I disagree with Helfgott on a number of points. He ignores the fact there is really no substantive difference between davening according to the rules of nusach and “chazzanut” It’s all chazzanut, some of it more florid than others. (After all can someone clearly, based upon firm criteria define the clear difference between the commonly used terms “ba’al tefila” and “chazzan?”) I therefore submit that far more than 10% of a schul population enjoy chazzanut, since most people expect to hear nussach in some form or another. I also submit that as one moves further and further to the right on the religious spectrum, nussach is increasingly important, with a number of exceptions due to overwhelming ignorance amongst the masses of nussach. Additionally, the issue of the impiety of cantors has been exagerated. Kwartin, for example, was not completely unobservant. At least publicly he was shomer Shabbat. MK was a shomer Torah u’mitzvos, as was Yosselle, Sholom Katz, David Roitman, Berele Chagy, Jacob Rappaport, Leib Glantz and many many others. I believe that chazzanim get such a bum rap is due to the post WWII abandonment of the cantorate by Orthodoxy. Cantorial services came to be associated with non-Orthodoxy. (Parenthetically, I know nothing of the “cherem” to which Cantor Helfgott refers. Pinchas Minkowsky was against cantors making recordings as he felt doing so was degrading to chazzanut. He was strident in his attacks on Sirota in this regard. But that’s an entirely different issue.) Aditionally, there is a third classification between “spritual” and “entertainment.” We can call it traditional, culturally appealing, or aesthetically appealing. That is what chazzanut done in schul in fact is. It is the traditional way Ashkenazim davened for centuries. Some chazzanim were more elaborate in their presentations and some less so. That tradition made a significant contribution to Jewish culture, and thus maintaing chazzanut in our schuls preserves aspects of Jewish culture, and there is nothing wrong with that. And when done properly, in a thought out and organized fashion, it is aesthetically pleaseing.
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