Thos who think that chazzanut is merely a form of entertainment, you are half right. Chazzanut is entertainment much like going to hear a maggid (who incidentally is often paid for his drasha) is entertainment. People laud those who teach and interpret and exhort us with oratory skill, but deride those who do so via the sung word. Why? I won’t deny that many past chazanim were not paragons of Jewish virtue. There were many reasons to explain that phenomenon, and it speaks to the curturl turmoil Judaism suffered over the last century and a half. But many grea chazzanim, the core sotck of them in fact, were deeply devout and learned men, who plied their craft seeking the betterment of klal Yisrael. So what if they provided some much needed and often absent entertainment during davening. Is a sermon really any different? Jews needed it and their spirits were uplifted as a result.
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