Music as Metaphor in Etty Hillesum’s Spirituality

Summary

Abstract

Etty Hillesum's spirituality was not a spiritual awakening as much as it was a slow dawning composed over time. One metaphor she used – music – is about getting in touch with her own spiritual melody. This undertone was one she learned to nurture, and which would sustain her through the many difficulties she faced. The use of metaphors can offer lasting significance to Hillesum's readers by providing various approaches to discovering one's inner life.

Keywords: music, spirituality, metaphors, “inner scale”, Westerbork Camp, art, beauty

In this summary article, I discuss the connection between music and spirituality in the span of Etty Hillesum's writings from 1941 to 1943. In her diaries and letters, Etty Hillesum frequently refers to music – both the external music she hears and the internal “music” she is experiencing as her own spirituality deepens. She refers to soul or spirit 266 times in her writings. Her references to music, melody, scale, tune, etc., and their derivatives are made 216 times. Her words “inner scale” first appear in Exercise Book Nine on Saturday, 6 June 1942, “I have my own inner scale”. This internal music is a metaphor for her spiritual self and the one on which I focus here. The framework for this article is music in Hillesum's life, music and spirituality, and, finally, the metaphor of music used by Hillesum to describe her spirituality.

Music in the Life of Etty Hillesum

The references to music in the diaries and letters of Etty Hillesum commence with her first Exercise Book and end with her final postcard from the train. Hillesum takes us on a journey from “I too wanted to roll melodiously out of God's hand” to “We left the camp singing”. References to music begin as a recognition of the music she hears around her in public spaces, as references found in her private reading, and in the musical soirees she attends with friends. As she continues journaling, there is a gradual awakening of her spiritual facet and the metaphor of music appears.

Hillesum's journals begin on Sunday, 9 March 1941. The first reference to music makes its appearance in the late evening of that same day when she recalls a line of poetry, “‘Melodiously rolls the world from God's hand.’ […] I too wanted to roll melodiously out of God's hand.”