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my relationships, in my studies and in my actions. I’m not a
person who’s focused on his career. Maybe it’s something of a
fault, but that’s not always my top priority, and there are ups
and downs inside me, too. (PHOTO: YITZCHAK HERTZ)
I mean, there are periods when I’m really into recordings and
intense musical activity, and there are periods when I take a step
away. I need to be more grounded. When I was in basic training,
I really enjoyed doing physical things, sweating. Those are other
parts of me that I have inside.

We know you mainly through the way you’ve put verses
and other people’s words to music, not so much through
personal words of your own. Do you have a pile of songs
waiting to get out of the drawer that we’ve got to know
about?
I actually do have a few songs I wrote – whether it’s Ki MiTziyon
Tetze Ahava, or Sach HaKol, and now I have songs called Mehager
and Simu Lev El HaNeshama – but it’s true that I don’t really feel
that I’m someone who expresses himself through music. I feel
that I’m someone who works with music as wisdom, as beauty,
as aesthetic.

I don’t see music so much as a tool for expressing myself. It’s
more that I use it and see it as something with beauty and
wisdom to enjoy. I’m not here to tell you my life story. I’m here to
share the beauty of music with you, to arouse emotion, longing.
I’ve had a few conversations with people who said, “Look, where
are you hiding yourself in your songs? We can’t find you there.”
I told them, “I’m not a newspaper or diary. My private life isn’t
the subject of my songs. I’m not a notice board.”

There’s something about the popular music we grew up with.
The art is actually a window into the soul of the person who
created it. What he’s been through. Sometimes it can even be
highlighted in yellow – “I got divorced, I fell in love.” But my
natural inclination is to use art as a kind of parable, containing
something a bit more hidden. You don’t need to get personal
to stir up emotion. This approach stands out more in classical
music, like Mozart, or Beethoven and Bach, and without com-
paring them, the melodies created by the Chassidic greats. Their
songs obviously came from inside them and where they were
spiritually at the time, but they didn’t reveal their emotional
world. When the Alter Rebbe composed a melody, it’s true that
he breathed himself into that melody, but he’s not there to tell
me exactly what he was experiencing at the moment he wrote
the song.

In recent years, you’ve participated in the Tzama project,
with unforgettable performances of old Chabad tunes.
You’ve also participated in huge Tzama concerts at Binyanei
HaUmah in Yerushalayim.
It’s hard to overstate the effects of Tzama and the hugely
broad-based movement that’s come out of it – the concerts and
albums and the multi-day Chassidut fair. It’s something very,
very important and powerful in a lot of ways, with a lot of
repercussions. It’s clear that these aren’t concerts where you
come for an hour of fun and then you go home. When I look at

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