There’s one reality that will never change

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his column doesn’t generally do music reviews, but the song that parked itself in my brain recently is about so much more than music.

Not every pasuk or maamar Chazal can appropriately be turned into a niggun. We’ve all seen some spectacularly poor choices over the years, words that may sound catchy when put to song, but makes the listener who actually understands the words and appreciate their meaning cringe.

And then there are word selections no one would have considered making into a song, but that have come down as an inspired gift to the composer.

At a recent Melaveh Malkah, I had the opportunity to take in a special scene. Reb Eli Cohen of Lakewood, a talmid chacham and gifted musician, was playing an unfamiliar tune on his keyboard. His father, Rav Dovid Cohen, one of America’s preeminent poskim and rabbanim, pulled his chair up close and listened to his son play, enraptured.

I was intrigued, both by the hauntingly beautiful tune and by Rav Dovid’s evident emotional involvement with it.

I asked what the words were.

“Bni Avshalom, bni bni Avshalom, mi yitein musi ani sachtecha, Avshalom bni bni.”

Some context: Avshalom was a son of Dovid Hamelech. From childhood on, he rebelled against his father, seeking to establish his own reign and replace his father as king. Eventually, Dovid Hamelech was forced to flee from his son, as war broke out between the king’s forces and Avshalom’s partisans. Still, Dovid commanded his troops not to harm Avshalom if they found him.

Avshalom was riding his mule, and his long hair got caught in the branches of a tree. As he was suspended between heaven and earth, he saw the mouth of Gehinnom open up beneath him.

Yoav, Dovid Hamelech’s general, killed the king’s treacherous, rebellious son.

“And Achimaz called and said to the king, ‘Peace,’ and he bowed down to the king… And the king said, ‘Is there peace with the young man, Avshalom?’ ”

Dovid Hamelech understood that there had been a development and he had a question. Is my son all right? Is he okay?

The messenger gave over the news. So may all the king’s enemies fall. Avshalom was gone.

“And the king trembled… and wept, and thus he said: Oh, my son Avshalom, my son, my son Avshalom, would that I had died in your stead, my son Avshalom.” (Shmuel II, 19:1)

“And the king cried out with a loud voice, ‘Oh, my son Avshalom, Avshalom, my son, my son.’ ” (ibid 5)

Dovid Hamelech repeated the word “bni” eight times, each repetition raising his son out of one of the seven levels of Gehinnom. The eighth time, he lifted his child into Gan Eden.

Debate rages in contemporary frum society, spilling over to the pages of this magazine and into random conversations between parents of this bewildered generation.

Unconditional love versus the line in the sand: expectations from the child versus complete acceptance.

Both sides have statistics and anecdotal evidence and no shortage of qualified, knowledgeable spokespeople.

May the Ribbono shel Olam allow us to be spared expertise in this painful topic, to live in blissful oblivion to the agonizing ramifications.

But Rav Dovid Cohen has spent the last half-century paskening halachah l’maiseh, giving black-and-white guidance to families and individuals.

And this song he composed, this innovative, spirited, inspired approach to the pasuk is itself a psak from Rav Dovid.

AT A DIFFERENT TIME, there was a talented young boy in Camp Munk who wore a trendy pair of pants. The color burgundy was in style (I know — I said it was a different time), and a teenage Meir Zlotowitz showed up in the dining room in a stylish burgundy pair of pants.

Rav Dovid Cohen, just a few years older, called his young friend over and put an arm around Meir’s shoulders. “Those are very nice pants,” he said, “but a Meir Zlotowitz doesn’t wear burgundy pants.”

Meir Zlotowitz would repeat the story often. Well before the chinuch establishment preached the message, Rav Dovid had made him big, rather than small. He had conveyed a message without a word of censure, had let him know who he was.

And when the boy went on to act on his dreams, he was simply echoing that which he’d been told: A Meir Zlotowitz doesn’t wear burgundy pants. He was more, he could be more, and he would do more. The Megillas Esther and flow of light that followed, siddurim and Mishnayos, then the Bavli and Yerushalmi, was a fulfillment of Reb Dovid’s psak.

How did Rav Dovid Cohen know the secret, back then? The Rav was coming from somewhere: a pasuk in Tanach.

That pasuk.

“Bni, bni, bni. You’re my son. You’re my son. You’re so much more than you realize.”

Sometimes children follow the plan, and sometimes they don’t. Dovid Hamelech, who experienced everything every one of us has experienced and speaks for all of us through Tehillim, whose “heart is the heart of the entire nation” and who is the eternal king of the Jewish People, stood alone on a balcony after it was too late to save his son — and saved his son.

Parents of 2018 feel themselves suspended over the gaping chasm of Gehinnom, forced to make choices no parent should have to make, calling forth new levels of strength as they dance between two sorts of pain.

In this song, this remarkable niggun, this ode of suffering and hope, this anthem of today, a wise, experienced rav has given us a touch of clarity in the haziness: that no matter what, even as it seems like everything has changed, there’s one reality that will never change.

Bni, bni, bni. Always, my son.

The song can be heard at www.mishpacha.com.

Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 696. Yisroel Besser may be contacted directly at besser@mishpacha.com