Singing about life and loss

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

The Kootenays, Victoria, Vancouver and now Hornby Island. Over the last 36 years, Rabbi Hanna Tiferet and her husband, Rabbi Danny Siegel, have left their mark on the B.C. Jewish community – and the province has made its own impression on them. Hannah Tiferet's new CD, Seeds of Wonder, is so named because of the couple's return to the West Coast – their move to Hornby and their reconnection to the land.

"We moved to Hornby to fulfil a long-standing dream of practising what we preach," Tiferet told the Independent in an e-mail interview. "We wanted to live in harmony with the earth, plant and harvest our garden and rejuvenate our bodies and souls after almost 40 years of renewing Judaism in Canada and the U.S."

Tiferet said she continues to travel and teach, perform concerts and create learning opportunities in the Comox Valley. This year, she recorded Seeds of Wonder, her seventh CD, and is busy promoting it. She will be in Vancouver on April 29 for a concert with Myrna Rabinowitz, who also released a new CD recently, Hashiveinu: Songs of Blessing and Prayer. Tiferet will then fly east for concerts in Hanover, N.H., Boston, Mass., and Washington, D.C.

Tiferet and Rabinowitz have a long-standing musical relationship. The CDs Or Shalom (1987) and And You Shall Teach Your Children (1990) were written and recorded by Tiferet, Rabinowitz and Harley Rothstein. Tiferet said that Rothstein has been invited to join the pair for a song or two, but that will be decided closer to the concert date.

"Both he and we are eager to include him and hopefully he will join us for a few songs," said Tiferet. "We are honored to be performing at the Norman Rothstein Theatre, which is named for his beloved father. He and his wife, Eleanor Boyle, are supporters of the event."

Tiferet and Rabinowitz have already had a couple of concerts together, on a CD tour in California this past March.

"We delight in alternating our songs, which are amazingly similar in theme," explained Tiferet. "We seem to draw from a similar well of healing and hope. Our music is deeply sincere, participatory, rousing and uplifting to the soul."

In Vancouver, Tiferet said they will be joined by Karen Rauh on keyboard, David Fainsilber on guitar, Orith Fogel on double bass and Charles Kaplan on percussion.

The Vancouver tour stop will be somewhat of a homecoming for Tiferet. She and her husband were at Beth Tikvah Synagogue in 1977/'78 and they founded Congregation Or Shalom in 1978, staying there until 1987. Prior to arriving in Richmond, the couple were at Temple Emanu-El in Victoria for about a year. Previous to that, they were the spiritual leaders of Sha'arey Shamayim Congregation in Thunder Bay, Ont.

Of their move to Hornby Island in 2005, Tiferet said, "This is my fourth time living in B.C. We first arrived in 1971 during the Vietnam War era, and lived in the Kootenays, where our connection to the Earth and her seasons began.... Daniel's family was Canadian, although he was born in New York City. His grandmother, Ida Siegel, was well known in Toronto as an early feminist and a founder of Goel Tzedek Conservative synagogue, which became Beth Tzedek."

Tiferet received ordination both as a rabbinic pastor (1992) and rabbi (2003) from Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and rabbinic colleagues in Jewish Renewal. She earned a master's of Jewish studies degree at Boston's Hebrew College in 2003 and studied at the Hebrew Univerity in Jerusalem as a Melton senior educator in 1996-1997.

The singer/songwriter, liturgical artist and spiritual guide has travelled throughout North America leading workshops and Shabbatonim and as an artist-in-residence. Most recently, she served for seven years as co-spiritual leader at Congregation B'nai Or of Boston with her husband, who sings with her on Seeds of Wonder. Tiferet writes new melodies for ancient Hebrew prayers and, according to her website (www.hannatiferet.com), the songs on her new CD were sung in the B'nai Or community.

"I called my seventh CD Seeds of Wonder because of my move to Hornby Island and my connection to the land," Tiferet said. "The cover features a photo of me with a giant sunflower that grew in my garden last summer. It spoke to me with the double meaning of 'wonder,' which includes 'awe' and 'question.'

"With great awe, I stood before that sunflower, appreciating the countless seeds that spiralled around its centre, each one holding the potential for another plant with thousands of seeds. On the album is a song called 'Planting Seeds,' which affirms the wisdom contained within each seed and the many ways we plant seeds in our lives.

"On the other side," she continued, "the 'wonder' represents a question of the wandering in my life, the many homes I have created and congregations served.

"I feel the pathos of life, the joy and the sorrow and, on this album, I have written melodies for liturgical verses that celebrate life and mourn the losses we feel."

Tiferet cites Reb Shlomo Carlebach and singer/songwriter Debbie Friedman as sources of musical inspiration.

"I played the flute from the age of 10 and always loved to sing in the synagogue and in my leadership role in USY [United Synagogue Youth]," she said, "but it was during my first year of university that I met Reb Shlomo and understood my musical and spiritual path.

"That was in January 1967 and, for 10 years, his inspiration gestated in my creative being. The form of the Chassidic niggun, with its repetition of individual verses, as well as melodies to express entire prayers, began to flow through me in 1977, when we moved to Richmond, to serve as the rabbinical family of Beth Tikvah. Verses from the siddur would jump out at me and ask for new melodies to bring them to life. It seemed to be happening in many places at the same time as a new North American nusach began to appear.

"The music of Debbie Friedman was also significant in my development. Until that moment, I thought liturgy was written and performed by famous cantors. Then I realized that I too could give voice to the words and message of the siddur and Tanach."

Tiferet hopes to give voice to such spiritual works in other ways, as well.

"I'd like to write a book, consolidating my prayers, poems, midrashim and teachings into a hands-on journal of Jewish spiritual practice and insight," she said. "I would like to continue to develop my skills as a spiritual guide and provide individual phone consultations.

"And I hope to continue to be a conduit for the creation of Jewish communal connection in the living rooms of interested Chassidim in the Comox Valley."

Tiferet and Rabinowitz perform at the Norman Rothstein Theatre on Sunday, April 29. Tickets are $15 in advance from the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and Banyen Books and $18 at the door.

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