Rising Song Community Spotlight: Libby Kahn

Tell us a little about yourself and your upbringing...

My name is Elizabeth Leah Kahn; I go by Libby. I am a retired public elementary school teacher. I grew up in Sebring, Florida, which is a small town in central Florida. My grandparents were immigrants who came in through Canada from Lithuania in the 1920s. We were the only Jewish family for a long time. When I was a child, I didn’t know about Jewish families who practiced Judaism. My family assimilated. I assimilated. I was a wandering Jew for 40 years. Then my dad was bar mitzvah’d again, with his sister, when he was 77 and she was 82. It was very inspirational to see them do that, and I started searching, trying to answer the question, “What kind of Jew am I?”

How did you find Rising Song and Joey Weisenberg’s master classes?

I started with Chabad.org listening to Rabbi [Yehoshua] Gordon. For years I listened every day, and then three years ago I joined the Mussar Institute with Alan Morinis. That's been an eye opening process of looking at my curriculum, my character traits. We meet in va’ad weekly, I have several chevrutahs. Last year, in a moment of inspiration, HaShem led me to Hadar and the Rising Song Institute with Joey Weisenberg. The music  touched my soul. I signed up for the class for the High Holy days. There was so much material! It went right over my head! But I’d just read from the Talmud that if you try to grab too much, you end up with nothing, but if you grab a little you end up with a lot! This spoke to me. So I decided to learn just one nigun, “Kane Street Nigun.”

What role does Jewish liturgical music play in your life now? 

I've joined a Reform temple and they just started having services in person again. The rabbi asked me to sing and play “Hashkiveynu,” and lead my one nigun. All that felt really good—it felt fantastic! I felt like I had been welcomed home. Baruch Hashem!

Could you talk a little bit about your musical background?

I have a lifetime of experience playing by ear. I love music, and the opportunity to play music with others. I’ve been playing for entertainment and with children. During my years as an elementary school teacher, I would bring music into my classroom every single day. Now I find there are melodies where I go into a meditative state, and try to connect with Hashem, and get a sense of calm and equanimity. Joey's classes just seem to tell me that there's a whole other world out there—it's a really exciting world, and it's very big! But I’m taking little steps.

Recently I went to watch the children in a music class at my temple. The teacher was fussing at a child who was banging on the table to the beat, and it hurt my heart to hear her fuss at him! During recess afterwards, I noticed two little boys pounding beats on a table. It was a teachable moment! So I went over to them, and I started doing “Kane Street Nigun.” I showed them some of the techniques that Joey had shown in his video, making different sounds with our fingers, hands, and feet—and other children came over and joined in! I told the rabbi, “This is where your hope for building this Jewish community is—with these children. They are ripe for wanting to drum and do a nigun.” So I felt just like a little door opened.

What a fantastic experience that you created for them, that's a wonderful story. What do you imagine for yourself going forward in your Jewish musical/spiritual journey? 

We are in transition in this temple, and the new, young rabbi that will be coming soon—he leads services with a guitar, and he sings and talks to people during services about why Jewish people have been stuck doing things just one way for a long time and how we don’t have to do it exactly that way. This rabbi plays guitar as he's talking, so we have so much hope that he will embrace doing nigunim and be uplifted during services. At a recent interfaith Thanksgiving gathering (very diverse—American Indian, Muslim, Budhist, Christian, Jewish, and more) at a local Black church, a little group of us that came from the temple noticed how much energy there was in the service. One person said, “The temple is so dry, can we do something like this?” I sent them the link to Joey’s classes and I said, “You will fall in love with this process, because Joey shows how spiritual it is to have Jews singing and drumming together. Singing and drumming together will awaken the Jewish soul. You might get a little bit of pushback from the older group, but to build our Jewish community, the prayers and singing has got to have some life.”

Which of the parts of the master classes have you found to be most helpful?

Well I'm almost finished with strategies for creating “Singing Communities.” I chose to do that first because I needed to have skills for leading nigunim at the synagogue, to tell the congregants that it's OK to clap and to move! The first time I did the new nigun, I told the rabbi that Joey says, “You have to do it 20 times to get it in your kishkes!” She laughed and said, “We can't do that, you can do it two times.” So OK, two times is better than no times. So I put a lot of energy into it, to try to get people engaged. I get close to them, I get in their space to involve them. I'm saying, “I'll be foolish in front of you, you can just sway back and forth or just clap, and that'll be enough for now.” I think, with the new rabbi coming, we're going to see a big change, and I hope to be a part of it.

That is so inspiring, Libby, that's awesome. My last question is, what else would you like to know about other people in the community? 

I will tell you quite frankly that I feel intimidated by people who grew up with strong Jewish background. For example, I was dumbfounded when I discovered that there are many tunes for each prayer and I haven’t yet learned the traditional tune for L’cha Dodi!  With Hadar and Joey, I will learn a little bit every single day—something new each day.

You're embarking on your own learning process and you are offering so much in the service of your synagogue—please do not be intimidated! You've got what you need to have in your kishkes!

Thank you, that's so nice. Well, I will be 70 in January. And I think if not now, when? 

I’d like to know why people who have posted on the community board think that it's so hard to use an audio platform on the computer so that people can play together and practice tunes in real time? Granted, it does take just a little bit of equipment but all total under $200. I can get on these platforms and I play with people from all over North America, Canada, Brazil, and the UK. Today, I’ll meet with people to play old time fiddle music and be in real time. I think to myself, “If I spent the same amount of time playing Jewish tunes with others that I spend playing old time fiddle tunes, folk tunes, and bluegrass music, imagine how far along I would be in my Jewish learning!” Playing together in real time with Jewish people from all over, learning from each other is so possible in this day and time. 

I'm so grateful to you for taking the time to share a little bit of your journey.

Thank you,  it's been lovely talking with you, Liz. Nobody's ever asked me about my Jewish journey before! I also wanted to thank Hadar for the class I took on Midrash. I didn’t even know what a Midrash was and now I have incorporated Midrash into my Jewish thinking and even into my fiber art. I did a needle felting of King David awakened at midnight by the wind blowing through his window and strumming the strings of his harp so he could get up and study Torah. Very powerful visual image. I thank Hadar for those classes.

Midrash of King David fiber art by Libby Kahn. 100% wool needle and wet felting process.