The Story Behind the Song: Hakol Letovah

Mona Rosenblum’s energetic and upbeat album Mona 7 was the sound of Succos for Mishpacha readers who received the complimentary disc in their Yom Tov package. Although it was released with a bang Mona says that these songs were actually composed and recorded over a ten-year period. “To bring out my own album I had to have complete yishuv hadaat — and I’m so busy with other projects that my own album was pushed to the back burner every time. Now that this material finally crystallized into Mona 7 I see I have almost enough for another full album.

The opening song “Hakol Letovah” sung by MBD was inspired more than a decade ago by a special neighbor.

“A rav who was also a chazzan moved into our neighborhood and we davened in the same shul ” Mona explains. “He used to sing at chuppahs and over time we became friendly and discussed music as well as many other common interests. One day as I walked home from Maariv together with this neighbor he told me about a very difficult experience he had just been through. His wife had just endured life-threatening complications that had resulted in a stillbirth. The words ‘Chayav adam lizkor shekol mah she’oseh Hashem hakol letovah — a person must always remember that whatever Hashem does is for the good’ were his and he began to sing them in this niggun as we walked along together. The fact that these words and tune were his reaction to such a distressing event gives the song extra depth. And then my neighbor added another thought: ‘You know the very fact that we’re walking along uneventfully is also part of Hashem’s never-ending goodness.’ ”

For the past decade Mona says he himself has been singing the song at various difficult venues such as a sheva brachos held in a hospital where the chassan’s younger sister was wheelchair-bound after a terror attack. “The chochmah is to recognize that Hashem is always good to his creations even when to us things look black ” he says. “And even during a moment of ‘nothing’ — hakol letovah.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 688)