Non­fic­tion

The Torah of Music

Joey Weisen­berg

  • From the Publisher
December 21, 2017

Music is the soul’s native lan­guage: a prayer, a divine lad­der upon which we climb between the Earth and the Heav­ens. But music also reach­es hor­i­zon­tal­ly across our social frac­tures and dog­mas and con­nect us one with the oth­er. Just as it cuts the non­sense away from our hearts, music opens our ears so that we can lis­ten to the sub­tle nuances and sacred whis­pers of the world around us. In every moment, music encour­ages us to ask our­selves: Can we hear the songs that are already being sung by all of creation?

In The Torah of Music, Joey Weisen­berg brings togeth­er a com­pre­hen­sive col­lec­tion of 180 curat­ed texts from the Jew­ish musi­cal-spir­i­tu­al imag­i­na­tion. In the first half, Weisen­berg reflects on ancient texts along­side sto­ries from his life as a musi­cian. In the sec­ond half, Weisen­berg presents a bilin­gual open library’ of tra­di­tion­al texts on the sub­ject of music and song, gar­nered from over three thou­sand years of Jew­ish his­to­ry, to open up the world of Jew­ish musi­cal thought to all who are will­ing to join the song.

Discussion Questions