Jewish Music and Jewish Food Make Modern Weddings Traditional
Jewish music and Jewish food go naturally with Jewish weddings. But they also have the power to make any modern wedding feel traditional. For professional wedding planners planning a wedding with Jewish food and music, or for a new planner’s first Jewish wedding event planning job, appreciating appropriate music and food, including kosher food, is an essential skill. All wedding planning jobs are stressful. But a Jewish wedding event planning job can be especially challenging for a non-Jewish planner, or for an interfaith couple getting married in a Jewish ceremony. In most cases, the wedding officiant will be an experienced rabbi or cantor. But the wedding event planner program for a Jewish wedding reception may include interfacing with a kosher food caterer who hasn’t worked with a non-Jewish wedding planner in the past. This task is made easier if the planner learns about kosher foods as part of wedding planner training and wedding consultant certification before starting a wedding planning business and serving Jewish wedding clients. But a professional wedding event planner program that teaches Jewish music and food, including kosher foods, also provides an advantage with creative non-Jewish wedding clients who want the symbolism, sound, and energy associated with a traditional Jewish wedding for their own ceremony and reception. A Jewish wedding event planning job requires specialized training and skill. But any wedding event planning job will benefit from a knowledge of Jewish music and Jewish food, including the fascinating facts about kosher foods. You don’t have to be Jewish to want a chuppah for your ceremony, or the hora at your reception.
Hear Great Jewish Music Before Beginning Your Wedding Event Planning Job
If your wedding event planning job includes coordinating Christian weddings, you probably already know something about Jewish temple music without realizing it. Like other elements of traditional Christian worship, the chanting of psalms and the singing of hymns in churches comes directly from ancient Jewish temple practice. And like most churches, some synagogues feature choirs, organs, and other instruments that can be enlisted to provide magnificent music for religious weddings. Although Hebrew may be unfamiliar unless your wedding event planner program practice is primarily Jewish, you’ve likely heard the ‘Song of Songs,’ the greatest love poem in the Bible, in English or another language. But nothing is more beautiful than the ‘Song of Songs’ sung in Hebrew, especially at a traditional Jewish ceremony where any wedding event planning job becomes an opportunity for education and every wedding event planner career takes on new meaning. Listening to great Jewish music, like tasting great Jewish food, is essential preparation for any Jewish wedding event planning job and a plus for any wedding planner serving creative non-Jewish clients with a taste for tradition. Enjoy the experience, and don’t get lost in the details! Unless your business’s wedding event planner program has a Jewish focus, knowing what the ‘Song of Songs’ sounds like sung in Hebrew is more important than understanding the words, and knowing what makes kosher foods kosher is more important than knowing how they’re prepared. Before meeting with the cantor for your client’s Jewish ceremony, or with the kosher food provider for the reception, sample Jewish food and music. But why wait? Hearing Jewish music and tasting Jewish food are worth doing often, whether you’re Jewish or not.
Course Video Tutorial: 'A Celebrated Cantor Teaches Jewish Weddings and Music ll' (32:53)
Roslyn Barak, the celebrated cantor of Congregation Emanu-El, is an authority on the music of Judaism and music for Jewish weddings. A former opera singer in New York and Israel, she has served as the music and liturgy leader of San Francisco’s oldest Reform temple, an international Jewish destination wedding venue, for 25 years. In that role, she commissions, performs, and records Jewish music from throughout the world, both for sacred services and as part of the temple’s popular concert series. As cantor she also counsels and officiates as a clergyperson at life-cycle events, including wedding events, for individuals of every origin and age. Her dual musical and pastoral duties give her a unique perspective on the challenges confronted in any Jewish wedding event planning job where non-Jewish music is an issue and interfaith marriage is a factor. In this course video tutorial, the cantor teaches Members the essentials of music for a Jewish wedding ceremony and food, including kosher food, for a Jewish wedding reception. The tutorial is the second in a two-part series that includes inspiring excerpts of the cantor singing traditional Jewish wedding songs and officiating at a Jewish wedding.
Learn 12 essential elements of Jewish music and Jewish food for Jewish weddings:
- The origins and role of the cantor in Judaism
- The role of chanting, readings, and the ‘Song of Songs’ at weddings
- Acceptable and unacceptable non-Jewish music for a Jewish wedding
- Choirs, organs, and other instruments used during the ceremony
- The importance of acoustics and sound-amplification in any setting
- Examples of Hebrew words and melody sung for the bride’s procession
- The place of food and wine at Jewish wedding receptions
- The origins of kosher food laws in ancient Jewish history
- Examples of kosher foods in the context of a modern Jewish wedding
- Where to get guidance on music for a Jewish wedding event planning job
- Where to get guidance on officiants for an interfaith Jewish wedding
- The place of ‘destination temple’ weddings in a destination wedding event planner program
