Interview with Abie Rotenberg

A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. —Mishlei 25:11
T
he lyrics of songs are usually secondary to their melodies, subordinate to the vocals
and instrumentations that accompany them. But even the most prosaic of words, when
they flow with a cadence independent of melody, can be imbued with an aesthetic value that
jolts a person to the upper realms.
So when the renowned songwriter and composer Abie Rotenberg recently released a novel about a boy
named Pepsi Meyers, who is forced to choose between the Jewish faith and baseball fame, those familiar with
Abie’s music were confident that his prose would be equally irresistible. And he did not disappoint.
Abie’s book, The Season of Pepsi Meyers, is set 25 years in the future, but other than the diminished
standing of the New York Yankees, things don’t seem to have changed that much. Human nature is pretty
much immutable, so there’s a lot to learn from times that are yet to unfold. In the not-so-distant
future, unaffiliated Jews from Upstate New York, like Pepsi’s parents, are still discovering
Yiddishkeit late in life, and their decision to embrace the faith of their forefathers
impacts the lives of their children in various complicated ways. Their future
struggles, as well as the ebb and flow of Abie Rotenberg’s writing, lift the
reader out of his monotonous existence like a gentle tune.
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ABIE
A CONVERSATION
WITH THE RENOWNED
SONGWRITER
AND AUTHOR
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A TIME TO GO PUBLIC
Abie Rotenberg, who lives with his family in Toronto, Canada, has been making music since the mid1970s. He’s also performed in the annual A Time for Music HASC concerts in New York for many years.
Other than those venues, he shies away from publicity. Yet when the Jews in Jerusalem seek consolation
after terror attacks, the public routinely turns to Abie Rotenberg’s songs. When I speak to Abie today, my
first question to him is why he chose to abandon music and turn to the written word, although I’m not sure
that’s a good way to frame it.
“That’s actually a very good question,” he replies. “There’s even an addendum to the question. I produced
all those albums over the years but I never really promoted myself. I’m very shy by nature. My attitude
was that whatever happens, happens. I didn’t push my music and CDs but they moved anyway. Recently,
though, I’ve been trying to get the word out about my book. My wife asked me what changed. I’ve been
thinking about that, so let me share my thoughts.
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“I think what happened is that this book is really a synthesis of my four Journeys albums. It contains a lot of hashkafah that is really an expression, in fictional
form, of a body of work that has taken me 30 years to put together. That’s why I
feel very close to it. I also had to learn how to self-publish after trying unsuccessfully to get publishing houses interested. When I reached out to literary agents I
discovered that it’s impossible because so little is being read these days, although
baruch Hashem we have Shabbos, and I’m hoping that people will read it. Feldheim is distributing the books to the Judaica shops for me, so that’s great. All in
all, I’m very excited.”
I ask how long it took him to write the book.
“You’re not going to believe this, but the whole thing came to me in a flash when
“IT’S NOT HOW HOT A SONG IS
WHEN IT COMES OUT OF THE OVEN,
IT’S HOW LONG IT STAYS WARM. A
NIGGUN CAN STICK AROUND FOR
GENERATIONS.”
I was walking to shul one day in the summer. It just popped into
my head, a plot about a kid who doesn’t know anything about
Yiddishkeit other than the fact that he’s Jewish, and he becomes
a major league ballplayer. I realized right away that he would be
an only child who moves to New York with his parents for the
summer from out of town. Because they’re going to have to stay
somewhere not too far from the stadium, they’re going to end up
renting a house in Riverdale right next door to a dynamic rabbi
who’s got an outreach center, and he and his family are going to
learn a lot about Yiddishkeit by the end of the summer. It was all
formulated in my head by the time I got to shul.”
That sound like the makings of a novella, I think aloud.
“I originally thought it would be a short story,” he concurs.
“But once I actually started writing it kept on growing, page
after page after page. Then I decided to set it in the future, so
that increased the length because I had to change the way the
game is played. I added a lot more automation and technology
to make it harder for the protagonist to play on Shabbos, because
as it stands now playing baseball might not be technically chillul
Shabbos, even though it’s not in right spirit. In the future, though,
when everything will be electronic with sensors and cameras,
you’re talking about major transgressions.
