“Yaakov Shwekey,” reflects Rabbi Benzion Shafier of TheShmuz.com and one of Yaakov’s rebbeim from yeshivah, “is a chiddush. When he goes out in public, it’s like whoever the rock stars are today. People want to connect with him. There is adulation and praise, yet he’s so grounded. Sure, it takes work on his end, but if you’d meet his wife and family you’d understand.”

Shwekey appreciates the comment. Part of Hashem’s plan for him, he reflects, included eight years in an intense mussar yeshivah — the perfect setting to prepare him for what was to come.

Yaakov Shwekey was born in Israel, and moved to America with his family when he was seven.

He attended Yeshiva of Brooklyn, but as a teenager, he felt like he wanted a change. “I came into the kitchen one day and heard my mother on the phone. Her friend was telling her about a branch of the Chofetz Chaim yeshivah, and it sounded intriguing.” Yaakov prepared for his bechinah, feeling confident that he knew the designated amud of Gemara, but when he arrived for his meeting, Rosh Yeshivah Rabbi Menachem Davidowitz told him to close the Gemara. “Don’t read. Just answer one question: Do you want to learn?”

“Yes,” the surprised applicant answered.

“Great. Welcome aboard.”

The first few months in the Rochester branch were rocky. “I was homesick. I wanted to go back to Brooklyn. I told my father I was done, and he said, ‘Nah, we don’t do that.’ Shwekey laughs. “That’s not how Syrians roll. We don’t give up easily. So I stayed.”

And stayed.

“There was tremendous passion in that yeshivah, a sense of mission they transmitted to all of us.”

Also, there was music.

“The Rosh Yeshivah is very musical. He composed several songs, including “In a Vinkele,” which appeared way back on the first Dveykus album, and I later had the honor of recording as well. Until today, when I’m davening on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I’m humming his nusach under my tallit.”

The Chofetz Chaim approach was to maximize G-d-given talents and abilities. “That means that if you sing well, then you’d better sing. We sang at weddings, in the dorm, on Yom Tov. Always.”

It wasn’t only his voice that stood out: Shwekey was more musically intense than the others. “I was that annoying guy in the room who kept rewinding, making sure everyone caught that perfect harmony, noticed the violin in the background.”

The rebbi knew about his dream and his friends knew too, but Yaakov had to explain what he wanted to his new kallah, Jenine Cohen.

“Deejays are common at weddings in the Syrian community, and Jenine was surprised when I told her I preferred a band. I told her I wanted to sing a song for her.”

“ ‘You sing?’ she asked me.”

“I said, ‘Yaaaaah, a bit.’ ”

Jenine had thought to herself, Okay great, we’ll have a nice Shabbat table.

In the end, there was a deejay and a band at the wedding, and when Yaakov got up and sang “Meheirah… kol sasson, v’kol simchah” (which appears on his first album), guests were standing on chairs, swaying along. The chassan was performing and loving it.

He would never get off the stage.

Life started simply enough. Yaakov joined the Deal kollel and Jenine threw herself into work at the Special Children’s Center she’d founded together with her friends Chaya Bender and Mimi Bloch while still a teenager.

Yaakov is proud of what she’s accomplished, especially since he brought his own devotion to the special-needs community into their partnership. As a bochur, he worked summers in Camp Romimu and in Mishkan as a personal counselor to two brothers with muscular dystrophy.

“That experience shaped me. I felt so close to those boys, but it didn’t get personal until I met Jenine at the Center. Now,” he says, “those special children are our kids.”

The kollel life was great and Yaakov was looking for a way to be able to stay in learning. “I knew I wanted to sing — I’d been thinking about it for some time, but my rebbeim told me to wait until I was married. Now I felt ready.”

A yeshivah friend was at a wedding one night where he approached Yochi Briskman. “Hey, I have a friend who sings well.”

“Everyone has a friend who sings well,” the producer shrugged.

“No, I mean really well.”

Yitzy Waldner, whose partnership with Shwekey would become legend, remembers how Yochi called from his car.

“He told me to come outside,” Waldner remembers. “We sat down in his car and pressed Play. ‘Listen to this demo,’ he told me.

