Songs of Eden - Jewish Music, Jewish Renewal

Three principles of tefillah (prayer)

“Sing unto the Lord a new song”: traditions old and new

Since the earliest teachings, Jews have been studying, debating and developing forms of tefillah (prayer). The mediaeval kabbalists took up the task, and created elaborate esoteric and mystical practices for prayer. Rabbi Eliezer taught: “One who makes his prayer fixed (keva) – his prayer is not prayer.” And Rabba and Rav Yosef both taught that keva was for: “Whoever is not able to add something new into it.”

With Songs of Eden, Philip Clouts and Alexander Massey have drawn on traditional Torah texts associated with kabbalah, and added something new – a rich musical meditation – to create a fresh, living, prayerful experience. The result is an intimate devotional concert that blends guided spoken meditation with improvised music, and newly composed nigguns and Hebrew songs.

Prayerful song

Songs of Eden is a deeply personal response to kabbalah that pays homage to three traditional elements of early kabbalistic mysticism. Kavannah in prayer, conceived kabbalistically, was an emotionally intense practice consisting of directing the heart and mind in prolonged and continuous contemplation. Sometimes prayerful attention would be concentrated on the axis mundi - the ‘world axis’ linking the physical Temple in Jerusalem and the ‘celestial Temple.’ The Songs of Eden cycle musically ascends the Tree of Life (another image for the axis mundi), focuses in turn on each of the central sephirot on the Tree, and then descends.

Devekut, literally ‘cleaving’ to G-d or Shekhinah (G-d's Presence), has been described as the ultimate religious experience. Gershom Scholem points out that: “To cleave to Him this means the cleaving of the mind to him, for there is no devekut except that of the mind and the meditation of the heart.” For both performers and listeners, Songs of Eden is just such a meditation of the heart, a yearning for communion with the divine.

Theurgy, perhaps the most mysterious of the three principles, concerns our role in tikkun olam, the repairing of the world. Early kabbalists believed that prayer, especially contemplation of the sephirot, released the sparks of the shattered vessels, allowing them to reunite with G-d’s essence. Through pure intention (kavannah), words, music, prayer and action in the physical world could affect the spiritual realms; in turn, this could draw down the healing power of shekinah (the indwelling Presence) into the physical world. We share a desire to create music that can be spiritually meaningful for ourselves and others, music that will make a difference, music that will heal.

Living tradition

In the spirit of Rabbi Eliezer, the content, shape and sequence of the songs and meditations continue to evolve.

Each concert is a new departure …