SongWriter

Season 6, Episode 6

Kate Cohen

Kate Cohen, photo by KT Kanazawich

Kate Cohen is an avowed and public atheist. Which is why it is surprising (perhaps even a little cussed) that the story she chose to tell on SongWriter is about a profound moment of religious ritual. This was during her marriage ceremony, after she grudgingly agreed to repeat a Hebrew phrase, under duress from the rabbi officiating the marriage. To her astonishment, this was the most intensely emotional moment of her carefully curated wedding.

“I remember feeling smaller than I was, and larger,” Kate recalls. “I remember disappearing from that moment, and at the same time appearing in thousands of moments. I remember the sensation of erasure.”

Dr. Arielle Levites, who is a scholar of contemporary Jewish American life, was particularly struck by this line in the story. To her, Kate is reflecting not just the power of religious ritual, but importantly, the breadth of religious experience.

“To me, this is a profoundly religious experience that she is describing,” Dr. Levites says, “because I believe that religion produces all kinds of feelings, and all kinds of dispositions, and all kinds of stances.”

Religious rituals are often used to bring communities together – after all, many of our holidays and gatherings have some element of, or vestigial link to, religion – but Dr. Levites says this can also cause people to feel alienated and alone. Religion is large enough to contain all of these experiences.

Arielle Levites

Dr. Arielle Levites, photo by Aryeh Schwartz

Kate Cohen, though, is quick to point out that she does not see the power of her experience as specifically religious. Instead, this was a moment of personal erasure, a moment of escape from her own ego as she connected her life to her husband’s. Religious ritual was the vehicle for these feelings, but Kate argues it could just as easily have been something else.

“You can have that in a hushed concert hall, you can have it on a mountain at sunrise, you can have it when you hold your baby for the first time,” Kate says.

The songwriter who was charged with writing a new song in response to the story has deep stakes of his own in this story: Jesse Cohen-Greenberg is Kate’s son. Freshly graduated from college, Jesse has recently released his first album, “When Will My Body Be Mine?”

“It was, for me, very fun to write something that felt specifically not about myself, but I guess it still sort of is,” Jesse laughs. “It’s hard to get away from yourself.”

Jesse’s song is called “Little Us.”

Jesse Cohen-Greenberg_Imogen Mandl-Ciolek

Jesse Cohen-Greenberg, photo by Imogen Mandl-Ciolek

Templeton World Charity Foundation

Season six of SongWriter is made possible by a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation.

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This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc (funder DOI 501100011730, under the grant https://doi.org/10.54224/31681). The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.