Synagogue Sings for Parshat Noach: "There's Gonna be a Floody Floody"

A few weeks ago, when Hurricane Sandy was just forming in the Caribbean and when the parshat hashavua (Torah portion of the week) was the story of Noah, Cantor Angela Buchdahl of the Central Synagogue in New York City came up with a novel way of getting the congregation involved. (The Central Synagogue is a flagship synagogue of the Reform movement with over 6,500 members.)

She linked the story of the flood with the redemption of the Israelites after they passed through the Red Sea after leaving Egypt, leading the congregation in singing Mi Chamocha, a part of the Shabbat service that immediately precedes the Amidah, or Shemona Esrei.

But how to connect the two musically? What melody to use for Mi Chamocha? What better melody than the one whose lyrics usually proclaim:

The Lord said to Noah, there's gonna be a floody floody.
The Lord said to Noah, there's gonna be a floody floody.
Get those children out of the muddy, muddy.
Children of the Lord.
Rise and shine, and give God your glory glory.....

Cantor Angela Buchdahl is the first Asian ordained as both a Rabbi and a Cantor in the United States. Her mother was a Korean and her dad was an American.  She was brought up Jewish and embraced the religion.

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Cantor Buchdahl was featured on the PBS program, "Know Your Roots." Here is a brief video clip from the program.

Watch Not Just a Part of My DNA on PBS. See more from Finding Your Roots.

 

You can see and hear her singing a very moving Kol Nidrei by clicking here.

Angela Warnick Buchdahl was born in Seoul, Korea to a Jewish American father and a Korean Buddhist mother. Rabbi/Cantor Buchdahl was invested as a cantor in 1999 and also ordained as a rabbi in 2001 from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in New York, where she was a Wexner Graduate fellow. She earned a BA in Religious Studies from Yale University in 1994.

She has been nationally recognized for her innovations in liturgical transformation. She was named one of the 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America by Newsweek Magazine. Buchdahl and her husband Jacob Buchdahl live in New York City and have three children.
 
(A tip of the kippah to Laura Strauss for bringing this video to our attention.)