The Power of Music

I was feeling kind of down this morning, for a number of reasons. It's morning, it got cloudy, the political situation in our province is not good at the moment. Especially the latter. Politics really gets me down. And much as I try to stay away from it, in this case it directly affects me, so I can't. Ergo, frustration and depression.

And then a friend shared a video clip on Facebook (I'll try to embed the link). It's a group of orthodox Jewish men singing, a capella, around a table (at Seder, maybe?). It's a five-minute movie, and it hit me straight in the heart. Hit me, and lifted my spirits. I don't understand the words to their song, don't even know what language they're singing in - Yiddish, probably - but the sound cut straight through the gloom that surrounded me today. I don't know what it is about those minor keys and the strong beat of Jewish music, but it grabs me like no other and makes me want to start dancing the grapevine.

And that's the power of music. It bypasses all those intellectual barriers, the thoughts and ideas that crowd around us, and goes right for the emotional solar plexus. It crosses international, cultural and linguistic boundaries. And it has the power to soothe, to cheer, to comfort. Martin Luther said that "Once sung is thrice prayed" (which is why he wrote a great number of hymns for the purpose) - it's that powerful. It can express our hearts like nothing else can, even, or perhaps especially, when words fail or when we do not even know we need the expression. That's what I experienced today. I needed to hear that music today, and I didn't even know it.

Life, the Universe, and the Power of Music. It lifted me out of the clouds today.

Addendum: after I posted this to Facebook, another friend of mine managed to track the singers down on Youtube. Apparently it's the Shira Choir, from the States, and the song is called "Im Hashem Lo Yivneh Bayis" and was sung at a Bar Mitzvah. And here it is on Youtube: