a sensitive and nuanced guide into the richly significant rituals surrounding an act that combines worship scholarship and art into one accessible yet expert performance ... Summit's work is rich with the humanity and the thoughtfulness of the men and women who chant the divine text. * Rachel Adelstein, Journal of Religion *
Singing God's Words is an important reflection on the different meanings of Jewish ritual practice and the universality of the very human search for deeper spiritual meanings through personal connections to music, sound, sentiment, and sacred text...With great attention to detail and compassion for different religious perspectives, this study provides new and important insights into the meanings of the Torah service and chant practices that will find applications in a wide variety of pedagogical and scholarly contexts. * Lillian Wohl, Ethnomusicology Forum *
Summit's success is in documenting a vivid account among practitioners and situating this narrative within the dynamics of changes and challenges within the Jewish community during the last forty years. * Mark Kligman, Ethnomusicology *
Singing God's Words constitutes a significant contribution to the study of Torah chant in the fields of both Ethnomusicology (and the study of music more broadly) and Religious Studies. Summit presents a portrait of Torah chanting that places contemporary practice in conversation with tradition, and does so in a way that is accessible to non-specialists of music and Judaism alike. As such, it could be of particular use for any further comparative work on oral engagements with religious texts in different traditions and contexts. * Lauren E. Osborne, Musica Judaica Online Reviews *
[T]he book remains a valuable source for documenting the transitions undergoing Ashkenazi Jewries in North America. It is the story of liberal congregations struggling to make the performance of Jewish identity through Torah chanting more accessible while being confronted with the standardization of Torah chant, the transition from literal to postliteral traditions (new means of orality that render musical notation superfluous), and new hallakhic challenges resulting from women's increasing involvement in what are still continuously evolving performances. * Notes *
Jeffery A. Summit has produced a masterful analysis of contemporary synagogue practice, offering insights into how Torah chant is performed and how it is understood by chanters, scholars, and worshippers. It is a major contribution to the understanding of a significant ritual in contemporary Judaism across denominational lines ... Singing Gods Words has broad implications for those interested in Jewish continuity. It is a must read for scholars of ritual practice, congregational rabbis, and those interested in the future of the Jewish community in America. * Peter Knobel, H-Judaic *
The author attends to a wide spectrum of practicing Jews, from those of the seeker-centered renewal movement to the more orthopraxic members of Chabad. Though Summit has a sharp eye for the sociological, he never loses sight of how chanting Torah provides contemporary Jews with spiritual experiencesallowing them to make personal connections through public intimacy with their sacred text. * G. Spinner, Choice *
Scholar, teacher, person of faith-Jeffrey Summit welcomes readers to the spiritual world made resonant through singing God's words. Vast as that world is, Summit draws together its farthest reaches and its most intimate moments, revealing the center that forms around the chanting of the Torah. * Philip V. Bohlman, Mary Werkman Distinguished Service Professor of Music and the Humanities, The University of Chicago, and author of Jewish Music and Modernity (OUP, 2008) *
With Jeffrey Summit as an expert and sensitive guide, the reader travels a pathway to understanding the public chanting of the Bible as both sacred text and spiritual experience among American Jews. A most impressive exploration of a fast-changing religious world. * Kay Kaufman Shelemay, G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music, Harvard University *
Singing God's Words is an important and unique contribution to the study of cantillation, the art of chanting the Hebrew Bible. Jeffrey Summit delivers an insightful narrative that will engage musicians and sociologists, Jews and non-Jews, professionals and laypersons alike. * Professor Joshua Jacobson, author of Chanting the Hebrew Bible *
