This playlist moves through the highlights of a weekday morning service, giving both the prayer leader and participant space to focus on stretching and physical movement without the need to hold a book in front of you. Developed for use at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in February 2025.

shacharit for movement

jewish

High Holy Days 5786

Simcha L'artzekha (Tigay)

Adon HaSelichot (Traditional Mizrahi Melody)

Sung with Rachel Chang on electric guitar and harmony

Return, return anew
To the breath that is moving through
To the repair that you're called to do
To the healing that's ripe for you

Return, Return Anew

Min Hametzar, Psalm 118

מין המצר קראתי יה ענני במרחב יה 
Min hametzar karati Yah, Anani va'merchav Yah 

(From the narrows I call Yah, Answer me from the expanses, Yah!)

The Narrow and the Expanse

Nisan 5783: Min Hameitzar by R' Deborah Sacks Mintz

the long short path

Tishrei 5784: Awaken by Marni Loffman

Min Hametzar

שִׂימוּ לֵב עַל הַנְּשָׁמָה לֶשֶׁם שְׁבוֹ וְאַחְלָמָה
וְאוֹרָה כְּאוֹר הַחַמָּה שִׁבְעָתַיִם כְּאוֹר בֹּקֶר
“Take heart. Pay heed to your own soul. Opal, amethyst, and gold, 
As bright as is the sun's warm glow, far brighter than the morning.”
—“Odeh La-El” by R. Shma’ya Kosson

Simu Lev by Kedmah: The Rising Song Piyyut Project

Yoni Avi Battat - oud, violin, viola, vocals, music director, producer
Rabbi Yosef Goldman - vocals, rabbinic and literary director, producer
Joey Weisenberg - fretless electric bass, producer
Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer - vocals
Anat Halevy Hochberg - vocals
Yahala Lachmish - guest vocalist
April Centrone - guest percussionist

Produced by Rising Song Records
risingsongrecords.bandcamp.com
Recorded November, 2023 at Rittenhouse Soundworks in Philadelphia, PA

Don Godwin - audio engineer, mixing, and mastering
Shmulie Lowenstein - video
Josh Fleet - production manager

A project of Hadar’s Rising Song Institute, cultivating Jewish spiritual life through song: www.risingsong.org

***

Simu Lev is a collection of traditional Middle Eastern and North African piyyutim (liturgical poems), centered around the theme of our inner spiritual lives and our relationship with the divine. As stated in the above excerpt from “Odeh La-El,” the music in this album calls its listeners to nourish the neshamah, the soul, and to tend the holy and precious inner workings of the human heart and consciousness. Literally meaning “place your heart,” Simu Lev also means, “pay attention” in modern Hebrew. By curating and presenting Mizrahi cultural heritage, which has often sat at the margins of American Jewish society, this album is indeed a call to pay attention – to recognize the diversity amongst our communities, and to embrace the deeply rooted, ornate, and beautiful Arab musical traditions that are so essential to the landscape of Jewish expression at large.

This album is the first release from Kedmah: The Rising Song Piyyut Project. Led by Rabbi Yosef Goldman (vocals) and Yoni Avi Battat (oud, violin, viola, vocals), Kedmah honors the artists’ Iraqi, Syrian, and Yemenite ancestry in conversation with their intersecting musical influences. Their interactive performances, workshops, and recordings allow listeners to experience the spiritual and emotional depth of Mizrahi piyyutim and the ages-old tradition of Arab melodies that adorn them. Building on the fragments of the Mizrahi musical traditions that they grew up with, Yoni and Yosef have made a concerted effort to reclaim the texts and melodies that brought meaning to the lives of their ancestors. 

After years of musical hevruta and study with their cherished teacher Roni Ishran, Yoni and Yosef founded Kedmah as a part of Hadar’s Rising Song Institute. Part educational initiative, part performance group, the social and pedagogical impact of this project is strengthened by a commitment to musical creativity, historical accuracy, spirituality, and public performance at the highest level.

This recording features the Rising Song Institute’s founder and artistic director, Joey Weisenberg, on electric fretless bass along with Arabic percussion expert, April Centrone, on darbuka, riq, bendir, and drum kit. Yahala Lachmish, Anat Halevy Hochberg, and Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer contribute stunning vocal performances inspired by their own personal connection to this music and their Yemenite and Libyan ancestry.

