“It was so clearly Hashem’s gift, and our duty to entertain and inspire”
Album: B’Shetzef – Avromi Flam
Composer: Yoel Calek
Year: 2003
“Hisnaari mei’afar kumi — Shake off the dust arise. Adorn yourself with your robes of glory My people… My soul draws near to its Redeemer.” Rav Shlomo Alkabetz’s profound poetic metaphor echoes through time with a haunting beauty.
Dozens maybe hundreds of niggunim are sung for Lecha Dodi but Yoel Calek’s “Hisnaari” stands out in the way it sets off this particular stanza as both a liturgical prayer and a popular song. The melody even without the words is clearly one of longing with the verse’s final kneitsh of “karvah el nafshi ge’alah ” bringing listeners to a new degree of Shabbos inspiration. In Israel the niggun is popular as a wedding song and can even be found as a ringtone on countless kosher cell phones.
As son of legendary London Boys’ Choir composer and founder Yigal Calek Yoel grew up as part of a musical family. He remembers first playing the piano at age two. By age nine he was already composing and at 15 some of his songs were performed and recorded by his father’s choir. “Yerushalayim harim saviv lah va’Hashem saviv l’amo ” for example popped into Yoel’s head as he walked down the stairs at home when he was 12.
“If you listen carefully to the tune you will see that it is very similar to one of Mozart’s pieces which was in my mind at the time ” he says.
Create a free account to keep reading.