Shwekey had chosen to sing the old Toronto Pirchei favorite, “Vahaviosim.” The sound of the young Sephardic singer filled the car. “I looked at Yochi and said, ‘Wow.’ ”

Well-meaning music industry insiders told the young artist that he would have to choose a better stage name than Shwekey. “It’s too weird,” they said. “It won’t work.”

In his dining room, the singer laughs. “I mean, what name did they want me to choose? Horowitz?”

He ignored the advice.

The first album, Shomati, was released in 2001. The voice was fresh — a Sephardic cadence mixed with yeshivishe spirit and incredible range — and the songs were pretty good, too.

One song would define the album.

“We put ‘Racheim’ at number 7. We loved it — to me, every song was special — but we didn’t know how huge it would become.”

The next year, the Shwekey 2 album came out, along with another round of winning songs. It featured “Ki Hatov,” the singer’s tentative foray into Sephardic style, his heritage.

He clarifies: “The yeshivish- and chassidic-style songs weren’t new to me. My mother is Ashkenazic, a child of Vizhnitz chassidim, and we grew up with all sorts of niggunim. My brother, Reb Moshe David, was always playing every kind of music: Skulen, David Werdyger, Jo Amar, chazzanus: We were exposed to it all.”

The albums would come at a steady clip, hits giving way to hits.

Ian Freitor, engineer to several Jewish music A-listers, reflects on what makes this client unique. “We get many Jewish singers, and they are all talented, but they aren’t always open to improving. Yaakov is always ready to be stretched. You know, when he came to me, he wasn’t a wannabe. He already was ‘it.’ Yet he still listened, appreciating the challenge.”

“It helps,” Freitor acknowledges, “that Yitzy Waldner, who composes for him, understands Yaakov’s range, his vocal abilities, and where Yaakov should be going. After all our mixing, arranging, and fine-tuning, vocals are still the most important component and he has a gift from Heaven.”

According to Ian, Shwekey’s stamina is remarkable. “Most singers tire after a few hours and get burned out. He’s just getting started after three hours, his voice improving as he gets lost in the music. With some singers, I just want the recording sessions to end. I’ve had enough, even though I’m getting paid per hour. But not with Yaakov. It keeps getting better.”

Shwekey has a reputation as a perfectionist. “Hey,” Shwekey takes umbrage, “you make it sound like I’m difficult. I’m not, I’m just decisive.”

But he concedes that when it comes to making music, he doesn’t look at the clock. “We want a specific sound. We go through several musicians in some cases, paying each one even when we don’t use their work. We leave the studio after marathon sessions, committed to trying again the next day.

“Look,” he continues, spreading his arms apart, “people say a song is a hit if it’s played at weddings. I don’t see it that way. To me, a song is great… if it’s great. You know what I mean? You have to feel the song, to know it like a friend and be comfortable that you’re giving it what it needs to shine.”

When it comes to music, Shwekey has a strong sense of what he wants. He works with composer Yitzy Waldner of course, and values the opinion of his brother, Reb Moshe David. “Wait,” he interjects, “I also listen to my wife. We had this beautiful low part that Yitzy wrote, but no high part that fit. Jenine kept pushing me to try a certain chorus, also something Yitzy wrote, which we’d never used. Eventually, we tried the shidduch: It became ‘Bo’i Beshalom,’ from the Libi Bamizrach album.”

So the song, which has become a chuppah favorite, has its roots in shalom bayis as well.

The concert route came on the heels of the albums’ successes.

“I loved performing, sharing the music with people. I still love it,” Shwekey says. “It never lost its magic for me.”

Weddings, as meaningful as they are, are more challenging than concerts for the singer. “We build these beautiful wedding halls in our community, where they think of every detail — except acoustics. It can be tricky to sing in many of the heimishe halls.”

International popularity led to invitations across South America and Europe, but would-be hosts often encountered a severe restriction, a sacrosanct Shwekey family rule: Shabbos is spent at home.

“In Europe, the big weddings are usually held on Sunday evening. It’s hard for me to sing the day that I arrive, my voice isn’t there right away, so there is really no way to make it happen, unless I come with the family.  Because of that, we’ve turned down many lucrative offers…” he says, and then changes his tone, “…happily! I’m not complaining. Nothing is worth more than our Shabbos table.”

