less of a chant and more of a song. The cantor, who maybe thinks he is a professional singer, belts it as if this is not a synagogue but the Lyric Opera downtown; his shema is replete with vibrato and operatic flourishes, holding obscenely high notes that he knows no one else can hit. The rest of the congregation stumbles along uncertainly, trying in vain to follow along; the result is a simple, strangely beautiful chorus accompanying Cantor Weinstein’s soaring tones. It is Yom Kippur, Cantor, and I want to go home. But yes, sing your shema like no one is fasting. In truth, I enjoy it, for it’s not often I get to see such a show—and oh, what a show it is. But it wouldn’t feel right any other way. The shema of my congregation feels like home.
My own shema is a more recent invention. Whoever would’ve thought I’d start to love spirituality? It has appeals, even to oh-so-secular me. When I chant shema—-quiet under my breath as I lay awake in bed—-I take the utmost care with every syllable. I hold each word in my mouth before releasing it; I am tasting it, feeling it. Each word is soaked through with history. Four thousand years’ worth of Jews have formed their lips around these very same words. I am assured and comforted that my ancestors and their ancestors once found solace in these same lines, that they too whispered them into the darkness before bed. Shema, to hear me chant it, is a thread that connects us all through space and time, knitting us into the same cloth, making us one. Hear, O Israel. My people are listening.
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