Soundtrack Of A Generation: The Countdown (Part 5)

By: Ben Levi

As we enter the upper reaches of our countdown, a certain accusation has begun making the rounds. Apparently, some of you believe I’m simply ranking my favorite songs. I would like to respond to that allegation formally and unequivocally: I wish. Because if this were simply a list of my favorite Jewish songs from the last 25 years, it would look very different.

A quick reminder of what we’re actually measuring. From the beginning, the standard has been staying power. How widely a song is sung, whether it crossed communities and settings, how instantly recognizable it became, and ultimately whether it transcended being merely a great song and became part of the Jewish musical landscape. Which means personal taste has to take a back seat.

And I can prove it. Because if we were ranking purely on what I love most, Ishay Ribo’s “Seder HaAvodah” might very well be sitting at #1. Not #10. Not somewhere in the Top 5. #1. In fact, if we’re talking strictly about my personal favorites, it probably sits at or very near the top of my all-time Jewish music list.

I think “Seder HaAvodah” is a masterpiece. Ribo took the ancient description of the Yom Kippur Avodah, material that did not exactly scream “future musical epic” and turned it into something breathtaking. The composition is intricate, constantly evolving, almost cinematic. It doesn’t really have the kind of chorus that 300 people at a kumzits can grab onto after thirty seconds. In fact, I’m not entirely sure 300 people at a kumzits could agree on what part of the song they’re currently up to.

That’s part of its brilliance. “Seder HaAvodah” isn’t really meant to be sung along with; it’s meant to be experienced. Ribo takes you through the majesty, tension, awe, and longing of the Yom Kippur service in the Beis Hamikdash, building layer upon layer until the entire composition feels less like a song and more like a musical journey. It is Ishay Ribo at his absolute best: brilliant composition, extraordinary storytelling, deep Torah content, and the almost unfair ability to make something ancient feel completely immediate. I love that song. Possibly an unreasonable amount.

And not far behind it on my personal list is another Ishay Ribo masterpiece, this time alongside Motti Steinmetz: “Nafshi,” a song that has almost everything I personally want in a Jewish song. Ribo’s understated brilliance. A gorgeous melody. Extraordinary harmony. And, of course, Steinmetz’s spectacular range, which has produced countless courageous renditions of “Nafshi” during Kedushah, and an approximately equal number of congregations silently rooting for the chazzan to find his way back down.

I love “Nafshi.” I have listened to it an embarrassing number of times. If this were my personal ranking, “Seder HaAvodah” and “Nafshi” would be unquestionably somewhere in the Top 3, and there’s a very real possibility they’d be sitting at #1 and #2. Yet, neither made the list. Not because they aren’t extraordinary songs. They are. But extraordinary and iconic aren’t necessarily the same thing. The question isn’t simply which songs I love most. It’s which songs became a fundamental part of the musical fabric of Orthodox Jewish life over the past quarter-century. That’s a much tougher standard. And occasionally, an extremely painful one.

So, to those accusing me of simply choosing my favorites, I respectfully submit Exhibits A and B. The defense rests.

#4 “Hashem Melech” (2013) – Gad Elbaz. If you attended a Jewish wedding, camp, concert, school function, or fundraising event, you already know “Hashem Melech.” Actually, even if you somehow avoided all of those things, you probably still know it. Because for a while there, “Hashem Melech” was everywhere.

Released by Gad Elbaz in 2013, the original “Hashem Melech” didn’t gradually work its way into the Jewish music landscape. It took it over. And Gad Elbaz was hardly a newcomer. He’d been performing since childhood alongside his father (Israeli singing star Beni Elbaz) before developing into a major artist in his own right. In fact, Beni joined his son on the original recording, meaning that one of the biggest Jewish hits of the decade was, technically, a Gad-and-Dad production.

I’m sorry. There was simply no responsible way to leave that unused.

By 2013, the younger Elbaz already had the voice, charisma, stage presence, and experience to take a song with enormous potential and turn it into something much bigger. And boy, did he.

The words themselves could hardly be more fundamental: Hashem Melech, Hashem Malach, Hashem Yimloch l’olam va’ed. Ancient words. A decidedly modern explosion.

Now, some of our Algerian Jewish readers may have experienced a strange sense of déjà vu the first time they heard it. The melody had, shall we say, enjoyed a previous life in Algerian popular music, with somewhat different lyrics. But once Gad Elbaz got hold of it, the Jewish world claimed it. Immediately. And enthusiastically. Very enthusiastically.

Within seemingly no time, “Hashem Melech” had become the default soundtrack to Jewish happiness. Weddings, camps, concerts, school events, community celebrations and perhaps most impressively, the background music to what seemed like every camp weekly recap and school open-house video produced in 2014.

You know the video. Aerial shot of the campus. Kids high-fiving in the hallway. A rebbe leaning over a Gemara with three suspiciously attentive eighth graders. Science experiment. Basketball. Someone pointing enthusiastically at a Smartboard. And underneath it all: “Hashem Melech.”

