On Borrowing Tunes

[debka_notion]

At shul this morning, they used a few tunes borrowed from the Christian world for a couple of the hakafot.  The first one came as a touch of a shock, as I know it only from singing it with the hospital choir this summer (3-7 people, depending on the week.  We sang at bedsides once a week, for about an hour)- I'll Fly Away.  After the first time we did it, it was stuck in my head for about 2 weeks (and will probably be back there for a while).  (Note the lyrics to the chorus: "I'll fly away, O Lordy, I'll fly away/When I die halleluyah by abd by I'll fly away"- an odd thought to combine, but I figured ok, it sort of works.)  Then a bit later we got Amazing Grace, which oddly enough fit the topic better.  Never thought that I'd say that.  

Comments

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

Where did you daven?

Today someone led one of the hoshanot to the niggun section of "Through Heaven's Eyes" from The Prince of Egypt. Almost, but not quite.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Kedem. It was, over all, quite comforting in the sense of actually being comfortable, which is not in the spirit of going somewhere new and having adventures, but is certainly in the spirit of keeping me from freaking out entirely- and that's good enough for me.

I haven't seen Prince of Egypt, except a couple of snippets, so I'm missing part of your comment- perhaps explain the context/main idea of the song?

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

Conext isn't really important here, but in a nutshell:

Moses is rescued from dying in the desert—an idea that didn't bother him too much, given his life trajectory up to that point—by a traveling Midianite (Or, more accurately, a traveling Midianite's camel.) Once revived, he complains to the local priest, name of Jethro, that he's completely worthless and has accomplished nothing. Jethro explains, by way of a song, that humans lack the perspective to evaluate their own lives. The important thing here is that the stanzas of the song are separated by a wordless refrain with lots of yai da dai dai diddle dai dai. The Midianites turn out to be Hasidim who approve of mixed dancing.

You really ought to see the movie, which is very well done and which manages to be one of those few projects that attempt to offend few people and still turn out to be artistically worthwhile. Also, at the end when Moses is carrying the tablets, they're written in ktav ivri, which is awesome.

Glad to see you're keeping one day!

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Someday I should learn to read ktav ivri, for the sake of completeness and the like.

I'm feeling a little weird about the keeping one day thing, but it just didn't feel reasonable to keep two, nor like I could do two days of Simchat Torah in a row- one is great, two would be major overkill, even if I could find a shul that had the davening. But it feels like I'm in Israel and giving in to a lessening of my religious dedication because it's what's done here, even knowing all the geographical and historical reasons why keeping one day here makes perfect sense.