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Rabbi releases Shabbat-inspired CD
By ANDY LEVY-AJZENKOPF
Staff Reporter, Canadian Jewish News, March 16, 2007
If Shabbat is a day of rest and spiritual enrichment, then Shawn Zevit has just put together its accompanying soundtrack. Titled Generations: Journey Across the Ages, the double CD is both an ode to the spirit of Shabbat’s past and a nod to its future. Featuring various guest vocalists and musician friends playing mandolin, violin, percussion and bass, the project is full of Zevit’s rhapsodic meditations on the Sabbath. On disc one, Zevit, a Reconstructionist rabbi, melds 15 traditional Shabbat liturgies and zmirot with his gentle folk, pop and New Age inspired arrangements and lyrics. Zevit envisioned this disc as a “spiritual journey… a complete experiential entry into the Sabbath” that invites the listener to absorb the music in comfort at their own pace. And the disc has the desired effect of shepherding the listener to a dreamlike soundscape, where one can allow these songs to engulf them and strip them of their weekday hardships.
But while disc one is Zevit’s attempt to infuse Shabbat songs with modern musical interpretations, disc two is solidly rooted in tradition and fuelled by personal nostalgia. All 15 tracks on the second CD were culled from original Shabbat recordings made by Zevit and his grandfather in the early 1990s. After his grandfather died in 2003, Zevit knew the work on this part of the album would be difficult. “I don’t think I was ready to go into the studio right away. The loss was too palpable,” he said. “But a couple of years later I was ready to go back in and sit and listen to his voice, and it felt like God aligned the universe to make the possibility happen to record this album.”
For many, listening to disc two will be like traveling back in time. The sounds of Zevit, his grandfather and his family singing Shabbat melodies around the dinner table will strike an emotional chord with anyone who’s lost a grandparent with whom they’ve shared similar moments. The contrast between the two CDs is striking. But that’s exactly what Zevit had in mind with Generations. “It’s triggering people to think of their spiritual lives… where they are vis-à-vis innovation versus tradition. CD one versus CD two,” Zevit said. “I wanted to show people how they could be in a relationship with an abstract thing called Judaism. It’s an actual relationship with family, lineage and history.”
Winnipeg-born Zevit called Toronto home for many years before moving to Philadelphia in 1993 to marry and settle down. He still refers to himself as a Torontonian despite being the director of outreach and external affairs for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (JRF) in Philadelphia. When he isn’t busily engaged in his duties with the JRF, Zevit is alternately writing (he’s a published author), teaching, doing social justice work and sermonizing at various institutions around North America. But his passion is music.
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