Questions and answers with Beth Shalom Cantor Steven Stoehr

Since 1988 - it'll be 35 years in July - Steven Stoehr has been a cantor at Congregation Beth Shalom in Northbrook.

The congregation's senior cantor was born and raised in Pittsburgh; his wife, Susan, part of Beth Shalom's educational staff, was from Las Vegas. Seeking a "cool place" to start a career at the pulpit after Steven graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, the young couple "split the difference," Steven said, and chose the Chicago area.

What followed has been a diverse and acclaimed career at the Conservative Jewish congregation.

Stoehr, who will turn 62 on Aug. 9, is president of the Cantors Assembly Foundation, and a former Assembly International president, who will be the chair for the assembly's 75th anniversary at this year's international convention.

He's won individual Cantors Assembly awards for service to the group and for his scholarship and creativity, in addition to other awards for excellence in his career. In 2008, the Jewish Theological Seminary bestowed Stoehr an honorary doctorate in music.

Stoehr has released three music CDs, a musical drama and a nationally touring, multimedia concert, and has written a novella and two children's books, among other literary works as editor or writer.

Son of a Holocaust survivor, Stoehr is a champion of inclusion at Beth Shalom in his work toward LGBTQ rights and people with special needs.

Steven and Susan Stoehr live in Northbrook and have three children and one grandchild.

Following are questions submitted to Stoehr and his answers, edited for length and clarity.

Herald: What is the role of the cantor in a congregation?

Stoehr: The role varies from congregation to congregation. Within the Conservative Movement, the role is encapsulated in being a spiritual architect. The cantor leads liturgical prayer, teaches religious school students and adults, conducts all manner of life cycles, and visits elders who are unable to travel to the congregation, plans social action events, and participates in various civic and religious organizations in their city.

It truly is much more extensive than all of this. Listen to this children's book if you wish to smile: tinyurl.com/mycantorcan.

Herald: Did you require vocal training, or are a cantor's scholarly aspects the key?

Stoehr: A primary distinction of being a cantor (or in Hebrew, hazzan) is to possess a pleasing voice. While that is subjective to the listener, almost always that mandates years of vocal lessons and practice.

Historically, the vocal artistry of a cantor is what initially invited them into a cantorial position, but today's cantor is much more multifaceted. Not only do students attend theological seminaries and similar other schools for their education, they also spend at least one year of study in Israel.

Additionally, many cantors have made this decision later in life, and thus come to their employment with a vast array of previous life and professional experiences. Many cantors sing their way into a job, but must be flexible so as to fulfill the myriad needs of their congregation off of the pulpit.

Herald: How did you arrive at the decision to spend your life studying and wishing to teach Judaism?

Stoehr: I began attending synagogue with my father when I was a young boy. His melodious voice while leading prayer or reading Torah enchanted me, and I knew one day I wanted to sing as well in the synagogue. I never imagined it would be as my full-time career, however. I will be beginning my 35th year at Congregation Beth Shalom in Northbrook, my first and only pulpit.

My work in youth services as a Jewish Community Center adviser and summer camp counselor propelled my desire to work with Jewish youth and do my best to influence their lives in the most positive of ways that I could. Growing up in a house in which I shared my bedroom with my grandfather, I also was habituated to sensitivities for the elderly, and these opportunities all blend together while being a cantor.

Herald: Could you briefly explain your philosophy or approach to your profession?

Stoehr: My philosophy as a cantor is no different from any other God-fearing and human-loving person: "Do what you can do, as well as you can do it, for as long as you can do it and cause harm to no one in the processes."

I have a strong belief in God and God's role in this world. I don't believe God is as overtly active in our lives as God was during the biblical era where observable miracles took place, but I do seek to appreciate the smaller miracles we enjoy regularly.

One poignant quote I read that has stuck with me is, "The Torah is holy not because it may come from God but rather because it leads one to God."

I pray quite often during the day, not necessarily within a minyan (a quorum of community who gather for prayer services), but I find reason to speak to God often. I try to open portals through my chanting for others to experience a spiritual moment, and if they are open to it they may, I hope, leave feeling as if they had a "religious" experience. I often kibitz that "No one ever goes home humming the sermon."

Cantors have a unique portal to people's souls through music and it should be used generously. I have seen this so often when visiting someone in the last days and hours of their lives. Sing and their soul opens up. Surprisingly, toes tap, fingers move, eyebrows raise and, now and again, they whisper the words along with me. Music is a gift from God to all of us and I simply get the honor to deliver it.

Herald: Being a composer yourself, who would be your favorite composer, musician or performing group?

Stoehr: I am not a formal composer with musical notes, but I do compose with words. I find the books I have authored and dramas and shows I have originated are my oeuvres.

When it does come to music, I find my tastes varying. James Taylor, Luciano Pavarotti, Motown, The Clergy Boys (shameless plug), Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, The Wailin' Jennys, etc. If I had to listen to music for eternity and couldn't change the channel, I would likely listen to sounds of nature. A rainstorm with thunder and winds blowing in harmony with the chirping of the night's symphony.

