'Oseh Shalom - "illu finu" canon (Rabbi Miriam Margles)

from Friday Night with the Cambridge Egalitarian Minyan by Gal Chadash (the Cambridge Egalitarian Minyan)

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Jews love singing this textual formula, which pops up in many places in the liturgy and begins with a quotation from Job 25, verse 2.

There are many ways to sing the text. When we close the 'Amida with it in our services, we usually choose from among three: the borrowed tune heard on this track; the famous, heartbreakingly hopeful, Israeli song by Nurit Hirsch, composed for the first Chasidic song festival, 1969; and the Debbie Friedman melody.

This tune is a 3-part canon: the three sections of the song rotate around three groups of people. In theory.

This way of singing 'Oseh Shalom was introduced to us by Zach Eilon who heard the music as 'Ilu Finu' from the album 'Ashira' by Kol Rina (the Jewish a cappella group his father belongs to). The original text is 'illu finu malei shira ka-yam' ('If only our mouth were as full of song as the sea', from the 'Nishmat' praise-poem said on Shabbat morning). The composer, a Reconstructionist Rabbi and social activist, also wrote the canon 'Zeh ha-yom' known to some of us.

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Closing of meditative section at end of silent 'Amida.

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from Friday Night with the Cambridge Egalitarian Minyan, released April 1, 2010

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Gal Chadash Cambridge, UK

EgalMin is an inclusive, informal and active community which is famous for its alternative, egalitarian Kabbalat Shabbat services. Being a part of EgalMin means being part of a community which takes great joy in prayer and challenges itself to engage in learning, whilst also providing a social hub for its members and continuing to be an active part of the wider JSoc community. ... more