When I was 17 I went to Montgomery, Alabama from New York, where I was in high school, for the last few days of the Selma to Montgomery March.  I took my sleeping bag and slept on the floor of a Black church in Montgomery.  It was the music, the singing,  during those days that I most remember, that most inspired me.  A few weeks ago, when I went to the 75^th anniversary of the Highlander Center in Tennessee, it was those same songs that drew me to the big tent up the hill across the field.  It has been over 40 years, but the music still drills deep down into me.

I felt something like this the first time I stepped into  Congregation Beth El, in Sudbury, MA, about 15 years ago, where Cantor Lorel Zar-Kessler leads the singing.  There was something in the music that brought me back there, although it is a long drive, and keeps me going back every Saturday.

  What happens when people sing together?  How does it change us?  I am convinced it does.  Perhaps some bio-chemist will discover the chemical changes that happen in our bodies when we sing in a group.

Professor Robert Putnam, in Democracy in Italy, discovered that democracy and government efficiency increased with the existence of community choruses.  That finding surprised him, but made lots of sense to me.

Highlander always sings, combining learning with singing and music, all kinds of music.

It doesn’t take much to start singing.  You just do it.