Home > Cantillation
Cantillation ( Hebrew: ta`amei ha-mikra or just te`amim; Yiddish trope is also commonly used in English) refers to special signs or marks in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh) which complement the letters and vowel points. Some of these signs were also sometimes used in medieval manuscripts of the Mishnah.A primary purpose of the cantillation signs is to guide the chanting of the sacred texts during public worship. Very roughly speaking, each word of text has a cantillation mark at its primary accent and associated with that mark is a musical phrase that tells how to sing that word. The reality is more complex, with some words having two or no marks and the musical meaning of some marks dependent upon context. There are different sets of musical phrases associated with different sections of the Bible. The music varies with different Jewish traditions and individual cantorial styles.
The cantillation signs also provide information on the syntactical structure of the text and some say they are a commentary on the text itself, highlighting important ideas musically.
The current system of cantillation notes has its historical roots in the Tiberian mesorah. The cantillation signs are included in Unicode as characters 0591 through 05AF in the Hebrew alphabet block.
1 Three Functions
The cantillation signs serve three functions:
- Syntax: They divide biblical verses into smaller units of meaning, a function which also gives them a limited but sometimes important role as a source for exegesis. This function is accomplished through the use of various conjunctive signs (which indicate that words should be connected in a single phrase) and especially a hierarchy of dividing signs various strength which divide each verse into smaller phrases. The function of the disjunctive cantillation signs may be roughly compared to modern punctuation signs such as periods, commas, semicolons, etc.
- Phonetics: Most of the cantillation symbols indicate the specific syllable where the stress (accent) falls in the pronunciation of a word.
- Music: The cantillation signs have musical value: Reading the Hebrew Bible with cantillation becomes a musical chant, where the music itself serves as a tool to emphasise the proper accentuation and syntax (as mentioned previously).
Psalms, Proverbs and Job: The system of cantillation notes used throughout the Tanakh is replaced by an entirely different system for these three poetic books. Many of the symbols may appear the same or similar at first glance, but most of them serve entirely different functions in these three books. (Only a few signs have functions similar to what they do in the rest of the Tanakh.) The short narratives at the beginning and end of Job use the "regular" system, but the bulk of the book (the poetry) uses the special system.
2 The Musical Function
The musical value of the cantillation notes serves the same function for Jews worldwide, but the specific tunes vary between different communities. The most common tunes today are:
- The Polish-Lithuanian melody, used by Ashkenazic descendants of eastern European Jews, is the most common tune in the world today, both in Israel and the diaspora.
- Related Ashkenazic melodies from central and western European Jewry are used far less today than before the Holocaust, but still survive in some communities.
- Among Sephardic Jews, the "Jerusalem Sephardic" (Sepharadi-Yerushalmi) melody (of Syrian origin) is the one most widely used today in Israel, and it is also used in some Sephardic communities in the diaspora.
- The Morrocan melody is also widely used in Israel among descendants of immigrants from that country, and in the diaspora.
- The Yemenite melody can also be heard in Israel today.
2.1 Ashkenazic Melodies
In the Ashkenazic musical tradition for cantillation, each of the local geographical customs includes a total of six separate melodies for cantillation:
- Torah and Haftarot (3 melodies)
- 1. Torah (general melody for the whole year)
- 2. Torah - special melody for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This tune is also employed on Simhat Torah in various degrees (depending on the specific community). Echoes of it can also be heard for certain verses in the Torah reading for fast days.
- 3. Haftarot
- The Five Megillot (3 melodies are employed for these five scrolls)
- 4. Esther - a light, joyous tune used for the Megillat Esther on PurimPurim Observed by: Jews Name Hebrew: Meaning: "Lots" Begins: 14th or 15th day of Adar OccasionCelebration of Jewish deliverance as told in the Book of Esther. Symbols:Grogger, dice, costumes, mask Purim "Lots," Standard Hebrew Purim Tiberian Hebrew Purim.
- 5. Lamentations - a mournful tune. Echoes of it can also be heard for certain verses in Esther and in the Torah reading preceding the Ninth of Av. The Haftarot preceding and during the Ninth of Av also use this melody.
- 6. The three remaining scrolls are publicly read with in Ashkenazic communities during the Three Pilgrimage Festivals . All are read in the same melody, which may be considered the "general" melody for the megillot: The Song of Songs on Passover; Ruth on Shavuot; Ecclesiastes on Sukkot.
The Ashkenazic tradition preserves no melody for the special cantillation notes of Psalms, Proverbs, and Job, which were not publicly read in the synagogue by European Jews.
