Shalom my friends, welcome to the Light Lab Podcast, where we play with prayer and hold the gems of our liturgy to the light. My name is Eliana Light and I am so, so glad you are here. Would you like to take a big deep breath with me? Over the past about two to three weeks when someone has asked me, How are you Eliana? I have responded, my friend, Liav, who was part of our Siddur Project of Opening in LA reminded us at that gathering, that sigh contains all of the emotions within it, and it can be whatever we need it to be in that moment. It can be relief, and gratitude, and woe, and angst, and so many other emotions on the emotion wheel. And I think I've been feeling so many of those recently. There is grief, so much grief, for the violence in the world. There is grief for what we've been seeing in our own communities. There's grief, at the action and inaction of our leadership, all sorts of grief. And there are also these beautiful moments of connection. I mean, tomorrow I leave for Song Leader Boot Camp, where so many of my amazing Jewish music friends and colleagues will be and I'm so excited. And the grief is still there. The sigh, as we have shared, is just singing. That's what singing is. And just like the sigh can hold and express all of what we are feeling even if we cannot name it, so can the song. And I think no one encapsulates that more in their amazing work in the world than our guest today, Batya Levine. Batya is the Director of Programs of Let My People Sing. And I was trying to think of when I first met Batya, I don't remember. I've been, I've had the honor of going to a few Let My People Sing gatherings over the years and they have always been so thoughtful, and joyful, and liberation and heart-centered. Just really, really incredible. And I'm so excited that you get to hear our conversation today and learn more about Batya and their amazing work. Batya uses song as a tool for cultivating healing and resilience in their work as a communal song leader, musician, shaliach tzibur, prayer leader, and cultural organizer. They believe in the liberatory power of song to untie what is bound within us and sustain us as we build a more just and beautiful world. Doesn't, that just gives me chills! Like yes, this is we need this work in the world so much. There are recording artists. Their first album Karov is incredible - we'll have links to that. Teacher and alumni of the Rising Song Institute's programs. Batya offers songs and rituals in a variety of communities and composes really incredible original music that they'll talk about, made of Ashkenazi yearning, queer heart medicine and emuna, faith and trust. They are also a lover of the ocean, living room, dance parties and puns, as am I! Really, I feel so grateful that I get to be on the same planet, as Batya, let alone get to be in the same and overlapping spaces of Jewish song. It really is a privilege. And, y'all, we get the honor of supporting Batya in creating their second album - we'll have a link to that. They are currently fundraising to bring more of their incredible music into the world. And I think once you hear this conversation, if you haven't gotten a chance to hear and envelop yourself in Batya's heart-centered music, then you will now and then maybe you'll be inspired to give and share as well. Yeah, I'm, I'm just really, I'm just really stoked. It was important for my heart to have this conversation. And it's an important reminder to me in times that can feel so bleak that the spiritual work that we do with prayer and song is important and does matter. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Batya Levine.
Hi Batya! Welcome to the Light Lab!
Hi Eliana, thanks for having me!
Oh my gosh, it is my absolute honor. It's so nice to see your face and be here with you and get to talk about T'fillah and music together. Just a great way to spend an afternoon.
Yes. Hard agree.
Hard agree. Let's start by thinking back, I would love for you to share with us a little bit about what role T'fillah played in your childhood. What was your relationship to T'fillah then?
Yeah, I grew up and mostly in Teaneck, New Jersey, in a Modern Orthodox community. And my parents fostered a home that was really songful and spiritual. And from a young age, I just remember both like songful T'fillah, being a part of my life, and like the invitation to talk to Hashem being just very clearly open. And I remember being in my bed and saying was Shema, and just like, that was my private time with like me and Hashem, from like, a very young age. And yeah, and growing up, I had like, over the years, I had sort of different versions of like adversarialness with T'fillah. Because I sort of like had to go to davening, both in school and on Shabbat, and Chagim, Yom Kippur. Where like, I was often bored in shul, and trying to, like, hang out and chat with my friends. And my mom sort of like laughs and thinks it's hilarious that I do what I do now. We were always trying to not be in shul! And I think there was something powerful about it, like, the cycles of, you know, I both like had this sometimes adversarial relationship, and also was having these beautiful experiences and like, certain times in the Amidah, just like having really powerful connection with Hashem, and my own personal T'fillah. And so it was sort of like, because I always had to be there, I both had these potent, powerful experiences, and also sometimes I was really bored. And sometimes that boredom led to me thinking about things in my life that felt like, important to process. And well, I can say this more than about this later, but I just my, my mom also always like when she's really davening hard, she's like, screaming and crying, and I used to sometimes be embarrassed of that next to her and shul. And also I like really credit her with teaching me how to daven. So, grateful for that.
