An open love letter to the CBH Choir and Band

Dear CBH Choir family,

I am so honored to be singing with all of you this year. Will invited me to join the choir last summer before High Holidays, and I just wasn’t ready to do it then. Mostly, I was scared. (Terrified, really.) I sat at Rosh Hashanah services last year watching all of you with a mix of awe and excitement, knowing that if I could get over myself, I would get to be one of you.

So why the fear?

Quite honestly, I knew I would love it. Somehow, it felt scary to be on the precipice of doing something so potentially nourishing to my spirit. I didn’t know if I could actually let myself feel that kind of fullness and joy.

Our choir retreat a few weeks ago was very powerful for me for that reason. It was so nurturing in a way that I haven’t experienced in a long time. I cried quietly through yoga when Rebecca talked about release. I cried through “Om.” I cried through tree pose, supporting each other as we balanced in a circle. I cried through the activity of breathing with our backs up against a partner’s back. Afterwards, my partner told me, “I didn’t want to move… didn’t want to let go…. I haven’t felt like someone has had my back since I got divorced a few years ago.”

I couldn’t speak to respond to my partner because the feeling of connection to her and to the rest of the group was so strong. The energy the choir creates by being together, even without singing, takes my breath away.  

There is a lot of love and support there.

After a really rough last few years, I didn’t know that I could feel that connected to a group of people anymore. It is surprisingly hard to let go and just let yourself be loved by a lot of new people.

The CBH choir is so much more than what I imagined last year as I sat and watched all of you from the side. I didn’t know that choir members celebrated birthdays together or knew all about each other’s kids’ activities or said Kaddish with each other.

I have learned a lot through choir this year, for example:

1)   How to appropriately pronounce “Hallelujah” with long vowels

2)   How to operationalize “hushed intensity”

3)   How to read Will’s many forms of eyebrow communications

(FYI, in case you missed it tonight, the one where his eye gets big and he looks at you intently with his eyebrow raised means we are about to move onto the next section of the song.)

I’ve also learned to let a lot more joy come back into my life and to let myself fully experience it. Specifically, I love the sense of wholeness I feel in singing with all of you. I think one of our songs sums that feeling up perfectly:

"Ashira v’azameira ura k’vodi"

Rough translation:

I will sing and chant and awaken my soul

Through my voice and breath I can bring forth my own essence

Which is connected to all sparks of the Divine

I am so happy to be celebrating this new year with all of you in the choir loft (with the bubbles... that I did not put there, but feel the need to blow occasionally).

With much love and respect and awe,

Ariela