life is born
I am thrilled to announce the release of Life Is Born, my danceable version of the meditative, earth-based chant adapted by my beloved wife and collaborator, Rabbi Jill Hammer. Life Is Born celebrates the grand rhythms and four elements of the natural world with an infectious melody.
Life Is Born began when Jill Hammer wanted to create a prayer that celebrated the four elements in an authentically Jewish way. She adapted a hypnotic Jewish prayer niggun (wordless spiritual melody) she encountered at the Leader Minyan in Jerusalem. Her lyrics for Life is Born are based on the words of Ecclesiastes 1:4-7, which describe the constant movement of the elements: the earth’s presence through cycles of birth and death, the rising and setting of the sun, the whirling of the wind and the flowing of the rivers to the sea.
“Life is Born draws you into a joyous state of praise and release! If you are in need of a reminder that seasons come and go, or long for some spice in your prayer time – Life is Born will inspire you into gratitude and dance! ”
The final lines of the song are inspired by a poem by Nelly Sachs from the collection “O the Chimneys” (1967) in which the poet writes “So ending flows to beginning.” The song’s end is also inspired by the first words of Ecclesiastes, “hevel havalim,” which is usually translated “vanity of vanities” but can also mean “breath of breaths.” The way “Holy of Holies” means a place of great holiness, “breath of breaths” could mean the Great Breath—the breath of life that fills all beings.
The niggun that Life Is Born draws upon is itself an adaptation of the traditional agrarian Russian folk song, I Sit On A Rock.
Life Is Born is a daily morning prayer and Sukkot holiday chant practiced in the Kohenet community and beyond since 2007. I love prayers that move my body to dance. I hope my up-tempo interpretation of Life Is Born engages both those familiar with the chant and those hearing it for the first time.
“Shoshana Jedwab’s ‘Life is Born’ unearths and re-earths the nature wisdom of Ecclesiastes, one the most misunderstood books of the Hebrew Bible. Her warm and joyful chant celebrates the cycles of life, death, and renewal that we experience in our own lives and in the natural world, and even in the Divine, ‘the one at the end’ and ‘the one who begins.’ I invite you to sway, dance, and chant along!”
With Gratitude
I am enormously grateful to Life Is Born producer, Daniel Ori, for sculpting, playing, mixing, and engineering all the instrumentation on the track.
I am indebted to my singing teacher, Marisa Michelson, for supporting the continuing liberation of my voice. I am grateful to Rabbi Shir Meira Feit for the beautiful cover art design, and to my daughter, Raya Leela Jedwab-Hammer, and partner, Jill Hammer for being in the cover photo. I am joyfully indebted to Sarah Chandler of the Shamir Collective for helping me manifest Life Is Born and for assisting me with artist strategies and communications.
I am grateful to the Kohenet community for their profoundly intentional prayer practices and embodied wisdom. And I am indebted to the cantors and prayer leaders in the Facebook group, Beyond Carlebach: A place to share & discover Jewish liturgical music, who led me to the original Russian folk song, I Sit On a Rock, when I was searching for the composer of this melody.
“Shoshana Jedwab’s superpower is single-handedly (well, usually with TWO hands) utilizing her gift of rhythm to uplift communities in prayer to great heights of heart and movement. I’ve seen hundreds rejoicing and dancing around fire, to the intricate and powerful thundering beat of Shoshana’s drum - alone.
With ‘Life is Born,’ a song beloved in the Kohenet prayer community, she combines her powerful gift of rhythm and warm voice, with the mellifluous, wise words of her partner Rabbi Jill Hammer, a niggun melody that feels both new and old at once, and the ‘sweat your prayer’ dance-floor-ready production of Daniel Ori.
All of this adds up to a song that feels both like a soothing balm for the stressful roller coaster of rapid change and uncertainty that we are on today, and also, a song that will get the energy moving out on the dance floor or perhaps, around a fire or in prayer.
I’m excited to say it’s my new favorite offering from Shoshana Jedwab, one that I will have on all my playlists and praylists from here on out. It’s a tune that surely will get stuck in your head – and, when it does, you won’t mind at all. ”
lyrics
Lyrics by Jill Hammer, Ecclesiastes 1:1, 1:4-7 and Nelly Sachs
Life is born and life moves on
and the earth has held and will hold it all.
The sun rises and the sun sets
and returns again to rise and fall.
The wind turns south and the wind turns north,
turning, turning, returning still.
The rivers run from the clouds to the sea
and become the rain, and the sea is never filled.
So the beginning moves to the end
and the end flows on to begin again.
The one at the end is the one who begins
and the breath of breath is within all things.
Life Is Born Released September 30, 2023
© 2023 Shoshana Jedwab
℗ Shoshana Jedwab and Daniel Ori
Produced by Daniel Ori
Mix: Daniel Ori
Vocals: Shoshana Jedwab
Cover Photo: Shoshana Jedwab
Graphic Design: Rabbi Shir Meira Feit
Artist Strategy: Sarah Chandler ~ Shamir Collective
Mastered by Jeremy Loucas at Sear Sound, NY
Vocals recorded at Sherwood Ridge Studio, Pomona, NY
All rights reserved