"Incline Your ear from On High You who is enthroned upon praise”

In the midnight and predawn hours on the first day of Selichos figures move through the dark streets. But the outside soon fades away into the brightness of the shul as the chazzan begins Ashrei and the Jewish soul awakens and unfurls — as the journey to Tishrei intensifies.

Until Yom Kippur Yidden will gather in these hours to plead and pray but somehow the first moments of Selichos have a special power to open hearts. While Sephardic communities have been rising early for Selichos and knocking at Heaven’s gates since Rosh Chodesh Elul this year Ashkenazim have only the minimum four days before Rosh Hashanah.

Chazzan Benzion Miller of Young Israel Beth El in Boro Park will be using the traditional nusach all the way. He knows it’s that powerful Ashrei and the majestic tune of the first Kaddish which bring his packed shul into the Yamim Noraim state of awe. The elaborate first night Selichos service led by Chazzan Miller with full choir usually takes about two hours — “about as long as I can stand on my feet ” he says. An enthusiastic crowd comes in from Waterbury and Riverdale Lakewood Five Towns the Bronx Manhattan and other venues in the Tristate area in order to hear a davening which has changed little over the past few decades.

“Of course we add new compositions and change it up a little — for example for Lechu Neranenah I’ll sometimes sing Samuel Malavsky’s composition and sometimes Isaac Kaminsky’s. I use an occasional Carlebach tune too. But the main nusach and style remains constant.” That’s because Miller is following a family cantorial tradition. His father Chazzan Aaron Doniel Miller (1911-2000) was a chazzan shochet and mohel too.

“Our family connection to chazzanus goes back several generations. My grandfather was the chazzan in the town of Oswiecim and my great grandfather was the chazzan in Wadowice in Galicia. My father served as chazzan for the Bobover Rebbe before the war as well as afterward in New York.”

Having lost his first wife and family in Hitler’s concentration camps Chazzan Aaron Miller remarried and came to America where he became the chazzan in the Biyalistoker shul on the Lower East Side “My father was my role model and my major inspiration. I sang in his choir as a child and grew up under his influence — that is how I learned to daven ” Miller says.

Today the tradition continues. Miller’s oldest son Chazzan Eli Miller conducts the Beth El choir and his second Chazzan Shimmy Miller of Lakewood serves as chazzan in Congregation Bais Naftoli in California for the Yamim Noraim. Grandson Mechi Miller was a child soloist at Beth El and now is a full-fledged shul choir member as well as a member of the Mezamrim Choir.

Beth-El has a choir of six or seven adults every Shabbos Mevarechim but Selichos will be sung by a fuller retinue. “Past members who have moved away often come back for Selichos ” Chazzan Miller explains.

The Miller chazzanim have their special tunes. Chazzan Aaron Miller had his own compositions and he brought to America a range of prewar tunes heard from the chazzanim Chaim Dovid Blum Yosef Helfman and the chazzan of Kshanov as well as implementing the better known liturgical music of Rosenblatt Koussevitzsky and Yossele Mandelbaum chazzan in Cracow.

With such an arsenal at his disposal Chazzan Benzion Miller is known to spontaneously select his niggunim. “My personal preference is to choose the tunes while I daven. This is how I have always done it. The major compositions like ‘Keil Melech Yosheiv ’ ‘Bemotzaei Menucha’ and ‘Retzei Asirasam ’ do have to be chosen and rehearsed with the choir in advance but other than that I improvise and the choir supports me spontaneously.” (Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 677)