Moshe Duvid Weissmandl 's debut solo album, BEKOL NOIM, is a tasteful presentation of a fresh chassidish voice

Just Out

New Releases, fresh takes

All the Waters in the World

Releasing a first album is always a long process, and Jerusalem-based singer MOSHE DUVID WEISSMANDL says that the most difficult decisions of all came right at the outset.

“I had to find myself and define what I wanted to sing, and that was a long process,” Weissmandl says. The result, his debut solo album BEKOL NOIM, is a tasteful presentation of a fresh chassidish voice. The eleven tracks are varied, including four songs with Yiddish lyrics, and faster more up-to-date rhythms among traditional slow songs. Weissmandl’s voice can soar in moving supplication on one hand, and can give off a lively, entertaining vibe on the other, as a popular wedding singer who’s booked every night.

The special touch of Eli Klein and Yitzy Berry is tangible in the sound and arrangement of several of Eli Klein’s compositions. Moshe Duvid says that Eli’s song “Ki Yemincha” was the first song he wanted for his album.

“Eli wrote this for me four years ago,” Moshe Duvid relates. “I was very drawn to singing it, but I hesitated because there are already other niggunim with these words. In the end, I decided to go with my heart and give the song a place on the album, and people are really enjoying it.”

Other songs, though, found their way into the drawer of unused material, partly because although Yiddish is Moshe Duvid’s mother tongue, he wanted the album to have broad appeal for all his listeners. One of those Yiddish songs is a masterful Pinky Weber composition, which the veteran composer joins to sing in duet.

When Moshe Duvid was looking for an upbeat dance song, Eli Klein came up with another winner, but although the melody and rhythm were catchy and energetic, somehow the singer didn’t feel attracted to the words. His producer, Nuta Levin, suggested using the pasuk from Shir Hashirim, “Mayim rabbim lo yuchlu lechabos es ha’ahavah,” about how even the power of all the waters in the world cannot extinguish Hashem’s love for us, and the resulting song has done its magic. It’s already being played at weddings, and Moshe Duvid says that, “just days after the album’s release, I got a clip of this song being played in a store. Someone came in who didn’t look outwardly religious, and he began to cry. They asked him why, and he said that the words, about the endless love of Hashem, had moved him.”

Mic Drop

Power On

While great music always raises the simchah level of the summer wedding season, it has a partner: good air conditioning. Singer Yisroel Werdyger was at a recent wedding in Brooklyn where the venue experienced a power cut right before the chuppah. Since the hall was totally dark, the chuppah was held outdoors, while technicians worked feverishly to set up generators.

“The generators worked to power up the lights, but not the air conditioning,” Werdyger relates. “Although the hall was light, it was stifling and unbearably hot. The meal was served quickly and fans were brought in, but despite the efforts, the hall was boiling hot, and the floor became very slippery because of the extreme humidity.”

Yet when the chassan and kallah came in, the simchah went on as if nothing was amiss. Aside from some bochurim coping with the heat by taking off their jackets, the friends of the chassan danced as normal, or even better.

“The dancing was super leibedig and pumping,” he says. “Singing in the heat is nowhere near as hard as dancing, but those hundreds of guests, friends of the chassan and kallah, just kept on going, being mesamei’ach the couple on their special day despite extremely difficult circumstances.”

Meanwhile, during a power cut in Lakewood, Shloimy Zaltzman was leading his band, Zaltz, at a wedding, and says he originally didn’t notice anything was wrong, since the client had hired battery-powered lighting and the hall looked normal. But when he called the musicians for the pre-dance set, the mixing engineer let him know that there was no power.

“I ran from one manager to the next, but every hall in Lakewood was scrambling to get generators — calling every generator company, Chaveirim, Chavivim — yet everyone was already stretched thin,” Shloimy recalls. “Earlier that day, I had told my friend Shlomi Schinfeld, an upcoming band leader in the industry, that I’d be playing a wedding in Lakewood that night. He enjoys watching the band in action, so I told him he’s welcome to stop by. Little did I know that conversation would save the wedding. Suddenly, I saw Shlomi walk in through the front door. He asked if I was okay — I told him I was panicking with no power, meaning no sound, and no idea how my musicians would play. My heart broke for the chassan and kallah, and for the parents who spent so much to make this night special. Shlomi didn’t even blink. Just pulled out his phone, made a few quick calls, and worked some magic. Turns out, he had the right connections. We had generators show up just in time for the first dance.”

The Performance I’ll Never Forget

There is a very special Yid in Monsey who was diagnosed with ALS two decades ago, and has been living with it ever since. There’s so much to admire in how this Yid approaches life, how he doesn’t give up on learning daily with his chavrusas, or on any mitzvah. Twenty years ago, just before this Yid was put on a respirator, he asked his rebbe to bentsh him that he would be zocheh to marry off all his children. He received his brachah, and as he was being wheeled into the surgery, he asked his family to sing the hartzige niggun of, “Ad heinah azarunu rachmecha....” Just a few months ago, I sang at the wedding of this Yid’s youngest child, and as he was about to be called to the mitzvah tantz, I began singing that same niggun of “Ad Heinah.” At the time, I didn’t even realize that this was the same song that accompanied him into surgery all those years ago. It was like closing a circle — the room was filled with emotion and gratitude.

–Isaac Honig

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1069)