Sing It Sacred

Then there’s the “Thank You Hashem” crowd, who have no problem dancing around the bimah to songs like “It’s Geshmak to be a Yid” and “We’re Mamish at the End.” I still haven’t figured out what “Chi Chi Wawa” has to do with Simchas Torah, but if it makes the kids happy…

But the more traditional among us shouldn’t worry — the most popular hakafos songs are still “Tzavei Yeshuos Yaakov,” “Toras Hashem Temimah, and “Ana Avda.” These songs will always be around.

During Kiddush on Simchas Torah in the Boyaner shtibel on the West Side where I daven, I was talking to my good friend Dr. Michael Zelefsky, a well-known radiation oncologist who also happens to be a maven in Jewish music, about the origins of so many classic niggunim — the ones we sing on Simchas Torah and all year round. Indeed, as he mentioned, many were actually composed by great, holy rebbes and rabbanim, and will probably be sung forever.

Everyone knows that Rav Yitzchak Hutner ztz”l wrote the words to “Bilvavi,” but he was also the composer of “Neshamah Shenasata Bi,” which he wrote as a wedding gift to his talmid Rav Shlomo Freifeld. This still-enduring song was originally recorded in 1960 on what was known as the “Chaim Berlin” album (officially, Torah Lives and Sings).