Around the auditorium the congregants rise, reciting the prayer in unison as Cantor Ritter looks out at them. In the ten years that he has been at Sherith Israel this has always been his favorite part of the service, the moment when the room joins as one to say this most sacred and holy of blessings. He realizes in part his joy comes not from the meaning of the prayer but its sound, the way that the congregation swells on the middle words, bringing the prayer together like a song. And he realizes this is in part the same for them, not the meaning of the words but the sound – or rather, the sound is due to the fact that they know it, the tune that is, one of the few prayers all in attendance seem able to remember.

He looks at the older men, their heads bent to reveal their yarmulkes and around them their pinkish balding crowns, the women in their black hairnets and frowning expressions, their lips moving rapidly, silently, unconsciously Cantor Ritter thinks, saying the words the way one will unconsciously talk to oneself, filling the air with a sort of half remembered tune whistled to fill up the sad Sunday hours. And then there are the children, small boys and girls who seem to sense something of importance is occurring, their faces upturned and silent momentarily, silenced by the enormity around them – the feeling that there is something here, something important. Something unseen.

He finds himself singing stronger as he looks at them, the feeling of music like a literal feeling in his chest, the air rising up with it, the heart beating, the blood seeming to almost pump to the beat. It’s like when he was a child and used to listen the live broadcasts from the Met. He felt himself transported, almost out of his body, even as his parents looked at him from his bedroom door, a little confused, a little happy.  They were simple people after all, even if they were sensitive, his mother a singer, his father a fiddler at local dances. Still, they had to make a living through the dairy and it was upstate New York and the turn of the century. A long way from the Met. More than in just miles.

His mother had probably blamed herself for his dreaminess, he thought smiling to himself now. Standing him up on the kitchen high chair to perform for company, teaching him those old tunes and love songs, those songs he didn’t even understand the words to. Like the congregation with the Shema. “Lover man where can you be…”

Still, she had always had it in her whether she knew it consciously or not. He can remember her singing, a voice so beautiful it could make your eyes mist up. An aching. Like Ave Maria. Yizkadal ve yiz ka dash. The longing of women. And everyone else.

Cantor Ritter adjusts his tallis and blinks hard, embarrassed that he should be misting up like this again, as he always does when the congregation recites. It’s not so much that he’s embarrassed at the emotion itself, but rather the source. His mother and the music in his head even as these congregents think of their prayers. And earnest Rabbi Salzman standing before him, making himself look all the more serious as they approach the moment when they will recite the Kaddish. The prayer for the mourners – their dearly departed.

Of course, his mother was gone too. And many years. Many years passed. Though he wasn’t mourning. Wasn’t sad because of that. He wasn’t unhappy. He had had a good life. A full life. And still there was singing.

Was that his mother’s gift to him? Or his father’s? Or God’s, whatever that meant. There were times he wasn’t even sure he believed in God. Which might have seemed strange given his position. And definitely was to Salzman.

“But if you accept God created all, you have to accept he made evil too,” Ritter had said.

To which Salzman had replied. “But no. That’s not right.”

End of story. End of conversation. Like always.

It was ironic to Cantor Ritter who’d always thought a rabbi was supposed to share his knowledge with others. If he didn’t agree shouldn’t he have explained why? Wasn’t that part of his role as congregation leader? A dispenser of wisdom and opinions? A man for Socratic Dialogues? A man you could count on to make you think?

Ritter looks over at him now, with his beard and his tallis, his head bent down like a parody of Moses. Or Herzel maybe. One of those dreamers. Those zealots for a cause. Us against them. Against the world.

Salzman is praying into his book held before him, staring down at the pages rather than the congregation, and neither frowning nor smiling – just looking bland like always, emotionless, unfeeling.

It doesn’t seem right to Cantor Ritter that he should stand in front of the congregation like that. He is supposed to be their guide, their spiritual master, but to Cantor Ritter it seems he is merely master of their surfaces. A rule dispenser, an authoritarian, a man who takes names and doles out punishments.

“He isn’t very sophisticated,” Ritter thinks shaking his head.

Then he remembers that encounter they had soon after they first met. Salzman had come into Sorochi Auditorium one Wednesday night while Cantor Ritter was there practicing with the choir. And he had stood back for a minute, with his coat on, getting ready to leave, his finger upon his chin and cheek, like he was appreciating the music maybe, absorbing it, enjoying it. Being human.

But then Cantor Ritter saw that he was subtly shaking his head as he listened, and that he seemed as if he wanted to speak, and to interrupt, and to make a point.

“Yes Rabbi Salzman?” the cantor said as the choir reached a stopping place.

“Cantor,” Salzman said motioning to him with a crooked finger.

And Ritter came off the stage, following Salzman to his office...

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