Album: Shloime Gertner — Mincha
Composer: Shimshi Neiman
Year: 2014
M ore than anything else “Neshoma” is the song of a search. “Neshoma vi bist di Neshoma ich vart azoi lang of dir… Neshoma kim tzi mir — Neshoma where are you? I’m waiting so long for you…” The Almighty searches for His lost children. A Yid searches within himself for that holy pintele [spark]. Fathers search for lost children and lost children wait desperately for the call that shows that someone is searching for them and waiting with open arms.
We blunder and stray; the search is long sometimes difficult or even painful yet its very existence is in itself a source of comfort — the continued pursuit guarantees that the eventual revelation will follow. Shimshi Neiman’s song somehow conveys this: His music is haunting yet comforting and the added prayer of “Hashiveinu” — that Hashem Himself bring us back to our spiritual source adds a deeper dimension.
The composer Shimshon Neiman is a young Vizhnitzer chassid in Stamford Hill London. He is also a good friend of singer Shloime Gertner. “Shimshi came over one night with another friend and they played this new composition on the guitar. We sat there strumming and singing and together we completed the lyrics in Yiddish ” Gertner recalls. “I loved the song. Its message is just so widely applicable. We thought it could either wait for my next album — or we could move on with it to an arranger and release it as a single.”
Arranger Naftali Schnitzler had an arrangement ready within a few days “and it was so good that we decided to bring it out immediately. Why wait?”
