Back in 1973, a young man named Mordechai Werdyger slipped on to the Jewish music scene with a little-known album called Original Chassidic Melodies. While that early album never took off, listeners sat up when they heard Mordechai Ben David’s next album, Hineni, the following year. The magic of his new-old musical style and the sheer power of his voice soon won a place right at the heart of the frum soundtrack.

For over four decades, we’ve sung and danced, swayed and prayed, to hundreds of iconic MBD songs, the ones he wrote himself and those collaborations he made famous. And now we’ve asked our readers:

Which one of Mordechai Ben David’s songs has touched your life?

Shmuel Moshe, Boulder, Colorado

Just take those old records off the shelf

I’ll sit and listen to them by myself

I want to hear the drums of “Yamin U’Smol”

I need some music with "Neshamah - Soul!"

I reminisce how music used to be

When Mordechai cried out “Hineni”

I’ll only go to hear the king

Someone who’d rather “Pray and Sing”

Still like those old-time niggunim

The kind of music that can really shtim

I want “Mekomon Shel Zevachim”

Or “V’chol Maaminim” from “Yamim Noraim”

Call me a relic, call me what you will

Say I’m old-fashioned, say I’m over the hill

If you want me to go hear someone play

He’d better make sure his repertoire has “Someday”

Still, like that music that never gets stale

I want to hear “Shema Yisrael”

Or “Yerushalayim is Not For Sale”

May “Mashiach Come Soon” and bring us to Eretz Yisrael!

 (Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 738)