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10 Cheshvan 5763 - October 16, 2002 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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MUSIC REVIEW

We said the twenty-seventh chapter of Tehillim from the beginning of Elul and throughout most of the month of Tishrei. Occasionally, a fitting melody can bring out the true heart-and-soul pathos of the words and inspire them with new meaning for us.

"Achas Shoalti" - Musical Chizuk for Am Yisroel Now, More Than Ever

"In these troubled and tormented times, what powerful message of chizuk for Am Yisroel could be more apt than the timeless words of Tehillim and the Siddur?" asks Dovid Honig, producer, arranger and composer of the just released new album, "Achas Shoalti."

"Read over Kapitl 27," says Dovid Honig, musical virtuoso and producer who lives in Mea Shearim -- and looks it. "It sounds like news headlines screaming out current events in Eretz Yisroel, with vicious enemies and camps threatening us from all sides. But Dovid Hamelech calls out confidently to Hashem, amid the bloodthirsty enemies threatening to ambush him. He has no fear for he trusts in Hashem. He has only one request: to get closer to Him, to perceive His Divine Presence and live in His abode through Torah and mitzvos, through holiness and purity. This is a Jew's whole life -- to come close to Hashem and fulfill His will."

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From Meah Shearim to Melbourne and Back

"My grandparents were born here," says Dovid Honig. His flowing payos, long black coat and Yerushalmi hat make him hard to distinguish from the other chareidi residents -- until one hears his lilting Australian accent.

"Zeida Moshe and Bobbe Rikl Honig left Meah Shearim to far- off Melbourne, Australia, in the famine years of the Turkish era, almost a hundred years ago," he continues.

"My grandparents in Melbourne never stopped pining for the unique atmosphere of Jerusalem," Honig recalls. "I grew up always hearing from them about the spiritual treasures a Jew could mine in the sacred city of Jerusalem. And every Shabbos, the zemiros we all sang expressed that yearning for the Old World."

When Honig moved to Eretz Yisroel, he resumed the family's presence in the heart of Meah Shearim, about a century after his grandparents had left the very same neighborhood.

Honig broadened and deepened his Torah knowledge at numerous yeshivos, including the Lakewood Kollel of Melbourne and the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. In addition, he developed his musical talent, gaining a high standard of professional expertise in the field. He excelled in orchestration and arranging -- the subtle art of combining the sounds and qualities of the diverse instruments comprising an orchestra. He himself plays piano and keyboard, guitar, bass, trumpet, flute, trombone and violin, but when asked what his real instrument is, he answers, "the orchestra." He also specializes in high-tech musical production, and was awarded the national prize as "Australian Music Arranger of the Year" by the Australian government before he came to Eretz Yisroel.

Honig's music comes proudly with the "hechsher" of Harav Moshe Halberstam and Harav Binyomin Yehoshua Zilber for his simultaneously released three new albums: "Achas Shoalti" and "Oitzros Shabbos I and II." The last two are the beginning of a series which preserves priceless musical treasures of our Jewish heritage, rare, old zemiros which might otherwise be lost to future generations. And his popular new album, "Achas Shoalti", boasts Honig's exciting original musical compositions with rich orchestration, sung by the top singers in Eretz Yisroel.

"Oitzros Shabbos" is a sublime blend of ancient Jewish melody, virtuoso musicianship, rich orchestration and state- of-the-art production quality.

"There are old Yerushalmi Jews, some of them over a hundred years old," says Honig, "who remember themselves as little boys, hearing these wonderful niggunim at their own grandfathers' table, or while peering over the tables of the giants of chassidic Jewry at their Friday night tish. These precious elderly Jews are only too delighted to transmit these musical treasures so that they can be recorded for posterity."

Volume II of the Oitzros Shabbos series includes marvelous, little-known niggunim from the Modzitz, Karlin, Slonim, Meilitz, Siaten and Nadvorna Chassidic traditions. The third album in the series, Oitzros Shabbos III, is a superbly orchestrated instrumental version of a selection of the best niggunim from volumes I and II including brass, woodwinds and full strings. Musical connoisseurs will enjoy the soulful quality produced with this unusually rich and full orchestral instrumentation. This series is available on CD and cassette, in selected Jewish music stores around Eretz Yisroel.

Something about the Singers, Something about the Songs

Efraim Mendelson, a Kloizenberg Chossid who grew up in Boro Park, explains that he sees his primary goal as a musician to provide spiritual chizuk. "The first goal of every Jew is to do the will of Ovinu Shebashomayim. Every Jew contributes in the way most suitable for him and my way is through the gift of song, which both helps people to be b'simcha and at the same time, inspires them to do tshuva. I personally have heard of stories of people thus inspired."

Mendelson has a proud musical and spiritual family heritage. His great-uncle was R' Abish Meir Bransdorfer, the personal chazzon of the Divrei Chaim, who composed and sang many of the popular famous Tsanser niggunim. His grandfather, Binyomin Mendelson, was for eighty years a well known chazzon who gave concerts with Yossele Rosenblat. And his father, R' Shmuel Mendelson, was for many years the gabbai of the late Kloizenberg Rebbe.

"My song, KeAyal Taarog, is the opening song of a nightly program on Teshuva. One young man in Eilat, completely secular, wearing a ponytail, worked throughout the night in a supermarket, arranging the shelves to the tunes on this station. He insists that he was inspired to do tshuva through this particular song." Today, he no longer has his ponytail and puts on tefillin every day.

Another story Mendelson relates is about a former stewardess, today a charedi young mother who lives in Bnei Brak. Mendelson was returning home on a plane from New York about a year ago when he noticed a chareidi- looking stewardess with a sheitel. Surprised to see such a heimishe stewardess, he asked her about this and was told that she had actually been inspired to do tshuva by a song she had heard, "KeAyal Taarog." What a surprise she had when she discovered that she was talking to the actual singer of that very song!

Another Mendelson song, "Al Tahster," which also takes its lyrics from Tehillim, begging Hashem not to hide His face, has touched the hearts of many listeners. "I was told the amazing story by the nephew of a Chassidic lady who was still childless after fourteen years of marriage. The nephew was visiting when the tape recorder was playing this new cassette. The woman was so overcome with emotion, so powerfully moved by the music and the words, that she began to sob uncontrollably. Everyone just had to leave the room. Within that year, this lady gave birth to twins."

 

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