A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. Mishlei 25:11

Transcription

1 A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. Mishlei 25:11 The lyrics of songs are usually secondary to their melodies, subordinate to the vocals and instrumentations that accompany them. But even the most prosaic of words, when they flow with a cadence independent of melody, can be imbued with an aesthetic value that jolts a person to the upper realms. So when the renowned songwriter and composer Abie Rotenberg recently released a novel about a boy named Pepsi Meyers, who is forced to choose between the Jewish faith and baseball fame, those familiar with Abie s music were confident that his prose would be equally irresistible. And he did not disappoint. Abie s book, The Season of Pepsi Meyers, is set 25 years in the future, but other than the diminished standing of the New York Yankees, things don t seem to have changed that much. Human nature is pretty much immutable, so there s a lot to learn from times that are yet to unfold. In the not-so-distant future, unaffiliated Jews from Upstate New York, like Pepsi s parents, are still discovering Yiddishkeit late in life, and their decision to embrace the faith of their forefathers impacts the lives of their children in various complicated ways. Their future struggles, as well as the ebb and flow of Abie Rotenberg s writing, lift the reader out of his monotonous existence like a gentle tune. THERE TO EVERYTHING BY YITZCHOK REINMAN A CONVERSATION WITH THE RENOWNED SONGWRITER AND AUTHOR ABIE ROTENBERG

2 IS A SEASON

3 A TIME TO GO PUBLIC Abie Rotenberg, who lives with his family in Toronto, Canada, has been making music since the mid- 1970s. He s also performed in the annual A Time for Music HASC concerts in New York for many years. Other than those venues, he shies away from publicity. Yet when the Jews in Jerusalem seek consolation after terror attacks, the public routinely turns to Abie Rotenberg s songs. When I speak to Abie today, my first question to him is why he chose to abandon music and turn to the written word, although I m not sure that s a good way to frame it. That s actually a very good question, he replies. There s even an addendum to the question. I produced all those albums over the years but I never really promoted myself. I m very shy by nature. My attitude was that whatever happens, happens. I didn t push my music and CDs but they moved anyway. Recently, though, I ve been trying to get the word out about my book. My wife asked me what changed. I ve been thinking about that, so let me share my thoughts. 112 AMI MAGAZINE // APRIL 20, 2016 // 12 NISAN 5776

4 I think what happened is that this book is really a synthesis of my four Journeys albums. It contains a lot of hashkafah that is really an expression, in fictional form, of a body of work that has taken me 30 years to put together. That s why I feel very close to it. I also had to learn how to self-publish after trying unsuccessfully to get publishing houses interested. When I reached out to literary agents I discovered that it s impossible because so little is being read these days, although baruch Hashem we have Shabbos, and I m hoping that people will read it. Feldheim is distributing the books to the Judaica shops for me, so that s great. All in all, I m very excited. I ask how long it took him to write the book. You re not going to believe this, but the whole thing came to me in a flash when

5 IT S NOT HOW HOT A SONG IS WHEN IT COMES OUT OF THE OVEN, IT S HOW LONG IT STAYS WARM. A NIGGUN CAN STICK AROUND FOR GENERATIONS. I was walking to shul one day in the summer. It just popped into my head, a plot about a kid who doesn t know anything about Yiddishkeit other than the fact that he s Jewish, and he becomes a major league ballplayer. I realized right away that he would be an only child who moves to New York with his parents for the summer from out of town. Because they re going to have to stay somewhere not too far from the stadium, they re going to end up renting a house in Riverdale right next door to a dynamic rabbi who s got an outreach center, and he and his family are going to learn a lot about Yiddishkeit by the end of the summer. It was all formulated in my head by the time I got to shul. That sound like the makings of a novella, I think aloud. I originally thought it would be a short story, he concurs. But once I actually started writing it kept on growing, page after page after page. Then I decided to set it in the future, so that increased the length because I had to change the way the game is played. I added a lot more automation and technology to make it harder for the protagonist to play on Shabbos, because as it stands now playing baseball might not be technically chillul Shabbos, even though it s not in right spirit. In the future, though, when everything will be electronic with sensors and cameras, you re talking about major transgressions. After I had the outline, I spent the next year or so fleshing it out. I had so much fun writing this book. It really enjoyed describing the nail-biting games where everything comes down to the last pitch or someone making a great play. Is this is the first time you ve fiddled with story writing, so to speak? Not really. I d written other scripts, like The Marvelous Middos Machine and The Golden Crown. Those albums weren t just collections of children s songs but had a plot, so I didn t find this book that difficult to write. I had a good editor who helped me with the grammar and syntax, things like that. Why did you insist on setting it in the future? I had a couple of reasons. One was that if I made it in the past, I would have had to create a fictional baseball world that already happened or have my protagonist play with Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Reggie Jackson, and to me that seemed very cumbersome. The second reason was that I wanted a future where the Yankees were a lousy team, one of the worst in the league. I wanted him to be their savior, yet despite the fact that he comes in and turns them around and brings them to the championship, he still walks away from the game. What s the feedback been like? 114 AMI MAGAZINE // APRIL 20, 2016 // 12 NISAN 5776

