Some of the Jewish music world’s most talented composers are also marbitzei Torah... it’s about letting everyone hear the soundtrack of the beis medrash
“Arukah,” sung by Avraham Fried on the 1980 Amudai Shaish wedding album, is a refined, meditative song that Suki composed as a bochur in the beis medrash. He came across the words from Iyov in a mussar sefer, and they seemed to sing themselves to him. “Keili Chish Goali,” a popular Motzaei Shabbos song that has stood the test of time, was written together with his friend, Shimmy Blumenthal.
The foremost influence on Rabbi Suki Berry’s life was his father’s rebbi, Rav Yitzchok Hutner.
“The Rosh Yeshivah was the sandek at my bris. He kept up with our family and guided us until his petirah in 1980, and he guided my music career too,” Rabbi Berry explains. While it was common in yeshivah circles in those days to discourage music as a waste of time, the Rosh Yeshivah saw his students as individuals with unique qualities, and in Suki’s case, he understood how much music was a part of him. In the Rosh Yeshivah’s view, someone who was so clearly gifted with a great talent should not only use it, but develop it as well. He encouraged young Suki never to be complacent, but to always seek to learn more and improve his music.
Suki was a young bochur of 17, already a gifted musician, when Rav Hutner called him into his office to ask if he played at weddings. When Suki replied that he did, the Rosh Yeshivah guided him as to which weddings were appropriate for him to perform at — specifically, those where the tzniyus was up to a certain standard. His next words would chart the course of Suki’s life and career.
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