Singing with Spirit

Blessings to All Y’all People of Conscience, 

2024 seems to be flying by. We hope and pray that everyone is making the most out of each day and doing whatever good our individual circumstances permit.  Since it’s an election year, feel free to remember that The Vote is Sacred (link to our song by that title). A few of our recent engagements with incredible organizations like The Institute of Southern Jewish Life and Facing History and Ourselves have us thinking about a specific topic that’s important to us, and hopefully of interest to us all: the intersection of faith, spirituality, religion, and conscience. More about that…

As a rabbi and a gospel singer who have joined forces to perform original music it should come as no surprise that much of our music and message is rooted in and informed by faith, spirituality, and religion. Being rooted in these ideas, vocabularies, idioms, and traditions one might (mistakenly) assume that our music and our message are therefore for a specific and narrow “audience” of people who identify as faithful, spiritual, and/or religious. And if we believe various research studies from the last couple of years, we might add that said audience isn’t only specific and narrow, but shrinking with every passing hour as our society becomes increasingly secularized while faith, spirituality, and religion become increasingly irrelevant. If we accept this narrative, it would be fair to say that if our goal is to reach people of conscience near and far, then it’s somewhat self-sabotaging to embrace the languages of faith, spirit, and religion, because these languages limit our reach, are exclusionary and parochial, and lead people to put up walls rather than open their hearts and minds. 

Yet everywhere we go, we find a warm and welcome embrace. Whether in a religious setting like a synagogue or a secular setting like a Facing History and Ourselves educators’ conference or a Mississippi Public Broadcast recording studio. Everywhere we go we find folks who are open to our music and message, who want to sing with us, who seem to find comfort, solace, and inspiration in the fact that we sing with (and from) faith and spirit and that we engage religious wisdom in our music. How to explain the disconnect between what sociologists and culture critics tell us and what we authentically experience in our travels and interactions? 

Here are a couple theories… 

Theory 1: In spite of what the studies say, many people of conscience remain open to the possibility that faith, spirituality, and religion remain a relevant and powerful force for individual and social transformation. This would be the kind of “Silent Majority” theory.

Theory 2: What many people reject, particularly when it comes to religion, is the bad religion-- the small-minded, overly dogmatic, out of touch, divisive brands of religion that often do a great job hogging the spotlight. When it comes to the good stuff, the real stuff of faith, spirit, and religion, people remain receptive. 

Theory 3: We are starting to realize, as a society, that ideas are powerful. Realizing that ideas are powerful, we are starting to reevaluate what ideas we want to let into our hearts and minds. What ideas we want to teach our children. What ideas we want to be part of the conversation when we think about the challenges we face as a species. So that while many religious ideas are flawed and antiquated, many are shockingly enduring, compelling, and undeniably truthful. Rather than hitching our wagon to powerful ideas that haven’t withstood the test of time (say, Postmodernism) we are open to looking anew at ideas that have served us in the past and are somehow still around after thousands of years. After all, spiritual and religious ideas couldn’t possibly be less compelling than the current political discourse. 

Or maybe folks respond to two people who serve as a reminder that we’re stronger together. Or maybe folks just love Melvin’s voice. Or maybe folks just appreciate a little hard-earned and genuine optimism and hope. 

New Content

While our new album isn’t ready just yet, we’re pleased to share two pieces of content with you. 

Here’s the recording of our 45ish minute interview for Now You’re Talking with Marshall Ramsey of Mississippi Public Broadcasting. If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing you can just look up Marshall Ramsey-- in addition to his radio program he’s an extraordinarily prolific political cartoonist, author, historian and much more. It was an honor to speak with him. 

On a very chilly January weekend we had an extraordinarily rewarding experience as the MLK guests/artists at Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, NJ. If you are anywhere near their synagogue you should go and enjoy the remarkable musical ensemble that joins them on Shabbat. WOW. They were kind enough to segment out some of our songs on Vimeo which you can access here. We were overwhelmed by the warmth and vibrancy of the congregation.

Action Item

We have limited availability to travel to communities this summer, fall, and into winter 2025. If you’d like to explore that, we’d be honored to connect. We also remain ambivalent in our commitment to keeping our social media/ digital presence alive so that we can “play in the sandbox” so to speak. Connecting in those spaces would be helpful if you’re amenable: 

FB-- @WeAreLapidusAndMyles and IG: Lapidus&Myles. YouTube @lapidusmyles

In the meantime, many blessings, peace, and love. 

Till We Meet Again, 

Micah & Melvin (Lapidus & Myles)