PRIESTLY BENEDICTION (2016)

The text of the Priestly Benediction comes from Numbers 6, and God asks Moses to use that famous formula to bless the people. It’s written in the 2nd person singular masculine form: “May God bless you and keep you” — where the “you” is a male. (Hebrew requires a gendered ending.) I wrote a setting of the text with feminine conjugations, suitable for use in a bat mitzvah service, for example. It has proven to be a more controversial adaptation than I expected; although composers and songwriters play with the traditional text all the time, there seems to be something troubling and heretical about changing this particular blessing.