At some point, Shwekey went from being a singer to a phenomenon. In Israel, his concerts were drawing tens of thousands of fans, pulled in by his extraordinary ability to hit quarter notes they could barely imagine, let alone sing, and by his mesmerizing stage presence.

But most of all, they came because of the way he made them feel. In the lyrics and tunes, they felt more Jewish. They reveled in the joy of being part of something larger, surging with a sense of their own uniqueness, part of a Chosen Nation.

Usually it worked, but not always. One night some ten years ago, he arrived in Israel for a show and found he simply couldn’t sing. “My voice wasn’t there. I davened hard backstage, but it became clear that it wasn’t happening. I came out and whispered, ‘Rabbot machshavot b’lev ish — I really wanted this to happen, Hashem wanted otherwise. I’m sorry.’ ”

That night, he realized just how vulnerable he is. “Now, I sing every concert like it’s my last one. How do I know when the Ribbono shel Olam will take away the gift He gave me?”

Because along with success comes a certain risk. Yaakov still remembers how Yochi Briskman turned to him in the middle of a flight and sighed, “You know, the hatzlachah is so fast, your rise meteoric. It’s scary.”

Why? wondered the singer.

“Because no one becomes a celebrity so fast and doesn’t change. It can’t not affect you.”

The Syrian stubbornness is evident as Yaakov remembers that conversation, his jaw set, brow furrowed. “And I answered, ‘Watch me. I can do this.’ ”

Did he? “Years in a mussar yeshivah helped me. I have a special wife. And I have great friends. Baruch Hashem.”

Composer Yitzy Waldner — who coproduced the newly released We Are a Miracle album — has his own thoughts on the subject. “We make sure he stays one of the boys.”

One night, after an intense session, Shwekey and some friends were starving, and they headed to a local restaurant. As they parked, they noticed that the eatery was jammed, so the singer hung back, suggesting that they try another place. He knew that a full restaurant meant people coming over for selfies and conversation — and frankly, he was exhausted. At the next restaurant, someone went in ahead, coming back to report that it was equally jammed. They continued on to a third joint, and Waldner offered to go scope it out.

“It was pouring rain. We were starving,” the composer smirks. “I asked the manager for a table, then came back and told Yaakov that the place was empty.”

The group walked in. Shwekey’s eyes opened wide as he realized that the restaurant was filled with diners — all of whom were staring at him as he entered. He burst out laughing as he realized what Yitzy had done, watching his dream of a quiet, unobtrusive dinner slip away.

“That’s how we keep him normal.”

Yaakov Shwekey is animated as he describes his places of refuge, the islands to which he can escape. The Deal kollel is one — he still learns there each day, and he’s eager for me to see it. The basketball court is another. “Don’t come to our games if you’re just an average player,” he says with mock-seriousness, “we play head down, elbows out, every rebound counts. It’s for real.”

The Center, too, occupies a large slice of his heart. He’s become a full partner in the efforts of Jenine and her friends, and is happy when others appreciate its enduring value over his own celebrity status. He occasionally encounters Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky at weddings, and although the Rosh Yeshivah always comes over and compliments the music, he then asks, “Where’s Jenine?”

“The Rosh Yeshivah,” says Shwekey, “never misses an opportunity to encourage her.”

And he has his music. It’s well after midnight in Deal, New Jersey and the Shwekey children are finally asleep. “Come to my studio,” he says. I can’t wait. Words can only tell half a story; his music will tell the other.

We settle in the wood-paneled studio, built off his study at the end of the house, listening to tracks off his new album.

In front of my eyes, my suave, polished host becomes like a little kid in an ice-cream store, swiveling in his chair in sync with the music, harmonizing along with his own vocals. Familiar with each beat and nuance, he conducts an imaginary band, his face radiating sheer pleasure in this latest musical creation.

This album is obviously special; he’s stretched himself again.

Because after 15 years with producer Yochi Briskman, this is the first time he’s going at it alone.

The opening strains of the title track — “We Are a Miracle” — fill the small studio.

“We really are a miracle,” he says. “Listen, I travel all over the world and see Jews, their struggles, their stubborn persistence to hold on. I feel so much pride in who we are, wherever I go.”

