Is there a niggun that pushed you to develop in ways you’d never imagined?
MY parents sent me to yeshivah as a child, largely because they believed it would be a safer environment for me. My older sister attended public school, but my parents — one living in Philadelphia and the other in Cincinnati — felt strongly that if I went to public school, I would ultimately not marry a Jewish woman.
Yeshivah was the beginning of the journey to who I am today. Baruch Hashem, I was blessed with a strong and melodious voice, and a young dorm counselor, Gerry Schaffel — now Rabbi Gershon Schaffel — insisted that I lead the zemiros every Shabbos. Those Shabbos zemiros and the Oneg Shabbos that followed were transformative for me. In particular, the original Pirchei slow niggun of “Achas Sho’alti” became everything to me. It helped me stay close to Hashem and deeply connected to His Torah. For nearly thirty years I’ve had the zechus to serve as the baal Mussaf on the Yamim Noraim at Shaarei Tzedek Mishkan Yair in Chicago, and to this day, I use that “Achas Sho’alti” niggun for “Adir Adireinu” on both the Yamim Noraim and Yom Tov.
Rabbi Kalish is CEO of Hatzalah, longtime Agudath Israel askan, and a former Illinois congressman.
When I was in yeshivah, guys in my dorm room had a tape (this is back in the days of cassette tapes) that was called Madre Goat and was one of the only heavy metal albums produced by a Jewish band that I have ever come across. I couldn’t listen to the album for long stretches of time, since heavy metal is not my thing at all. But there was one song on the tape whose message still resonates with me even today. It was called “What’cha Gonna Write on Your Tombstone?” and it was a reminder to me that every person’s time on earth is limited and finite, and since that is the case, we have to make sure to use our time well. I still share this story with my students today, reminding them that the days pass very quickly and that we need to make sure to use our lives to the fullest, so that when we reach 120, there are plenty of positive things to write on that tombstone.
Create a free account to keep reading.
