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Ein Li Eretz Acheret by Ehud Manor
I have no other country
Even if my land is burning
Just a word in Hebrew
Pierces my veins and my soul
With a painful body, with a hungry heart
Here is my home
I will not stay silent
Because my country changed her face
I will not give up reminding her
Singing into her ears
Until she opens her eyes
I have no other country
Until she will renew her glory days
Until she will open her eyes
For Cantors, song and prayer are our natural go tos. Ancient and modern Hebrew/English words and melody in conversation with the Divine is the language and the world we Cantors live in. I call it “the language and land of soul”. When we wish to celebrate and express our joy, we sing, we pray. When we are sharing moments of loss or grief with our congregants, we pray, we sing. When it seems there is nothing we can do to change a difficult situation, there we go again-singing and offering a prayer, hoping it will move the needle of dismay just a little bit-bringing light, comfort, solace. When our hearts are broken, and our hands are empty, we offer our voices as an open channel so that God, the source of all life, can enter, give us strength, and show us the way forward.
This past Monday morning, I made my way down to my old stomping ground, Hebrew Union College on West Fourth Street in Manhattan to join some fifty other Reform Cantors from the New York area. We were invited to participate in a recording of the much beloved song -Ein Li Eretz Acheret (I Have No Other Country) by Israeli composer Ehud Manor in honor of Yom Ha-Atz-maut. The piece has been newly arranged for four part choir by the very gifted musician Danny Maseng, whose music-including his Mah Tovu and Hashkiveinu, is well known in the Reform movement.
It was a grey, overcast, chilly day with a rainy drizzle coming down in the west village, but as I entered that familiar red brick building on the corner of West Fourth Street where I had my Cantorial beginnings, joining my colleagues and Cantorial students in prayer in HUC’s beautiful Chapel, I was filled with an immeasurable warmth and a strong feeling of being home.
Life in Israel is complicated, always has been, maybe always will be. As we Cantors sang Ehud Manor’s heartachingly beautiful song in HUC’s Chapel, I guess in our own way, we were doing the best we could to sing and pray for the country we love, for the country that is struggling to remain a free and democratic society, for the only Jewish homeland that we’ve got. I look forward to sharing the recording of Ein Li Eretz Acheret, which I was so proud to be part of, as soon as it is available on our social media channel close to Israel Independence Day. I hope you will enjoy!
With Blessings,
Cantor Rita Glassman
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