"I try to put most of my efforts into preparing myself for davening, not into preparing the davening"
A longtime yeshivah mechanech (Chedvat HaTorah, Lev Aryeh, Lakewood East), former rosh kollel, and veteran composer (“Chamol”), RABBI AKIVA HOMNICK serves as the baal tefillah in Rav Yitzchak Berkovits’s Minyan Avreichim in Jerusalem’s Sanhedria Murchevet neighborhood.
Definitely Eitan Katz’s “Lemaancha.” My talmidim in yeshivah all know that’s my Elul niggun.
I’ve been davening for the amud for over 30 years, and in the early years I definitely prepared more. Now, I try to put most of my efforts into preparing myself for davening, not into preparing the davening. I think that practicing the tefillos too much makes them too mechanical, and being spontaneous leaves more room for emotion. My davening remains the same, year after year, because the oilam likes the familiar.
On Rosh Hashanah, the Veyesayu tefillah in Mussaf composed by Rav Shalom Schwadron is something everybody sings together. Then there is Areshes Sefaseinu, which we sing to Rav Yitzchok Alster’s famous “Yedid Nefesh” niggun, and Hayom Haras Olam, when I use either the “Machnisei Rachamim” niggun or “Lemaancha.” On Yom Kippur, you can hear everyone sing together when it comes to “Ki anu amecha ve’atah malkeinu.” And of course, they join in for “Chamol.” In my earlier years as a baal tefillah I actually didn’t use my own niggun because I felt uncomfortable pushing it. But then I got complaints – people told me, why should they lose out just because I was the baal tefillah? Since then I use the niggun exclusively for “Chamol,” but not for any other part of the davening.
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