Ishay Ribo starts off his concert with “Ochila” which includes the words “Hashem sifatay tiftach” (“Hashem, open my lips…”) – a song based on a tefillah that we say, in shortened version, before every Shemoneh Esrei, and in its longer version on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Which is fitting, because Ribo doesn’t so much sing his songs as much as he prays them. When he’s not playing a guitar, he stands shuckling and swaying, his left hand holding the mic and his right hand pumping and grooving in supplications.
The event was a watershed and spectacular one held last Sunday, Sept. 3, at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, as a pre Rosh Hashana hitorerut for his many fans in America (some 15,000 people came to MSG to watch).
(The concert came about thanks to a collaboration between Bnei Akiva of the U.S. and Canada and aided by Or Davidson Artists Management’s dedicated team.)
Ishay Ribo is the enormously popular Israeli singer and songwriter, whose phenomenal mainstream success in that country by a dati performer has few if any precedents in modern history.
His music represents a departure from most frum Jewish music written in the last 100 years, which centers lyrics, almost entirely unaltered, from Tanach and other classic Jewish sources, set to “Jewish music,” and even that music is often borrowed – from secular pop music. It is true that many artists over the decades have written their own lyrics and/or music, but for the most part this generalization holds true.
Yes, Ribo too has songs, like the above mentioned “Ochila” as well as “Nafshi Chamda” based on existing words (the latter’s are based on the Shabbos and Yom Tov tefillah “Anim Zemirot”), but most are written by Ribo (like the dramatic HaLev Sheli, a plea to G-d to end the mourning and “clear the sand and soften everything for me.”)
At the concert, prayer came also in the form of shofar blowing, which preceded the performance of Ribo’s “Tocho Ratzuf Ahava” (He is Filled with Love” – you need not have to guess who “He” is), the title track of his debut album in 2014.
The prayers were for Eretz Yisrael (as in his song “Lashuv HaBayta” (“Come Home”)) and salvation (“Teikef Yiftach” (“Soon the Heart Will Open”)).
And the prayers were for achdut. Several collaborators joined him during some of the songs: the American Lubavitch superstar Avraham Fried, the Israeli religious Akiva Tugerman (who goes by just “Akiva”), and the Israeli secular singer Amir Dadon, with whom he sang “Bein Kodesh l’Chol” (“Between the Holy and the Secular”) – not a Ribo original.
His audience also reflected this achdut: Two rows in front of me a couple of chassidic men in their twenties swayed and sang along, while to my right a man with a bun and no yarmulke on his head and wearing a T-shirt that says “Don’t be anyone else, be yourself” stood with his arms raised. (I don’t mean to misrepresent the picture. While there many dozens of Chassidim at the MSG concert, there were a handful of men without yarmulkes. I’m told the ratio is far more balanced at Ribo’s concerts in Israel. And his songs are regularly played on mainstream pop radio stations there.)
All prayers were to G-d, as in the raucous Sibat HaSibot (“The Cause of all causes”), which he performed in the second half and brought the entire audience to their feet, where they remained until the finale.
That finale – the showstopper – was Ribo’s exquisite “Seder HaAvodah,” which is hard to explain and must be experienced (luckily there’s a YouTube video that has been viewed almost 10 million times).
The song features some scenes and words from what is traditionally viewed as the highlight of the Yom Kippur Mussaf prayers – the recounting of the Service in the Beit HaMikdash by the kohen gadol. In most shuls on Yom Kippur, these words are not particularly emphasized. But in the hands of Ishay Ribo, who interweaves his own profound words with the traditional ones amidst stirring music, the product is truly a means to lose yourself and connect to Heaven. (Trust me, you have to listen.)
By the end, with some 15,000 Jews all screaming “Baruch shem kevod malchuto l’olam va”ed” (“Blessed is the name of His glorious kingdom forever”), one knew this was the place to be, as MSG became the ideal house of worship, and congregants, many arm in arm, davened in concert with the ideal shliach tzibur, hearts a little less torn in two.
