Kashrus stamps certify thousands of food products around the
world, assuring the Jewish consumer that the food has met
with stringent standards of Rabbinic supervision. Now, for
the first time ever, a music tape cassette/CD has been
released which bears a "kosher" stamp. Dovid Honig's "Shabbos
Treasures" carries the endorsement of HaRav Moshe Halberstam
and HaRav Yehoshua Binyomin Zilber.
But why a hechsher on a music product?
Dovid Honig, producer, arranger and singer of "Shabbos
Treasures," explains: "The Jewish music market has become a
free-for-all over the past decade. Often, words of Jewish
content are merely plastered onto a collage of secular
musical elements, like hard rock and disco beats. Yet these
musical forms express aggression, chaotic disorder,
rebellion, and the rejection of moral restraint -- all
antithetical to Torah!
"Just as the Jew must be careful of the ingredients of the
food he consumes, which directly affects his neshomo,
so too, he must be wary of the music he hears, which
deeply affects his soul. Thus a kashrus endorsement on a tape
or a CD is very meaningful.
"Maybe if consumers begin to demand kashrus supervision on
their music products, a new trend of truer, purer sounds will
enter Jewish homes--and souls."
Honig's new release "Shabbos Treasures" is a collection of
rare, beautiful zemiros which have graced Shabbos
tables for hundreds of years, in Europe and in Eretz Yisroel.
Honig says that many of these classics were transmitted to
him from his own Yerushalmi family.
"Shabbos Treasures" includes a zemirah -- Ki Eshmeroh
Shabbos -- sung in secret by the rav of Auschwitz and his
group of stalwart followers, after the rav was banned from
the city by the enemy. The zemirah was transmitted to
Honig in Melbourne by one of the actual surviving members of
this original group, Mr. Yoav Kimmelman.
The album combines authentic zemiros, such as
Menucha Vesimcha and Bnei Heicholo, with
elegant orchestration. Dovid Honig himself is the lead singer
on the album and is accompanied by the well-known Belzer
vocalist, Dovid Kalish and a full Yerushalmi choir.
"My grandparents were born here," Dovid Honig says casually
while strolling through the Mea Shearim neighborhood where he
makes his home today. His flowing payos, long black
coat and Yerushalmi hat make him hard to distinguish from the
other chareidi passersby -- until one hears his lilting
Australian accent.
"Zeide Moshe and Bobbeh Rikl Honig fled Mea Shearim to far
off Melbourne in the famine years of the Turkish era, almost
a hundred years ago," he continues. The family traces their
lineage back to many illustrious Torah leaders and sages,
including HaRav Aharon Slotki, a great mekubal and
rosh yeshiva and the holy Shelah.
Honig's grandparents and parents became pillars of Jewish
Melbourne. "But my grandparents never stopped pining for the
unique lofty atmosphere of Jerusalem. And every Shabbos, the
zemiros we all sang expressed that yearning for the
Old World."
In Australia, Honig broadened and deepened his Torah
knowledge. He also continued his Torah studies in London and
is now associated with the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
Honig developed his musical talent in Melbourne, where he
studied orchestra conducting and arranging. He himself plays
piano and keyboards, guitar, bass, trumpet, flute, trombone
and violin. He also specializes in high-tech music production
for multimedia, and was awarded the national prize as "Music
Arranger of the Year" by the Australian Ministry of the
Arts.
Today, he continues musical production in Jerusalem, in a
state-of-the-art music production facility. He is now
launching a new music label, Geula Music, dedicated to
preserving the priceless treasures of our Jewish heritage:
rare, old zemiros which might otherwise be lost to
future generations. "Shabbos Treasures" is the first release
in the Oitzrois (Treasures) series of Geula Music.