Meanwhile, up in the mountains, the camps were doing essentially the same thing. Color War. A kid hitting a three-pointer. Someone getting whipped cream in the face. Thirty-seven boys jumping simultaneously into a pool. “Hashem Melech.”

For a brief period, I’m fairly certain you were not legally permitted to educate Jewish children or send them to camp without eventually setting a montage of them to this song. That’s how completely “Hashem Melech” penetrated Orthodox Jewish culture. And the remarkable thing is how little explanation it required. You heard it once, you knew it. You heard it twice and you were singing it. By the third time, there was a decent chance you were appearing in somebody’s open-house video.

Then, in 2016, came the sequel: “Hashem Melech 2.0.” Elbaz teamed up with Nissim Black, one of the most fascinating emerging voices in Jewish music, and gave the phenomenon a hip-hop second act. But by then, the original had already conquered the Jewish world. And that’s precisely the point. You don’t make “Hashem Melech 2.0” unless the original had already become a phenomenon. And by the middle of the 2010s, Hashem Melech had moved beyond being simply a Gad Elbaz hit to belonging to everyone.

There are more sophisticated songs in this countdown. There are more emotional songs. There are certainly songs that caused considerably less wear and tear on Jewish institutional video-editing software. But very few songs of the past 25 years took over Jewish life as quickly and as completely across so many different settings as “Hashem Melech.”

That’s why Hashem Melech comes in at #4.

#3 “Rachem” (2001) – Yaakov Shwekey. For our Gen Z readers, I’m going to ask you to imagine something that may be difficult to comprehend: there was once a time when everybody seemed to be listening to the same Jewish song. Not trending in your feed. Not big within a particular playlist, school, yeshiva, or corner of the internet. Everybody.

In 2001, a young Yaakov Shwekey released his debut album, “Shomati.” It was an extraordinary opening statement from a singer who would go on to become one of the dominant voices in Jewish music for the next 25 years. And sitting right in the middle of that first album was its breakout hit: “Rachem.” 

The story of how “Rachem” came to be makes what followed even better. Before Shwekey had released an album, before he filled arenas, and before “Shwekey” required no further identification, Pinky Weber happened to hear the young singer at a Brooklyn wedding. Pinky was there as the badchan for the mitzvah tantzbut had arrived early. Shwekey got up and sang MBD’s classic “Racheim Bechasdecha,” and Pinky immediately heard something special. He approached Shwekey afterward and offered to compose a song for him. Shwekey told him to wait until he got married. Pinky waited. About a year later, producer Yochi Briskman called and told him that he was working with a new singer whose identity was still being kept under wraps. Pinky immediately guessed it was Yaakov Shwekey—and he was right. And in a coincidence almost too perfect for this article, the young singer Pinky first noticed while listening to a song called “Racheim” that a new song called “Rachem” would be the introductory song for a new singer that he himself would compose. 

Apparently, Pinky Weber’s scouting department was operating at a very high level. And what happened next validated the scouting report rather emphatically.

“Rachem” didn’t merely become popular. It pervaded the Jewish music scene. Weddings, dinners, concerts, kumzitsen, camps, car stereos, Jewish radio. Anywhere Orthodox Jews gathered, “Rachem” seemed to have arrived five minutes before. For those who weren’t around, it’s difficult to explain just how omnipresent one Jewish song could become in the pre-streaming era. Today, we all live in our own musical ecosystems. Your Spotify knows what you like. YouTube knows what you like. Your children know what they like and have generally concluded that what you like is irrelevant.

Back then, Jewish music didn’t work that way. A huge song was a huge song. And “Rachem” was enormous. You didn’t have to seek it out. It found you—again and again. And if you want a wonderful snapshot of just how quickly “Rachem” established itself, look no further than Miami Boys Choir’s 25th anniversary concert in 2002. Shwekey performed the song that night with a young Miami soloist named Mordechai Shapiro. Yes, that Mordechai Shapiro.

In 2003, just two years after “Rachem” was released, Suki & Ding put out an entire album called “I’m so sick of Racheim,” with the title track expressing a sentiment that, by that point, apparently required very little explanation. Think about it. Shwekey releases his first album in 2001. Two years later, the biggest song on it has been played so relentlessly that someone goes into a recording studio, produces an entirely new song, and essentially begs the Jewish music industry to please play something else. That isn’t a backlash; that’s an achievement.

This was Yaakov Shwekey’s first album and he would go on to build one of the great careers in modern Jewish music, filling arenas, producing hit after hit, and becoming one of the defining Jewish voices of his generation. But before all of that, there was “Rachem,” a song so successful we got sick of it. A song so enduring we eventually realized we loved it after all. And a song that, 25 years later, is still here. If that doesn’t meet the definition of iconic, I’m not sure what does.

That’s why “Rachem” comes in at #3.

And with that, we are down to two. Next week, the countdown concludes with #2 and #1. By now, many of you have already decided what those songs absolutely have to be. Others are still lobbying hard for their favorites. And judging from the conversations this series has generated, Jewish music clearly remains one of those subjects on which nobody is short on opinions. Which has been half the fun.

So next week, after all the debating, predicting, defending, and second-guessing, we finally get to the top two songs. Can’t wait.