Yidden, I Can’t Do This Without You

I was recently at a Chaim Ghoori musical performance. The event may have started as a few hundred strangers in a room, but the hartzige music brought everyone’s neshama to the surface. You could feel it in the room.

The climax of the event was at the very end, when Chaim and the band sang ‘Yidden.’ You could feel the Ahavas Yisroel in the room. But then, the final song transitioned to Zusha’s ‘I Can’t Do This Without You”’and the energy just exploded. There was some collective surge, and the connection got stronger and more intense. No one wanted it to end, and we heard these holy songs sung over and over and over. 

I am going to attempt to wrangle the sublime spiritual experience that was felt in the synergy of those two songs into finite, limited words. I feel the need to, because it showed me something about Ahavas Yisroel, not just as a goal in itself, but where it can bring us to.  

One song is all about the collective. One song is an imperative to the individual. The song ‘Yidden’ brings people to humility and love. We remind ourselves to peel back the surface level ‘klippos’ and see each other for what we really are, neshamos. In the chorus, we acknowledge our nation is holy, precious, and pure, and those qualities are inalienable to us. When we sing it, we melt into the fabric of being ‘one of the Yidden.’ Our ego and defenses get lowered, we grow in humility and love, and we are brought back to the collective. Thank you Chaim Ghoori, thank you Mendy Worch. 

Once we’re in that space, Zusha’s song ‘I Can’t Do This Without You’ becomes an individual call to action. 

The singing duo recently shared what their hit song is really all about. The Zohar writes “There is no unity in the upper worlds and the lower worlds without you” and R’ Boruch of Mezhbizh, grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, describes this as Hashem speaking to the Jewish people. Without each and every neshama shining outwards in its unique role, the world is not complete — not down here and not up there. Hashem, so to speak, is asking each of us to rise to the task and play our part in creating the ultimate Unity between Him and His creation. “I can’t do this without you, we’re in this together, don’t leave me on My own,” in this mindblowing understanding of the Zohar, is Hashem speaking! The song is holy, intense, and intimate. 

But the best way for an individual to hear that empowering message is when he or she acknowledges they are part of the collective. If our eyes are darting side-to-side, feeling defensive, fragmented, and judgemental towards one another, it gets a lot harder to look upwards and truly hear Hashem’s call to us.  

First we arrived at Har Sinai, camping there as one entity, with one heart. Then, we got to hear d’var Hashem, and received our soul contract with Hashem and the Torah. That Ahavas Yisrael is the precursor to connecting to the Torah in the fullest way. 

We all want to know what we’re here for. We all want to achieve what Hashem sends us down here to achieve. We all want to be able to enjoy our development through the process. But to fine tune our instruments to be able to ‘hear’ Hashem’s call to us, we need to not be in individual towers, surrounded by invisible moats. We need to see ourselves as ‘one of the Yidden’ and when we unite around that, we can create the cosmic Unity Hashem is seeking from each of us.