The 70 years of the fascinating life of the singer with the heavenly voice, Rabbi David Raphael Ben Ami, who passed away on the last Hoshana Rabbah, began in Kibbutz Nahalal, located in the northern Jezreel Valley, and ended in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Batey Ungarin.
Unlike the few true believers of that time who left their entire world behind, he chose to continue with the world of music.
Ben Ami was the first to publish cassettes and records of the melodies of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov and his students.
Want more news, videos and stories? Join the Haredim 10 WhatsApp channel >>
""The matter of the melody is very important to me," he said recently, "I would collect and absorb all the songs and melodies from all the elders, not just from Breslav.".
After releasing four albums, and recording many more ancient Breslav melodies that were not released as albums, but are on his YouTube channel, he took a fifteen-year musical break. "I never dreamed or thought of recording and performing. I had all kinds of hints from heaven and all kinds of entreaties from all kinds of places, especially from Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg, who thought I should continue singing.".
The long-standing relationship with Rabbi Ginsburg culminated with the latest musical project of Rabbi David Raphael, who felt that Rabbi Ginsburg's melodies are an inner expression of the work of God and deserve to be redeemed and bestowed upon the rabbis.
From this, he decided, with the encouragement of other friends, to record an entire album of Rabbi Ginzburg's tunes, with Ben Ami adapting the lyrics for many of the tunes himself. Ben Ami worked on the album for about four years, with Erez Lunberg as musical producer.
The result is the album 'Buka Chaloni Rekia', which now, with Ben Ami's passing, is being reissued in wide circulation.
""I felt a connection with melodies in which I feel God. This is my trend and this is the trend of all sounds," said Rabbi David Raphael, z"l.
May the inner melodies be a candle to his memory.
