Music has always been the heart of our Congregation. 

This year our energies will be directed to cultivating a youth choir in the religious school,  exploring unique Shabbat services such as Shir Shabbat - a purely musical service where there is no spoken word,  developing a new instrumental ensemble called "Mishpacha" made up of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, who enjoy sharing the connection of making music together, and interactive Children's Concerts for young families in our Early Childhood Center.

We're continuing our ongoing presence for our new musical ensemble for teenagers - THE TISHEENS!    We’re always on the lookout for singers & instrumentalists, songwriters & arrangers, who love to share their joy of music making and creativity with others!

The TISHTEENS presence was appreciated once again at our High Holy Day services this year at Barnum Hall, where they continued to inspire many worshippers in prayer and song.   Banding together with the TISHTONES in an original musical arrangement by Rabbi Neil,  Saalam/One Love, our synagogue family witnessed the blessing of one generation mentoring, nurturing, and supporting another; confirming the vibrant musical and spiritual life of our BSS family will be transmitted to future generations. 

On the musical calendar this year for the TISHTEENS are special community gatherings, such as Children's Concert at Hanukkah, the Martin Luther King Interfaith service with our friends at Calvary Baptist, a Purim Masqerade Ball, and a reprise of Our Voices.

All those interested in being part of any and all of these wonderful events, please call Cantor Ken at 310 453-3361 X115 or email him at Cantor@bethshirsholom.org for more information.

Let’s bring the music and rock the house….The House of the Song of Peace!!!

B'shalom,

Cantor Ken Cohen

Our Voices Concert

Click here to read about the many gifted individuals who participated at this special event, including pictures celebrating the occasion.

THE VALUE of MUSIC AT BSS

I still remember my mother's remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school she said, you're WASTING your SAT scores. On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they LOVED music, they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren't really clear about its function, because we live in a society that puts music in the arts and entertainment section of the newspaper. Serious music, on the other hand, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it's the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.

The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks who said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. When France entered the war against Nazi Germany, Messiaen was captured by the Germans and sent off in a cattle car, imprisoned in a concentration camp. There he was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose music. Messiaen wrote his quartet based on the musicians he met in the camp, and it was performed in front of 4,000 prisoners and guards in the prison. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the classic repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture why would anyone bother with music? And yet from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn't just Messiaen; others created art. Why? In a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without commerce, without recreation, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, I am alive, and my life has meaning.

On September 12, 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. That morning I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter given what happened in this city yesterday? It seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? I was completely lost.

And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. And then I observed how we got through the day, we didn't shoot hoops, play Scrabble. We didn't play cards to pass the time, we didn't watch TV, we didn't shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, that same day, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang We Shall Overcome. Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.

From these experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of arts and entertainment as the newspaper section would have us believe. It's not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or just passing time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we cannot with our minds. Music has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn't know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what's really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.

Can you imagine a wedding with music? Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn't happen that way. The Greeks: Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.

I had the fortune of speaking to the incoming freshman class of musicians this past year; in the chance of bringing a hopeful light for our sons and daughters:

If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you'd take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you're going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

You're not here to become an entertainer, and you don't have to sell yourself. The truth is you don't have anything to sell; being a musician isn't about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. Musicians are not entertainers, but closer to paramedics, firefighters, and rescue workers. You're here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don't expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that's what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help and guide us with our internal, invisible lives.

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CANTORIALLY SPEAKING...

Cantor Ken has created new and exciting programs at BSS, including the Journey Group, the TishTeens,  the Career Center at BSS, the Men's Club, Children's Concerts, Shabbat Chavurah for Young Families, and hikes on Shabbat into the beautiful Santa Monica mountains.

He also nurtures the creative spirit within the synagogue community through the arts creating unique concerts such as Our Voices, empowering artists such as dancers, songwriters, film makers, singers, painters, and poets, to share their creative gifts with the entire BSS community.  He directs the in-house synagogue ensemble called the Tishtones, as well as our Adult Choir, and enjoys composing and arranging original compositions for our service.

Cantor Ken is passionate about strengthening the synagogue as a whole, and is joined by his colleague and dear friend, Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels.  Together, they've rejuvinated the membership committee, which has been able to attract newcomers to our warm, inclusive, and nurturing spritual family, that is at the heart of our mission as a synagogue.  As part of their desire to reinvigorate relationships within our synagogue family, there are now a series of 'Beach Retreats,' for every class in our religious school, inviting students and their families for a joyous day of prayer and song, discussion and cameraderie, on the beautiful sandy beaches of Malibu.  There is also an opportunity for members to join him on a variety of spiritual hikes throughout the Santa Monica Moutains.

Cantor Ken loves teaching the very young in our Nursery Program to High School seniors, shaping the hearts and minds of our Jewish future.  He directs the dynamic B'nei Mitzvah program at BSS, where every child is empowered to achieve their highest possibility.  

MEN'S CLUB

Our Men's Club is part social, part social action.   Including events such as Dodger Games, Hiking in the Santa Monica Moutains, building camaraderie and friendships; along with service to our congregation and the wider community.

Men's Club

UPCOMING EVENTS

This section highlights musical happenings and events throughout the year.

Programming

REFLECTIONS

Recent articles written by Cantor Ken on a variety of topics and issues.

Articles

HIGH HOLIDAY TORAH READING FOR TEENS

As the newest members of an ancient people,  post-BM students have the distinct honor of reading the Torah on the High Holidays.   Don't miss this opportunity to further enhance your Jewish adulthood, and deepen your connection to our synagogue family.

High Holiday Torah Reading

SHABBAT HOME CELEBRATION FOR DECEMBER 25 AND JANUARY 1

Learn beautiful Shabbat home melodies and rituals, along with readings and stories that celebrate the birth of our blessed county.

Shabbat Home Celebration

Rabbi Neil and Cantor Ken shared Chanukah favorites with the crowds at the Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade during the festival of lights.

Our "green" Cantor Ken often bikes to temple.