Sermon: Mah Tovu and the 4 M’s of music

Written by Rabbi Colin Eimer — 19 July 2025

In 1971, I went to Paris, my first rabbinic post after ordination. I had to learn many things about everyday French life: about shaking hands, for example. When you came to work, you went to everybody, wished them  a ‘bonjour’ and shook hands. It was rude simply to run in, give a general wave and a shouted ‘bonjour,’ however pressed for time you might be. I learned about French kissing: which side first? Two kisses or one? Or even 3? Is there to be actual contact or just an air kiss? It was a steep and, I’m happy to admit, not altogether unpleasant, learning curve. Each way of kissing indicated a different level of relationship. Apparently, it used to be the custom for English men to kiss women on the lips which shocked the French no end, until Victorian morality put an end to that practice. But in Russia, for example, it’s still the custom for everybody to kiss each other on the lips.

Shaking hands, kissing and so on are what anthropologists call ‘access rituals,’ enabling the gap between people to be bridged. Rituals are outer acts designed to express inner feelings, thoughts or ideas; giving meaning to a particular moment; establishing boundaries, helping maintain social order and so on.

‘Ritual’ in the Jewish world has all too often become something of a dirty word, with negative connotations. What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘ritual’? When I asked Dee, she said, almost immediately, “boring, old-fashioned, continuity, tradition, restricting, imprisoning.” There is that sense, then, of something done unthinkingly, unknowingly, simply because it’s there or “it’s tradition.” When things are done like, it simply brings what I think is serious, meaningful Jewish practice into disrepute.

Judaism is, of course, awash with rituals. Just think of all the rituals at the Pesach Seder: perhaps the example par excellence of what ritual can be. So we don’t just talk about the bitterness of slavery, we ingest it, eat bitter herbs, feel its heat and pain as an existential, not just a cerebral, intellectual experience. But if things are never explained, as so often seems to happen at Sedarim, then the Seder becomes the ultimate demo of all that is negative about the word ‘ritual.’

Synagogue services have their rituals, of course. The things we did in the Torah service this morning were consciously designed to be a weekly re-enactment of what happened at Mount Sinai. We go up to the Ark, as Moses went up the mountain. We bring the Torah down to the people, as Moses did. Why did we elevate the scroll? Not, presumably, because we think that any of you can actually see the bit we’re going to read. But we show it to the people just as Moses showed it. We read from it, as Moses did. It’s Jewish time travel. We don’t just talk about being at Sinai but see ourselves as standing again at Sinai, week, week out, hearing the word afresh, anew.

On this Shabbat, as we say a ‘thank you’ and an au revoir to Katie, we recognize how much music is a ritual in its most positive sense, how crucial is its role in services. Katie has helped us appreciate the 4 ‘Ms’ of synagogue music: the music of Meeting – the communal singing which fashions a disparate group of individuals into a community, like hineh mah tov u’mah na’im; the second M is the music of Majesty – think of the music of the Torah service, for example; the third is the music of Meditation – nishmat, say, or yihyu l’ratson imrei fi; and the fourth M is the music of Memory – kol nidre, maybe, or that version of Adon Olam

This Shabbat is where we read about Balak hiring Balaam, a sort of professional blesser and curser, to curse the Jewish People as they pass through his territory. But every time he tries to curse them, it comes out as a blessing. The most famous of which is the phrase from our sidra mah tovu ohalecha ya’akov miskenotecha Yisrael “How Good are your tents, O Jacob, your homes, O Israel.” (Numbers 24:5) We begin each service with that phrase, as we did this Shabbat, with the choir singing it.

But why begin the service in this way? Then I started asking myself “but where does the service begin?” Halachically the answer is clear: with the barechu. So if we get to the synagogue late and the service has begun but they’re not yet at the barechu, we just join in where the community is. If, however, we get there after the barechu, our halachic ‘prayer obligation’ requires us to go back to the barechu, do a bit of speed davening and catch up with the community.

But where does the service really begin? Is it, paradoxically, when we are still at home and decide we’ll come to synagogue? Perhaps it’s on the way here? Or, maybe, as we actually walk into the building? Or on page 160 when we stand for the mah tovu?

For what is going on at that point? Why do we even bother to stand for the mah tovu? In the traditional siddur, there’s a rubric saying “ to be recited on entering the synagogue.” In other words, as you walk in through the front door, not even part of the formal prayer service. “How good are your tents, O Jacob, your homes, O Israel.” I call it the “it’s good to be here again” prayer. The pleasure of being in a familiar place, seeing familiar faces. Some nice sentiments being expressed in it, but nothing particularly prayer-ful about it.

So why stand for the mah tovu, as if it’s important, worth standing for? In the old days, some of you will remember how the community would stand in reverential silence as the rabbi entered in his – in those days it was only ‘his’ – flowing black robes. Standing was a sign of respect for the rabbi. It was a useful way of saying “Please stop chatting, the service is about to begin.”

But that’s not how we do things here or in most synagogues. More often than not we begin with a song. If it’s a choral Shabbat the choir will lead us in; if not, one of the rabbis will start singing. It’s a much more-organic way to begin in the sense of relevant to what we’re here for. It still gives those signals to the community about the service beginning, to stop chatting and so on. So I’ve never quite understood why we need to stand for the mah tovu. Interesting phrase ‘to stand for.’ It can mean to do the opposite of being seated; but it can also mean to put up with or even to advocate for it. For me it’s simply means “why do we need to be upright for the mah tovu?” If anything I find it’s like an unnecessary hiccup to the flow of the service. We’ve sung something, we’ve come together, the chatting has stopped, we’ve begun that transition from the concerns of the world out there to the concerns of the world of prayer and synagogue. Just when I’m beginning to get into all of that, I’m dragged back to earth by having to stand.

All synagogues have 3 prime functions. To be a beit knesset, a house of meeting; a beit midrash – a house of learning; and a beit tefillah – a house of prayer. When we came into the building, it was functioning as a beit Knesset. Something needs to happen to change it, in our minds, to a beit tefillah – a house of prayer. One of the functions of ritual, then, is to be an agent of change, a catalyst, helping us make that transition. Like all catalysts, it remains unchanged through the process. But what does change is something inside of us, as we sing mah tovu and begin that journey into prayer, which is really a journey into ourselves.