About a year ago, shortly before Chanukah, my wife asked me not to play secular music when the kids were around.

I thought she was crazy. I’m the kind of guy who always has the music on. And not just for background noise, to fill in the empty spaces. I hear every note and every beat, every word of the lyrics is meaningful. I don’t just “listen” to music, I experience it. Music is the accompaniment to my life. My pulse jumps to the beat.

When I get a new car, I always make sure to get the best sound system available. We have three Amazon Alexas in my house. I grew up on Nirvana, Metallica, Green Day. Jewish music just wasn’t going to cut it.

She didn’t give up, though. “The music on the radio is garbage,” she insisted. “Can’t you play a Jewish CD for the kids?”

Then I got an offer from Amazon Music: unlimited music streaming, three months for just 99 cents. Who could resist such a great deal? I signed up and created a playlist of Jewish music I thought my kids would like.

As soon as we lit the menorah on the first night of Chanukah, I turned on the music — my new playlist blasting from all the speakers in the house. My kids loved it. So did my wife. Call it a Chanukah gift.

For the next few months, whenever the kids were around, that was the music we listened to exclusively. “Next time Shwekey makes a concert, we’re going,” I promised my kids.

The next Shwekey concert was on Lag B’omer. In Boston. Was it crazy to drive four hours each way for a Shwekey concert?

Maybe, but we did it anyway.

My kids loved it. They were on their feet, singing and swaying to the music. It was an incredible experience to share together. After that concert, I created a Shwekey-only playlist for them. Whenever we were in the car, we listened exclusively to Shwekey.

The switch to Jewish music brought a tremendous change in our family. My kids were different. Our home was different. When the school we send our children to announced a lecture series at PTA and asked for topic suggestions, I sent them an e-mail on the spot. “A few months ago, my wife suggested that we change the music we listen to,” I wrote. “We stopped playing secular music and listen only to Jewish music now. Our kids’ personalities and attitudes have changed dramatically.” Still sitting there in the PTA meeting, I hit send.

Then the phone rang.

It was my wife. She was expecting our fifth child, just beginning her second trimester. “Something’s wrong,” she said.

I wasn’t particularly concerned. We’d had ups and downs in pregnancies and things always turned out okay. I went home and took her to the ER, and when they said she had to be admitted, I was more annoyed than worried.

That was Wednesday.

They kept her Thursday, Friday, then Shabbos. On Motzaei Shabbos the doctor walked in. Finally, I thought, it’s about time he sent us home.

He didn’t say that, though. I can’t really tell you exactly what he did say, a lot of jargon and medicalese, but the bottom line was that my wife’s condition was not getting better. It was getting worse. And if it kept getting worse, they were going to have to do an emergency C-section.

“A C-section?” I stammered. She was only 24 weeks. “Can the baby even survive?”

He looked at me straight in the eye. “It might be necessary,” he said. “Otherwise, we risk losing her and the baby.”

I felt the ground fall away beneath my feet. Lose my wife? My wife is everything. How could this be happening?

I had to go home to my family. On autopilot, I stumbled out of the hospital and retrieved my car.

As soon as I turned the key, the music went on — of course — Yaakov Shwekey’s “Vehi She’amdah.” Vehi she’amdah la’avoteinu v’lanu… Because not only one alone rose up to destroy us, but in every generation they rise up to destroy us, and Hashem saves us from their hands.

At that moment, as my hands trembled on the steering wheel, I thought I knew why the Haggadah uses the words “not only one.” Because we will face many hardships — but HaKadosh Baruch Hu matzileinu, Hashem saves us.

The next few months were excruciatingly challenging, and “Vehi She’amdah” became my theme song.

In the end, the doctors decided it was safe to wait it out. My wife was discharged, thank G-d, with both her and the baby in stable condition, after Yom Kippur.

The day after Simchas Torah I was (finally) back at work when my wife called to say she wasn’t feeling well. “I called the doctor and told him what’s going on. He says I don’t have to go to the hospital,” she told me, “but he said I shouldn’t be home alone.”

I went home. The doctor had told us what symptoms to look out for, but my wife was fine. Until she wasn’t. At 4 p.m. her pulse skyrocketed to 150 — one of the signs the doctor had warned us about. Hatzolah took us, sirens screaming, back to the hospital.

I stayed at the hospital until about 10 p.m. Things were stable by then, and our kids needed me, so I left my wife and went home.

Soon after I got back, I received a text from my wife: They’re calling the doctor to come back.

A few minutes later: Hurry up and come back.

I got to the hospital just before they wheeled her into surgery. She was 27 weeks.

The surgery took an hour. I cried and prayed, begging Hashem to spare her life. I sent messages to our family and friends so they would pray too. And when I had no more strength, I played “Vehi She’amdah.” HaKadosh Baruch Hu matzilenu. I needed to hear it again and again.

“Mr. Chemtob?”

“Yes?”

“Mazel tov, you have a new baby girl.”

“And my wife?”

“She’s doing well. She’ll be fine.”

HaKadosh Baruch Hu matzilenu miyadam!

It was 4 a.m. when I finally left the hospital and got into my car. The baby was tiny, much smaller than the machines that were keeping her alive. I knew there’d be a long fight ahead of her. It would take a miracle.

As I turned the key in the ignition the music went on. The first song — “Maamin B’nissim.”

Ani maamin b’nissim

Ani yodeia she’yeish Elokim…

My daughter is a miracle, I thought. And she is going to need many more miracles.

I believe in miracles.

I spent the next few days going back-and-forth to the hospital. The music played through it all.

We are a miracle…

My wife, my daughter. We are a miracle.

Matanot ketanot…

A small gift. It doesn’t get much smaller than two pounds, my tiny new daughter’s birth weight.

Mi Shebeirach avoteinu… May the One Who blessed our forefathers bless the chayalei Yisrael, the fighters of Israel…

But she is a fighter. Please G-d, help us win this fight!

Shir Lamaalot…

Wherever I went, the music played, and it always seemed to be singing my song. How does the music fit so perfectly? Is Amazon’s AI that good?

Or was it because this was not just music — this was our music. The beat was our heartbeat. The national anthem of the Jewish People, the songs that have kept us strong for so long.

We named her Rebecca Tikvah.

“When is the baby coming home?”

My second daughter asked me this three days after the baby was born, and she wasn’t coming home any time soon. “I don’t know, sweetheart,” I told her. “Not for a few months. Probably not before January.”

“She’s not going to be home in time for Chanukah?”

I stared at my daughter. In time for Chanukah. Not, “in time for my birthday” or “in time for the sebet,” both upcoming occasions that she was very much looking forward to, but “in time for Chanukah.” Chanukah — the holiday when, one year ago, her mother transformed our entire family by changing the music we listen to. The holiday when the Jewish People experienced, and continue to experience, miracles. We had come full circle.

The music my wife introduced to our family sustained me and kept me strong through the entire ordeal. None of the secular music I had followed and enjoyed could ever have done for me what our Jewish music did.

Now the song we’re singing is “Shehecheyanu” — for You gave us life and sustained us and brought us to this day. Last Chanukah we made a change. This Chanukah we have our miracle.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 741)