6 Tremendous. A rebbe in Far Rockaway went out and bought ten copies to give to his students. My son walked into a bank and saw the book sitting on the bank manager s desk; he hadn t even known the guy was Jewish. He told my son that someone from the community had given it to him as a gift, figuring that it was a good way to find out about Yiddishkeit. That s my dream, that people will buy it as a present for those who are unaffiliated. That s my ultimate goal, to reach Jason and Justine. But the kids in Lakewood or Boro Park will learn from it too because it presents the fundamentals of our emunah in novel form. A TIME FOR PLAIN TALK For decades you inspired people through your words and music; now it s exclusively through words. I d be surprised to hear that you don t miss the musical dimension. This is just as gratifying, he insists. You know my song The Place Where I Belong? I wrote that in It s on the first Journeys album. I ve gotten at least three or four letters from people telling me that that song made them frum or was instrumental in their journey to embrace Yiddishkeit. Of course, it s very gratifying for me to hear that. But was it the words that inspired them or the combination of the words and the music? I d say primarily the words. The music certainly helps. It creates emotion and tugs at the heart. But it s the words people relate to on a conscious level. So you hope that a story will do the same? Yes. There might not be any music, but because it s a story about a young teenager who evaluates his life from a new perspective and realizes that fame and fortune aren t everything in life, it can make a big impact on a kid. It can motivate him to visit a Torah website or apply himself more in Sunday school and learn more about Yiddishkeit. I mean, my gosh! If someone reads this book and is inspired it would be music to my ears. Is writing fiction a new journey for you, and should we expect more novels from you in the future? That s a tough one. I don t know. It would have to be something different. I think this story is done. I don t think I d do a sequel. You have a lot of fans who want to know what makes you tick. I m not the typical musical person. Part of it is that it was never my fulltime job or sole source of income. Most of the well-known names made music their profession. I m a businessperson, and my roots are actually in chinuch. So I think I ve always looked at my music as an extension of trying to inspire and educate. In the beginning I took the approach of peirush hamilos, incorporating a certain interpretation into the words of Torah or davening. Then I took it a step further and also wrote lyrics to convey thoughtprovoking ideas. For example, the song Conversation in the Womb is based on a parable from Gesher Hachaim about unborn babies who think their mother s womb is the entire universe until after they re born, when they realize there s whole other world. The nimshal, of course, is this world and the world to come. Now I m trying to accomplish the same thing without music and reach people outside the community. How many books do we

