Guitar & melody vocals by Rachel Chang
5/23/2021

Nigun Tishrei by Nava Tehila

Rising Song Records is excited to share the first single from Rabbi Ariel Root Wolpe's forthcoming album Ruach Neshama. This collection of original songs celebrating the connection between music, nature, and Jewish wisdom will be available on digital platforms everywhere on Rosh Chodesh Elul (August 9, 2021).

Contribute to Ariel's crowdfunding campaign to get early access to the whole collection while directly supporting the talented artists who made this beautiful music: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rabbi-ariel-root-wolpe-s-rising-song-record#/

Listen to this single and the title track, "Ruach Neshama," on Bandcamp: https://arielrootwolpe.bandcamp.com/

All music composed by Ariel Root Wolpe, Hebrew text from Jewish liturgy and Tanakh.
Music direction by Joey Weisenberg and Ariel Root Wolpe
Harmony direction by Deborah Sacks Mintz
Produced by Joey Weisenberg

Recorded outside and in home-studios in Atlanta, GA, Philadelphia, PA, and Berkeley, CA.
Engineered by Joey Weisenberg and Jon Mitchell
Mixed and Mastered by Don Godwin
Artwork and Layout by Sol Yael Weiss.

Singers and Musicians:
Ariel Root Wolpe - lead vocals, acoustic guitar
Kendra Root Wolpe - vocals
Deborah Sacks Mintz - vocals
Valerie Root Wolpe - vocals
Jon Mitchell - vocals, djembe
Joey Weisenberg - bass, percussion, guitar, baritone ukulele, piccolo, drum programming, vocals
Will Robertson - bass
Eliyahu Sills - flute
Rising Song Institute Vocalists: Rena Branson, Rebekka Goldsmith, Eitan Kantor, Gedalia Penner, Sam Tygiel, Batya Levine, Gayanne Geurin

www.arielwolpe.com
www.risingsong.org

A Project of Hadar's Rising Song Institute: Cultivating Jewish spiritual life through song.

Ruach Neshama

Waking Up Nigun

Waking Up Nigun - Rabbi Ariel Root Wolpe

Ana B'khoakh — Kabbalat Shabbat Liturgy

Why, why worry when you can _____
Pray to/for the most high
Pray to/for the mothers and the fathers
Pray to/for the most high
Pray for them to watch over
Why, why worry when you can ____

Why Why Worry

recorded by Batya Levine & Noam Lerman
November 9, 2016

Noam Lerman learned this song during a morning water ceremony that took place at standing rock reservation when they were there during sukkot. It was taught by someone named Lia.

Water Heal My Soul

Hadar - Singing Communities Intensive 2017

Nigun Yetzira-Deborah Sacks Mintz

This song came through in pieces over the course of many weeks. As I was writing and uncovering it I experienced it as a song that was demanding itself be heard, despite the discomfort it often provoked for me. It is relentlessly fiery - an expression of love as a fierce "no" our boundary, as a mother protecting her young. As I was writing it felt clear to me that this voice is essential and called for in our world now. In a world where it is all too easy to lose sight of how our actions and lifestyle impact others and where we often lurch into excess and greed at the expense of others, this song offers a voice of fierce boundary that can be helpful in waking us up and restoring balance.As I've been teaching it to Wholehearted Chorus, I have been encouraging my singers to make it their own, so it is personally meaningful for them. For me much of this song has been a response to climate grief, and some parts a response to the "me too" movement, along with a deeply personal journey of feeling the spirit of fierce, feminine power within. I wish to express my gratitude to Patra Lounsbury for making the connection of this energy with Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess of fierce power, and for Deva Munay and all who supported this song's birth and my integration of Sekhmet's archetype within it. I would also like to thank Ben Gould for writing the men's part, and Annie Anton for her contribution of one of the melodic lines.

Original song by Lisa G. Littlebird, with contributions by and appreciations to Ben Gould & Annie Anton. Recorded by Lisa G. Littlebird with Ben Gould.

For lyrics, individual part tracks and more, visit: http://thebirdsings.com/sekhmet/

Song of Sekhmet by Lisa G. Littlebird

with the help of hashem ~

this is a song for rain inspired by tefillat hageshem (prayer for rain). as we closed out sukkot this past sunday at sunset, we welcomed in a one line change in our daily liturgy: praying for rain instead of dew. we'll do this for another five to six months and switch back to dew, following  the waxing and waning of our ancestors crop growing and harvest cycles. 

this chag season i’ve had some powerful experiences with sunshine and rain. we had sun when we’ve needed it dwelling outside in our impermanent hut; rain when we were ready and the car was completely packed. sun during the day biking and walking to shul and town; rain now that the sun has set on simchas torah and i am writing this. I know we won’t always be that lucky, especially in the climate crisis, to have just the right amount of rain at just the right time. this prayer for rain is invoking that spirit of hope and timing — that we may have rain in the right places and the right times. that spirit will remember us, and won’t hold back water. 

happy rainy season, y’all.

tefillat hageshem

Lyrics:

Part 1
I am enough, I am more that enough 
I am enough, I am more that enough 
I am enough, I am more that enough 
And I'm reclaiming my power

Part 2
There is room enough for me to be
Exactly who I was born to be
And I will set my true gifts free
'Cause I'm reclaiming my power

Part 3
I'm a unique expression of the Divine
And I am here to let my spirit shine!

© Heather Houston
03/23/2020
all rights reserved

I Am Enough by Heather Houston

By Molly Bajgot & Noah Weinberg. 
Elul music project by Anat Hochberg & Matt Goldfield

Elul: Songs for Turning

Od Y'nuvun: Ripening in its Time

More at: www.patreon.com/rivshapiro

Song from project "fragments":

"Fragments" is a multimedia process of ancestral re-membering. Music and film become the container for the artist's quest to recover the stories and strengths of their Jewish ancestors who migrated from Romania to Minneapolis at the turn of the 20th century. "Fragments" challenges linear space-time to illuminate the past through the present and invite the audience into the question: How do we remember what's been forgotten?

Ana B'khoakh — Kabbalat Shabbat Liturgy

Rena Branson

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