On Succos the Music Never Stops

The Story Behind the Song

“Om Ani Chomah”

Rav Dovid Cohen’s instant Hoshana niggun has endured as an ageless staple

Among the Hoshanos Om Ani Chomah is a hymn of faith and fortitude that describes the unique beauty and travails of the Jewish nation scattered and browbeaten yet untainted and loyal to Hashem and His Torah. Back when venerated posek Rav Dovid Cohen shlita was a bochur at Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin a friend challenged him to create a niggun on the spot. The gentle but powerful niggun he composed for Om Ani Chomah was his response: Like an artisan’s setting of a diamond it magnifies the beauty of the words.

“Om Ani Chomah” (not to be confused with the well-known Chabad niggun of the same name — “Chutsh chutsh chutsh golah v’surah…”) first appeared on a record called Torah Lives and Sings! released in 1960. Also known simply as “The Chaim Berlin Album ” it contained 12 original niggunim composed by talmidim of the yeshivah (and two by Rosh Yeshivah Rav Yitzchak Hutner ztz”l). On the record “Om Ani Chomah” was sung together with Rav Cohen’s selected words but the words were soon forgotten and the tune circulated as a wordless niggun. The Rav’s son Rav Eli Cohen says it was widely used for Lecha Dodi and as a theme song in frum summer camps. In 1969 Motty Parnes used the tune in his production Yeshiva Brass calling it simply “A Boro Park oldie.” Later Sheya Mendlowitz also used the niggun again without words on his 1983 album Something Yeshivish.

At Chaim Berlin the tune to “Om Ani Chomah” is still used annually at the Simchas Bais Hashoeivah. Rav Eli Cohen says it’s been a part of the Succos atmosphere there for years. “The Rosh Yeshivah loved the song and at the mesibah in honor of his Succos maamar on Yaakov Avinu’s Ushpizin night he used to ask my father to sing it.”