A Generation Comes and A Generation Goes

Yeshiva students have been likely been creating music since as long as there have been yeshivas, but finding records of this music is difficult from before the proliferation of accessible mediums for recording music. 

A wonderful example of such musical creativity was printed as sheet music in the 1936 issue of the Hedenu journal, which was a publication for students at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. A student named Pinchos Jassinowsky wrote the lyrics and music notes for a song titled, דור הולך ודור בא (A Generations Comes and A Generation Goes). 

The chorus is upbeat and energetic, but the music slows down for a solo of the first half of the verse, allowing for a moment of reflection. The choir joins in for a fast-paced conclusion to the verse to transition into the next chorus. This happy music contrasts with the contents of the lyrics. The lyrics address the liminal nature of the student experience. From one perspective, a student's life of full of drugery and constant work that slows time down. At the same time, a student is at school for only a few years and can feel themselves aging quickly as they rise through the classes and graduate the school. 

Both the unrelenting school work and the constant flow of older students graduating and younger students getting admitted are compared to the grinding millstone. The institution of the school is the steadily and continuously turning millstone. The students are the grain fed into it who are then ground down under tremendous pressure and graduated as processed flour.   

I transcribed the music notes on musescore and have prepared a transcription and translation of the lyrics here.

דור הולך ודור בא

סחור וסחור ללא הרף
סובבים הריחים;
כן האדם סובב הולך,
סובבים כן החיים.

יום ויום ולילה לילה,
כמתמיד על ספרהו
מוסיף דף על גבי דף
וקמטים בפנהו
דף לדף וקו לקו,
דועכים מאויים;
ימים באים, ימים הולכים,
זקן הוא בינתים.

סחור וסחור וג'

ואחרי עיף, תשש כחו,
שני יירש אותו;
ישב יהפך הדפים,
דף ודף כמותו.
ישב ילמד הוא בספר
עד גם יבוא יומו;
אחר בוא אז יבוא תחתיו,
יירש את מקומו.

סחור וסחור וג'

כן החיים סובבים הולכים,
במעגל מעגילים;
דורות הולכים, דורות באים,
נוחלים ומנחילים.
כריחים הם החיים,
סובבים טוחנים זמנים;
דורות הולכים ומשתנים—
בעינם עומדים הרייחים.

סחור וסחור וג'

A Generation Comes and A Generation Goes

Business and business without a break
The millstones are turning;
So a the human goes turning,
Turning therefore is life.

Day after day and night after night,
Like a masmid over his book
Adding page on top of page
And wrinkles on his face
Page to page and line to line,
Motivation is weakening;
Days come, days go,
He grows old in the meantime.

Business and business etc.

After he wearies, his strength tires
Another will inheret him;
He sits flipping the pages
Page after page like him
He sits studying with a book
Until his day will come;
Another came, then he will replace him
He will inherit his spot.

Business and business etc.

So life goes turning
In a cycling cycle
Generations come, generations go,
Inhereting and bequeathing.
Life is like millstones,
Turning grinding seasons;
Generations goes and change—
In their view stand the millstones.

Business and business etc.