107: Songs of the Heart (Yamim Noraim Tefillos Pt. 2)

hi this is debbie dolowski and welcome to the rabbi alafsky show and whether you are watching with our friends over at turning time or wherever you watch or listen to your podcast it's a thrill to have you along and we have a sponsor for this week and malcolm freed and yitzhak yakov and rifka gruenberger uh behalf of the entire mishpacha one of the few things we are all willing to listen to thank you thank you so much for that from my victor and mindy free from staten island uh i appreciate it very much and uh it's nice to have something that brings people together i have had parents have told me over the years that uh when they go on trips and they have to put something on you know this one's fighting about this song or that song and this music says very often we can all agree on listening to our ravioli so uh so thank you so much uh for that and it's wonderful to have you along this is part two of a series that we're doing before the yamuna raya because uh there are people who are not going to be able to go to shul even though they've gone many times during their life and they want to know how to make daviding meaningful when you're diving by yourself um terrible situation but you know complaining about things is not what we jewish people do we solve problems now you can you can look at things and say well to quote john f kennedy who actually stole from somebody else some people look at the world the way it is and ask why i look at the way the world could be and ask why not yeah so uh so that's what we want to look at we want to look at how do we make it as meaningful as we can so um we went over the structure of the felis the last time i i want to focus on something else now and i'm going to introduce it with a story i was teaching in or dubbed and it was i was actually teaching thrilla and i was before shashana going over the treeless video on the right and i went over the structure of myriad like i did last time and i said you know there's a particular niggin that uh that we sing [Music] during um during my particularly uh i have heard that all communities sing this negative i have heard there's a tradition that goes back to the base of mikdash which is why everybody knows the tune i cannot confirm any of that but i was of course teaching it to the guys there were people there who really didn't know the davening and i started to sing and everybody joined in [Music] anyway we were inside of the show and the acoustics were very powerful and it was resounding at the end i was shaking i was literally shaking and uh i said okay we'll stop here and i went to the office and one of the other rebates looked at me and said what's the matter and i told him the story he says okay that's what the mata moshe says he says that the nigunim that we use of the young nibrayam the tombs themselves have the power to be moira us to chuba remember hearing many years ago that the zoya kurdish says that the sharing nagina are next to the shari cuba that music has the power to change our life to be a life-changing experience bring us to chuba just the tune itself i know this from my many years in ncsy where uh saying i would have a concerts there are certain songs that we would sing they were very emotional they used to move me they used to move other people so there was a story that they used to tell on ncsy i don't know any the details of it i assume it's true but there was this girl who came to a few and sees why she wants a name and she didn't really know much she dropped out and at one point you know she got the news that her mother died did you know anything about jewish lauren i don't know she didn't have access to a rabbi so she sat down on the ground and took out her ncsy adventure and started singing the songs that she learned at ncsy and that's the power the power of these nagunam have the ability to be able to um to move us now gaza over the music not just the words and the ideas because the nightim themselves have the power to be able to move us now i brought an example of the friday night actually i've brought an example of the rosh hashanah night niggin yeah and it carries on throughout my earth [Music] some people slip in the chorus more often than others but a lot of the pu to have their own particular negan um kris the torah is of course to a particular term it's always interesting on rosh hashanah i'm a cohen so i get the first aliyah and you're supposed to make the bracha for your leah to that of the crease of terror [Music] so i'm the first of the bad so if i mess it up it messes up everybody else yeah so i got to make sure i get it down right but uh there are certainly going in right um the sound of toe kef which uh we'll talk about more yeah that was the one that i grew up with um av roddenberg has a beautiful one uh when i said governor david the cousin used to use that one [Music] um [Music] um that people have towards that yeah um at the very very end of music i grew up in a show where obviously the cousin did not mind about repeating words [Applause] [Music] that people use that becomes your tune and it's an amazing thing if they don't do the right tune sometimes it takes away from davening i'll give an example when i was growing up back in my old school so uh onion kipper so just before the uh okay [Music] okay now they had a stick i don't know if there's a better word for it but when they did it by maherev they did it very slowly and it picked up by chakras one of affairs by music and by the time they had naila it was [Laughter] and it still does to this day and i dive in a minion and especially here in hell they do other tunes [Music] myself because that till it moves me and that other tune doesn't i obviously part of it is how you grow up [Music] [Applause] foreign all right but uh that's how i grew up and and these things have a special place in your heart so when we haza over the davening it's good to note the tunes that you that move you and if you don't have any tunes that move you so get yourself some recordings i was going to say cassettes i don't know if they still have cds i don't even know they still have those i'm sure you can find websites of it of different niconim for different putin that are popular and uh and see which niggins speaks to you because not every tune obviously the ones that you grew up with that's going to have more of an impact on you but different people are going to relate to different things right uh i bought years ago the callbach um uh no such a lot of places in artshell they do the version developed that they used to use in government um my father used to sing in the choir with the great horizon back in brownsville and uh certainly gonna have have a tremendous meaning to him because that's what he grew up with yeah but you have to listen to the tomb there's a very interesting thing somebody wants the answer the story that i heard from uh from the person he was trying to decide between two yeshivas and he wasn't sure which one to go to and the fitness said to him go into the basement of each one and just sit and learn and see which feels right to you because the yeshiva is basically at sea miller it's a pipe and not everything attaches to every pipe there's different uh there's different threads and there's different widths see where you feel you get more terrifying it's a vehicle it's a vehicle to get you there so um the same thing is certainly true with the good and as we mentioned in the gun of themselves have the power to be able to move you so uh so figure out which new goodin you should use and plan it out like anything else um i had this course last summer it's been the shabbos and uh in one of these vacation home uh areas and uh it was uh [Music] and he did every single stanza to a different and i said he's got to have that written down i kept looking over and i didn't see any patek because how could you remember that so at the end of dominic i went over to myself how did you remember that and then he slipped over his sentence and showed me that he had the list underneath the center immediately was able to see it surreptitiously when i wasn't looking so uh but um it's a uh i i see they write down which they're going to do to each part yeah so uh so that's a that's a brilliant idea yeah um so you should know if there's certainly gunam that move you yeah certainly graham i don't connect to sometimes they use those um i mentioned back when i was in north david so the first pete that uh we used to do in sleepo's the first night of srihas yeah so um arena versus yeah he did an old vegas negan um to aha i get goosebumps to this day whenever i hear that too and certainly slicker's night i sing it to that tune it has it has such power to me [Music] haha [Music] come m [Music] [Applause] [Music] and that tone still looks me i mean deeply every time i hear it there's something haunting about it something something mystical and magical transformational now again that's me yeah um [Music] there are people like faster ones slow ones we do a thing at rosh hashanah during the day suda where me and the kids we go through the master and we sing any song we can find [Music] i find that one much more meaningful than that [Music] um [Music] and like i say uh some people don't relate to these because the face they're too old they're looking for something more contemporary the point being which is the right negan there's no right you have to find the song in your heart that speaks to you and opens it up so i definitely advise it's very worthwhile between now and ashanim kippur to listen to the music like the the the nigunim that uh that have that power of moving you yeah they tell a there's an old khasir story that the rapper used to take the kasim out into the woods and he would uh sing a special niggin very mystical special words and after a while they uh they forgot the words but they would go out into the place in the forest they would sing the tune and then after a while they forgot where to go in the forest and all they had left was the negan and uh sometimes it's just that tune i'll be hearing years ago that na gain is nun gun known as of course the 50th level 50 always takes us out of this world you count seven days seven times and then you come to shus her sinai where you move out of this world you count seven years seven times then you come to yeovil which takes you out of the normal functioning of the world all these sort of things yeah um 50. so the 50th level that takes you the gun aiden is a niggin again so that's one of the things you're going to have to do go through and find which niggunim speak to you and where it goes because the more things that you sing obviously the easier it will be the interesting thing uh there's uh different phrases you find when they're doing a mishna or appraiser sometimes they say um which means this is the way you should understand it or this is the way it should be written or whatever it is sometimes you find a line called hasuri mesera there's a line missing from this mission of risa how did they know because the beat was off because the entire mishnah was set to music because something that said to music is much easier to remember and therefore the more things that we can sing and that we can use the music to be able to move us that'll just make it more successful for us and uh like i say i've sung some of the songs for you that are meaningful to me other people have other good uh based on how they grew up or what they had uh there are certain ones that are pretty universal avino maokai i say [Music] now me are these are ones obviously that uh uh seem to have more of a universal appeal to it i have found you know every minute and they use the same thing for asham right when you say by yourself [Music] right well when the teamwork does it uh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah [Music] yeah it seems kind of strange well to a beat we have stolen and we've lied and i beat your grandma hey anything that jews do you see a minute the default assumption is that it makes sense we don't we don't assume things don't make sense where as well weinberg said we jews have been accused of every possible crime throughout history the one thing they've never said about us is that we're stupid that they've never said and uh you know if if we have a minute there's a reason for it the reason is that's part of what's integrity him kippur yum kippur we are confident that the kajabaraku is going to forgive us rosh hashanah is not that way rosh hashanah is din one of the happiest days of the year so therefore we're we're saying uh you know shamanu with uh with the confidence we know because probably gonna forgive us so anytime you find the tone there's got to be a reason for that tone there's a reason that we're doing what we're doing but like i say some of these things the universal like a young british at night [Music] [Applause] introduction over there again i find that to be usually consistent the um the filler which you probably don't have to use when you're when you're dabbing for yourself but uh every now and then you give the has a little chance some places go further [Music] so some of these are like i mentioned somewhat universal in nature but uh like i say i can't i can't advise you i can tell you what's meaningful to me but that doesn't mean it's going to be meaningful to you and uh i like i say what i thought was wonderful and heard of it is that they used as many contemporary nikunam as possible and try to sing as much as they can um there's a tune for for the capital din which unfortunately a lot of people stretch out i say unfortunately because i'm i'm a big believer in keeping things moving even if even if what you're saying is very important so that's for you that's not for the cause it doesn't have to do in my opinion unless you enjoy zones right and by all means but a places where they stretch that out terribly and the capital din itself is so heavy already do you have to make it heavier like i say that's that's my approach my approach is that if you're going to do it and as i always say there's still a schwannoma that you're going to say by yourself to yourself take as much time as you want that's not a problem but the beauty and the resources of shots and these things should try to move along in a way that keeps it moving keeps it flowing so that's it that's your assignment until next time is to listen to some yellow nirayam uh nigunim and see which ones speak to your nishama which one lights you up and as has meaning for you and uh jot it down hazard it over make yourself a mix and listen to it so that the nightmare move inside of you and then you can access them when you get them okay that's it for now part two of our young the ryan's fearless series if you want to find out more about this uh uh show you can go to rubyalowski.com you can leave comments you can uh leave a message let us questions uh sponsor an episode and uh that's it for now i'll see you at the next episode part three for now i'm deborah dolowski and this is the rabbi yolovsky show it's the rabbi orlowski show torah and simba [Music] knowledge and wisdom will help you grow lots of fun in every episode and we don't have to rhyme it's the rabbi orlovsky show on rabbi orlovsky.com torah anytime youtube and more it's rabbi orlowski show torah and simple show till next time till we meet again throughout my orolowski show it's the rabbi orlowski show it's the rabbi yorlovsky show