Finding clarity amid concealment

SONG: “V’AFILU B’HASTARAH” │ ALBUM: YOELI KLEIN (SINGLE) │ COMPOSER: SHAYA GROSS │ YEAR: 2014

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oeli Klein and Shaya Gross have been playing at weddings together for years Yoeli’s vocals accompanying Shaya on the keyboard but it was “V’afilu B’hastarah” that catapulted them to instant fame two memorable years ago.

“It began before Pesach” Gross recounts. “We were asked to lead a kumzitz for a certain yeshivah with a Breslov connection and I told Yoeli that we needed a Breslov song. A friend of ours Chesky Glick came over and opened Rebbe Nachman’s Likutei Moharan. He found these incredible words — ‘V’afilu B’hastarah she’besoch hahastarah — Even in concealment within concealment Hashem is certainly there ’ And even without a full profound understanding the words were breathtaking.”

Gross began to compose with his friend Klein’s help but they needed more words to complete the thought and create a full song. Then in a weekly Torah circular they saw the phrase “gam me’achorei hadvarim hakashim — Even behind the difficult things that you’re going through I (Hashem) am standing ” and we were able to finish the composition. A couple of nights before Pesach in the middle of an uplifting yeshivah kumzitz in the Ben Shemen forest the duo presented the new song. “I sang each part maybe 50 times and the boys sang with me ” Klein says. “The boys sang it at home all Pesach and when the post-Shavuos wedding season began we sang the new song at every chasunah.”

Whenever “V’afilu B’hastarah” was played Gross and Klein noticed an electric effect — heads turned to the stage as the crowd tried to hear the original words of the new song. And when it was over there was always a request: “Od pa’am [encore].” Soon other bands took up the new composition and it went viral. On the day after Tishah B’av “V’afilu B’hastarah” was finally released on a single sung by Yoeli Klein together with 15-year-old Nosson Fuchs. The National Religious crowd caught on fast too although Gross continually turned down requests for interviews by several radio and television channels.

Another Gross-Klein hit is the dance song “Da Lecha Beni” — released after “V’afilu B’hastarah” and also originally sung by Klein together with the young Fuchs — which was composed when Shaya Gross’s father became ill and had to undergo a difficult foot surgery. The two songs share a common theme — they both speak directly and passionately to our Father in Heaven. And not by chance. “There is such a thirst today to feel a spiritual connection to speak openly and directly to the Ribbono Shel Olam” Klein reflects. “It’s a trend and I think ‘V’afilu B’hastarah’ was definitely part of that trend. Everyone wants to feel that mir zennen dainer kinder du bist unzer Tatte. People love words which are open about Hashem’s closeness to us. It’s the same theme in another of Shaya’s compositions ‘Kol Dodi Dofeik ’ sung by Levi Falkovich — ‘My Beloved is knocking — klap klap…’”

“Someone told me that they would sing ‘V’afilu B’hastarah’ to a child who was very sick. He asked for it again and again… and then by the yetzias haneshamah they sang it too.”

Gross whose musical mentor is his uncle — premier chassidic singer and composer Michoel Schnitzler — says that the feedback for “V’afilu B’hastarah” has been overwhelming. “Every single person feels the concealment at times — and he knows deep inside him that Someone is there in the darkness holding him up. We’re singing everyone’s song.”

Feedback:“Someone told me that they would sing ‘V’afilu B’hastarah’ to a child who was very sick. He asked for it again and again… and then by the yetzias haneshamah they sang it, too.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 622)