Yaakov’s close friend, an affable Israeli named David Hillel who joins us in the studio, remembers one such trip. “Yaakov sometimes does shows in places rich in Jewish sentiment, but weak in observance. We’re always trying to accomplish as much as we can.”

David and Yaakov were in Cape Town, South Africa the day after a concert and they decided to pay an unsolicited visit to the local Jewish school. “It wasn’t religious, and with our large black yarmulkes and chareidi appearance, we weren’t really welcome,” says David. “But we sat down in the gym and Yaakov started singing with the kids. The principal wanted us out, but he couldn’t ignore the large crowd of teenagers singing “Im Eshkachech Yerushalayim” with us, which has become kind of universal. Yaakov was leading them, and these kids just came alive, Yiddishe kinderlach discovering what’s really inside of them.”

Experiences like that led Yaakov to this new song.

With lyrics by Sophia Franco, “We Are a Miracle” is Yaakov’s ode to the destiny and endurance of the Jewish People through centuries of persecution — and really, it’s the child of another song.

The one you’ve likely been singing all week.

Before his massive concert in Caesarea in 2010 — the first time the site had ever been sold out for a religious performer — Yaakov was looking for new songs. He sat with classically trained composer Yonatan Razel, who shared some of his own tunes.

“We were playing around, and he sang this slow song. We asked him to play it again, and he said, ‘Really? You like it? I’m not using it on my album. You can have it.’ ”

At the concert, Shwekey welcomed Razel to the stage: “Yesh lanu hafta’ah halailah — we have a surprise tonight,” he announced. What a surprise “Vehi She’omdoh” turned out to be, the song that would sweep across the country, crossing oceans and continents to become as much a part of the Seder as wine stains on the tablecloth.

“You know, we all had grandparents that ran from one place to another. They tried to kill all of us, at some point, yet here we are, still singing. It’s our song.”

“We Are a Miracle” might be more buoyant than “Vehi She’omdoh,” but it carries the same undercurrent: In the pounding opening, one hears the rolling wheels of cattle cars, a million trains carrying our People into one exile or another. In the rising triumph of the chorus, there is the resounding answer to the steady flow of faceless enemies sharing a single goal.

But they’re all gone. We are a miracle.

There is another song on the album dedicated to the memory of Rav Ovadiah Yosef. An image of Chacham Ovadiah — painted by Jenine — graces the dining room. Obviously, the song is very meaningful to the family.

“Our relationship was special,” says Shwekey. “I loved singing for him. I remember, early on, he once said to me, ‘I hear you sing for Ashkenazim, okay, but now sing something Sephardic for me.’ ”

The song is called “Maran Sheli” and it’s personal. “Chacham Ovadiah belonged to so many causes and groups, but to me, he was more like a grandfather. The first time I met him, he told me how my family, my great-grandfather Chacham Aharon Shwekey and my uncles had helped him in Cairo. I always felt like he had my back, like he worried for me.”

In a sense, the singer’s appeal across the divides of Israeli society reflects that of Chacham Ovadiah. “Actually, we spoke about this a lot, loving Jews even if you don’t agree with their choices.”

At the height of the tensions between the Israeli government and the yeshivah world regarding an amended draft law, Shwekey created a concert in tribute to the Israeli soldiers. The January 2013 show, at Tel Aviv’s Nokia arena, was called “Shir Lachayalim.”

“I wasn’t coming from a place of politics — this isn’t Hollywood where artists make statements,” Shwekey says of the concert which managed to cross many lines and imaginary barriers. “I’m not a bar hachi, qualified to express opinion on such things, I was just expressing an emotion I had. I travel so much and hear the animosity toward Israel and its soldiers— I hear how they’re called murderers, animals — and I wanted to announce that these  soldiers with the strongest moral conscience of any army in the world are our brothers.”

A leading Israeli newspaper confronted the singer. “Isn’t it a conflict that you, a charedi with a big black yarmulke, show respect for the soldiers?”

“On the contrary,” Shwekey responded, “because I’m a chareidi who learns Torah and works on my middos, I’m expected to have hakaras hatov. The  more religious you are —

the more Torah you learn —means that you realize you have to say thank you, to appreciate their sacrifice.”

