Nancy Tunick
Nancy Tunick
Steel Guitar Music
Cantorial Soloist & Composer
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Songs For The Unsung
Songs For The UnsungThis multi-media performance tells the story of six Christian rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust using words, images and music. There have been 22, 765 rescuers designated as Righteous Among The Nations by Yad Vashem, the Jewish Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority. Songs for the Unsung tells their collective story. This one-hour presentation entertains, motivates and educates with moving images and songs focusing on the main theme, “Those who save a soul, it’s as if they saved the world.” Songs for the Unsung challenges us all to act with conscience and courage in our own lives. “A moving and hopeful presentation that visibly moved everyone in the room. Our membership is still talking about it.”Robert Adler, PhD Professor, University of North Alabama“I received written thank you notes for sponsoring the show from people who attended Songs for the Unsung. That has never happened before. This original presentation manages to teach while touching your heart.”Stanley GoldsteinPresident, Interfaith Council of Florence, AL“I want to thank you for an inspiring presentation. You have put together a powerful, multi-media learning experience that proved the perfect conclusion to a long day of learning.”Ann MollengardenProject Coordinator, Alabama Holocaust Commision“Nancy has a beautiful voice and the ability to motivate and inspire. Everyone should see “Songs for the Unsung.”Shanna StrassbergTalent Booker, GAC-TV Nashville, TN
About
Nancy Tunick is a Nashville, TN based cantorial soloist and composer who has served congregations in Philadelphia, PA; Meridian, MS; Jacksonville, FL and currently serves as worship leader and cantorial soloist for Temple B’nai Israel in Florence, AL.Nancy is a graduate of Temple University with a B.M. in Voice Performance. She began her music career in broadcasting as an on-air personality and music director in various formats of radio including urban, classical, jazz and country in Meridian, MS, Jacksonville, FL and Key West, FL. She also hosted talk and music video television programming in local markets and in national syndication.Nancy then moved to Nashville where she served as National Promotion Director of Asylum Records, Vice President of Promotion at VFR Records and Vice President of Promotion at Warner Bros. Records Nashville. She currently is co-owner and managing partner of GrassRoots Promotion, a music promotion, consulting and online marketing company. In addition to her cantorial work at Temple B’nai Israel, Nancy is a “keynote cantor” delivering motivational speeches punctuated by original cantorial music. Her primary presentation is titled “Songs For The Unsung,” and is a tribute to the Christian rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. This moving multi-media event incorporates photos, music and words to encourage conscience and courage for Jewish and Christian audiences. Nancy also recently completed her first Jewish children’s book titled, “Eli Goes To Heaven” and has a corresponding presentation for adult Jewish audiences titled “We Have Heaven Too” that blends cantorial music with insights into Jewish traditional beliefs about soul survival.
Music
Shalom Rav
Let Us Adore
Sim Shalom
This Holy Day
Adonai Roi
Please stop ongoing audio to hear music...