Wow. Yeah, I'm, I'm feeling like mentioning what you said about your mom being surprised that, oh, you were so bored in shul, andnow you're doing this, I actually think it makes a lot of sense. Because in your home life, it sounds like you were able to have direct access to T'fillah through music and kind of a one to one connection with Hashem, that sometimes can be diluted when in a synagogue setting. So it makes a lot of sense to me that you would dedicate a big piece of your work life to bringing that spark, and that connectivity, and that, that musicality and that openness to prayer spaces. I don't know, it makes sense to me.
Yeah. And I think like, I don't know, just being a kid, it was so hit or miss for me whether I had the attention or not. And, and I really did find pockets of, of meaning in that experience. But I it was, it felt like, also, what are the words? I don't know that I have the words to express to say what I'm trying to say. Yeah, I think I like also sometimes loved shul. But it was the have-do -ness of it, that I, now in a lot of my progressive communities, I yearn for that. But at the time, I really was bumping up against it.
Let's go back to that image of your mother davening. I'm wondering what you learned and took from that. And if there are other experiences or teacher or mentor figures in your life who taught you about what T'fillah was and could be?
I just feel like she really modeled to me that you could pour out your heart in davening. And in an un-, like a non-self conscious way. And not everyone in the show growing up where I was was doing that. And so it also gave me permission to go that deep if I wanted to. And I think just we learned so much from seeing what's possible by watching other people. And I sort of feel like that's even part of how I see my T'fillah leadership is like, I'm just actually gonna daven.
Yeah.
And, and maybe people will join me. Can you repeat the second part of your question that you said, Eliana?
Absolutely! if there are other mentors and teachers, other people from whom you learned something about what t'fillah is and could be?
Two things come to mind. One is a deepening of that strain than I was in, I went to seminary for a year after high school, I went to Midreshet HaRova, which is sort of a artsy, religious Zionist, Torah learning institution, in Jerusalem in the Old City of Jerusalem. And it was known for having good singing. And so I went there. And there was something so palpably powerful about singing in a room of 150 people who were not men, at the top of our lungs, like, it was just really powerful and transformative, especially in in the Orthodox context, to feel our collective voice. And also, I was there I was reading, I don't remember what book it was, it might have been Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Meditation. But I learned about this Hasidic practice of davening, the Amidah with seven seconds per word.
Wow.
Yeah. And so I used to sometimes do that on Shabbos, or Mincha, and it like really changed my relationship to the Amidah to just actually sit with each word for like, a breath, and then some. So that was sort of that chapter. And then when I started in leaving orthodoxy, I found myself in renewal circles I was at in college at NYU, and I, and my roommate Yael Shunzite, I was starting to be involved in Kohenet, and Romemu. And I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go check this out. And I remember sitting in Romemu, this renewal shul, in New York City, and they were just singing one line of liturgy over and over and over again. And I just like was bawling, like, totally, I just felt like so at home in that practice, in a way that I hadn't known. I needed to really sort of focus in and sit in something for a long while.
Your path, kind of out of orthodoxy, in what ways did understandings of G?d and T'fillah inform that shift? Go along with that shift? Was that part of the equation in any way?
Yeah, I like to say that my relationship with Judaism has really changed over time. And my relationship with Hashem has really been pretty consistent. And they feel like different things. Oh, obviously, they're intertwined. And I think maybe T'fillah was part of it, like, highlighted by the experience, I had at Romemu. But I really started moving away because I, I wanted to find what felt alive to me. And I had sort of found that on my own in my year in seminary, and then as I spent a few years back in the States, I was starting to feel like, Oh, this is feeling like it did in high school where like, I'm not feeling connected to this. And I'm like seeking something that can hold me a little bit more, and seeking more connection with Hashem.
Yeah. Where did you go looking for that? Where are some of the places you found it?