Adon Olam אדון עולם

Brucha at Shekhina (Blessed are you, divine presence throughout the physical world) who grounds me
Brucha at Shekhinah who reminds me that I know
Brucha at Shekhinah who guides me
Brucha at Shekhinah who gives me courage to let go
Brucha at Shekhinah ruach ha'olam hameikhinah mitzadei isha
(Blessed are you, Shekhina, spirit of the universe, who makes firm a woman's steps)
-Ri J. Turner

From Siddur HaKohanot: A Hebrew Priestess Prayerbook by Rabbi Jill Hammer and Kohenet Taya Shere 

Available here: http://isabellafreedman.org/store/siddur-hakohanot%3A-a-hebrew-priestess-prayerbook-rabbi-jill-hammer-and-holly-taya-shere/dp/6432

Birchot haShachar by Ri J. Turner

Ancestralization

We Are Just Dust - Elana Brody

This text is the כ / kaf line of the Ashrei prayer or Psalm 145. Ashrei is one of my favorite piece of liturgy, said 3+ times a day. It’s bookended by a few scattered lines of psalms, but the majority is the acrostic text of Psalm 145 (notably missing the נ line). I've been dreaming of a musical project to set each individual line to music and this is the first step towards that dream. 

כְּבוֹד מַלְכוּתְךָ יֹאמֵרוּ
וּגְבוּרָתְךָ יְדַבֵּרוּ

Kevod malkhut’kha yomeiru
U’gevurat’kha y’dabeiru

[translation: They will tell of the glory of your sovereignty, and speak of your greatness]

Credits:
Melody composed by Léah Miller and Jesse Weil
Hebrew text from liturgy
Recorded at RRC in Philadelphia, PA on Lenni-Lenape land
Artwork by Léah Miller

Vocalists:
Adina Ikeman
Erin Viola
Jesse Weil
Léah Miller
Leo Levine
Miriam Ginsberg
Molly Paul

K'vod Malchutecha [a capella]

Esa Einai

Yismechu v'malchuscha shomrei shabbos v'korei oneg

They will delight in your all empowering sovereignty - those who tend and care for shabbos and call it a joyous celebration
(translation by batya)

Vocals - Batya Levine
Percussion - Simcha Halpert-Hanson

Yismechu - Batya Levine

Elohai Neshama by Sol Weiss

Inspired by nomadic years, the wisdom of the body and nervous system, change, Somatic Reality: Bodily Experience and Emotional Truth by Stanley Kelemen, the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess community, and the Judaism of my ancestors. Received to the tune of Avinu Malkeinu, a traditional Jewish High Holidays prayer. 

Deep gratitude to my teachers, community and bright and well ancestors: Taya Shere, Ibrahim Baba, my parents, Zaide, Grandpa, the Romanian women, Kohenet and so many more. Thank you.
lyrics
Slow down, child, slow down 
Slow down and listen to the wind 
All comes together; all falls apart 
Forming anew your beating heart 

Slow down, child, slow down 
Slow down and draw yourself near 
The rocks are your keepers 
Tell them your stories 
Now it is safe to be here 

A river flows from within you to where you will go 
The current carries you home 
Let your life unfold 

Slow down, child, slow down 
Slow down and you will receive 
Life wants to meet you where you are 
Not where you think you should be 

A river flows from within you to where you will go 
The current carries you home 
Let your life unfold 

Slow down, child, slow down 
Slow down and you will be shown 
The love that was always lifting you up 
You are never alone 

A river flows from within you to where you will go 
The current carries you home 
Let your life unfold 

Slow down child, slow down (x4) 

Slow down, child, slow down 
Slow down and listen to the wind 
All comes together; all falls apart 
Forming anew your beating heart

Slow Down / The Mother's Response (Demo)

Melody derived from the Ashkenazi trop (cantillation) for Eicha (the text we read on Tisha b'Av, a Jewish day of mourning)

Hebrew text from opening phrase of Eicha (sung in Ashkenazi trop, with Ashkenazi pronunciation)
אֵיכָה יָשְׁבָה בָדָד, הָעִיר רַבָּתִי עָם--הָיְתָה, כְּאַלְמָנָה
Eicha yashva vadad, ha'ir rabasi am haysa k'almanah
[Translation: How is she sitting alone, the city who was once full of her people, how she is like a widow]

Oh weary one, lay your head down and rest your aching bones on the ground
Oh fearful one, lay your head down and let your body breathe on the ground
Oh hopeless one, lay your head down and rest your heavy heart on the ground
Oh yearning one, lay your head down and sing your song into the ground
Oh rageful one, lay your head down and let your tears flow into the ground
Oh weary one, lay your head down and rest your aching bones on the ground
Oh ANCIENT ONE, as we lay our heads down, please lay with us on the ground

Artwork from 14 Century German Book of Eicha

Yashva Vadad // Oh Weary One (a mourning lullabye for the weary)

Lyrics: Modah Ani, a Jewish daily prayer/practice of gratitude. 
Music by Ary Solomon

Lyrics:
Modah, modah ani
L'fanecha
Ruach chai, ruach chai v'kayam
Ruach chai, ruach chai v'kayam

Modah Ani

Hadar's Rising Song Institute cultivates Jewish spiritual life through song. Through Rising Song Records we produce excellent original Jewish music that is sung and played in communities worldwide.