Ha'azinu set to music

Besides Rabbi Berel Wein's divrei Torah, we can also share with you Max Stern's Ha'azinu. This piece lasts around half an hour and Max -- a leading Israeli classical composer and a long-standing member of Beit Knesset Hanassi -- is playing the double bass in it. 

The link is on YouTube is here.

Mizmor LeDavid -- a psalm of thanksgiving

It has been a hard year for us all -- but we all respond to the problems and pressures of the moment in different ways. Our esteemed member Max Stern, a leading light among modern Israeli composers, has responded creatively. He writes:

“In these troubled times I managed to record this song that David wrote when he brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem (with almost the original instruments).

 וַיֹּאמֶר דָּוִיד, לְשָׂרֵי הַלְוִיִּם, לְהַעֲמִיד אֶת-אֲחֵיהֶם הַמְשֹׁרְרִים, בִּכְלֵי-שִׁיר נְבָלִים וְכִנֹּרוֹת וּמְצִלְתָּיִם--מַשְׁמִיעִים לְהָרִים-בְּקוֹל, לְשִׂמְחָה

May it bring us a blessing in our days as well.”

We asked Max what inspired him and where his idea came from. He told us this:

"I got the idea to set this to music from reading this commentary:

This Song of Thanksgiving was written by King David for Asaph and his brother Levites following the celebrations in bringing the Holy Ark to Jerusalem (1 Chr. 15). It was sung in the Tabernacle which David erected as accompaniment to the daily sacrifices: the first 15 verses (1 Chr. 16:1-15) during the tamid-offering in the morning service, and the last 14 verses (1Chr. 16:23-36) during the mincha-tamid-offering in the afternoon. It continued to be sung for 43 years until Solomon inaugurated the Temple. They were later incorporated into liturgy, as pesukei d’zimra (verses of praise) in the daily morning service of the synagogue.

I then read the passage from 1 Chronicles which gives the instruments he used:

16 And David spoke to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren the singers, with instruments of music, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding aloud and lifting up the voice with joy.

Because I didn't have a Levitical choir or harps to work with I substituted them with local singers and piano. But this could be done with many harps & trumpets and a 2-part choir as well. Maybe someday..."

You can enjoy Max’s song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNL9tAfO4iQ