7 THE BOOK IS REALLY AN EXPRESSION, IN FICTIONAL FORM, OF A BODY OF WORK THAT HAS TAKEN ME 30 YEARS TO PUT TOGETHER. have in our arsenal that can go beyond our community? Not many. But maybe this one will. Should we expect more Hamalach Hagoel s from you? Im yirtzeh Hashem. I have a lot of niggunim. It doesn t look like I m going to produce them myself, but I d be happy to pass them on to other artists. So hopefully people will hear more niggunim from me going forward. INFLUENCES Let s talk for a moment about the influences that shaped you. To me, your music seems a bit reminiscent of Carlebach. Let me tell you something. No matter what an artist says, his music is going to reflect what he heard when he was younger. No one is truly original. There may be changes and modifications but basically what goes in comes out. It s simply impossible to be entirely innovative or different. I grew up in Queens, listening to Shlomo Carlebach and Simon and Garfunkel. I also liked the music of Rabbi Baruch Chait, Yigal Calik and Pirchei records. My father, who was from Europe, introduced chasidic music into my life, like Ben Zion Shenker s Modzhitzer records. Those were the sounds I imbibed as a child. I met Reb Ben Zion Shenker not too long ago. Baruch Hashem, he s still going strong. I m an avid fan of Ami and I read that article. In fact, I m still using a line from that interview because people always ask me which of my songs is my favorite. He had such a great rejoinder: Would you ask me which one of my children I love the most? You can t ask me a question like that. Like him, you sing as well as compose music. Yes, but I m a reluctant singer. But not a reluctant composer! Not at all. I started composing niggunim as a teenager and did that exclusively for probably 15 years. Then in my 30s I started to write lyrics in English. I was very creative during that period. I started working on the Journeys albums in 1984 and made four of them over the next 20 years. I still write niggunim but I haven t really written too many English songs in the last decade or so; things have been pretty dry in that area. But who knows? Maybe it s because I was working on the book and various other creative pursuits. You did the Dveykus albums? Yes, and a series of albums called Lev V nefesh and another one called Aish. But my best work was probably in the realm of children s educational material, teaching kids about middos. I thought the Marvelous Middos Machine was Oorah s. Oorah took the soundtrack and then did a video presentation with puppets. But those are my soundtracks and my songs. And your voice? I play one of the characters. This is my voice on the Marvelous Middos Machine. [He does the voice.] Reb Shmuel Klein of Torah Umesorah is Dr. Middos. He s a very talented fellow. I had the pleasure of working with him on those albums. I also worked with Moshe Yess. Those albums are timeless, some of the accomplishments I m most proud of. A lot people who grew up with that stuff are very excited to introduce their kids to it. Believe it or not, those CDs are still selling. Nowadays, when everything can be easily uploaded to You- Tube, albums don t sell. Whoever comes out with albums is usually involved in the music industry as his parnasah, doing weddings and concerts. The albums are really just part of their advertising budget. 116 AMI MAGAZINE // APRIL 20, 2016 // 12 NISAN 5776

8 ETERNAL APPEAL Sales aside, have musical tastes changed over the years? I ask him. Absolutely. And they will continue to change. Including your style? Your music, which is soft and melancholic, seems to have eternal appeal. I wouldn t use the term melancholic to describe it. It s more like kumzitz or shalosh seudos music. It aims to be inspirational and uplifting. True, most of my music is slow. I d say that 95% of my melodies that became popular are slower songs or mid-tempo at best, although a couple of fast ones also caught on. Shlomo was able to compose both. He wrote niggunim you could dance to for hours and niggunim that could make you break down and cry. I m better with the slower, softer music and not as good with rousing, lebedike songs. When I get in my car and feel like listening to music, I usually choose something with a strong rhythm to put me in a more uplifted mood. Personally, I skip the slow songs. Digital music has made it so much easier to do that, he allows. Remember the olden days with cassettes, when you had to fast-forward and hope to find the right spot? Today, you just push a button or put your songs on your ipod one after the other. These are wonderful inventions for people who take their music seriously. In one of my Journeys albums there s a song called Yes, We ve Got the Music, at the end of which I present my hashkafah: The sweet sounds of Lecha Dodi, sung in perfect harmony, zemiros on a Friday night, a kumzitz in the candlelight. But one thing we must keep in mind, a Jewish song of any kind, is only precious if and when, it brings us closer to Hashem. In my opinion, music that brings us nearer to Hashem is Jewish music. If it doesn t do that, then it s not Jewish music. Isn t all music spiritual, even if it s not religious per se? Absolutely. There s a kasha on the Megillah. Achashveirosh had everything at his seudah to entice the Jews and pull them away from Hashem except for music. Why not? One of the meforshim explains that music is spiritual by nature. Achashveirosh was trying to de-spiritualize the Jews, so even if it was Persian music, it was still spiritual. There is music, however, that s intended to pull you away from spirituality. But in general there can be something spiritual even in a rock and roll beat. Music is very evocative. It can bring back powerful memories. Certainly. It can have almost a physical effect on a person. I remember when rap music first came out, rhyme after rhyme with very little melody, coming out of a boom box. It talks about things going on in the ghetto and it s filled with profanity. I always thought it was garbage until someone played a song for me about the Shoah in that style. The song was all about mothers and children going to the gas chambers