“Yes, but would you send your son to the army?” the interviewer challenged.

“I would ask my rabbis what is best for my son and follow their advice — that’s the extent of my ideology. And regardless of whether I would or not, they are still my brothers.”

The interviewer turned off his recorder, realizing he wasn’t getting the sound bite he wanted.

There is a story Yaakov doesn’t say — one I hear from Sharon Daniel, his manager in Israel.

One day, a delegation from a prominent community came into Chacham Ovadiah’s room. “Harav,” the kehillah president said, “we can’t do it anymore. The pressures we face are too overwhelming: Our people are intermarried, they don’t care about Orthodox life, they don’t want to hear about halachah. We give up.”

Rav Ovadiah encouraged them, but they were too dispirited to hear. “If the Rav really believes in our people, he should come himself to speak.”

The Rav had a different idea. He personally called Yaakov and asked him to appear in that community, naming the date the community leaders felt would work best. The calendar was already full that day, but Yaakov immediately got to work on rescheduling the conflicting booking.

More than 6,000 people came to the show initiated by Maran, tears flowing, flags waving, neshamos aflame with the music. Chacham Ovadiah had proven, once again, that he understood the heart of his people.

David Hillel looks up. “You know, right after Chacham Ovadiah passed away, there was pressure to create a song, but Yaakov doesn’t do that. To release a song during shivah is to exploit a tragedy, lo aleinu.”

Shwekey shakes his head. “In Israel, they always ask, ‘Yesh lecha chomer? Do you have material?’ As if songs are muffins that roll off a production line and into boxes. It doesn’t work that way.

“The Sassoon family tragedy affected every Jew, but we in the Syrian community took it especially hard. I couldn’t just ‘make’ a song. It doesn’t work that way. It takes time.”

The final song on the new album, “Nitzotzot shel Geulah,” is dedicated to those precious children. (“Angels watch over us and light the way, although we cannot see/ Tiny rays of light shine down on us, fixing what’s broken…”)

The opening track, “Ma’amin Benissim,” comes with a story of its own.

Last summer, Yaakov went to visit Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin in prison, and for days afterward, he found himself unable to stop thinking about what he’d seen. He asked Yitzy Waldner to write a song to the pasuk “Keili Keili lamah azavtani,” acknowledging the pain and loneliness of this Jew behind bars. Shwekey mentioned the concept to Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz, a leading askan in the campaign to free Rubashkin. “It’s a nice idea, but that’s not Sholom Mordechai’s pasuk,” the Yaated publisher remarked. “He’s the last person who feels forgotten and abandoned. He lives with a sense of the Ribbono shel Olam’s proximity, seeing only Hashem’s benevolence.”

Shwekey got it. The song, “Ma’amin Benissim” — with lyrics and tempo much more suited to the attitude of Sholom Mordechai and his family — is dedicated to “the man with fire in his eyes and faith in his heart.”

These days, the youngest Rubashkin boy, just four years old when his father was led away, falls asleep to the song every night.

Our second interview is scheduled to take place in Deal, but Heaven has other plans. Six-year-old Natan Shwekey is dehydrated after a bad case of the flu, and he’s been hospitalized overnight. I meet his father, who has slept by his side, on the sixth floor of Jersey Shore Medical Center.

Yaakov looks weary — like a tall man who spent the night sleeping on a cramped hospital chair.

“I once read that when Mike Tress went to see the situation in the Displaced Person’s camps following World War II, he insisted on sleeping in the beds used by the survivors. He wanted to feel what it was really like for the people there.”

Shwekey is a familiar visitor to hospital corridors, but coming as a volunteer isn’t the same as experiencing life as a patient. “Baruch Hashem, this is nothing, my son is fine. But it’s enough to give you perspective, a sense of the despair that a person feels when he’s in the hospital, how much every kind word is appreciated.”

Our casual banter is interrupted by a knock on the door. A good soul from Bikur Cholim steps in to offer her assistance. Yaakov assures her that all is well, but she remains for an extra moment, a hey-aren’t-you”expression suspended on her face like a large question mark.

It’s a strange place for a DMC, but after the door closes, Shwekey turns back to me pensively. “I chose to become a singer. I love what I do. I know that it comes with the territory, that if you want your songs to belong to the people, then you have to accept that they will feel a connection with you.”

