Kol Nidrei

The evening service on the Eve of Yom Kippur is preceded by the chanting of Kol Nidrei ("All vows"), a formal annulment of vows.

The worshipers proclaim that all personal vows and oaths made between themselves and God during the year that not have not been fulfilled should be considered null and void. In Jewish tradition, the nullification of vows can only be performed by a religious court, which always consists of at least three judges and is convened only on weekdays. The recitation of Kol Nidrei is therefore begun before sunset; two distinguished congregants, holding Torah scrolls, stand next to the Cantor in order to constitute a court.

Figure: Kol Nidrei prayer

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Translation^5.1:

All vows, prohibitions, oaths, consecrations, vows, vows, or equivalent terms that we may vow, swear, consecrate, or prohibit upon ourselves - from the last Yom Kippur until this Yom Kippur, and from this Yom Kippur until the next Yom Kippur, may it come upon us for good - regarding them all, we regret them henceforth. They all will be permitted, abandoned, cancelled, null and void, without power and without standing. Our vows shall not be valid vows; our prohibitions shall not be valid prohibitions; and our oaths shall not be valid oaths.

Figure: Introduction from Kol Nidrei by Max Bruch

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The origins of the ritual and the text of Kol Nidrei remain obscure[6]. The first references to Kol Nidrei as a collective declaration-prayer are found in the responsa of the Babylonian geonim (8-10th century scholars)^5.2; the geonim vigorously opposed the practice of chanting the declamation, which they claimed originated in unspecified ``other lands.'' For those ``other lands'' Palestine is an obvious candidate, none of the surviving ancient Palestinian prayer texts include Kol Nidrei[7].

Around ca.1000 C.E., Kol Nidrei was totally integrated in the liturgy, mostly by popular demand.

Geonic texts of Kol Nidrei speak of annulling vows made ``from the previous Day of Atonement until this Day of Atonement.'' Authorities in early medieval Europe (12th century) did not accept this version and amended the text to refer to future vows made ``from this Day of Atonement until the next Day of Atonement.'' Different communities adopted different versions and some have incorporated both.

Although all Jewish sources and interpretations of Kol Nidrei agree that the formula covers only vows between the individual and God, many anti-Semites have taken Kol Nidrei as evidence that a Jew's oath is worthless^5.3.

The standard Ashkenazi melody for Kol Nidrei is an example par excellence of the Jewish musical tradition[8]. It is not a melody in the usual sense, but rather a collection of motifs in the general musical style of the High Holy Days.

Figure is a piano arrangement by Sam Englander (1896-1943) from http://www.chazzanut.com/englander/englander-14.html.

Figure: Kol Nidrei, piano arrangement

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They include both solemn syllabic ``proclamations'' and virtuoso vocal runs. Many cantors and communities developed their particular variations of the basic musical material and many synagogue composers have made their own arrangements.[3] It remains an open question whether the solemnity and importance of the text shaped the musical rendition of Kol Nidrei, or whether the stature of the text was heightened by the extraordinary effect of the music. The source of the melody is still a subject of research, and the frequent attempts to relate it to the Sephardi traditions have not been successful.

The Sephardi and Oriental Jewish communities each have their own Kol Nidrei traditions: Sephardi, Moroccan and Yemenite.

Example RealMedia^TMfiles can be listened to at: http://www.jhom.com/calendar/tishrei/kolnidrei.html.

Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, author of the first and landmark book on Jewish music: ``Jewish Music: Its Historical Development''[4] wrote:

There is hardly any other traditional Jewish tune that attracted so much attention from the composers of the last century. Innumerable are the arrangements for voice with piano, organ or violin accompaniment and violoncello obligato. We have the exalted melody prepared for choir and small orchestra. And last but not least is the concerto by Max Bruch. In the first bars of Beethoven's C24#24 minor quartet, the opening theme of Kol Nidrei is recognizable. Thus has the music world come to consider this the most characteristic tune of the synagogue.[5]

Max Bruch himself wrote the following on Kol Nidrei^5.4:

`` [...] I became acquainted with Kol Nidre and a few other songs (among others, Arabian Camel) in Berlin through the Lichtenstein<sup>5.5</sup> family, who befriended me. Even though I am a Protestant, as an artist I deeply felt the outstanding beauty of these melodies and therefore I gladly spread them through my arrangement. [...] As a young man I had already [...] studied folksongs of all nations with great enthusiasm, because the folksong is the source of all true melodics(sic) - a wellspring, at which one must repeatedly renew and refresh oneself - if one doesn't admit to the absurd belief of a certain party: ``The melody is an outdated view.'' So lay the study of Jewish ethnic music on my path^5.6''

Bruch's arrangement of Kol Nidrei is actually an ``arrangement'' not a transcription, unsurprisingly it did not made to the taste of Idelsohn:

[Bruch's] melody was an interesting theme for a brilliant secular concerto. In his presentation, the melody entirely lost its original character. Bruch displayed a fine art, masterly technique and fantasy, but not Jewish sentiments. It is not a Jewish Kol-Nidre which Bruch composed[4].

As Bruch indicated in his letter, quoted above, he himself did not consider his Kol Nidrei to be a Jewish composition, but just an artistic arrangement of a folk tune. So, to Bruch, his Kol Nidrei was just one of the many arrangements he made of European folk songs.

Idelshon in a letter dated January 31, 1882, to Emil Kamphausen (translation by Fifield^5.7), comments as follows:

The two melodies [in Bruch's Kol Nidrei] are first-class. The first is an age-old Hebrew song of atonement, the second (D major) is the middle section of a moving and truly magnificent song ``O weep for those that wept on Babel's stream'' (Byron), equally very old. I got to know both melodies in Berlin, where I had much to do with the children of Israel in the Choral Society. The success of ``Kol Nidrei'' is assured, because all the Jews in the world are for it eo ipso.

Figure: The second theme of Max Bruch's Kol Nidrei

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Another interesting historical arrangement^5.8 for male chorus is worth looking at^5.9:

Figure: Male chorus arrangement of Kol Nidrei

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