Cantillation

Cantillation The mode of chanting for the reading of the Torah and the other Scriptures in the synagogue and the system of musical notation for this. Scripture was not simply declaimed in the synagogue, but chanted. In post-Talmudic times various systems of notation were developed, one of which became standard; that is to say, there eventually arose a universally accepted system of musical notation with special signs for the different notes. All communities follow this system, although the actual form of the melodies is not the same in all communities. The Ashkenazim melodies, for instance, are in a different mode from the Sephardic, the latter having distinct traces of Arabic musical styles.

The signs for the various notes are called neginot (‘melodies’) or teemim (‘flavours’, i.e. giving flavour to the words). These notes have a double purpose. In the first instance they serve as punctuation similar to the full stop, colon, semi-colon, and comma in English, these not being shown in the original Hebrew. The notes also serve as a commentary to the text.

Reform Jews tended to give up the whole method of cantillation, preferring to follow the practice in Protestant churches of declaiming Scripture, in the belief that this was more decorous in Western society. But, as part of a definite swing towards greater traditionalism, many Reform congregations have reintroduced the old system of cantillation.