Yeah, I went on a whole journey of like, let's try different Judaism flavors. I like went out to California went to Passover in the desert, and Kohenet stuff, and Renewal things. And then I spent some time living at Isabella Freedman, and there I got to really experience also got to experience different Jewish prayer and communities and it really was an important part of my journey and just like widening my scope, and also helping me see all of the, I sort of like thought I knew all the things about Judaism in the corner that I was in. And it just really expanded my view beyond the corner I was in.
Where, in and around this whole journey that you're sharing, did creating singing and sharing your own melodies become a part of that?
Yeah, I, the first one I ever wrote was at Isabella Freedman, I was on the Teva educators camping trip. And it was definitely because I was starting to be in these Jewish spaces where someone would take a line and just sing it over and over and over again. And that's a song! Which makes the bar to entry of writing a song much lower, which was really helpful for me. And I never considered myself a musician or a songwriter or anything like that before that. And I was on a camping trip by river and was about to do mikvah. And this kavannah came through, and I just sort of sang it, which ended up being the song May I Be Empty. And I was with some people and one of the people was Cara Michelle Silverberg, who was the guest educator. And we didn't really talk about it, we just sang it, and then and went back to the group. And then she taught it to the whole group!
Oh my goodness!
We had no idea. She just thought it was a song I was singing.
Wow.
And then people sang it! And I was like, wow, okay, it seems like people want to sing this song. And it and it. Yeah, it was just sort of happenstance. But it made that seem like a real possibility and in a way that I had never really considered before.
And here, and we can play a little bit of it.
Can't believe that was your first! That's incredible.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a nice kavannah for a first song.
It's a beautiful kavanah for first song, and it also feels it feels like not just a kavanah for the mikvah you are doing, but a kavannah for the whole journey that you were on in terms of feeling this connection to Hashem and looking for almost like the vessel that made the most sense for that relationship to be in.
Yeah, totally, totally, really feels true.
Feels true. And as someone who has then gotten to as we do with liturgy, take that kavannah and let it be my own kavannah. Now when I couldn't find the words for my own. I'm very grateful for that. Yeah, I'd love to hear a little more about your time at Isabella Freedman because it sounds not only very transformative for you personally, but potentially that is where the seeds of Let My People Sing were planted. And I'd love to get for you to share a little bit more about that genesis with us.
Totally. Yeah, well, Let My Peopel Sing also was definitely a part of my journey. And I was working technically as a transformative experience fellow, a position that does not exist anymore.
That's great. A transformative experience fellow. Yes.
Yeah, I built IKEA shelves. But I also did help run retreats. And Margot Seigle and I were both the the two transformative experience fellows and we were working, we were working there. And we sort of Margot had to this gathering called Youth Traditional Song Weekend, which is not Jewish, but it's sort of the idea of it was to teach and learn songs to make accessible this this like, sub sect of music. And Margot went and came back and was like we should use for Jewish music! And I was like, great! We pitched it to our boss, he said no. We pitched it to our boss again, and he said okay. And Margot reached out to a number of people, just the people who happened to be available and said, yes were Ilana Lerman, Noam Lirman, and Monica Gomery, and it sort of started as an experiment of Jewish singing retreat. And it has grown a lot since then, but it kept evolving and iterating. And it just felt very magical from the start. And it's a space that, alongside many other things, one of the, one of the core things of Let My People Sing is everyone is a leader and learner of song. And there's a real focus on supporting leadership at every level. And so that means if you've never led a song before, you can try it out, if you want to try leading a workshop or a piece of T'fillah, and really trying to encourage our people to be in their leadership. And I certainly grew so much personally, in that space. I did so many things for the first time there. And to do something vulnerable, and spiritually connected, for the first time, is really challenging. And I think what makes that possible is really a loving, supportive community, and to be able to try it, and then there's like a room of 100 people just meeting you as a yes, it's like, it's so bolstering to that, feeling potent.
Some of the most powerful moments that I've witnessed to Let My People Sing have been when someone is up in the circle, leading a song and before or after they leave, they say, so this is my first time. And then everybody just cheers and sends them so much love and hugs and support. And it's like making me tear up thinking about it, there are so few places, singing itself is already vulnerable, right? We're sharing our voices with the world already. That's a lot and to stand up and say, not just my voice, but my, my leadership and helping bring out your voice is important and worth, and worthy to the world. You've really, you and the team have created an environment that is fostering that directly. And it's, it's very powerful.