9 and it hit me right between the eyes. I was shaking. It really is an art form! I guess I just couldn t relate to it because of the language and the usual subject matter. But there s something there, even if you can t dance to it at a chasunah. Are you saying that the message is more important than the form in which it s expressed? It s a combination of everything. Young people today aren t going to be moved by the same things that moved our parents. When I was growing up in Kew Gardens, Paysach Krohn, who was very dynamic even as a teenager, was our Pirchei leader. He was so devoted that he would schlep us to learn and take us on trips. One time he went to Israel and came back with a little cassette recorder. Listen to this! he said. He d gone into a Sefardi shul and taped their davening. It was the first time we ever heard stuff like that. We never knew any Sefardim. To us, their music sounded like it was from outer space. Today it s everywhere. Nowadays musicians are much more flexible. A contemporary Ashkenazi musician will sing Sefardi songs just as Yaakov Shwekey sings Ashkenazi songs. Things are much more interchangeable. KIDS WILL BE KIDS Do you think that your musical style is still relevant to our youth? Yes. In my music, and certainly in Shlomo s and Baruch Chait s, there s an element of peirush hamilos. I believe that if a song has that dimension, it has a much greater chance of continuing to live on. These are words you re familiar with from the siddur and elsewhere that come alive when they re expressed to music. In my opinion, those are the kinds of songs that hang around and have a longer shelf life. I remember telling Baruch Levine, It s not how hot a song is when it comes out of the oven, it s how long it stays warm. A niggun can stick around for generations. I had tears in my eyes when those three boys were missing and klal Yisrael was davening for them. Everyone had gathered by the Kosel when all of a sudden the olam started singing Acheinu, which I wrote. It was an indescribable feeling. Whenever I speak to composers they tell me the same thing. There s nothing more rewarding than hearing people sing your compositions. Well, Acheinu has certainly remained warm. How old is it? I always say that just as a person needs mazal, so too does a song. This song came out in the early 90s, a week or two before the start of the Persian Gulf War. Saddam was shooting Scuds into Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak and all of a sudden Acheinu Kol Beis Yisrael came upon the scene. Everyone started singing it and it became very popular. While I think the song had a good chance on its own because it s good, the timing could not have been better. There s another song that s still warm, I tell him, Neshamale, which you sang with Mordechai Ben David at a HASC concert. People ask me to sing it whenever I perform. I ve gotten so many letters from people who nebach lost a loved one and were comforted by it. It has a powerful message. The song talks about how the neshamah comes from shamayim and goes back to 118 AMI MAGAZINE // APRIL 20, 2016 // 12 NISAN 5776

10 I BELIEVE THAT IF A SONG HAS THAT DIMENSION, IT HAS A MUCH GREATER CHANCE OF CONTINUING TO LIVE ON. shamayim. It s the journey of life in a single song. Which other songs would you say also convey powerful messages? The most well-known would be Acheinu and Hamalach, the lullaby that s sung by kinderlach all over the world. Then from the Dveykus albums I d say Veliyerushalayim, Haben Yakir Li and Lakol Zeman Va eis. A lot of performers have sung your songs. Mordechai did Neshamele. He sang on Lev V nefesh. We ve sung together at concerts but haven t worked much together. Yaakov Shwekey sang Mama Rachel on Journeys 4. It s based on a story that is told about Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz, who was once overheard crying at the kever of Rachel Imeinu and saying, Mama, vayn nochamol. Please cry for us again. Leibel Sharfman, who has a truly wonderful voice, was my partner for all six Dveykus albums. He was in the Rabbi s Sons back in the 60s. We were also chavrusas in Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim. That s how I got into the music scene in the first place. The mashgiach, Rav Chaim Shmuel Neiman, who was a holy Yid and was just niftar recently, set me up with him. Leibel has a seminary in Eretz Yisrael and has been doing phenomenal work with girls for 40 years. Shlomo Simcha from Toronto was my partner for the Aish albums. Journeys were the only ones I did by myself. Eli Teitelbaum, who produced the amazing Pirchei records, was my neighbor in Queens. He was already a legend by the time he was in his 20s and had a great influence on me. I used to daven in his father s shul. He was a rebbe in cheder and was into photography and judo and so many other things. He was also the founder of Dial-a-Daf and Camp Sdei Chemed, the first summer camp in Eretz Yisrael. He was just an amazing person. And I can t say enough about Paysach Krohn. The man is absolutely incredible. Both of us were children of Holocaust survivors so we were living in a strange time in history. Our community was fragile, and here you had a kid like Paysach Krohn who was so enthusiastic about Yiddishkeit. He d gather us together in his house and tell us stories about baseball, boxing and football. Then he d announce, Okay, now it s time to go back to learning our masechta. And we d do it too because he was so exciting, and sports was a big part of it. So these were some of my influences, musical and otherwise. THE SEASON OF PEPSI MEYERS I really loved sports as a kid. And my father enjoyed watching an occasional ballgame. There s a story in the book that s 120 AMI MAGAZINE // APRIL 20, 2016 // 12 NISAN 5776