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“After I had the outline, I spent the next year or so fleshing
it out. I had so much fun writing this book. It really enjoyed
describing the nail-biting games where everything comes down
to the last pitch or someone making a great play.”
“Is this is the first time you’ve fiddled with story writing, so
to speak?”
“Not really. I’d written other scripts, like ‘The Marvelous
Middos Machine’ and ‘The Golden Crown.’ Those albums
weren’t just collections of children’s songs but had a plot, so I
didn’t find this book that difficult to write. I had a good editor
who helped me with the grammar and syntax, things like that.”
“Why did you insist on setting it in the future?”
“I had a couple of reasons. One was that if I made it in the past,
I would have had to create a fictional baseball world that already
happened or have my protagonist play with Mickey Mantle, Yogi
Berra and Reggie Jackson, and to me that seemed very cumbersome. The second reason was that I wanted a future where the
Yankees were a lousy team, one of the worst in the league. I
wanted him to be their savior, yet despite the fact that he comes
in and turns them around and brings them to the championship,
he still walks away from the game.”
“What’s the feedback been like?”
“Tremendous. A rebbe in Far Rockaway
went out and bought ten copies to give to
his students. My son walked into a bank
and saw the book sitting on the bank
manager’s desk; he hadn’t even known
the guy was Jewish. He told my son that
someone from the community had given
it to him as a gift, figuring that it was a
good way to find out about Yiddishkeit.
“That’s my dream, that people will buy
it as a present for those who are unaffiliated. That’s my ultimate goal, to reach
Jason and Justine. But the kids in Lakewood or Boro Park will learn from it too
because it presents the fundamentals of
our emunah in novel form.”
A TIME FOR
PLAIN TALK
“For decades you inspired people
through your words and music; now it’s
exclusively through words. I’d be surprised to hear that you don’t miss the
musical dimension.”
“This is just as gratifying,” he insists.
“You know my song ‘The Place Where I
Belong’? I wrote that in 1984. It’s on the
first Journeys album. I’ve gotten at least
three or four letters from people telling
me that that song made them frum or was
instrumental in their journey to embrace
Yiddishkeit. Of course, it’s very gratifying
for me to hear that.”
“But was it the words that inspired
them or the combination of the words
and the music?”
“I’d say primarily the words. The
music certainly helps. It creates emotion
and tugs at the heart. But it’s the words
people relate to on a conscious level.”
“So you hope that a story will do the
same?”
“Yes. There might not be any music,
but because it’s a story about a young
teenager who evaluates his life from a
new perspective and realizes that fame
and fortune aren’t everything in life, it
can make a big impact on a kid. It can
motivate him to visit a Torah website or
apply himself more in Sunday school
and learn more about Yiddishkeit. I mean,
my gosh! If someone reads this book and
is inspired it would be music to my ears.”
“Is writing fiction a new journey for
you, and should we expect more novels
from you in the future?”
“That’s a tough one. I don’t know. It
would have to be something different. I
think this story is done. I don’t think I’d
do a sequel.”
“You have a lot of fans who want to
know what makes you tick.”
“I’m not the typical musical person.
Part of it is that it was never my fulltime job or sole source of income. Most
of the well-known names made music
their profession. I’m a businessperson,
and my roots are actually in chinuch. So
I think I’ve always looked at my music
as an extension of trying to inspire and
educate.”
“In the beginning I took the approach
of peirush hamilos, incorporating a certain
interpretation into the words of Torah or
davening. Then I took it a step further
and also wrote lyrics to convey thoughtprovoking ideas.
“For example, the song ‘Conversation in the Womb’ is based on a parable
from Gesher Hachaim about unborn
babies who think their mother’s womb
is the entire universe until after they’re
born, when they realize there’s whole
other world. The nimshal, of course, is
this world and the world to come. Now
I’m trying to accomplish the same thing
without music and reach people outside
the community. How many books do we
“THE BOOK IS REALLY AN
EXPRESSION, IN FICTIONAL
FORM, OF A BODY OF WORK
THAT HAS TAKEN ME 30
YEARS TO PUT TOGETHER.”
have in our arsenal that can go beyond our community? Not
many. But maybe this one will.”
