There are other ways the music helps us relate to these three concepts, and some people have their own stories of connection
Suki and I have our favorites, some of them we produced, others that we’ve appreciated as they’ve become classics — songs like Chaim Banet’s “Machnisei Rachamim;” Eitan Katz’s “L’maancha,” which he wrote while learning in the beis medrash in Silver Spring one night during Chodesh Elul; “Vehaviosim,”composed by Shlomo Zolty and first released on the 1974 Toronto Pirchei Choir album, and a decade later on MBD and Friends; “Hayom Haras Olam,” which legendary mechanech Rabbi Manis Mandel a”h put to the tune of the classic Avinu Malkeinu; Rabbi Akiva Homnick’s “Chamol,” and “Ve’haya Bayom Hahu,” a song that’s been around forever and which became popular on the very first Pirchei Sings album in 1965, sung by (then) child soloist Yussi Sonnenblick.
There are other ways the music helps us relate to these three concepts, and some people have their own stories of connection.
Here’s a message from Lakewood’s Rabbi Binyomin Weinrib (son of artist and composer Rabbi Yonah Weinrib). He quotes Rav Tzadok HaKohein, who says that before we can start our teshuvah process, we need to tune into the simchah and joy of knowing that Hashem will forgive us. Perhaps that’s the reason Klal Yisrael always begins “Ashamnu” on Yom Kippur with the niggun that’s actually a pretty happy tune (in a major scale), which Jews have been using since the 1100s.
Rabbi Elisha Klausner of Chicago relates the following story that occurred around 40 years ago, when Reb Elisha and his friend Reb Leib were living in Yerushalayim. Reb Leib, who was newly married and in need of money, was excited to get a job davening in a Tel Aviv shul for the Yamim Noraim. He happily studied the nusach and the songs in order to be prepared, but a few days before Rosh Hashanah, his wife went into early labor and they wound up spending Yom Tov at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital. He had to cancel the job in Tel Aviv, but when the first night of Rosh Hashanah came, he made his way down to the shul in the hospital. There were about 25 men already there, but he soon discovered that there was nobody to daven for the amud. And so for the next two days, Reb Leib davened all the tefillos, leined, and blew the shofar as well.
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