""The years that have passed have not dulled the terrible pain," says the world-renowned cantor Yaakov Motzen, speaking of His brother Avraham Chaim the 14th, who fell in the War of Peace in Galilee.
In a conversation with Cantors10, he tells the wonderful story of the moving melody of his creation, based on the words "We have sung the Gentiles with him" from the "Av HaRahamim" prayer, in the Shabbat Musafir - which was composed in memory of his beloved brother.
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""Two days after we learned the worst of it, I was in my parents' house on the second floor at 10 Carmia Street, in the Tel Aviv of old. After the last of the comforters left the house, I went out onto the quiet balcony facing the street, sat down on the floor, and gathered myself in longing. Everything was so fresh, only two days had passed since that cruel phone call that informed us that my beloved brother Avraham had been killed. It was the evening of the fourth day of the Galilee Peace War.
""Suddenly, in a moment of heroism that will never return, the words of the verse 'Let the nations rejoice with their people, for the blood of his servants will be raised up and vengeance will be laid on his people, and the land of Adam will be redeemed with its people' appeared before my eyes. These were words of hope amidst the sea of sorrow and pain. I felt that the text was playing to me in a melody that came from the depths of my heart, that connects and weaves a word into its companion. And the words simply took on a special life," says Cantor Motzen, adding: "That melody and those words are the melody of my life, which will always remind me of the shining image of my brother, who was left there alone in the darkness of Lebanon.".
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""I carried the melody in my heart for an entire year, and only at the end of the year of mourning did I decide to record it in the studio, with a unique orchestration by Mona Rosenblum.
""But the melody still remained only with me, and only after about three years, when I passed in front of the tabernacle on Shabbat in Tel Aviv, did I reach the section 'Av HaRahamim' and then it came to me again, and I found myself starting to play it with the words, in a new improvisation that connected and complemented the melody I already had. The "Grim" Lau participated in that prayer," says Cantor Motzen.
""That same week, the closing concert of the first semester of the Tel Aviv Cantor School was held at the Zionist House of America in Tel Aviv. It was back in the days of the legendary mayors Chitz and Chaim Wiener. The accompanist for the concert was Eli Yaffe, and I was a guest cantor for the second part of the concert. After I performed the first cantor piece, Rabbi Lau suddenly stood up and said to me: 'Cantor Motzen, can you please perform here the improvisation you performed last Shabbat on 'We sang among the Gentiles with Him'?' I immediately explained to him that apart from the melody, I do not remember the improvisation that came to me during the prayer, and I will not be able to repeat it.
""After exhausting 'negotiations,' I asked them to bring me a siddur, I coordinated the appropriate scale for me with Eli Yaffe, who accompanied on the piano, and I performed what came to mind at that moment.
""Then I heard that someone had recorded the performance at that concert. I obtained the recording to know what I had done, and then I asked Cantor Shmuel Baruch Taube, the late, to write the piece for me in notes. Cantor Taube would write notes quickly and easily, like he would write a letter to a friend. From the notes he wrote for me, I 'learned' my improvisation, as performed in prayer and in concert.
""I slowly started singing the piece on Shabbats, here and there. But over the years it has become an inseparable part of me. So much so that I am not invited to a Shabbat that does not include the 'Harnino'.".
Do you still get excited when you perform the piece, even after countless performances of it?
""Absolutely yes, not only am I excited every time I perform the piece, but also after 32 years, the performance itself changes every Shabbat I perform it and is not similar to my previous performance. Even on Shabbat with a choir, where naturally you have to stick to the notes and be more precise, nevertheless each time it is a renewed improvisation.
""I remember having a Shabbat in Nazareth, it was the same week that the helicopter disaster in Romania happened, and I knew the father of one of the pilots. I remember in the middle of the prayer I remembered the disaster, and an 'inspiration' came into me, and I performed 'Ranino' in a completely different way than the 'regular' one. And no Shabbat is like its companion, not the Shabbat of Independence to the Shabbat before my brother's Yahrzeit, and not the Shabbat from the blessings of Adar to the blessings of Nissan, each time there is a novelty, there is an additional statement in the performance.
""I always say that if a cantor is able to say the same passage and it sounds the same every time, then something must be missing. This is not a prayer, it is a record, like you put the needle on the record or the CD that you turn on with a button.".
Today when you perform the melody, do you still see your brother in front of you, or has it become routine?
""The truth is that I see him in front of me at all times, even without me singing, and even though the years pass and 'it is decreed that the dead be forgotten,' the years have not dulled the terrible pain, the pain does not go away, and in reality it still hurts, and I always see his image before me," he concludes with emotion, leaving us to listen to the special work and say... Amen!
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