Rebbe Nachman of Breslev lauds the virtue of personal prayer, especially at night and away from the beaten path. He says that when a person speaks to the Creator in his or her own words, all of creation joins in. I took my flute at midnight to a hill in Judea and here's what came… [Read more...]

Music for me is a form of prayer. Where the words end, a melody from deep down begins. This is the song of the soul. Sometimes, souls are tongue-tied, like one day when I was really down on myself. Escaping to the desert, I grabbed a backpack with nothing more than a bottle of water and a flute.… [Read more...]

Once, I was under enormous stress. I needed first aid, so I took a flute and walked to a secluded beach near Ashdod's ancient citadel. I put the flute to my mouth and this is what came out. Seven minutes later, I forgot all about the… [Read more...]

Rabbi Lazer takes us to the holy city of Tzfat. Here, we visit the gravesite of the famed scholar, Kabbalist and poet Rabbi Elazar Azkari (1533-1600). He composed the beautiful melody Yedid Nefesh ("friend of the soul"), which we all sing on Shabbat. We include in this clip the original Hebrew… [Read more...]

Wherever I go here in my cherished homeland, be it the desert, the seacoast or the field, I sense a different melody. Strangely, if I'm playing a beautifully crafted Native American flute, nothing happens. But if I take a simple Land-of-Israel reed flute, it plays by itself. Here's the melody that… [Read more...]

Here's one of the greatest comeback stories ever. A headbanger deep into drugs, booze and heavy metal morphs into a pious Torah scholar and a master artisan, the world's only Chassidic luthier. Meet the amazing Z.Z. Ludwick, who we nicknamed the Chassidic… [Read more...]

Here's a taste of what sweet singer David Dome and I did to an old Irish ballad by the name of "Wild Mountain Thyme." Emunized, it's now "Neshama, Come Home". Enjoy it and have a lovely… [Read more...]