Herald: Over the past few months, anti-Semitic pamphlets have been distributed in the area. Why do you believe this behavior persists?

Stoehr: The pamphlets about which you ask are nothing new to the Jewish people. If they weren't pamphlets in plastic bags, which cowards throw onto people's driveways in the cover of the night's darkness, then it was stones through windows during Kristallnacht, or shouts of "Jews will not replace us," or bombings into civilian-laden areas in Israel. Must I go on?

I believe that anti-Semitism is intricately entwined with people, often good at heart, expressing anti-Zionist feelings. How one expresses it is what gets convoluted and dangerous. I have no issue with people trying to share their emotions, but why not do it with an editorial or postings to which you sign your name and be accountable for your opinions? We can be civil even among discord.

I feel the rise of such actions has been fueled by the byproducts of COVID, as well as a plethora of hatred speech now heard rampantly on the news and political stations. Social discourse has deteriorated and it has spilled over into expressing whatever one feels at one's whim without concern for social mores.

To paraphrase something Golda Meir once said about the situation in the Middle East, "We will only have peace once they love their children more than they hate us." And it may have been generated from her words as well that this truism is spoken: "If the Arabs (which can be read in today's world as anti-Semites) put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel."

We, the Jewish people, live to survive, not to wipe out other peoples. We are often first to show up at natural or large terrorist disaster sites all over the world because "to save one life is to save the whole world."

So am I concerned about plastic bags with bad words? Not really, because there are exponentially more good people in the world than not who watch over one another, and I believe the suburbs in which we live are comprised of those good people.

Herald: What is your favorite Jewish holiday, and why?

Stoehr: Holidays for cantors (and rabbis) are often no holidays but work days. Therefore, I like the ones which are home based, such as Hanukkah. We do have religious services on those days too, but not ones which mandate extra hours and days of observance which often impede family time for many Jewish professionals.

Holidays primarily observed in synagogue, I would lean to the High Holiday of Rosh Hashanah. The reason for my enjoyment of this day is that it is often the most attended service of the year and I get to have a reunion with those people I so deeply care about but who do not always choose to attend weekly services throughout the year.

It's such a joy to see them after an extended time apart and reengage for even a few moments of holiday hugs and well wishes.

Herald: Do you miss Pittsburgh? If so, what do you miss?

Stoehr: One never leaves Pittsburgh. There are no true expatriates from Pittsburgh, just as one cannot ever renounce their Judaism. My children have been brought up on Pittsburgh Black and Gold allegiances. (Like the TV show, "This Is Us.") My mother, soon turning 98 years old, who lives now in our area, was born in Pittsburgh and still waves her Terrible Towel during Steelers season.

What I adore about Pittsburgh is the topography of hills and turns and plethora of woodsy areas that Western Pennsylvania offers. That which I miss especially in the area of Squirrel Hill is its charm. One reporter writing on the Tree of Life Synagogue attack a few years ago referred to it as a "hamlet." I loved that.

Pittsburgh is a city of multiethnic communities, but what Pittsburgh has done brilliantly in recent years is find a way to weave these communities into a tighter knit tapestry of cultures. It's a great place.

Herald: What is one thing even friends might be surprised to find out about you?

Stoehr: Seems morbid, but the clerical time I am called upon for helping a family with a death of a loved one is the most rewarding part of my career. I have written books and shows, sung in Carnegie Hall and recorded CDs, etc., but "being there" for people when they need someone to be there is spiritually the place when I can answer for myself the proverbial question of "what's your purpose in life."

I am humbled to be asked to cultivate a narrative for the eulogy of their loved one, and I find deep honor when someone cries on my shoulder while we embrace. I'm not, God forbid, happy when someone passes and I need to be called upon, but I am the most morally and mortally alert to the gift of life and know I will go to bed that night knowing I have had a day worthy of the blessings I am given.

What others may not know is that my wife says that I was a dog in a former life because I connect to most any pooch immediately. I'm not sure that's accurate, but I do have an enormous affinity for dogs.

For people who only see me on the pulpit where I only sing or chant Hebrew 95% of the time, when they hear me in a social setting or on stage doing one of my shows they often approach me afterward and comment that I am "so witty and funny."

At times they will say, "You really missed your calling, you should have been a comedian." I'm never quite sure if that is a compliment to my sense of humor or an insult to my singing.

Now, my friends and family know I enjoy a good jousting of jokes and volleying of witticisms, but most of the time in synagogue I'm in a suit and tie and not "on stage." The Eternal Light which stays lit all day and night is a resemblance of God's holy presence in our worship space, and is not to be confused with a spotlight. I don't see the pulpit as a stage, but rather a space where I have but "an audience of One."

Herald: What do you do for fun?

Stoehr: Fun is performing with my colleagues, creative writing, hanging with my dogs (or anyone's dogs), long bike rides through a forest preserve.