11 IN MY OPINION, MUSIC THAT BRINGS US NEARER TO HASHEM IS JEWISH MUSIC. really autobiographical, where someone talks about having been woken up as a five-year-old to come watch Mickey Mantle on a little black and white TV in the living room. That story was really about me. My father was born in Antwerp and learned in the Heiden yeshivah. He was only 18 when the war broke out. My mother is from Vienna but managed to get to England. Fortunately, they weren t in the camps. My father escaped the Gestapo through Switzerland, where he spent the war years in a DP camp. You said you were involved in chinuch. Yes. As I said, I learned in Chofetz Chaim, where the rosh yeshivah, Rav Henoch Leibowitz, strongly urged his talmidim to go into chinuch. That s what I did for my first seven or eight years after yeshivah. I was teaching in Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley. I didn t leave until we were expecting our fourth kid and it was very difficult to make ends meet. I had an offer to join my wife s family business in Toronto and took it. So it s very likely that I still have some subliminal guilt for having left chinuch, being a pretty loyal Chofetz Chaim fellow, but I feel like I ve done some outreach and chinuch through my music. The Journeys albums certainly convey strong messages. That s also what I m trying to do with this book. You can t go to a child today and say, Here s Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch s Nineteen Letters. Go read it and be inspired. It s not going to work. It s too hard. The material is too heavy. So nowadays you have to get in through the back door. That s what The Season of Pepsi Meyers does. It s a story about baseball, but I sneak in some very important lessons about Yiddishkeit. The protagonist has a choice to make, and in the end he makes the right one. Whose teachings did you base it on? The truth is I didn t use a particular sefer. I sat down with my rav in Toronto, Rav Moshe Mordechai Lowy, to discuss the things that should be included, and we decided to address four basics: emunah in a Supreme Being; hashgachah, that the Supreme Being cares and knows what s going on; that He gave us the Torah, a way of life to follow; and that there s such a thing as schar v onesh, reward and punishment. This is all very important, but are kids reading at all? Their attention spans are practically zero. It s a short book, barely 200 pages long, so it doesn t demand that much. My son lives in a basement apartment in Lakewood. His landlord upstairs bought the book and gave it to his 14-yearold son. A short time later he told my son, Tell your father that it s the first time in five years my son has read a book. He loved it, said it s fantastic. He told me there were a few boring parts, y know, the stuff about Yiddishkeit. I m not naïve. When I did the Middos Machine people said, Do you really think you re going to change kids middos? I told them no. Rav Yisrael Salanter said that it s easier to learn Shas than to change a middah. But baruch Hashem, the album brought middos to the forefront and gave parents some tools, such as songs they could sing to their children about not getting angry or being jealous. Hopefully here too there ll be a little chinuch for Jewish kids who don t know too much, presented in a way that s light. It s a story about a guy who s got everything. You know how kids-at-risk think they re missing out on so much? Well, Pepsi Meyers had it all. He was the best player in the game, he had the opportunity to make millions of dollars, and he walks away from it for Torah and mitzvos. The ultimate message here is that Torah and mitzvos are yekarim mipaz (more precious than gold). There is nothing in the world like it. Nothing. 122 AMI MAGAZINE // APRIL 20, 2016 // 12 NISAN 5776