Yeah, it it feels like such a precious gift to get to do that together. And to create an environment where that's possible is like, yeah, beyond.
I'm, I'm wondering how you see, or maybe you don't? I don't know. So we can see if this is a valid question. I'm thinking about Let My People Sing in kind of the landscape of both Jewish music over the past 15 years, and the way that it has evolved and spread. And also, we might say secular, but not actually secular earth-based communal song, within justice movements, or within queer community, or other communities that are joining together in song and the kind of song leader model, and kind of where you see Let My People Sing and your own work, learning from an intersecting with those polls, like the Jewish poll and the non Jewish poll, what, what is being learned? And then what is being taught and shared?
That is a great and interesting question.
Also very big on long questions, so we can, we can chop that up into little bits.
Yeah, well, first of all, just say, like, I'm gonna start somewhere, and we'll see where we end up.
Great.
But yeah, it's like a big and good and then juicy question. And I really feel like part of the way I see Let My People Sing's work in the world is it is both trying to hold cultural reclamation and transmission as a value and tradition as a value, and also uplift and celebrate the new music that is coming out of our communities. And what's true about both of those things is like those are both contain within them, their contexts. So like, the new music I really see as being influenced by all of the music that we're all listening to. And whether we're in relationship to more secular singing communities or not. There, there just are ways that there's overlap and crossovers, and I think we can hear it in in the music, in some of the music. And that's what I think is is beautiful about new music is that it's is sort of like a time capsule of like, what has been before and what is now melding within us, Like I couldn't, if I wanted to separate out the music that lives in me. And when I'm really writing music, I mean, writing feels like not even the right word, when I'm really singing music that is of my soul, I can't really do anything stylistically, exactly on purpose. And it just is sort of a mash of those things. And I think that's beautiful. And I think it's also powerful to be able to sit in the specificities of, of each of those sides. And I am less deeply involved personally, in I think more of the secular singing spaces. And so I also feel like not as well informed about them. But I do know and understand that they really have deeply influenced like people saying, in the singing culture, there just because I know so many people in our space are in relationship with those singing communities. And I think more where I see Jewish music traditions bringing, bringing what they have to offer is, is in the really sitting in the music, and going deep into it. And that feels like part of how prayer lives in Jewish song, whether it's a prayer or not.
The deepening that also makes something more accessible as opposed to less accessible. I'm thinking about how, in kind of the song circle format that we're talking about, there's very seldom words that everybody has, maybe sometimes you have, you can put them on the big post it if there are lots of words, but there's also a craft to teaching and inviting people into a song in the moment where no words are necessary, or no words to read are necessary. But the thing we're getting at is very deep, I feel like there can be a feeling that Jewish prayer is inaccessible by its very nature, because of all the words and all the Hebrew. And that this is one path in towards deepening that relationship. And also saying, there is wisdom, and value and connection and community to be gained, whether you know a word of Hebrew or not, because we're going to be learning and exploring this together.
Yea, and that whole part of it is really new for me, like, I think I am, in the singing communities that I grew up with, everyone sort of has a cannon. And we sing together. And the breaking out of, of one corner really invited me to learn other songs, and be like, Oh, I actually don't know all the songs. And, and it takes also teaching me to be able to know, the songs in the room. And there's something about powerful I think about even just the practice of not assuming that we all know it.
Yeah.
Does so much work for what is possible in terms of a sense of belonging, because I think so much of what we're trying to do in groups sometimes is feel a sense of belonging together. And there are so many barriers to that. And this feels like one way to invite a little bit more humility around that as a group.
Yeah. Nothing takes that feeling of belonging away, like the leader saying, you all know this one. You being like, you don't know me!
100%.
Let's stay on this thread of kind of what is created, what might shift, what might occur, what the possibilities are, in these song circles, in these groups and in context, what have you seen as the magic for lack of a better word of it, both for the people that you're in community with, and maybe the things you've heard from others over the years and also, for yourself as a participant and a leader.
