It’s actually pretty rare for the Daskal brothers to collaborate professionally
T
he new single “B’yad Hayotzer,” sung by brothers Yanky and Shloime Daskal, is a song of pure trust in the One Who carries us in His arms through life’s often painful and convoluted pathways — “Ribbono shel Olam, ich bin in Deiner hent [I am in Your hands].”
While the song was released this past Lag B’Omer, Vizhnitz chassid and singer Yanky Daskal composed it last summer, during the week of parshas Masei, based on a vort he found in a parshah pamphlet.
“I was suddenly inspired by something I read there,” he recalls. “The Torah tells us the Jewish People stopped at many places on the journey through the desert, but emphasizes that they traveled at Hashem’s command — ‘al pi Hashem yachanu v’al pi Hashem yisa’u.’
“Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz ztz”l explains this with a mashal. There’s a person traveling, let’s say from Jerusalem to Ashdod. If you phone him and ask him where he is, he’ll tell you, ‘I’m leaving the city.’ Phone ten minutes later and he’ll say, ‘I’m at Shaar Hagai.’ Another ten minutes, and he’ll be somewhere else. But imagine he’s traveling with his wife and baby, and that the baby could speak on the phone. You call and ask him where he is, he’ll reply, ‘I’m in Ima’s arms.’ Ten minutes later, again ‘I’m in Ima’s arms.’ His geographical location is irrelevant — nothing else interests him as long as he’s in the secure embrace of his mother’s arms.
“The Yidden in the desert had that same feeling of security. They were completely surrounded by the Ananei Kavod. No matter where they were, they were in Hashem’s hands. I wanted to write a song about that absolute serenity which a person feels if he allows himself to feel that he is in HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s embrace.”
The tune came to him while he was visiting patients in Tel Hashomer hospital, and Yanky decided to add the words from the piyut sung on Kol Nidrei night — “Ki hinei kachomer b’yad hayotzer [We are in Your hands like clay in the hands of the potter]” to the Yiddish lyrics “Ribbono shel Olam, ich bin in Deiner hent… es brengt mir menuchah, veil ich bin in Deiner hent.” Because really, what better place than a hospital to realize how powerless we all really are, that our very life is in His hands?
The song went into hibernation until the following Kislev, when Yanky, who lives in Ashdod, came to Monsey for a wedding, and he attended a seudah made by his brother Shloime in honor of the yahrtzeit of the Bas Ayin. (Rav Elimelech Biderman had told Shloime to make this seudah in honor of the tzaddik Rav Avrohom Dov of Avritch, author of Bas Ayin, who died in Tzfas in the 1800s.) At the seudah, Yanky sang his new composition — and both Shloime and his guest, pianist and arranger Mendy Hershkowitz, were blown away.
“I was on the way to the wedding when my brother picked me up and said we were going to the studio to work on arrangements for the new song. We did do a little work on it, but then I flew back to Eretz Yisrael. The next week he called me to say he had sung the song at the bedside of a sick bochur, and it had offered real chizuk. Another musician who was present had offered to sponsor the recording and release of the song as a zechus for all Klal Yisrael’s cholim. We finished it the next time I was in the States.”
The brothers’ vocals are warm and synchronized, and Mendy Hershkowitz’s arrangements, with his signature piano playing, complete the track.
It’s actually pretty rare for the Daskal brothers to collaborate professionally, Yanky admits. “We both sing a lot, but as he’s in Monsey and I’m in Ashdod, we don’t get together too often.”
But twice is often enough. The other recent collaboration was on the hugely popular “V’hinei Hashem Nitzav Alav.” This contemplative and profound niggun, with words from the Baal HaTanya (Tanya, Chapter 41), was composed by the new Zutchka Rebbe of Bnei Brak, Rav Asher Yeshaya Rosenbaum, and originally released by Yanky Daskal.
“While his father was still alive, the current Rebbe once had to travel abroad. He was sitting in Ben-Gurion Airport —not the most modest environment — and learning from the sefer of the Baal HaTanya. And when he came to this line, ‘Behold Hashem, Whose glory fills the entire Earth is standing over him, testing his innermost heart if he is serving Him correctly,’ he composed the song on the spot. I heard it from the Rebbe — and he invited me to sing it.”
Yanky first recorded it in 2016, but the most popular rendition of the niggun is a clip from a wedding in the US that November, with Yanky and Shloime singing together, backed up by the Freilach Band. For two brothers who don’t get a chance to sing much together, with these two songs they still have a pretty good track record.
(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 700)