Where
2011
Friday August 267:00p Shabbat ServiceTemple B’nai Israel201 East Hawthorne StreetFlorence, AL 35630-3503(256) 764-9242Saturday August 272:00p This Close To HeavenCantorial and Country concert withScott Whitehead and Nancy TunickTemple B’nai Israel201 East Hawthorne StreetFlorence, AL 35630-3503(256) 764-9242Friday September 97:00p Shabbat ServiceTemple B’nai Israel201 East Hawthorne StreetFlorence, AL 35630-3503(256) 764-9242Friday September 237:00p Shabbat ServiceTemple B’nai Israel201 East Hawthorne StreetFlorence, AL 35630-3503(256) 764-9242Wednesday September 287:00p Rosh Hashanah ServiceTemple B’nai Israel201 East Hawthorne StreetFlorence, AL 35630-3503(256) 764-9242Thursday September 2910:00a Rosh Hashanah ServiceTemple B’nai Israel201 East Hawthorne StreetFlorence, AL 35630-3503(256) 764-9242Friday October 77:00p Yom Kippur ServiceTemple B'nai Israel201 East Hawthorne StreetFlorence, AL 35630-3503(256) 764-9242Saturday October 810:00a Yom Kppur ServiceTemple B'nai Israel201 East Hawthorne StreetFlorence, AL 35630-3503(256) 764-9242Friday October 217:00p Shabbat ServiceTemple B'nai Israel201 East Hawthorne StreetFlorence, AL 35630-3503(256) 764-9242
Message
Message
Sermon Audio – 24Nov10
Sermon Audio – 24, Nov 2010
Transcription
Sermon 10 July - This week’s Torah portion is interesting and challenging. It begins with something not so challenging. It begins with God granting Aaron’s grandson, Pinchus, a covenant of peace – giving him priesthood – granting him the ultimate peace. But what that covenant of peace has been granted for is what happened in last week’s Torah portion - Aaron’s grandson killed an Israelite man and a Midianite woman because they were cohabitating. And that’s the challenging thing about the Torah – the idea of trying to step into footsteps of a time so difficult to understand. Pinchus did this because he passionately felt that the cohabitation was against God’s will, and God had specifically said he did not want the Israelites and the Midianites to be cohabitating – that by cohabitating the rest of the community would be punished, and as we see on a regular basis in the Torah, punishment in that time was very dramatic. This is on the heels of a plague. So as all of this is happening, more than 20,000 members of the community have died of a plague. So Aaron’s grandson takes this action because he feels like he’s saving the rest of the community - because he feels that if God sees this cohabitation and the community follows and does the same, that more people will die.So God grants a covenant of peace because he acted selflessly. The hard thing for us is to read about somebody killing people in order to be selfless. That’s not part of our time, and when it is part of our time it’s an uncomfortable part of our time. It evokes religious zealots that are dangerous. But in our Torah the point of this – the part that raises its hand to me and feels applicable to our everyday lives – is the idea of what God considers worthy of peace, and that clearly is passion and selflessness combined. That to me is a really interesting combination. We’ve talked about passion before, and passion is something that is seriously endorsed by God and by the Torah. We’ve talked about finding passion, and what passion can be about, and how we can work it into our lives.An interesting combination is passion with selflessness. So I started thinking about those occasions. When do we actually combine passion with selflessness? Of course the obvious one to me is parenting. I have to always turn to children. In my life with a three year old and a four year old, it’s a very selfless situation in many instances. So I thought the amount of adoration – the amount of passion that we feel for our children and our families is there because it’s combined with a selfless act. If we didn’t feel that instinctive passion for our children would we sacrifice like we do to help them and to raise them and to develop them? I actually thought if we didn’t have that passion instilled in us, we probably would have the end of the species, because who would do it? We’d watch other people carrying their kids over their shoulder out of the grocery store and we’d say ‘I’m not in there at all’. So we have the ideal example of passion plus selflessness equaling peace. That’s the point of it – the point that it adds up to peace.Just in that same example, it’s hard to think about peace as what the result is when you have children in your house growing up, or you’re dealing with children going through teen years or problems as they marry and have their own children. That doesn’t feel peaceful. The actual idea of peace isn’t necessarily the concept of quiet. Sometimes we confuse them. It’s actually peace AND quiet that my husband constantly asks for – I just need a little bit of peace and quiet – two separate issues.What peace actually is, is when you look at videos of the fourth of July - you see your children on the teeter-totter and you see them watching fireworks and eating watermelon. You think about all of those times where you’ve contributed to the security that they feel in their lives and their development. It’s an overall concept rather than an actual daily feeling – the idea of this covenant of peace. So that’s parenting – something close to my heart.There's work: we’ve discussed the idea of passion at work before, but this raised a really interesting question. I think that we find a lot of people examining their lives - and what they do during the workday – and feeling like it falls short of a mission – or it falls short of helping the world – that it’s just about doing what they do from 9 to 5, or