PVCC Puma Press: April 2006

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	A parchment scroll portion of the Torah which was inscribed in Iraq more than 300 years ago is displayed at the new Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Beachwood, Ohio.
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What is the sound of God?

It is the type of question that many would expect to hear from a Zen Buddhist. Few would expect an answer to emerge from an institution known as The Center for Biblical Hebrew. But years of painstaking research have led the founder of that center to conclude that he has unlocked the key to hearing the sound of God, or more precisely the sound of God’s words.

Uri Harel, an Israeli-born native Hebrew speaker, founded the CBH in Phoenix in 1995. The center’s activities include lectures, seminars and Hebrew classes. By far, though, the most important and most controversial work to emanate from the CBH is a project known as Music from God.

Harel’s background in knowing and teaching the Hebrew language, combined with extensive background reading, has led him to conclude that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet represent far more than mere phonetic sounds. He sees them as containing inherent numeric values. In the Tanakh (referred to by Christians as The Old Testament), the numeric value of every letter corresponds to a musical note. Those notes, when occurring in the sequence of the letters of the Hebrew Bible (and in no other Hebrew text) combine to form music—or more specifically, music from God, according to Harel.

“One day I woke up and said, ‘There is music in the Bible, and we’re going to find it,’” says Harel.

Transforming Harel’s “recent extraordinary discovery” (as the CBH’s website describes it) of the link between music and text into something tangible and audible to the human ear did not occur overnight.

“After about three years of experimenting, I was able to come up with a formula, so to speak, to be able to take a Hebrew letter and to find its frequency translated into a musical note,” he says. The notes were then available for him to submit to composers and musicians who could convert them into musical productions.

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	One day I woke up and said, 'There is music in the Bible and we're going to find it.'
	—Uri Harel
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Having extracted music from the text of the Tanakh, Harel inexorably concluded that music had been intentionally implanted within the original Hebrew letters and words of the Bible. He believes that he has tapped into this hidden musical layer buried deep within the Bible. Referring to Jewish teachings that the Torah has 70 faces, Harel says he has come to understand that traditional description to mean “the Torah contains 70 layers.” He is certain one of those layers is music.

“The text of the Hebrew is an encoded text,” says Harel. “The surface text you read is basically a vehicle or a vessel holding inside of it all kinds of encrypted information.” It only follows naturally that music would be one of those Biblical codes, he argues.

Having established the relationship of text to music to his own satisfaction, Harel next sought external confirmation for his findings. He says that his work was validated by “traditional Jewish sources” such as biblical references, rabbinic material, Midrash literature and mystical writings.

Harel does not lay claim to being the first person to see a connection between text and music in the Bible, saying that such a link has been discussed by others in the past. Where he has broken new ground, he says, is in extracting the musical notes and seeing a project all the way through to the production of musical pieces.

“No one else has done anything like this project,” he asserts.

The fruit of Harel’s work thus far has been the production of two CDs: “Music from God: The Classic” in 1998 and “Days of Majesty” in 2000. The CDs, professionally recorded in Phoenix, feature musical translations of passages from Exodus and Psalms. The first CD adheres more strictly to the raw notes provided by Harel, whereas the second is toned more for the Western ear. A third CD is planned, but Harel says a lack of funding is slowing progress on the latest album.

Disharmonious views of the music

For two area rabbis, hearing is not believing. Neither had heard of Harel or his work prior to being contacted for this article. Both spoke after reviewing the information provided on the CBH and Music from God websites.

One of the rabbis, who wished to remain unnamed in this article, commented that he was “underwhelmed with what was described in the website.” One of his primary concerns was the methodology employed (or not employed, as he saw it) by Harel to sustain the conclusion that text and music are linked.

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	The CBH sells CDs, books and other materials on its website.
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“This would have to be quantifiable... (and) duplicatable in what I would call a scientific and religious setting,” the rabbi said. “Nothing that I see here (on the websites) would lead me to believe that Harel meets those criteria.”

The rabbi stated that a way to quantify Harel’s work would be to publish an article listing the results of tests in which the musical notes derived from Hebrew letters are played back against the music.

Harel says that he used his computer to play back and test the notes, and that the results confirmed his findings. When asked if he intended to publish the results of his work on the Music from God project in an academic journal, he replied that he has no immediate plans to do so because it would be premature and that, in any event, he has neither the connections nor credentials for an academic publication.

Rabbi Jessica Zimmerman of Temple Beth Israel, a Reform synagogue in Scottsdale, is as unconvinced as the anonymous rabbi by Harel’s argument that there is a musical code embedded in the Hebrew Bible. “There is nothing inherent in the text itself that is musical,” she says.

Zimmerman disagrees not only with Harel’s conclusions about music and text, but also with his position that traditional Jewish sources confirm his claims. She asserts that no traditional sources, textual or otherwise, support his findings.

“There’s discussion of music in the sacred texts, but there’s nothing whatsoever that would support what he’s talking about in any of the traditional texts,” she says. “That’s his own interpretation of ancient texts. Anybody can read anything into any text they want.”

The anonymous rabbi is equally skeptical of the confirmation Harel believes he has found in traditional sources. The rabbi says that the information he reviewed on the websites “looks very new-agey and certainly not accepted in the Jewish tradition.”

Both rabbis feel that Harel’s views on Biblical codes fall well outside the mainstream of Jewish thought. They concede that Harel is not alone in seeing the Bible as an encoded text, but they insist that such beliefs exist more on the fringes of Jewish thought than in the center.

“This is not mainstream Jewish interpretation of anything,” says Zimmerman of Harel’s reading of the Bible as a musically layered text. “It’s his personal interpretation.”

For his part, Harel is unconcerned with how the mainstream Jewish community will come to view his work. “I really don’t care, to tell you the truth,” he says. “My goal is not to make people like me or like what I do.”

According to Harel, there are nonetheless plenty of people who do like what he has done. The websites list a sampling of the positive feedback and testimonials from those who have purchased Harel’s CDs. In addition, Harel says he visited Orthodox rabbis in Israel who responded enthusiastically to the music.

Harel avows that the negative opinions of others in the Jewish community will not dissuade him from further pursuit of the Music from God project. “I have something that I’ve invested a number of years in, and I’m going to continue to do it,” he insists. “It doesn’t matter what people think.”

The Sound of the Future

Harel has an ambitious vision for the future of Music from God. While he has an immediate goal of producing a third CD when the funds are in place, he hopes eventually to place the musical translation of the entire Tanakh on CD.

“We have the entire Bible waiting for us to do this,” he says. “It’s like an endless source of product waiting to be produced.”

Interested listeners may not have to wait for additional CDs to hear the music. Harel says that he is planning to arrange for live performances of the music within a year’s time. The first concert will be held in the Valley. Initial contact has already been made with the Mesa Symphony. Long-term, Harel envisions a full 70-piece philharmonic orchestra playing Music from God at the Lincoln Center in New York.

“I’m sure people are going to come from all around just to hear what Isaiah sounds like in music,” he says enthusiastically. “It’s going to be a wonderful thing to accomplish.”

Beyond studio recordings and live performances, Harel says that the future might hold television appearances and video productions, though those possibilities are not yet concrete plans. Until then, Harel’s goal of getting more of the music on CDs will keep him plenty occupied.

“It’s already a lifelong project,” he says. “The project will never be completed.”

Those interested in learning more about the Center for Biblical Hebrew and the Music from God project can visit their websites at www.c-bh.com and www.musicfromgod.com.