Marches used to be fairly popular in the chassidic music of certain courts

With the world outside adrift in chaos and uncertainty, listening to the sweet, sincere, timeless sound of a chassidish boys’ choir singing in Yiddish is one way to come back to calmer ground — perfect timing for the release of YINGERLICH 4, the most recent in the Yingerlich series, sung by the famed chassidish children’s choir under the direction of Shea Rosen, and produced by Naftali Schnitzler. For this album, there’s a new composer on board: Yona Lipshitz of Williamsburg adds flair and depth to the project with his slew of original songs.

“Honestly, I hesitated when Naftali asked me to work on this project with him,” Yona says. “To compose songs for an entire album seemed daunting, when I had only five or six ready to go. But in the end, it was well worth it.”

“Bentchen,” an upbeat, child-friendly review of the four brachos of Bircas Hamazon in Yiddish, and “Azamer,” an original take on the pre-Kiddush Aramaic piyut of Friday night, were actually composed a couple of years ago, but other songs evolved recently in a surge of creativity as Yona and Naftali worked together on the album, which was released in December.

Like the rest of the Yingerlich series, the album is family friendly, easy listening for mothers at home, people on their commute, and kids wherever they are.

The selection “Hillel Hazuken” is really a self-contained musical presenting the Gemara’s famous story about the mesirus nefesh for Torah learning of Hillel Hazakein. From the Torah learning going on in the beis medrash of Shmaya and Avtalyon to the guard’s demand for payment and Hillel’s plaintive plea, to his climbing the steps and lying down on the roof over the skylight, to the next morning when they find him covered in snow and bring him into the beis medrash, the entire story is portrayed musically by badchan Yoeli Braun, who is also an actor on the Interen productions.

“I had the creative concept for this song — not a typical two or three-part composition, but a kind of all-in-one musical, with seven different parts in which the music expresses the mood of the story,” Yona says. “Together with Naftali, we designed the parts, then gave a demo to Yoeli. He wrote the lyrics and delivers it with the dramatic ability only an actor like him can do.”

The title track, “Siz Du a Bashefer [there is a Creator in the world],” which Yona says was a total gift from Above for which he can’t take any credit, was inspired by his own father, who often repeated those words: “Whether things are going well or not, we know the Bashefer is here and He will take care of it.”

“I felt this concept deserved a song of its own,” Yona says. “The niggun came to me in ten minutes, and I knew the words for the high part would be “S’iz du a Basheffer oif di veldt.” Naftali loved it, but it took me a year and fifty versions to find just the right words for the low part, to express the essence of Avraham Avinu’s search for the Borei Olam in just eight lines. Because when he realized that the world could not have come about by itself, he recognized the Bashefer.”

Another track that harks back to old genres is “Soldaten.” Marches used to be fairly popular in the chassidic music of certain courts, but the march beat has not appeared much in recent music. Yet in this confident, upbeat march, the yingelach sing “Mir zennen soldaten far Melech Malchei Hameluchim / In inzer zechis, yoh, in inzer zechis / in inzer zechis shteit an di veldt [We are soldiers of the King of Kings. The world stands in our merit….] We learn earnestly, we daven with purity, with middos tovos, we believe only in Hashem. From big to small, may we soon go out together to great Mashiach!”

Mic Drop

NIGGUN OF FORGOTTEN TIMES

“He was a tzaddik who wrote songs for tzaddikim,” is how composer/producer Yossi Green describes Rav Berish Horowitz Hy”d, known as Reb Berish Vishever, a direct descendant of the Shelah Hakadosh and the shochet in the
prewar community of Visheve (Vișeu). Visheve boasted the largest yeshivah in Europe, led by the oldest son of the Ahavas Yisrael of Vizhnitz.

Reb Berish’s niggunim were sought after by several prewar rebbes, who asked him to visit their courts and compose niggunim for them. Some of these were written to be sung at the time of naanuim, while shaking lulav and esrog, but perhaps the most famous and widespread is what is known as the “Satmar Shalom Aleichem,” sung in that court on Friday nights. But Yossi Green says that there are several different versions of the niggun, and when he worked on his album of Reb Berish Vishever’s songs — ZEMIROS SHABBOS WITH REB BERISH VISHEVER — he investigated and interviewed many people in search of the original. “After spending a lot of time on research, I took my father’s version,” Yossi says. “I felt that was pretty reliable, as my father, too, came from Wishowa.”

Compiling the album of Reb Berish’s niggunim, which was released in 2022, took Yossi 14 years. One day he was listening to one of the tracks in his car, when an elderly, clean-shaven Yid wearing a cap and pushing a walker stopped by his open window. “You just walked me back in time. I’m hearing the home of my childhood,” he said, and then bentshed Yossi for bringing back the niggunim of his youth.

Originally, these niggunim were mainly wordless, with the exception of “Tzavei.” “Many people assume that “Tzavei Yeshuos Yaakov” is a Skulener niggun, but there is no corroboration of that,” Yossi reveals. “When I listened very carefully to the naanuim niggun, I heard the same musical phrases as “Tzavei,” and one Shabbos a few weeks later, a descendant of Reb Berish confirmed to me that Reb Berish had indeed written it. He told me the story he had heard from witnesses: It was on a Motzaei Shabbos in 1936 when Rav Mendeleh Hager, the Vishever Rav and rosh yeshivah, left Europe on his famed trip to America in a desperate mission to fundraise for the yeshivah. The boat was going from Sighet, and the entire yeshivah walked their rebbe to the train station to travel from Visheve to Sighet. On the way, the Rav suggested that Reb Berish compose a niggun with the words “tzavei yeshuos Yaakov,” which he did. The yeshivah joined in, and two boys added another line in Yiddish: “May we live to greet the Rav when he returns from America” (which is nowadays adapted and sung as “Mir zollen leben tzu gein akeigen Mashiach tzidkeinu”). The Visheve Rav did return, but he passed away from medical complications just five years later, soon before Reb Berish Vishever, and nearly all of his children and grandchildren, were murdered in Auschwitz. The holy niggunim, though, live on.

What do you sing at Melaveh Malka on a long Motzaei Shabbos?

The Breslover “Bemotzaei Yom Menuchah.” I just love the depth of the niggun and how it really brings the words of davening for geulah to life.

—Eitan Katz

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1046)