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technique. I said, “Okay, this is where I am. It’s a disaster.” I could a lot of people who work afternoons and evenings in a range of
have made a fuss or gotten annoyed or said, “Sorry, guys, we’ll professions, from builders to business owners, and a lot of people
start the show in a few minutes”, but instead I took a guitar who chose to become religious. The group has coalesced around
that was lying there on the side, I sat on the edge of the stage, a few chevrutot who start the morning with studying the daf
and I said, “Come on, guys, I’ll tell you a story until things get yomi in depth, and after that I learn on my own and also teach.
worked out.”
I’m a guy who really, really, really likes to study Gemara. Gemara
I approached it a bit like surfing, and it was actually really funny and aggadah and midrash. Since I didn’t grow up this religious,
and enjoyable in the end. I still get a lot out of studying chumash with commentaries,
studying Gemara in depth, and studying halacha. The meat and
potatoes, as they say.
Rebbe Nachman has an insight about the words “They
shall attain joy and happiness, and agony and groaning On the other hand, there’s been no time in my life when I only
shall flee” (Yishayahu 35:10). He says that when you pull studied Torah all day. Even after I was discharged from the
happiness into the circle, it’s only natural that the agony army, my day was split in two. I’d study, but I’d also go to write,
goes away. compose, and perform.
Very true. My brother Aaron has a song he wrote about that.
Was there ever a time when you’d had enough of music
and decided to go in a different direction? Shepherding?
Since you got married, you’ve spent most mornings learn-
ing Torah in kollel. What drives you to study? How has it Psychology? What brought you there, and what put an end
changed your life? to the time-out and brought you back to music?
It’s pretty much history at this point, although even now I still
Not everyone can do it, and I can’t do it all the time either,
but when my morning is dedicated to learning, it has a huge have an inclination inside that looks elsewhere.
effect on my life. It’s the most important part of the day, when I had a period of deep inner searching, and I wasn’t comfortable
everyone’s waking up and going out and starting to rush at life. with the music I’d published at the time. After many years of
By choosing instead to learn Torah, it’s a choice to go to a place lots of pressure from my career and practicing, I felt that it was
where you turn off your phone and encounter Hashem. I really time to move on. I started studying at yeshivot. I went through
appreciate the inner beauty of studying Torah, the encounter all kinds of inner searches. I worked in all sorts of jobs, like you
with infinite wisdom and infinite beauty. Besides fulfilling the said. I couldn’t go on, just staying on the train, letting it speed
most important mitzvah in the Torah, there’s something about ahead without looking out the window. I needed a different
that decision that builds up the soul the right way. direction in life.
A few years ago, I founded a kollel called Shirat HaLeviyim in Givat I always have that need to stop or make adjustments to myself.
Ze’ev with a group of adult yeshiva students. I try to be there I’m a person who makes and lives music and lives a lot of other
every day for morning studies. It’s a very interesting group, with things at the same time. My life takes me to other places – in

(PHOTO: MOSHE NACHUMOVICH)

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