Rav Raz Hartman 
"Shuva ─ a voice calling. Shuva ─ a dream. Shuva ─ come back, come back to us. Come back to Israel. Come back to who you are. We have a great prayer for redemption. But the redemption isn’t an imaginary world in which all glows with new colors that we’ve never seen...
The redemption is a return to who we really are, to who we were before we lost our innocence, yet with new understanding. It is who we are as a people. As people, as a world. The songs of Shuva are part of this huge prayer. Some of them were written in a more innocent period of my life. Some of them are the fruit of newer realizations. But in all of them can be found the search for renewal.
This album, comprised of my own compositions, describes a journey from the individual to the collective. From the hidden to the revealed. Come join me on this journey. And enjoy – the joy of every person is also a deep prayer of mine..."
>> Some Highlights from the Jerusalem-Metro Culture GuideInterview with Rav Raz from this summer:
Q) Whom do you imagine your prototypical listener is? What listeners would you like to reach, but feel you have not?
A) I don't know. I'm always surprised when I find out who listens to my albums. I can't imagine that someone who likes groovy pop music will like the album, but I do feel that there's a generation of people, especially in Israel, who are searching for spiritual expression and I'm hoping to tap into that.
I'm not a popular type of musician and that's not necessarily a positive thing. Perhaps it's something I'm lacking, that I can't be a little simpler, that I'm not more tapped in; not to what people want, but to what people have access to. I'm hoping that with this album I'm bridging that gap a little, that it's more accessible to people.
With Shuva I am really trying to reach a world of Israelis, but also a new generation of searchers. The album is a religious album. In other words, all the words on the album are religious, but the music is not typical religious music and I'm hoping that the album will connect to people who usually find Jewish music to be stark or constrictive. This album has classical, jazz and reggae influences, which are conscious influences in my music. Being spiritual and being Jewish doesn't mean fitting into a specific mold. Although there are a couple of explicit geula (redemption) songs there, if they don't speak to you and you just like the music, that's good too.
Q) When Shabbat Olam came out, you were just making the transition from Bat Ayin to Jerusalem. Now you are a full-fledged Jerusalemite, teaching at and steering the Simchat Shlomo yeshiva and running the V'Ani Tefillah minyan in Nachlaot. How has being in the city influenced your various projects?
A) I've always been a Jerusalemite, it just was not expressed when I was in Bat Ayin. But it's true there's been a transition. A large part of my connection to Jerusalem has to do with it being a very alive center with people coming through all the time. In a yishuv (settlement) there's a certain regularity to it. So the work I'm doing in Jerusalem is by nature more dynamic because it's work done in relation to new kinds of people, new situations and new realities.
Jerusalem is an intense place. It's definitely influenced me a lot. I don't think the V'Ani Tefillah minyan could exist outside of Jerusalem, because there's a real range of people who come to it specifically because it's in Jerusalem. People come to it from different neighborhoods and different walks of life; it fosters connections between many different people.
Regarding my music, there are songs on Shuva which I wrote before I was even married, so it's interesting for me to hear and record them now because I'm in such a different mode these days. When Shabbat Olam came out I had one kid and was living in Bat Ayin, so it’s a much quieter album. Now I have four kids and am living Jerusalem so Shuva has a very, very different sound.
Q) How does teaching (and/or learning) in Jerusalem differ from teaching (and/or learning) in Bat Ayin – are the issues different, the focus?
A) Every environment is different. In Jerusalem, people walk out of a class and they are in a totally different environment. People learn and then go off to work or to shop in the shuk. In Bat Ayin, you were in some way always in the learning environment.
Teaching and learning in Jerusalem is also very different because there's lots of other learning going on here and there is an interaction between them.
Bat Ayin was, to some degree, more of a retreat into a "Now we're learning" type of energy. It's an environment with much less outside energy coming in. On the other hand, the energy of Jerusalem can have a downside to it as well, because it's much harder to stay focused here.
Nachlaot is famous for, among other things, its sizable young, English-speaking community.
Q) You left the rolling hills of Bat Ayin for one of Jerusalem's most crowded neighborhoods. Where do you go to breathe these days?
A) You do need to get out of Jerusalem, or at least to the edges of it, to really breathe. Thank God there's the Jerusalem version of Central Park right nearby, Gan Sacher. There are some really sweet places there.
While I go there and to Tekoa at times, I personally get a lot of life from the aliveness of Jerusalem and the interactions it fosters, but then of course I'm connected to Rabbi Nachman of Breslav and he has a lot of advice on how to do hitbodedut, your own personal conversation with God, even when you're in the midst of other people, in situations where you can't just go out into the forest. I've tried to internalize that too.
If you have to go somewhere quiet though, I would say the best spots are Gan Sacher, the Jerusalem Forest – that is definitely a strong place - and probably, though I haven't been there in a while, [the road leading out of] Talpiot on the way to Bethlehem, there's a large undeveloped area where no one lives. In general though, parks, or anywhere there are trees are good for private conversations with God.
>Ed. Note: ע''ע
Purchase the new CD ... so you can acquire the album
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