For years Mendel Rata suffered from boycotts and humiliation, and was even persuaded to marry a woman who did not suit him • On the day he divorced a songwriter • Now he tells of the past upheavals
Rata in the clip
Photography:
David Orian
Four years after publishing his last song, singer Mendel Rata returns with an exciting song and an impressive and invested clip, ten minutes long, which includes a real life story, alongside the story of the Jewish people in Europe.
Clip production: Danny Finkelman
The song, which is based on the verse in the Psalms (KJV, PB): "My eyes are fixed on your saying to say when will you comfort me", with words in Yiddish, was written by Rata several years ago, on a day when he experienced a significant and shaky transition in his life - the divorce saga - The clip tells the story of the exile of the Jewish people, the hardships and the stay of the Jews loyal to the Jewish spark in them, through his charged personal experience alongside his perspective on his personal experiences, including boycott and expulsion from the yeshiva.
Personal writing and publicity in the ultra-Orthodox sector is not a trivial matter, to say the least, especially in light of Rata's family genealogy.
The singer is the son of the Rebbe of "Shomrei Emunim" (Rabbi Gedaliah Moshe), and the grandson of Rabbi Aharon Rata, the founder of the Toldot Aharon Hasidim and Shomrei Emunim in the Mea Shearim neighborhood - one of the most conservative Hasidim.
"On the day I got divorced, I was broken and trapped inside," Rata, 29, told Israel Today from his home in the Brooklyn neighborhood of New York. "I went back to the room where I slept in my youth, remembering everything I went through in my life - one long mask of shaky crises.
"In the years of my freedom, I experienced the crisis in the community, a crisis that I do not often talk about, but it unfortunately covers the seven flourishing and beautiful years of the elections of every yeshiva boy."
"I was then in a boycott and community exclusion," the singer recalls.
"I was a victim of silly political quarrels within the community. It spread throughout my youth, and broke every bit of my soul to pieces. Today there is no trace of that affair and I longed wholeheartedly, but it changed me quite a bit at the time, and among other things made me a follower of The singing rabbi, the late Rabbi Shlomo Lle Carlebach, the man who radiated only love and sweetness and light. But this knowledge fell on the family like a black cloud. From the weary and righteous young man he became 'Carlebach'. It was very difficult for them to contain it, and it was not easy at all to cope. In the face of the misunderstanding. All this made me become a lonely guy and also gathered in society, in the yeshiva. Until the age of twenty I hardly opened my mouth in front of friends in the yeshiva. I suffered terrible and terrible social fear, I trembled with fear every time I had to open here next to people. From hell, "he shares.
At the age of twenty, Rata decided to put out a bi-weekly issue that included musings and personal thoughts.
Out of this he used to play the guitar and sing with friends at home.
“I experienced a little period of blossoming, and then the story exploded in yeshiva: it was because of some article where I wrote that if I had yeshiva I would every Friday night do campfire, study Judaism and thought with the young, and once every few months I would take them out into nature, hug the trees and pick oranges. I went through a state of public humiliation in front of 300 guys, when in the end young guys were forbidden to talk to me from good to bad on the grounds of broken views. "
"They were afraid of the great truth I sold to young people. I talked to them about the Creator of the world, about love, about music, and about the good that every Jew and every sector has. They did not like it in the yeshiva. They boycotted. This humiliating status made my family push me to a match I knew was not right for me. "Terrible pressure. At that time I composed my song 'Abyss to Abyss'. I got married, and a few months later it ended in crisis and heartache."
The day he divorced he returned to his youth room at home and opened the Psalms that were on the table before him.
"Then I found this verse, 'My eyes are set on saying,' When will you comfort me? 'King David asks - my eyes miss your promise to save me, when the days of consolation and joy will come.' I was almost annihilated in the land and I did not leave your commands. ' "Still, I remained true to your commandments and to the Jewish point that burns in me. When I saw this verse, I just took out my guitar and started singing. I cried with this song, for all I have managed to go through all these years."
"I left the song with me, and kept it," he says excitedly.
Now he decided to take it out with the aim of trying to touch people and arouse them.
"I hope the song and the story will touch people's hearts. This story has the story of my life and the story of the life of the Jew in exile. There is a lot of message and a lot of soul in this clip. My biggest dream is to touch souls, and rekindle the extinct spark, the deep Jewish identity. I sincerely hope that this work will fulfill its purpose, and touch deep in the hearts of my dear brothers. "
Lyrics and vocals: Mendel Rata
Child Singer: Yossi Weiss
Musical Arrangement: Ari Farkash
Voice Arrangement: Pinchas Bichler - Malchut
Choir Children's Choir: "Yiddish Nachat" - Moshi Kreuss
Mix: Haim Mozes
PR and New Media: Israel Berger
Clip production: Danny Finkelman
Screenplay: Mendel Rata
Director and editor: Aharon Orian
Photographer: David Orian