“Should we expect more ‘Hamalach Hagoel’s’ from you?”
“Im yirtzeh Hashem. I have a lot of niggunim. It doesn’t look like
I’m going to produce them myself, but I’d be happy to pass them
on to other artists. So hopefully people will hear more niggunim
from me going forward.”
INFLUENCES
“Let’s talk for a moment about the influences that shaped you.
To me, your music seems a bit reminiscent of Carlebach.”
“Let me tell you something. No matter what an artist says, his
music is going to reflect what he heard when he was younger. No
one is truly original. There may be changes and modifications
but basically what goes in comes out. It’s simply impossible to
be entirely innovative or different.
“I grew up in Queens, listening to Shlomo Carlebach and
Simon and Garfunkel. I also liked the music of Rabbi Baruch
Chait, Yigal Calik and Pirchei records. My father, who was from
Europe, introduced chasidic music into my life, like Ben Zion
Shenker’s Modzhitzer records. Those were the sounds I imbibed
as a child.”
“I met Reb Ben Zion Shenker not too long ago. Baruch Hashem,
he’s still going strong.”
“I’m an avid fan of Ami and I read that article. In fact, I’m still
using a line from that interview because people always ask me
which of my songs is my favorite. He had such a great rejoinder:
‘Would you ask me which one of my children I love the most?
You can’t ask me a question like that.’”
“Like him, you sing as well as compose music.”
“Yes, but I’m a reluctant singer.”
“But not a reluctant composer!”
“Not at all. I started composing niggunim as a teenager and did
that exclusively for probably 15 years. Then in my 30s I started
to write lyrics in English. I was very creative during that period.
I started working on the Journeys albums in 1984 and made four
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of them over the next 20 years. I still write niggunim but I haven’t
really written too many English songs in the last decade or so;
things have been pretty dry in that area. But who knows? Maybe
it’s because I was working on the book and various other creative pursuits.”
“You did the Dveykus albums?”
“Yes, and a series of albums called Lev V’nefesh and another one
called Aish. But my best work was probably in the realm of children’s educational material, teaching kids about middos.”
“I thought the ‘Marvelous Middos Machine’ was Oorah’s.”
“Oorah took the soundtrack and then did a video presentation with puppets. But those are my soundtracks and my songs.”
“And your voice?”
“I play one of the characters. This is my voice on the ‘Marvelous Middos Machine.’ [He does the voice.] Reb Shmuel Klein of
Torah Umesorah is Dr. Middos. He’s a very talented fellow. I had
the pleasure of working with him on those albums. I also worked
with Moshe Yess. Those albums are timeless, some of the accomplishments I’m most proud of. A lot people who grew up with that
stuff are very excited to introduce their kids to it. Believe it or not,
those CDs are still selling.
“Nowadays, when everything can be easily uploaded to YouTube, albums don’t sell. Whoever comes out with albums is
usually involved in the music industry as his parnasah, doing
weddings and concerts. The albums are really just part of their
advertising budget.”
ETERNAL APPEAL
“Sales aside, have musical tastes
changed over the years?” I ask him.
“Absolutely. And they will continue to
change.”
“Including your style? Your music,
which is soft and melancholic, seems to
have eternal appeal.”
“I wouldn’t use the term ‘melancholic’
to describe it. It’s more like kumzitz or
shalosh seudos music. It aims to be inspirational and uplifting. True, most of my
music is slow. I’d say that 95% of my
melodies that became popular are slower
songs or mid-tempo at best, although a
couple of fast ones also caught on.
“Shlomo was able to compose both. He
wrote niggunim you could dance to for
hours and niggunim that could make you
break down and cry. I’m better with the
slower, softer music and not as good with
rousing, lebedike songs.”
