Something Understood

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BBC Radio 4 LW

Religion & Ethics

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life, taking a spiritual theme and exploring it through music, prose and poetry

BBC Radio 4 FM

Something Understood: Call and Response

Immortality

Call and Response

BBC Radio 4 - Something Understood, Call and Response

Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand celebrates the power of call and response.

Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand celebrates the power of call and response, one of the most primal human interactions.

Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand examines the phenomenon of call and response, one of the most primal human interactions.

She explains that, "whether we’re calling our mother on the phone or crying out to God, when we call we hope for a response. That’s because we are social creatures, yearning for connection, so responding to a call seems to be hard-wired into us."

Shoshana leads us into deep space, tuning in to the Arecibo Message, humanity's first attempt to call out to unseen alien races. The irony is that, if aliens respond we may not even be able to understand them. Shoshana admits that, despite all her prayers, she's never heard the voice of God herself, and wonders if she would understand if a divine response was to arrive.

Drawing upon musical examples ranging from Count Basie and Bach to Simon and Garfunkel, Shoshana reveals that the call and response form has long fascinated singers and composers. She explains she has always been amazed at Bach's ability to write music for the piano that lets the left and right hand enter a dialogue, communicating back and forth through melody.

The communal Jewish prayer of the Kaddish, the electric energy between Baptist pastor and congregation and the beauty of the Islamic call to prayer are all explored as Shoshana considers the interpersonal bonding that call and response facilitates.

She concludes that faith itself can be defined as the ever-present hope that, when we call out from the depths, we will receive a response. It may not always be the response that we were expecting. It may even be silence. But, fundamentally, we call out and hope for an answer as a reminder that we are not alone.

Presenter: Shoshana Boyd Gelfand
Producer: Max O'Brien
A TBI production for BBC Radio 4

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