Rabbi and Singer’s Personal Prayer Journey Leads to Album

By Rabbi Mendel Simons

All my life I struggled to find meaning in prayer. As a child, it felt like doing G-d a favor. Like an obligation, with no benefit to me.

I would never have imagined that one day I would release a prayer album, and of the High Holidays no less! The journey there was a long one, filled with struggle and discovery. 

Around age 30, I began to pay attention to my state of conscious awareness. I discovered that we all have a higher power that we can tap into. When we do, the world looks very different. Dark can become light. What seemed impossible can be an opportunity. It’s all about the state of mind we are in. Knowing that, I began to obsess over how I could intentionally enter that state of consciousness. 

As a child in Sydney, the one thing in shul that spoke to me was the soul-stirring voice of Chazan Yehoshua Niasoff. I’ll never forget the first time I heard him lead Kabbalat Shabbat, backed by a full choir, the sound I heard penetrated my soul in a way that will never leave me. 

So before creating a High Holiday program for our YJP community in LA, I had to answer this question: why doesn’t anyone go to shul anymore?

The answer is simple: it’s boring. It’s missing that soulful element.

To bring it back my natural instinct was to use music. And in the search for a music director I could only have dreamed that we would land none other than Aron Niasoff, son of Chazan Yehoshua.

Aron began writing new arrangements and tweaking old ones. We were blessed to find  exceptionally talented singers. Together we created a magical High Holiday prayer experience which eventually led to the launch of “Friday Night unplugged”- a monthly happy hour followed by an acapella Kabbalat Shabbat.

At its core, prayer is the art of intimacy. It requires vulnerability, ridding oneself of things that come between you and the person you wish to connect with. It’s a sophisticated skill that takes time and effort to master. 

In 2015, preparing to officiate my first wedding, I uncovered an idea that touched me deeply: Your wedding day is comparable to Yom Kippur – it’s the Yom Kippur of your life! I thought about the powerful energy that I feel at the height of Yom Kippur, during Ne’ila, when we are in our purest state. 

That became the framework through which I would guide and prepare dozens of couples for their wedding day. My goal was for each and every couple to experience that pure and powerful energy under the Chuppah.

I soon realized that music alone was not enough. Neither for wedding ceremonies nor for a good prayer experience. I found that the Hebrew word for prayer, ‘Lehitpalel,’ refers to a reflective act that I am doing for myself. Prayer is about me, not about G-d. This was a game changer. 

I’m not trying to change G-d. I’m trying to improve myself. 

A light bulb went off. I began to realize that prayer serves as a conduit for the transformation that I was looking for; we pray to G-d, and, in the process of doing so, we are able to experience a shift in our consciousness and tap into that higher power, what I like to call the “soul state”.

Prayer is an opportunity to transform our energy. As we experience this shift in energy, we experience a shift in our vibration. And we begin to operate at a higher frequency – the Divine frequency. On that frequency we tap into a new identity. It’s an identity that exists beyond time and space. You experience absolute presence. There is no past and there is no future. Only the present: right here, right now. 

In that place your past mistakes don’t matter. Your anxiety about the future doesn’t exist either. There’s only a brand new you with endless opportunity. 

I began to notice a direct cause and effect to how close or distant I felt to my wife, Rachey. It became clear to me that in order to connect with my soul mate, I need to be in my soul state. Prayer is a tool to “let go” and trust the process. By surrendering to a higher power outside ourselves, we relieve ourselves of the need to control all areas of our life, many of which are beyond our control anyway. A great prayer experience leaves us more self aware and thereby free to put forth the best version of ourselves.

Music, especially vocals, can help us “let go” because it cuts straight to the soul. 

It is with this in mind that we introduced guided meditations into the services, with the choir humming lightly in the background – songs like “Modeh Ani” by Omer Adam and “Halev Sheli” by Ishay Ribo,  songs of gratitude, songs of the heart – now we were ready to connect.

It became obvious that recording a High Holiday album would elevate people’s prayer experience by giving them the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the tunes before they show up. When you know the music, you’re in a better position to connect with the prayers.

We took twelve of our favorites from the YJP High Holiday program into AN Studios, where Aron Niasoff gave his heart, soul and musical brilliance to producing, arranging, and recording this album, titled “High Holiday Vibrations.”

A few weeks ago, my six year old son, Zev, asked if he could sing with me on Yom Kippur. I was thrilled. The next day I brought him to the studio in an attempt to fit him into an album that was almost finished. 

There’s something about the voice of a child that somehow touches the soul in its pure and innocent way.

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Prayer is a journey. My personal journey with prayer is not over. My sincere hope is for this album to serve as a tool and help people in their own journey. I hope you use this album to get yourself into the Holiday vibe, preparing for an elevated experience of the High and the Holy.

Wishing you a good and sweet year!  

Itunes: https://apple.co/3iGohZg

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3mxOuLG

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Rabbi Mendel Simons lives in Los Angeles together with his wife, Rachey, and four children. He is the founder of YJP Los Angeles, which will host Yom Kippur Under the Stars this Sep 27-28. With over 70 weddings to date, Mendel continues to guide and prepare couples on their journey to union and their most life-changing and auspicious day, officiating weddings in Los Angeles and around the world.