“When I get in my car and feel like
listening to music, I usually choose something with a strong rhythm to put me in
a more uplifted mood. Personally, I skip
the slow songs.”
“Digital music has made it so much
easier to do that,” he allows. “Remember
the olden days with cassettes, when you
had to fast-forward and hope to find the
right spot? Today, you just push a button
or put your songs on your iPod one after
the other. These are wonderful inventions
for people who take their music seriously.
“In one of my Journeys albums there’s a
song called ‘Yes, We’ve Got the Music,’ at
the end of which I present my hashkafah:
‘The sweet sounds of Lecha Dodi, sung
in perfect harmony, zemiros on a Friday
night, a kumzitz in the candlelight. But
one thing we must keep in mind, a Jewish
song of any kind, is only precious if and
when, it brings us closer to Hashem.’ In
my opinion, music that brings us nearer
to Hashem is Jewish music. If it doesn’t
do that, then it’s not Jewish music.”
“Isn’t all music spiritual, even if it’s not
religious per se?”
“Absolutely. There’s a kasha on the
Megillah. Achashveirosh had everything
at his seudah to entice the Jews and pull
them away from Hashem except for
music. Why not? One of the meforshim
explains that music is spiritual by nature.
Achashveirosh was trying to de-spiritualize the Jews, so even if it was Persian
music, it was still spiritual. There is
music, however, that’s intended to pull
you away from spirituality. But in general
there can be something spiritual even in
a rock and roll beat.”
“Music is very evocative. It can bring
back powerful memories.”
“Certainly. It can have almost a physical effect on a person. I remember when
rap music first came out, rhyme after rhyme
with very little melody, coming out of a
boom box. It talks about things going on
in the ghetto and it’s filled with profanity. I
always thought it was garbage until someone played a song for me about the Shoah
in that style. The song was all about mothers and children going to the gas chambers
and it hit me right between the eyes. I was shaking. It really is an art
form! I guess I just couldn’t relate to it because of the language and
the usual subject matter. But there’s something there, even if you
can’t dance to it at a chasunah.”
“Are you saying that the message is more important than the form
in which it’s expressed?”
“It’s a combination of everything. Young people today aren’t going
to be moved by the same things that moved our parents.
“When I was growing up in Kew Gardens, Paysach Krohn, who
was very dynamic even as a teenager, was our Pirchei leader. He
was so devoted that he would schlep us to learn and take us on
trips. One time he went to Israel and came back with a little cassette recorder. ‘Listen to this!’ he said. He’d gone into a Sefardi shul
and taped their davening. It was the first time we ever heard stuff like
that. We never knew any Sefardim. To us, their music sounded like it
was from outer space. Today it’s everywhere.
“Nowadays musicians are much more flexible. A contemporary
Ashkenazi musician will sing Sefardi songs just as Yaakov Shwekey
sings Ashkenazi songs. Things are much more interchangeable.”
KIDS WILL BE KIDS
“Do you think that your musical style is still relevant to our
youth?”
“Yes. In my music, and certainly in Shlomo’s and Baruch
Chait’s, there’s an element of peirush hamilos. I believe that if a
song has that dimension, it has a much greater chance of continuing to live on. These are words you’re familiar with from the
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siddur and elsewhere that come alive when they’re expressed to
music. In my opinion, those are the kinds of songs that hang
around and have a longer shelf life. I remember telling Baruch
Levine, ‘It’s not how hot a song is when it comes out of the oven,
it’s how long it stays warm.’ A niggun can stick around for generations.
“I had tears in my eyes when those three boys were missing
and klal Yisrael was davening for them. Everyone had gathered by
the Kosel when all of a sudden the olam started singing ‘Acheinu,’
which I wrote. It was an indescribable feeling. Whenever I speak
to composers they tell me the same thing. There’s nothing more
rewarding than hearing people sing your compositions.”
“Well, ‘Acheinu’ has certainly remained warm. How old is it?”
