Just Out: Be the Best Example

“You’ve got a trail to blaze, a path to pave… they’re waiting for you to stand/’Cuz everyone’s a dugma, step up you’re a dugma,” the lyrics call, echoing a profound message from the Lubavitcher Rebbe in a letter to bas-mitzvah girls, urging each one to realize that she can be “the dugma [example] of a bas Yisrael to all her friends.” In today’s confusing world, Eli, a Chabad chassid, was determined to put out the message that when we make an extra effort to do the right thing, we become an often-unwitting example for those around us, inspiring our friends and families in ways we can’t even imagine.

For a singer who’s on the stage at weddings night after night, finding the time and the focus to work on a full-length album was no easy feat. Eli and his producer, Tzvi Blumenfeld, have been working on Dugma for over a year and a half. “I was sitting in the studio with Yitzy Waldner when he composed the first song, ‘Hashem Sefasai Tiftach,’ just after Succos last year, and we’ve been in the process since then,” Eli says. “There are so many decisions that had to be made, both creative and financial, and it was challenging to focus on those while running from wedding to wedding and traveling.”

There were periods when Eli or Tzvi were too busy and had to check out of the album project for weeks at a time. But days off found Eli hard at work in a Lakewood studio, working to gather the songs, commission and fine-tune arrangements, and record. Two of the songs, “Geshem” — a moving tune for the Prayer for Rain — and “Im al HaMelech Tov,” are his own compositions.

Well-known artists join newer names on this album, Eli’s fourth, and the songs are richly varied, from pumping to meditative, in Lashon Kodesh, Ivrit, and English. He says he’s especially excited by the sound of “Shevach,” arranged by Naor Karmi (with words from Shabbos morning davening), and by Mendy Portnoy’s simple but stirring arrangement for “Mah Od,” a prayer for Hashem’s blessing to our children, with original Hebrew lyrics.