Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Yeshiva Boys Choir: Breaking Boundaries

Tamar Fox, over at Jewcy.com, says of the following video:
I can't decide if I had a spiritual experience while watching this, or if it gave me chills of horror...



I respond to Tamar's post:

Okay. I was simultaneously creeped out and excited when I watched this video. I felt strangely drawn to it, and at first I wasn't sure why I felt a sense of deja vu.

Then I realized what it was.

I wasn't actually born Jewish. Instead, I was born Evangelical Christian, and since I demonstrated a strong proclivity to music from a young age, over the years I found myself singing in various traveling religious choirs, some of which recorded and performed regularly. The product looked and sounded nearly identical to this . . . sans kippot, of course. And, oh yes, there were girls -- I was one of them.


As somebody who has seen the best and worst of both the Jewish and Christian worlds, when I see things like this I get an uncanny feeling -- uncanny because of the moment at which I cannot remember whether this is a Jewish or Christian children's choir. Of course, there are the kippot and the Hebrew lyrics that identify it as Jewish, but otherwise it could've easily been a product of the Jews' Jesus-loving offspring.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

This is going to sound truly bizarre, but...I have always been creeped out by images of young people (boys and girls) doing adult type activities/dressing in adult clothes, etc...I am not quite sure what that says about me? Warped, no?

Dov said...

Monica,
The words of the song are based on the Midrash from Psalms (91) which reads

כל מי שהוא מתפלל בירושלים, כאילו מתפלל לפני כסא הכבוד, ששער השמים הוא שם, ופתח פתוח לשמוע תפלה

,Whoever prays in Jerusalem, it is as though he/she prays before the throne of glory, for the gate of heaven is there (in Jerusalem) and a door is always open for the hearing of prayer.

Ironically, the video seems to have been done in New York City!

Dov

Monica said...

Adam . . . hmmm. I think I agree with you, which is why child pageants bother me immensely.


Dov -- Thank you! I was hoping somebody would translate. And, oh how I love seeing Hebrew letters in the comment section of my blog. :)