participating in a career that they studied for and love. Often times people my age go through a period where they say ‘Have I done what I wanted to do with my life?’The idea of selflessness and giving and passion doesn’t actually have to be part of what you do from 9 to 5. As a matter of fact it strikes me that it might be clearer – that it might be purer if it wasn’t part of that because 9 to 5, no matter what, has to do with supporting yourself. A lot of what we do is part of a process – we work so that often times we make money, and hopefully it’s because we contribute. But how many of us would work if we won the lottery? Some of us might. There’d be things that I would do – I’d be here – but there definitely are things that I would not do if I won the lottery. I’d split my time between Gulf Shores and here. So I find that people strive for this idea that work should be the place that they can be selfless.I’ve read a whole lot of books throughout my life about passion. I’m really intrigued with the idea of mission, and incorporating it into as much of your life as possible. There are books like “Do what you love and the money will follow” and all sorts of philosophies about how you pick what to do so that you can be passionate about it and contribute, and sometimes you are lucky enough to be in that perfect situation. But sometimes you work at the Mapco – and there’s a fabulous reason for doing that. Sometimes you are the waitress at the Shoneys. There are mission parts of those jobs, but they are not necessarily selfless jobs. They are there because they pay your bills. So the idea of finding a passion and combining it with selflessness exists in a more pure place outside of 9 to 5. It comes down to saying “What am I passionate about, and how can I contribute” and not worry about the money. Worrying about the money is challenging, and I find that a lot with musicians. Other than spending my time with small children, I spend my time with musicians in Nashville. Musicians love to do what they do. I love to do what I do. If I could sing cantorial music all day long and only do that for the rest of my life, that is absolutely what I would do. But it’s hard to support your family that way sometimes. That’s the same situation that musicians and artists have – who have these clear passions about something. Part of it is selfless – part of it is contributing. It contributes beauty and culture and connection to our world. But when we start to incorporate how we’re going to monetize it, it actually takes some of the selflessness away. I find musicians and songwriters challenged with that, because most of them would do it anyway. I’ve met many songwriters in my time who have written songs everyday of their lives and have used it as a tax write-off.So here’s what we can challenge ourselves to do: what are we passionate about – each individually? Are we passionate about this synagogue and our community? We’re certainly passionate about our families. Are we passionate about Israel? Are we passionate about Darfur? Are we passionate about our environment? It doesn’t have to be a cause – just what are we passionate about? What can we be zealots about - combined with selflessness? The hardest thing in the world to do is donate time to that outside of 9 to 5 or outside of your regular life - that’s the most challenging thing. When you do that, there’s peace. That’s a true concept of peace.So as we face our week, certainly we want to incorporate passion to all parts of our lives. But equally as important we want to incorporate selflessness. Let’s identify what it is that we are passionate about and what we can contribute in a selfless way. Let’s make an attempt to find some time to do that. It’s interesting because that feeling of peace is exactly what the Torah commands us to do. I’m going to refer back to something that we read because again, I often times pick services, and then as I read them they become so incredibly relevant. I don’t select them necessarily because I find a particular passage. We read together “When justice burns within us like a flaming fire, when love evokes willing sacrifice from us, when to the last full measure of selfless devotion we demonstrate our belief in the ultimate triumph of truth and righteousness, then your goodness enters our lives and we can begin to change the world - then you live within our hearts, and we through righteousness behold your presence.”I spent a lot of time researching the Righteous - as far as Yad Vashem is concerned and the Holocaust – Christian rescuers of Jews who have been designated as Righteous by the Holocaust Remembrance Authority. I found it interesting that their qualifications are that those who rescued Jews could not have done it for money in order to be designated as Righteous. The 21,758 people so far who have been designated as Righteous could not be paid as part of what they did during the Holocaust. It had to be completely selfless in order to qualify. Lots of people did tremendously good things for money during the Holocaust. There is nothing wrong with the idea that somebody hid someone for money, or that somebody helped somebody for money. It’s not like there’s something evil about it – but it wasn’t completely selfless – it wasn’t righteous.So as we face our week righteousness is the thought. When you do something this week that combines passion with selflessness, note whether or not it creates a feeling of peace, and then just pat yourself on the back for a little righteousness.
Contact
Contact
615-353-2778nancy_grassrootspromotion.comTo book Nancy Tunick contact:Scott Whitehead615-429-7476scott_catapultmgmt.com
Adonai Roi.mp3
