Lesson from Torah Study: Music as Midrash (10/24/26)

I have written before about Jewish midrash. See blog entries here. This morning in Torah Study, Congregation Beth Israel in Houston had a guest artist-in-residence, Elana Arian, sing and talk on "Music as Midrash." It was a wonderful and participatory session with the “leader”  making or suggesting ideas—midrash, if you will—through music that then drew responses from the audience (mostly the in-person audience rather the Zoom audience, including me participating by Zoom from afar). For those on Facebook, the Facebook posting on this morning’s event is here.

Arian has led similar music discussions across the country. Here is a good article that captures much of what she said and sang this morning: Music as Midrash Shapes Reform Worship, Atlanta Jewish Times (10/24/26), here.

One of the great concepts that I heard from her this morning was that a Jewish value and hope is not only peace for ourselves but for everyone. (On a related topic, see Thoughts on Bart Ehman's Book Love Thy Neighbor (Jack Townsend Blog 3/22/26; 4/2/26), here.)

Arian made a powerful argument that singing is another way to do midrash which is an ongoing exercise for Jews to connect better with the text of the Torah and Hebrew Bible in times when, at least to some extent as Lincoln said, we must think anew. But thinking anew does not mean that we abandon the wisdom and teachings of our ancestors. As Rabbi Lyon said in one Torah Study session long ago, we do midrash every Torah Study. The problem is that, without midrash, which is a form of updating our beliefs (a Bayesian type of exercise), the text would just be old text often with no obvious relation to the present.