The real, the theoretical, and the spiritual

Judaism, Wntr-Spring, 2004 by Curt Leviant

MAN'S FIRST LANGUAGE WAS SONG. IN IMITATION OF THE birds. The idea was first proposed by Giovanni Battista Vico, a late seventeenthcentury Italian historian and philosopher. He believed that man's first language was in song-and that this language was in harmony with creation. That's why, it seems to me, the Torah and everything else Jewish is chanted, as a continuation of man's first language.

You can read this little anecdote about Vico and much more (not necessarily on this topic) in my novel, Diary of an Adulterous Woman).

Then we lost it. We lost the song. We stopped speak-singing or sing-speaking. But some languages still have a melodic pattern: (My chanted musical examples for the following six languages can here only be imagined.)

French: Bon jour, monsieur; au revoir; monsieur.

Russian: Kak pozhevyitse, moi dorogoi? (how are you, my dear?)

Italian: Signor vigile, dov'e la via Viga? (Mr. Policeman, where is Viga Street?)

Yiddish: Far voz zayt ir nit geven in shul haynt? (why weren't you in shul today?)

Hebrew: Motek, mi'zman lo ra-iti otkha. (sweetie, I haven't seen you in a while)

Greek: Ephkharisto-para kalo. (Thank you-you're welcome.)

And Judaism has preserved this affinity with song and melody and music by having song, melody or chant pervade every aspect of Jewish life:

1. praying

2. studying Talmud

3. reading the Torah

4. reading the Haftorah

5. singing zemiros at the Sabbath table

6. reciting/chanting the Hagada at the Seder

7. chanting the Kaddish and memorial prayer.

I can't think of any aspect of Jewish life that is devoid of melody. In an article in Judaism that discussed music in the work of Abraham Joshua Heschel, I read that when music is separated from spiritual insight, it cannot be fully understood, whether in or outside of the synagogue. I can play on that remark and aver that in Judaism whenever music is separated from text, text loses some of its spirituality. In fact, when music is separated from text, even text cannot be fully understood.

People have asked me if there really is music connected to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. My answer is that the Hebrew letters per se have no melody, but when one letter joins another and a word appears music ensues. But on second thought, when four-or five-year-olds would start learning the aleph-beys in Eastern Europe, the teacher would sing to them, "Kometz alephaw; komet beyz-baw" to a recognizable chant. So I suppose a case can be made for music and letters as well.

And more: Rabbi Isaac the Blind, the man considered the father of Kabbala (France, 1160-1235), wrote that all things, and all events are products of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

I have now set the stage for my novella, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Original Music of the Hebrew Alphabet, citing what influenced the spiritual background of this tale. But I should add one more fact: in Jewish tradition, letters have significance and potency.

There are various Midrashim that have the Hebrew letters vigorously competing for attention by calling out to God. I don't know if the following examples are true Midrash or if, as usual, I am concocting--but in any case they are Midrashic in spirit.

The aleph complains to God that he should have been the first letter of the Torah and not the bet. So God compensates him by making the aleph the first letter of the word for God. And the tenth letter, the little yud complains to the Almighty, how come I'm so tiny, while all other letters are so big? So God tells the little yud that he will be first letter of the holy, four-lettered name of God, the Tetragrammaton, and also the first letter of Yisrael.

And now let's move from music and alphabet to my fiction. How are stories made? There are several possibilities.

1) Either the outline of the plot or the characters are told to the writer, or he reads about them. Bernard Malamud once told me he used to get story ideas from feature items that would run in the early editions of the New York Times, a format the paper dropped years ago. The first edition of the Times, sometimes available as early as 10 P.M. the night before, would have human interest stories that would be scrapped in later editions as more hard news was printed.

2) Or the writer is witness to a certain event, or meets an interesting person who has had a fascinating experience....

3) Or--as happens much of the time--the author concocts a story as Jonathan Swift did with the Gulliver's Travels. Making things up is the bedrock of fiction. As I told the interviewer for Library Journal before my first novel, The Yemenite Girl, was issued, "I have perfect recall. I remember word for word conversations that never took place."

4) Or, finally, a combination of all of the above.

When I'm asked to summarize the plot of these two novellas, I say it's easier for me to write a story than summarize it. So here is what a colleague said about them:

  In these two novellas, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Original Music of the
  Hebrew Alphabet and Weekend in Mustara, Curt Leviant presents a young
  scholar who seeks long lost Jewish cultural treasures--music in one,
  poetry in the other--that can help him gain recognition and advance
  his career. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Original Music of the Hebrew
  Alphabel is set in Budapest during the Communist era. The story
  focuses on a tenuous seesaw between Dr. Isaac Gantz, a musicologist,
  and engineer Ferdinand Friedmann, a Holocaust survivor who believes
  that he possesses one of the greatest manuscripts of the ages, a
  Rosetta Stone of Judaica. Friedmann is willing to share it-but there
  is a "but." In pursuing this prize, Gantz enters a world of strange
  human relationships filled with doubts and surprises. A diverse cast
  of characters engage each other in this story where Jewish folklore,
  music, and history coalesce.