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Se'u Shearim: Receiving the Torah
As we begin the holiday of Shavuot this evening, we recall the original receiving of the Torah. At festive moments such as Rosh Hashanah, the congregation receives the Torah differently, making personal gestures of respect as it is carried around the sanctuary in procession (hakafah) with great r...
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Mimkomcha – Reunification of Jerusalem
This week, we celebrate the reunification of Jerusalem, one of the miracles of our time, which allows all peoples to visit a city that is holy to many. The longing for Jerusalem that suffuses the Mimkomcha prayer has inspired art and music for generations, and we hope it inspires you to dream of ...
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The Joy of Music: Zamru
Can you think of a piece of music that brings you joy whenever you hear it or sing along to in services? The text of this psalm focuses on the joy of making music, with voices and all kinds of instruments – a delight you can see in the faces of the ensemble. This Shabbat is a time of celebration ...
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A Jewish-British Prayer in Honor of the Coronation
As all eyes are on London, we offer this setting of Yigdal in the British tradition, composed for a British synagogue by Abraham Saqui (1824–1893). We pray for every blessing on King Charles and Queen Camilla, and on the many peoples and nations around the world the King serves as head of state. ...
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Cantor Schwartz sings Ein Keloheinu to "The Banana Boat Song"
In memory of Harry Belafonte, who passed away this past week, Cantor Schwartz sings Ein Keloheinu to the tune of "The Banana Boat Song" (Day-O), which was performed live during these past Shabbat services. May his memory be for a blessing.
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Adon Olam with Middle Eastern Flair
As an exclamation point to Israel week, here is a setting of Adon Olam in a Middle Eastern style, commissioned by PAS from our Composer-in-Residence, Oran Eldor. If you think of some of your favorite Shabbat melodies, chances are that Eldor has written more than one. He and Cantor Schwartz form p...
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Cast Me Not Away (Al Tashlicheni/Yimale Fi)
These two weeks are the modern “Israeli High Holidays”, including Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron, and Yom Ha’atzmaut, and so we bring you a song from one of Israel’s most renowned composers. This song bridges Yemeni musical heritage with a Western sound world, an Eastern melody with orchestral accomp...
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A Psalm for Times of Memory: Adonai Ro’i (The Lord is my Shepherd)
We have just said the Yizkor memorial service on the eighth day of Passover, and we are preparing for Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, on April 17. Therefore, those who are no longer with us are very much on our minds during this time. We hope this psalm, with its images of green pastures ...
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Next Year in Jerusalem! (Lashana Haba’ah)
As we conclude the Passover Seder, an evocative phrase from the Haggadah captures our imaginations, a phrase that also appears at the end of Yom Kippur: “Next year, in Jerusalem.” Many might have different feelings when we think about Israel this year. Whatever your emotions are, we can always pr...
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Duet: V’hi Sh’amda
Cantor Schwartz and David Enlow recently visited our sister Conservative congregation, B'nai Torah, in Boca Raton, celebrating Jewish music with their newly installed cantor, Magda Fishman. As you prepare for Passover, we hope you enjoy this song of resilience and hope, sung as a duet for over 1,...
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Dayenu – It Would Have Been Enough
Dayenu is more than a word, it evokes an attitude of thankfulness and consideration of blessings. In this new arrangement of the jolly, familiar tune, Cantors Schwartz, Davis, and Michaeli list all the blessings that would have been enough. This Passover season, let us reflect on our blessings, n...
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When Israel Went Out of Egypt (B’tzet Yisrael)
As spring arrives in New York with just a few weeks before Pesach, let’s celebrate with this icon of the Seder that also shows up at Hallel, B’tzet Yisrael. This psalm, 114, is full of powerful images with its internal questions: Why does the sea flee? Why do the mountains skip like rams? There i...
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What Keeps Us (V’hi Sh’amda)
With Purim behind us, we transition to Passover in the coming weeks. One text from the Haggadah, V’hi Sh'amda, addresses a common thread between these two holidays – the ancient hate of the Jewish people that persists “in each generation,” including our own. This melody newly commissioned for our...
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V’ahavta L’rei-acha Kamocha (Love Your Fellow As Yourself)
It is often noted in popular culture that many faiths have a version of “v’ahavta l’rei-acha kamocha” at their foundation – “You shall love your fellow as yourself,” or as Rabbi Cosgrove once expanded, “You shall love your neighbor as they would wish to be loved.” These lyrics ask a follow-up que...
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I Am a Servant of the Holy One (Ana Avda)
Park Avenue Synagogue celebrates an expansive tapestry of Jewish music, and one thread running through it is the sophisticated Ashkenazi cantorial style. While the original idiom relies on the power of a single, unaccompanied voice for expression, this new arrangement deploys choral sound creativ...
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Broken Hearts (Shvueri Lev)
When tragedies occur in the world, we say it is “heartbreaking;” we feel something in our very center. Those feelings find expression in music and prayer, as in this song by the young Israeli singer-songwriter Hanan Ben Ari, which we presented at Kol Nidrei services this year in a new English-lan...
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"As It Was" (Harry Styles) – A Grammy-Winner in a Synagogue
When we created this special version of a hit song, we didn’t realize it would be performed at the Grammy awards the next day, let alone from Album of the Year! Observing Tu BiShvat, a holiday in honor of the trees, we decided the Eitz Chayim, “Tree of Life,” text would go best with this energeti...
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Shabbat Shira: A Shabbat of Song
Every Shabbat is marked by music, but on Shabbat Shira we read the story of splitting the Red Sea and the special song that accompanied this event. In this tune, V’Shamru, we affirm and renew our tradition of sanctifying the Shabbat with singing. Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom and a “Shabbat of Son...
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The Best-Known Jewish Lullaby: Rozhinkes mit Mandlen
Songs that were sung to us as children, and those that we in turn sing to little ones, are written on our hearts. This Yiddish lullaby, “Raisins and Almonds,” was written in 1880 for the Yiddish-language theater in Eastern Europe, and was revisited by Cantor Schwartz at our concert of Yiddish mus...
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Maurice Ravel’s Deux Mélodies Hébraïques: Kaddisch (1914)
As International Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches, imagine the world in 1914, a generation before the Shoah: The state of affairs that had persisted in Europe and the Mediterranean since the Congress of Vienna is about to be violently undone, and all of Europe, including European Jewry, is ab...
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Live From Israel: Exodus and MLK Weekend
“In every generation, one must look on oneself as though one had personally come out of Egypt.” Mishnah Pesachim 10:5
This week, we begin the Book of Exodus the same weekend we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This is a unique opportunity to remind ourselves of our personal and spiritual respo...
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Cantor Schwartz Sings Y'simcha
In this week’s parashah, we read of some of the most famous parental blessings ever given. Here, Cantor Schwartz blesses two of his own children, and sings a newly-commissioned setting of Y’simcha. Whether you are a parent, child, or other member of the community, we know you can appreciate this ...
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Be the Light at Carnegie Hall!
When people of faith build bridges across communities, the most wonderful things can happen, like when Cantor Schwartz and Reverend Ian Johnson take the stage together and exhort the audience to shine their light to the world. In return, the audience responds with joy, knowing that the state of h...
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What’s it Like to be a Latke?
Through the whimsical imagination of childhood, think what it must be like to be a latke, one of the foods made with oil that attend the Festival of Lights. At our Debbie Friedman tribute concert this past summer, Cantor Schwartz and his daughters, “the two most precious latkes in the room,” sang...