Last year around this time I stumbled upon a niggun – a wordless melody – by my friend and classmate Yoel Sykes, a longtime musician and prayer leader with Nava Tehila. It was called Niggun Kislev, the melody for this particular dark month of the Hebrew year, the month closes out with Chanukah’s promise of the returning light.

Yoel subtitled this melody “Kosi Revayah” – “my cup is overflowing”, a quote from Psalm 23.

Last winter I used this melody a lot last winter, teaching and singing it in a number of settings. This year I happened to have been asked to come and do a half hour of teaching with the cast of the upcoming holiday show produced by Sonoma County’s Transcendence Theatre before their day of rehearsal. I opened and closed with this niggun. But having a room full of Broadway performers was different than any other niggun experience I’d had. Their ability to blend and harmonize was astonishing, and it was a privilege getting to witness them doing this so beautifully, so gently, off stage, with no audience but each other and the Universe.

I’m grateful to have been invited, to have been allowed to share this tune, and to have witnessed the collective beauty of this group.