There is something about I often refer to it as the voice of the kahal, the collective voice that feels like nothing else. And it, it feels like an intimacy with Hashem and intimacy with each other and an intimacy on an individual level. That can all be sort of happening at the same time. And it feels like immanent and transcendent in some way where sometimes I'm like, oh my goodness, this voice is beautiful. And in other moments, I'm deep inside of it, and feelings through processing through grief or pain. And I don't know who I heard this from first. But I have heard many times that people talk about, the more people in the room singing together, the wider the capacity is to hold emotions that people are bringing. So sort of like, if you're having a really, really hard time, and then, you're singing with one other person, there's not as much of that collective bed to lie in and be held. And then you add 10 more people, there's like a little bit more, oh my G?d, I can move through this, I can feel it, add 10 more people, etc, etc. And to me, it feels like a way to process pain and grief and stuckness, feels like a way to pray for what is on your heart, feels like a way to be in the beauty of life, and a way to like this experience aliveness. And I think because it can be so many different things, that's part of the magic and power of it. And it's not theoretical, it's also like very physical and embodied. We're literally vibrating ourselves and vibrating each other. And that is, yeah, I sometimes after I've like sung with a group, and it felt really potent, I'll just feel like sort of undulating energy in front of me or tingling or, and that's not like a super normal experience for me in the rest of my life. And I'm like, okay, something's moving, something's happening. Something might be healing or releasing that I that I can't understand, I don't really need to, but I do trust that something is happening.
It's, there's nothing like it, you've done a really good job of trying to put that into words that feeling that can ultimately never truly be captured in words. If there's someone who's listening who is interested in maybe starting a singing circle, or leading a song has never led a song, do you have any recommendations, suggestions, words of encouragement for them?
Okay, I'll say that the first time I ever led a song was in the woods with three other people. And I refused to say any words, I was like, You introduce it, I'm just gonna do it. And I think just like, to me that speaks to like, you can start as small as you want. And being in that like loving Yes environment in a way that can feel as low stakes as possible. And to not have it have to mean anything about you, or your life or what you do. And just like getting to try it out, because you feel called to or interested or just curious.
That's beautiful advice for me also, take that too. And something you said, it doesn't have to say anything about you. There's a challenge, though, I think sometimes or maybe I'm just projecting when the thing that you love for your spiritual self also becomes your work and your life. And I'd love to hear kind of how that navigating has gone, is going, the ups and the downs or what you've learned from making, making this your your work as well.
Oh, yeah. I'm thinking about simultaneously how some days I'm like, I can not believe I get to do this for my work. And some days I'm like, I really just wish I were an accountant.
I feel that so much!
Iit's really both and like, I, I do ultimately, like for me, I feel really committed to my Avodah, which here I'm using to mean, which means like Work, and but here, I'm using it in the way of like capital W Work in This Lifetime. And I'm like right now my Avodah is also how I make money. And that might not be true forever, and I really care about sticking to the Avodah part of it, that feels important to me, it's sort of like, I don't know, it's it's both feels like the biggest gift possible to be able to do this. And I feel really, really honored and grateful. And it also sometimes feels, feels challenging that the thing that I love the most, I end up in, like tensionful figuring out, like, sort of like, really having to work through stuff that's really hard or challenging or frustrating about the process of it being my work too, and think I just try to watch for the balance of having it overall feel it is working, that my Avodah is my work.
That your Work is your work. Yeah, I love that distinction.
Yeah. Ultimately, it's something that I never really could have imagined for myself. And it feels like, in some ways, not a choice in the best way possible. Where I am like, this seems to be the path that has, is carving itself for me. And I have trust with Hashem and myself in that process to be following that. And there's totally challenges and just so much beauty and power and sort of the cultural work that I care about happening and doing in this world.
I'm really glad you're doing this work. I think.
Oh my G?d.
I think it's good for, it's good for the Jews and it's good for humanity. So thank you.
I mean, me you too, Eliana.
There's the work that you do with LMPS and the music that you put out into the world. As we mentioned in the intro, you are working on a new album and raising money and community for that. I want to think about your first album. Karov, kind of in relationship to and again, this is leapfrogging a lot for questions. So stop me if this doesn't make any sense. But I'm thinking about how one of the kind of hallmarks of the singing circle culture is songs being passed from person to person and group to group in a very grassroots way. The kind of sound cloud nigun as a genre, and how, even before you recorded, there were, you know, thousands of people who knew and had sung your songs, and maybe not undelicate to say, the pros and the cons. But what you found, were the different experiences of having music move through grassroots channels of like live recordings, or you singing with a friend in your living room, versus the process of bringing a group of professional musicians together to record an album.
