“There’s a long road ahead, and a lot to leave behind.”
I’ve been spending a lot of time in one of God’s newly renovated sacred spaces, that is BAI’s backyard, our Ya’ar. It’s a remarkable transformation of a mostly unseen and unused space (or as many of our students say, “Oh, you mean the place we’ve been playing in for years?”).
But once you walk down into the bottom area, you will find yourself somewhere else entirely. What’s amazing is how close it is to our parking lot and Sanctuary and yet how far away those places seem once you get down in the woods.
To celebrate 5783 I’ve stitched together a new prayer/song and made it into a musical triptych that I am excited to share with you!
You can hear it HERE (read on to learn how the song was created)
Many years ago I heard a chant in Hebrew: Ahava (Love) Rachamim (Compassion) Hessed (Lovingkindness) and Shalom (Peace). I sang it for years before I discovered that those words appear at the closing of the morning blessings.
I was then introduced to the song, “Why, why worry when we can pray”, an old spiritual that invites us to not worry, when we can pray, love, sing, breathe, be.
Finally I fell in love with an old Delaney and Bonnie song called, “Long Road”. Over many weeks and months and years I played around with these tunes and discovered that they worked really well together.
Last spring I took this idea to Nashville, TN and met up with Matt Kass and Jake Ohlbaum. two amazing, seasoned musicians, who are also longtime students and dear friends (and members of long-time BAI families!) The three of us played around with the tune, gave it some more color and texture and after three intense and exuberant days, we got it down.
I then took the recording back to Philly and enlisted the magical voices of Olivia and Caroline Freiwald, Molly Hicks, and Marni Loffman to add harmony and vocal improvisations throughout, sent it back to Jake who put it all together! While not a “High Holiday” melody per se, it is the new year and the new year deserves some new music.
You can hear it HERE
Wishing you all a beautiful, meaningful, back to nature-filled new year!
-Hazzan Harold
