i am rabbi eric weiss and happy to be your host. music is used throughout the country in the world to bring to life, through some form of articulation, things that seem ultimately world lists when we contemplate ourselves and one another. we'd like to invite you to a wonderful conversation with cantor sharon bernstein and we will jump into this wonderful, lovely conversation. thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. a joy to be here. >> what is a can tour and how do you train to be one and how did you become one? some basic things for folks to understand about being a cantor. >> is an english word, and comes from the word can't, as opposed to can, which is a bad joke i make some time and it means to chant. basically, there are several aspects to the origin of it. the prayers in judaism are always sung. the cantore is somebody who has an expertise in that, somebody trained in it and with different jewish music and prayers and the torah and the text and the studies. there's a lot of aspects to it. the origins of it are