Yeah, for me, the spreading the songs, through the relationships and the people and community is the comfy zone. Making the album is deeply the discomfy zone for me, and like such an edge. And I think like, my music only even exists because of communit, because a song came and then people wanted to sing it and I shared and then another one came and I shared it with my friends, and then we would sing it and then they would teach it to their friends, and then they would sing it. And I already had music that was moving in community by the time I was making that first album. So then people knew to clue into it, rather than the model where I'm an artist alone in my room, creating something to put out to a sort of void of potential listeners. Or it's like I'm putting it out to my people. And also we have some amount of relationships through the music already. And I, what I learned about recording, which was cool through the first album was I was like, Oh, this is a chance for me to share how I think it goes. In my head, all of the textures and feelings that go with the music in my head that can't quite be expressed only through a voice memo or a recording of a bunch of people singing is, is able to be a little bit more harnessed and fine tuned in an album experience which I just really hadn't known would be how it was. And that feels like a really cool thing to be able to do, and I think creates this differently intimate channel for people to engage with the music. And whereas like singing, you know, in a group is one thing and being like, moving through really intense grief alone in your room blasting music is is a different experience.
Yeah, and now, your music gets to be part of that soundtrack for people. Right? It's the liturgy in the same way that the prayers in our Siddur can help us give voice to things that we feel that we're not able to express, I think good music is able to do the same thing for us.
Yeah, I really, I really feel there's so many songs in our Jewish music, contemporary Jewish music world, and are sort of like English short ish songs that we sing together. And I really do think of them as like modern day Techinnes, which is like these Yiddish women's prayers that were written in Yiddish because they didn't have access to Hebrew and Hebrew is for to sort of, for the elite and for men. And so their whole Siddurim were written in Yiddish, and then there were special prayers for the things that weren't covered in the Siddur, yeah, for people who weren't men, and I really, I really see these English songs, as you're saying, in that lineage of modern sort of liturgy.
That's beautiful. I'm wondering if there's a song off of Karov that you're feeling called to share with us a little bit about maybe because it speaks to something about how you're thinking, or we're thinking at the time about T'fillah, or Hashem are these bigger ideas that we've been exploring together.
I think the first one that just really it always rises to the surface in relationship to that is Karov. It's a line of liturgy from Ashrei, from Psalm 145, Karov Hashem l'chol korav l'chol asher yikrehu ve'emet. And I like to translate it as Hashem is close to all those who call out to Them, to all those who call out in truth. And I just experience prayer as a real, really rooted in yearning. In being in one place, and wanting to arrive or move towards another place, whether that's even just like in the act of praising and, and wanting to be in that praise. And in that elevated state or having something that is not want that is not yet realized, that I want to be true. So that yearning, it feels like a yearning sort of movement prayer to me. And this line of liturgy, which actually, this nigun was born without words first. And my dear friend, Laney Solomon, helped me come up with this line for this, for this nigun It speaks so beautifully to it, because it sort of illuminates that the act of yearning in some way, brings the closeness. And it's sort of this paradoxical thing where it's like, if, if I can, if I can call out, then in even just the act of me calling out I will be close, closer to Hashem, whatever that means, to whoever is listening, but it's rare for me to be in such a G?d-posi space also so just like really enjoying getting to just Hashem it up.
Please, always.
Yeah, so that, that, that song feels deeply of a prayerful sort of mantra, for lack of a better word for me.
Beautiful and we'll play part of it here because we can do that.
As we round the corner, towards the end of our conversation for now, the recorded conversation, I want to take us back to the beginning. You had mentioned when talking about your upbringing, something that you missed, I'm wondering, given the T'fillah and the music and the spirit and the Hashem-ness of both of these worlds, the Orthodox world of your upbringing and the song-sharing heart-open, queer-led spaces that you are a part of and get to lead. What do you think you have brought to one from another? And what do you think they can learn from each other?
The true life question. I also it's just making me think about, there's a very dear recording project that I did that will come to the world at some point called Firmware, which is songs that I love from growing up, and it was recorded only with queer and trans raised Orthodox people.
Wow.
