Counting Our Strength: 50 Anniversary Tribute
By Fred Wenger, Rabbi Emeritus, Kol Ami

Dear friends,

We are gathered here to pay tribute to the gift of music floating through the air through our radios and, via our ears and brains, into our hearts.

Music is akin to mathematics. Simply put, it consists of a finite number of vibrations passing through a prescribed time. If we miss the count, the music cannot exist. So, we recall a story told about Albert Einstein, a well-known but poor amateur violinist playing with either Fritz Kreisler or Alexander Schneider. When Einstein failed to arrive on cue, the master musician said to the mathematical genius:

“What’s wrong with you, Albert? Can’t you count? 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4.”

Unlike Einstein, we are here because we know how to count.

We know that Frédéric Chopin and Robert Schumann are both 200 years old. Samuel Barber and the Cathedral of the Madeleine are 100 years old, and Classical 89 is 50. Since we know how to count up these anniversaries, we gather in this sacred space and, in the words of one of Chopin’s songs, we

Savor each sweet moment,
And dwell on each happy note.
We have no wish to interrupt;
We only want to listen, listen, listen.

We recall Schumann’s words: “Music is always the language which permits one to converse with the Beyond.”

And we realize the words of George Dillon that Barber set to song:

If I have anything to give
Made surely of the life I live
It is a song that I have made
Now in your keeping it is laid.

Realizing our need to listen, listen, listen to the divine gift of good music and its song is what unites us as a community this evening to salute Classical 89 on its jubilee anniversary. Our presence here reminds us that music transcends all boundaries of faith, ethnicity, politics, and sexual orientation, and can even help us reach those heavenly realms towards which scripture points. But each of us lives in all these defining realms. So permit me a personal note, a Jewish voice.

Yesterday in synagogues around the world, my community began the biblical book of Numbers in which the ancient Israelites counted their strength in the wilderness, tribe by tribe, family by family. As I was sitting in my synagogue, I couldn’t help but recall Classical 89’s pledge drives, where our favorite station counts its strength by listeners, contributors, and, yes, dollars. This is a necessary counting, as mandatory as that of the Israelites in the wilderness. For we too are in a wilderness. In an age when fewer radio stations are providing a classical music format, when fewer schools are exposing students to the glories of music at its best, Classical 89 shines forth, elevating our souls and expanding our minds and hearts each and every day. So, as in ancient days, we too need to count our strength and help it grow in mathematically measurable numbers. As Kreisler or Schneider reminded Einstein, “1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4,” and on to infinity.

May we help Classical 89 count our strength. May we recognize, cherish, and proudly commend this gift of classical music that wafts into our hearts to others so they, too, can share in these unique moments like tonight, which we make possible, and which Classical 89 continues to provide us. May Classical 89 go from strength to strength. Let us count with confidence, as sure as was the prophet Hosea who anticipated a day in which “the children of Israel shall be as numerous as sands of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted”; and Abraham himself reminded us that our seed should be like the stars in the sky and the sands on the sea.1 And it should be a blessing forever as Classical 89 is such a blessing to all of us.

I’m Fred Wenger, rabbi emeritus of Salt Lake City’s Congregation Kol Ami. I’m honored to have this opportunity to pay tribute to Classical 89’s jubilee and to invoke on it God’s choicest Jubilee blessing, that it may proclaim the liberty that music brings us to all the inhabitants thereof.

For we know how to count, and we know that we are accountable for this infinite blessing. For fifty is the new forte.

1. Hosea 1:10. See also Genesis 22:17.

(From an address delivered on May 16, 2010, during a special 50th anniversary concert at The Cathedral of the Madeleine. Fred Wenger is rabbi emeritus of Salt Lake City's Congregation Kol Ami.)