With his next student, who's much better rehearsed, Martin has a chance to demonstrate the unique contribution of the chazan. After quiet, dark-eyed Danielle Tamir runs smoothly through her haphtarah, Martin teaches her a traditional Hanukkah melody for a prayer she will chant at her bat mitzvah, which falls during the eight-day holiday. "That's one of the differences that a professionally trained chazan can make in a congregation," he says. "Danielle might learn only one way of doing these words, whereas I vary the melodies and can bring in influences that are appropriate to the Jewish calendar."
He praises Danielle in front of her beaming mother. "You did a great job, but you're rushing," he observes gently. "Take your time. If you hurry, you'll finish one minute sooner. Then the rabbi will talk longer, or I'll sing longer, and personally, I'd rather hear you."
Melissa Jones
To keep his synagogue services musically fresh, cantor David Feuer constantly prepares new music for his Palm Beach congregation
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Not everyone is thrilled with the new direction the cantorial profession and cantorial music have taken. Outside the shul, in the parking lot, Martin runs into an old-time chazan, 77-year-old Henry Butensky, a short, fit-looking man with a Bronx accent who just finished working out at the gym. "I was building up my muscles so that I can protect myself from the goyim [non-Jews]," he jokes with Martin in Yiddish.
Butensky, whose father was a cantor and who learned through apprenticeship, retired last year after serving in the same pulpit in Livingston, New Jersey, for 40 years. "Cantors my age, we can't get over it," he says. "When I was a kid, I used to run to see all the great cantors. I was a cantor groupie. People like me still think of the cantor as a solo performer who is supposed to tear the heartstrings. But those days are gone. Now it's the rabbi who holds the congregation."
Butensky now works only Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services, which can pay as much as $15,000 for ten days of work. Some older cantors continue to sing long after their voices are shot, but he doesn't intend to be one of them: "I always said that when the day comes that I can't hit a note that is one of my good notes, I won't sing anymore."
When over-the-hill cantors won't step down voluntarily, however, easing them out can be touchy. And the process of recruiting a new cantor is difficult and expensive, says Bill Forster, the selection committee chairman at Congregation B'nai Torah in Boca Raton, who helped choose a new cantor last year.
"A lot of cantors have n'shama [soul] and doven well, but they can't sing," says Forster, who like Butensky considers himself one of the dwindling number of cantor "groupies" who revere great cantorial singing. "Others with musical backgrounds sing beautifully, but they don't know what they're singing. The guy we hired, he's a mensch [a good person] and he has a big voice, but we're working with him on dovening. Since he's praying for us, I want to be sure he's feeling it."
No one complains that Cantor Feuer lacks n'shama. At Temple Emanu-El's Sabbath service one recent Friday night, he has more time than usual to solo. Rabbi Feldman is away at a synagogue retreat, so there won't be a lengthy sermon.
Feuer holds up a glass to sing the Kiddush, the blessing of the Sabbath wine, and delivers a thrilling series of swoops and trills, most of which he improvises. After the service, at a reception with coffee and cake, congregants stream up to Feuer and gush about his singing. "You should be at the Metropolitan Opera," says one man, who introduces his wife as a retired opera singer.
"Thank you," Feuer replies, "but I'm happy being a chazan."
Contact Harris Meyer at his e-mail address: Harris_Meyer@newtimesbpb.com
