“The Hidden One: Jewish Mystical Songs,” two years in the making, is a recording which contains songs meant to take the singer and listener to realms beyond the five senses, into deeper and deeper levels of “inner space,” into greater and greater depths of consciousness.
Great care and expense were put forth to create the 24-page booklet that accompanies the CD. We hope that listeners will avail themselves of this booklet, with its contemplative artwork by painter Michael Sgan-Cohen that so wonderfully expresses the underlying themes of the recording, with its important notes regarding each track, and with all of the songs’ Hebrew, Aramaic, and Yiddish lyrics provided in both English translation and in transliteration. The booklet gives an added dimension to the overall experience of this powerful music.
The term “mysticism” implies an experiential spirituality, one that is beyond thought, but one that uses thought to reach extremely imaginative and intuitive levels of the human mind and heart.
The CD contains 18 songs (total running time: 75:42) which emphasize different stages of this inner journey, and is based upon the “five souls” model taught by the Jewish mystical tradition. The model includes journeying through subtle levels of so-called “materiality,” diving into the hidden love within all of our hearts for our Ultimate Source, moving toward an apprehension of a “Mind behind the mind,” and going further “up” into a fourth level, a “transpersonal” level, where the image of the same moonlight being reflected in millions of bodies of water is used to describe the “Higher Mind” that we all share – a Consciousness that is “impersonal,” or one that may be felt as a “transcendent subject.” Finally, a fifth level of the soul is envisioned as actually being “outside” of the individual, but which is accessible to the person whose receptivity has reached a highly refined level.
To use music to connect with, identify, distinguish, and ultimately live from these five levels is a great gift to the human being. It is the intent of the songs on this recording to be effective vehicles for such an evolution of consciousness.
From the inside of the digipak:
“At the centre of each human being, each animal, each plant, each cell, and each atom, there is a complete stillness. A seemingly empty stillness, but one which contains the divine energies and the divine idea for that thing.” – Paul Brunton
“It is particularly though song that a soul can ascend to its root on high and the Source from which it was hewn.” – Rabbi Dov Ber of Lubavitch
From the back of the digipak:
"Vocalist and Cantor Richard Kaplan is accompanied by an ensemble of stellar musicians."
A little on the songs …
1. Leshem Yikhud – several chanted “intentions” - one of bringing the highest Consciousness “down” into every thought, word and deed, another of accepting upon oneself the blessing of loving one’s fellow human being as oneself. It is a practice of being “above” and “below” at the same time, and increasingly at all times.
2. Ani Nikhna – a song to help one overcome the tyranny of the ego and move toward the enthroning of one’s soul.
3. Zikhrekha – a sacred dance of the remembrance of The Ultimate Source of the All.
4. Barkhi Nafshi – a chant to poetry from the remarkable Psalm 104, which contains the
mind-stretching verse “You wear light like a garment.” And what is “IT” that wears light like a garment?
5. Hakhanah Niggun – a song to sing before beginning one’s spiritual work, to achieve a humble state of heart and mind and remember the immensity and infinite depths of the Overself or “soul.”
6, A Dudele – a song of the radical immanence of Infinite Mind, even amidst mild or, forbid and forfend, immense adversity and suffering. With hammer dulcimer maestro Stuart Brotman.
7. A Sacred Song by Reb Nachman of Breslov – a wordless melody to take one into subtle levels of body, emotion, thought, and spirit.
8. Sim Shalom – a heartfelt Hasidic calling out for peace, life, compassion, and forgiveness. Accompanied by the exquisite clarinetist Sheldon Brown.
9. Atah, Atah, Atah – an adventure in addressing THE “Second Person” – You! The song contains an wonderfully creative "Kabbalistic rap" toward the middle of the track.
10. Yedid Nefesh – one of the greatest Jewish devotional songs of love, of bhakti.
11. Takhanun – a song for contemplating and experiencing “missing the mark.” Arranged for clarinet quintet!
12. Memaley Kol Almin – a Mongolian shamanic song in Aramaic about the “energy” and “life force” that fills all “worlds,” inner and outer, "material" and utterly subtle.
13. A Sabbath Song by Reb Aharon of Karlin – a melody for a day of “the long breath” and the parasympathetic nervous system; a day for “organic time,” not “commodity time.”
14. Adir Vena’or – a Turkish chant of cosmic splendor, accompanied by arguably Israel’s greatest “ney” (end-blown cane flute) player, Amir Shahasar.
15. Traversing the Five Souls – a chant to help the devotee contact different varieties of Consciousness within and without.
16. Se’u Minkhah – a song of self-sacrifice; a song “for the sake of Heaven.” Features a stunningly beautiful violin performance by maestro Jeremy Cohen.
17. A Melody for Leaving the Body – the panorama of an entire lifetime's journey encoded into a poignant song without words.
18. Birkat Kohanim – perhaps the deepest blessing that one could give to another, or that one could receive from another.
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