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Temple Beth Torah music director lauded for 'marvelous gifts'
by Khurram Saeed
As a teenager growing up in Queens, Sally Neff dreamed of singing opera at the Met one day.
Neff went to college to pursue that path, but she slowly found herself drawn in a different direction: the spiritual life of a cantor that offered her a life that included community, family and meaning.
"It was sort of a religious transformation," Neff said yesterday. "I wanted to do something special, something holy with my life."
She'll have that opportunity in Rockland. Neff is the new cantor at Temple Beth Torah, a Jewish Reform congregation of 360 families in Upper Nyack. She's been on the job for the past six weeks.
Cantors, like rabbis, are members of the clergy. Neff's primary responsibilities include overseeing all of the synagogue's religious music, singing at services, conducting both the adult and junior choirs and preparing youngsters for their bar and bat mitzvahs, or their passages into adulthood.
"I want the whole process of learning and preparing for a bar mitzvah in a religious school to be fun and interesting and not just rote," said Neff, who spent the past two years working at Temple Emanuel in Worcester, Mass.
In addition, invested cantors can also visit people at hospitals, officiate at weddings and funerals, teach classes, as well as counsel.
It's not known how many invested female cantors there are in Rockland, but the Reform movement graduated its first female cantor in 1975, followed by the Conservative movement in 1987.
In these final days of summer, Neff is preparing for the arrival of the High Holy Days - Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur - and the start of religious school.
Brian Beal, rabbi of Temple Beth Torah, said Neff has an uncanny ability to relate to people of all ages, which will serve her well. About 40 percent of the congregation has belonged to the synagogue for 18 years or longer, he said, but there has also been a recent influx of young families.
"She's able to touch every age group," Beal said. "She comes with marvelous gifts of voice that can touch the soul and a heart and passion that is inspiring and a spirituality that is uplifting."
Neff attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio, where she received a bachelor's degree in vocal performance, and Oberlin College, where she earned a bachelor's in Judaic studies.
In 1998, Neff moved to Jerusalem to attend Hebrew Union College's Jewish Institute of Religion School of Sacred Music. She studied in Israel for the first year and then spent the next three years at a Reform synagogue in Edison, N.J., learning the responsibilities of a cantor.
She graduated in 2002 with a master's degree in sacred music and investiture as cantor, and moved to Massachusetts.
Jay Bursky, a 12-year member of Temple Beth Torah, said he was impressed with Neff, both as a person and as a vocalist. The Upper Nyack resident should know. He studied opera and has performed in Broadway musicals.
"What sets her apart is the sensitivity and empathy that comes across when she sings," he said. "It's a beautiful combination." | 