Little Natan is sleeping peacefully. His father leans over to tousle his hair before continuing. “I didn’t negotiate with Hashem. I didn’t make a deal to get this gift. Now that it’s here, it’s been my challenge to figure out how it’s meant to be used.”

He leans forward. “It’s a good thing. People are moved, people are uplifted, people are happy — I read every e-mail that comes in, and the stories are endless, you can write a book about how the songs influence people. It has nothing to do with me, my personal maalos, and everything to do with the song and the voice Hashem gave me.

“And that’s how I keep my family normal. When I take my children along to the home of a sick child, they understand what music is really about, what it can accomplish. When people stop me in public, in the park or at a pizza shop, I can be irritated — or I can choose to turn it into a chinuch opportunity. I try to let my kids hear what the people are saying, and it’s not usually, ‘Oh, Yaakov Shwekey, you’re so amazing.’ It’s more like, ‘Your song made me religious,’ or ‘Your song gave me chizuk during a challenging time.’ ”

His eyes are moist. “I think that  my children see what the music really does for people.”

The stories he tells — of people finding wings to transcend physical pain or spiritual malaise — defy the decor of the sterile room, with its wall-mounted soap dispensers, drab paintings, and windows that don’t open.

Jenine recalls a concert in a foreign country, the audience overwhelmingly secular. “Yaakov started singing ‘Vehi She’omdoh,’ and without planning it, the people in the audience rose to their feet as one, desperate to internalize what they were feeling. I was there alone, sitting in the audience as one of thousands, not knowing a soul. But I experienced something special too, just being part of it, feeling what they were feeling.”

Recently, especially when performing for secular audiences, Yaakov has begun to speak a bit more, sharing words of Torah and chizuk. “At a concert a few months ago, the organizer came backstage and said to me, ‘Your husband is speaking too much,’ ” Jenine laughs. “I said, ‘Right, and I wish he would speak even more.’ ”

Last summer’s release, “I Can Be,” was written in order to benefit the Special Children’s Center, the lyrics empowering each individual to be stronger, braver, more courageous.

Jenine, the driving force behind the song’s creation, is adamant that, despite the accompanying clip, the song wasn’t only about specia- needs children. “We davka didn’t use the word handicapped anywhere. We didn’t reference their specific challenges. You know, the parents in the special-needs community are heroes, the educators are heroes — and in fact everyone out there is a hero, finding strength to conquer the obstacles in their way. This song is chizuk for everyone.”

After the song was released, Yaakov performed at an event where he was asked not to sing English-lyric songs. Moments into the show, a chant rose from the audience, “I can be, I can be.”

It became a full-throated cry, and the organizer hurried over and pleaded, “Okay, please sing that song. I guess they really need it.”

Moments later, the song’s intro sounded. “The walls were shaking,” Yaakov recalls, “the people exploding with this message, the cry from inside every one of them. I can be!”

Sometimes, as he sings, he’ll see boys raise signs with those three words: “I Can Be.”

It’s only a half-smile. “I guess they don’t hear it often enough, or if they do, they don’t believe it. The music is what makes them feel it’s really true.”

Inspired, I tell him about Dovi, a delightful boy I know, a young warrior who smiles through his own set of difficulties, finding strength from that particular song.

The next day, back in Montreal, I get a voice message. “Hi, this message is for Dovi. Dovi, this is Yaakov Shwekey. I’m so happy you like the song. You can be stronger, braver, anything you want to be....”

He remembered the story. He remembered Dovi. He wants me to forward the message.

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard Yaakov Shwekey’s voice — whether in Nokia or Caesarea or HASC or any other sold-out venue — with more heart than in that message to a young boy.

You’re a tzaddik, I write back. Or as you guys say, a sadik.

No, he answers, I wish I was. Thanks for the zechut. Hope it puts a smile on his face.

I didn’t answer. I was waiting for now.

Yaakov, you know how you “tried” music, wanting to see if it would work?

Guess what? It’s working.

Thank you, Yaakov. In your music, we hear not just how we, our nation, is a miracle, but how each one of us is a miracle too...

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 607)