And I, in trying to write about that project, this question exactly sits right there. And I, I really feel like the, what I cherish about Orthodox community, and the Orthodox worlds that I come from, and still get to be in relationship to, in different ways, is this full potency unabashed love for prayer, and Hashem, and tradition, and just a robust felt sense of that being the baseline assumption. And the space, which allows for a certain level of depth. And, to me, that is something that I just will forever cherish. And I feel like is part of what I work to bring over to the places where I now mostly find myself. And I'm not alone in that, by the way. And it's not as if there is if Orthodox spaces are the only ones who have that. But to me, that feels core. And in terms of like, queer songful community, I'm like, I learned to that I could bring my whole self, all of me, and that was everything for me. And that's what I really cherish about these spaces. To me, sort of the holding of both of them together is forever, kind of the yearning for the other. And also, like, getting to be grateful for the gifts of each of them. And I feel like more and more and finding people and threads and ways that feel like they speak from one to the other, which I sort of like hope, in my lifetime to be able to keep growing those threads, and collectively, collectively just keep learning from each other, and all of the different communities and wisdoms that each of us are bringing.
Amen to that. What are your hopes for the people that you lead in prayer and the people that you lead in song? And are they the same or different hopes?
Well, it's a great question. Just a casual great question of the end.
Only the simple questions on the Light Lab.
Ah, wow, it is, it is interesting. The feeling in my body the difference as you started first you said prayer, and then you said song. And I was like, oh, yeah, they are, they are different, but they're related. And sometimes prayer is like, I feel like the prayer one encapsulates the song and the prayer, and the song one doesn't always encapsulate the prayer as fully, for me. I think my hope for those that I lead in prayer is that people can feel genuinely tapped in to the prayers themselves as channels that are ancient, backwards and forwards in time to Hashem, and that I am sort of just hoping I can be creating and supporting a container that the Kahal can create this beautiful voice together for people to access their own prayer. And what I hope for people, leading people in song, I suppose now that I'm articulating it it's not that different, but it feels for me, it changes When I, when I think it changes a little bit, when I'm like, do I actually want to say this publicly?
You can say it and see how it feels, you can make that decision after it comes out.
Okay, good. For me leading song in a more generalized way, oftentimes, it's the same thing, it's creating this container for us to be able to explore that channel upward, inward and outward. And, and for me, sometimes, the specificity of prayer of having a clear direction that we are moving in, although I can't actually tell you what that direction is, but there's something about, we are praying, that feels more specific to me. And in some ways, I feel like I'm a better prayer leader than I am a song leader. So that's, I admit, that might just be what's, you know, subjectively true for me, in my experience of prayer, and so on.
Is there anything that we didn't touch on that you want to make sure to share?
Not in particular, I just want to go on record as saying that I really love Hashem. And I really love davening. And I'm coming out to you all about it.
You heard it here first, folks. Maybe not first, if you've been paying attention, put your heard it here. I'm glad this could be a safe place for you to do that.
Yeah, I'm honored.
We'll end the episode with a song. So listeners, if you stick around pass the ending credits, we'll get to hear some more is there based on this conversation in this journey, a piece that you'd like to end with today?
I think we can close out with the sun breathe, that is going to be on the next album. And it's one that is sort of, of the current English, prayer elk. And it's a song for processing through moments when we need to let go into the unknown without having any safety or guarantee that it will, quote unquote, workout or be okay. But trying to trust in the process and in Hashem along the way.
I was gonna say, before we go, can you leave us with a blessing, but that feels like a blessing in itself. But you can still leave us with a blessing if you want.
Yes, well, I, I just it's a really just a difficult time doesn't doesn't even cover it. And there is so much that feels impossibly unknown. And in the vein of, of this song, I just really want to bless all of us to be able to use prayer as a tool for processing and moving through the places in us that feel stuck or hardened or completely torn apart. And to get a little comfort and closeness through that process.
Amen, thank you so much, so much, my friend for joining us today. What a blessing.
Thank you for having me! So good to be here.
And thank you so much for listening. Our podcast is edited by Christie Dodge. Our Podcast Producer is Rachel Kaplan, and our show notes and transcript are done by the amazing Yaffa Englander, we hope that you will check out the show notes. They are extensive and you will find links to support Batya's new album as well to all the other fun stuff we talked about in this week's episode. Follow us on the socials, connect with us, and tell your friends about the Light Lab Podcast. We put a lot of heart, soul and time into making this and we love doing it. And we hope that it will be a resource for folks out there who want to dive more into prayer and liturgy. That's what we're here for. We hope to see you and learn with you and sing with you again real soon.
