The Torah of Music

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. 

"I have been waiting for this book! The Torah of Music is at once a sourcebook for Jewish music texts, a poetic lovesong and a personal memoir on the transformative potential of music to change us and change communities. Weisenberg, a master shaliach tzibbur and musician, helps us understand the universal power of music through the distinctive vocabulary of Jewish texts and traditions. A beautiful and important addition to every Jewish library."
-Rabbi Angela Buchdahl

"It is rare for a powerful singer/chanter to be also a delicate and incisive writer. To write about the Torah of song requires both and Joey Weisenberg lives up to the need. Reading him brought me deeper into the world of chanting the Spirit, and higher into the poetry and politics of Torah. Breathing words, breathing melody he shows how the Holy One breathes both."
-Rabbi Arthur Waskow

"This book is a gift. It can do many things: inspire your prayer, connect you to wellsprings of Jewish wisdom, and have you humming while you read. Joey Weisenberg has collected a treasure chest of Jewish texts and presented them with wisdom gleaned from years of helping communities sing together with spirit and joy."
-Rabbi Dorothy Richman