His melodies carry the depth and flavor of old-time chassidish niggunim into the future

In Tribute

Yitzchok Ungar’s Tunes Shook the Heavens

The world of chassidic music lost one of its senior composers last month, with the passing of Vizhnitzer chassid and prolific composer Rabbi Yitzchok Ungar of Bnei Brak. While many dozens of his niggunim are sung at Vizhnitzer tishen, several have made their way to a much broader audience, through popular albums including Motti Steinmetz’s Atik Yomin and Yosef Moshe Kahana’s L’Chaim Tish series. Reb Yitzchok, who was born in 1939 in prewar Pressburg (Bratislava), the city of the Chasam Sofer dynasty, survived the war as a child, hiding with his mother and siblings under a closet for seven months. He later said that his composition for “Mah Nishtanah” was inspired by the memories he had of those critical days.

Arriving in Eretz Yisrael after World War II, Yitzchok found himself attracted to chassidus, and would frequent the tishen of such Chassidic giants as the Beis Yisrael of Gur and Rav Aharon of Belz. When he left Yerushalayim for Bnei Brak to learn in the yeshivah of Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner, he discovered the tish of the Imrei Chaim of Vizhnitz, and subsequently became a frequent visitor to the Rebbe’s court — and then a full-fledged Vizhnitzer chassid. The Imrei Chaim loved and appreciated Reb Yitzchok’s compositions. Among the most widespread of his hundreds of tunes are the slow “Ach le’Elokim Domi Nafshi” (generally attribute to Chabad), the Vizhnitz “Yehei Raava,” and “La’asos Retzoncha Chafatzti.” He was also responsible for a slow and pensive “Racheim Bechasdecha,” which the Ribnitzer Rebbe said had a powerful effect in Heaven.

Reb Yitzchok was respected in the community as a talmid chacham, and earned a living as a sofer. He continued to offer new songs to the Vizhnitz court for decades after the passing of the Imrei Chaim, singing at every tish of the Yeshuos Moshe (the Imrei Chaim’s son) as he stood right behind the Rebbe. And one of those niggunim was actually taught to him in a dream by the Imrei Chaim after he had passed away.

In 2013, before the marriage of the Belzer Rebbe’s oldest grandchild, the Rebbe, who is a son-in-law of the Yeshuos Moshe of Vizhnitz and spent the early days of his marriage in Bnei Brak, sent for Yitzchok Ungar and requested that he compose a new niggun in honor of the simchah.

His melodies, which vary from waltzes to slow pieces and upbeat dance tunes, carry the depth and flavor of old-time chassidish niggunim into the future.

Mic Drop

The Feeback That Keeps Us Going

After the massive investment of time, energy, money, and effort into releasing an album, every artist waits anxiously for feedback — and in today’s world of instant communication, the responses are usually not long in coming. Dovy Meisels says that once in a while, a single response makes the entire project feel worthwhile.

“We heard from someone who was facing a difficult illness and was becoming depressed from his situation,” Dovy relates. “He didn’t want to comply with the doctors’ instructions, and he wasn’t allowing in any guests, or eating well. He told us that he’d been listening to the Krechtz album, and it had helped improve his mental state, connecting him with an untapped level of emunah. He’d begun to allow in guests and to give himself better nutrition, and he wanted to sing together with us over FaceTime. Baruch Hashem, I felt that it was worth everything we’d put in to the album just so this Yid could pick himself up from his depressed state and feel better.”

Another surprise came as a result of the song “Zekele,” about a pair of tefillin as an analogy for the soul coming into the world searching for all types of pleasures, which Hashem has sent all along. Dovy got an email from a music fan who told him that although he had not put on tefillin for six years, he decided to order himself a pair after hearing this song for the first time.

“I heard this song for the first time in my car on the way to a job site,” the fellow wrote. “Then something in me clicked. I got so connected. I told a sofer I know that I need new tefillin, and he said it would take him a week or two to write them. He called me today saying that they are done, and I can pick them up, so tomorrow I’m going to put on tefillin for the first time in six years, and I’m really, really excited about it.”

The Performance I’ll Never Forget

When I was learning in the Mir as a bochur, the Zichron Menachem organization for the support of children with cancer had just started. They were recruiting bochurim to play music and sing for patients, both in the hospitals and at home, and of course, I wanted to be part of that. Zichron Menachem lent me a keyboard, and I remember that one Motzaei Shabbos, we went to the house of an Israeli family to play for a bar mitzvah boy. This was a child who had been battling cancer since age two, and his tiny, underdeveloped body made it hard to imagine that he was actually thirteen. We played music and we danced, then we made funny sounds over the mic to make him laugh, and it was clear that we were uplifting not just the patient, but the whole family, who escaped for a few hours from their harsh medical reality. That experience showed me the power of music. It left a lasting impression and planted the desire to spread joy where it’s needed.

—Yo Aisenstark

The Songs I Gave Away

“When I look back at my first steps in music, I see beautiful songs that I wish I would have kept and performed myself. Since I wasn’t confident enough as a performer, I sold them to others, both well-known and lesser-known singers. I wish I’d had the confidence to sing and share my own material, but I accept that this was part of Hashem’s plan, like everything else. As I always say, we’re only riding on the bus. He’s the driver.”

—Bentzi Stein

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1071)