“I always say that just as a person needs mazal, so too does a
song. This song came out in the early ’90s, a week or two before
the start of the Persian Gulf War. Saddam was shooting Scuds
into Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak and all of a sudden ‘Acheinu Kol Beis
Yisrael’ came upon the scene. Everyone started singing it and it
became very popular. While I think the song had a good chance
on its own because it’s good, the timing could not have been
better.”
“There’s another song that’s still warm,” I tell him, “‘Neshamale,’ which you sang with Mordechai Ben David at a HASC
concert.”
“People ask me to sing it whenever I perform. I’ve gotten
so many letters from people who nebach lost a loved one and
were comforted by it. It has a powerful message. The song talks
about how the neshamah comes from shamayim and goes back to
I BELIEVE THAT IF A SONG
HAS THAT DIMENSION, IT HAS
A MUCH GREATER CHANCE OF
CONTINUING TO LIVE ON.
shamayim. It’s the journey of life in a single song.”
“Which other songs would you say also convey powerful messages?”
“The most well-known would be ‘Acheinu’ and ‘Hamalach,’ the
lullaby that’s sung by kinderlach all over the world. Then from
the Dveykus albums I’d say ‘Veliyerushalayim,’ ‘Haben Yakir Li’ and
‘Lakol Zeman Va’eis.’”
“A lot of performers have sung your songs.”
“Mordechai did ‘Neshamele.’ He sang on Lev V’nefesh. We’ve
sung together at concerts but haven’t worked much together.
“Yaakov Shwekey sang ‘Mama Rachel’ on Journeys 4. It’s based
on a story that is told about Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz, who was
once overheard crying at the kever of Rachel Imeinu and saying,
‘Mama, vayn nochamol.’ Please cry for us again.
“Leibel Sharfman, who has a truly wonderful voice, was my
partner for all six Dveykus albums. He was in the Rabbi’s Sons
back in the ’60s. We were also chavrusas in Yeshiva Chofetz
Chaim. That’s how I got into the music scene in the first place.
The mashgiach, Rav Chaim Shmuel Neiman, who was a holy Yid
and was just niftar recently, set me up with him. Leibel has a
seminary in Eretz Yisrael and has been doing phenomenal work
with girls for 40 years.
“Shlomo Simcha from Toronto was my partner for the Aish
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albums. Journeys were the only ones I did by myself.
“Eli Teitelbaum, who produced the amazing Pirchei records,
was my neighbor in Queens. He was already a legend by the
time he was in his 20s and had a great influence on me. I used
to daven in his father’s shul. He was a rebbe in cheder and was
into photography and judo and so many other things. He was
also the founder of Dial-a-Daf and Camp Sdei Chemed, the first
summer camp in Eretz Yisrael. He was just an amazing person.
“And I can’t say enough about Paysach Krohn. The man is
absolutely incredible. Both of us were children of Holocaust
survivors so we were living in a strange time in history. Our
community was fragile, and here you had a kid like Paysach
Krohn who was so enthusiastic about Yiddishkeit. He’d gather us
together in his house and tell us stories about baseball, boxing
and football. Then he’d announce, ‘Okay, now it’s time to go
back to learning our masechta.’ And we’d do it too because he
was so exciting, and sports was a big part of it. So these were
some of my influences, musical and otherwise.”
“THE SEASON OF PEPSI MEYERS”
“I really loved sports as a kid. And my father enjoyed watching an occasional ballgame. There’s a story in the book that’s
“IN MY OPINION, MUSIC
THAT BRINGS US NEARER
TO HASHEM IS JEWISH
MUSIC.”
really autobiographical, where someone talks about having been
woken up as a five-year-old to come watch Mickey Mantle on
a little black and white TV in the living room. That story was
really about me.
“My father was born in Antwerp and learned in the Heiden
yeshivah. He was only 18 when the war broke out. My mother is
from Vienna but managed to get to England. Fortunately, they
weren’t in the camps. My father escaped the Gestapo through
Switzerland, where he spent the war years in a DP camp.”
“You said you were involved in chinuch.”
“Yes. As I said, I learned in Chofetz Chaim, where the rosh
yeshivah, Rav Henoch Leibowitz, strongly urged his talmidim to
go into chinuch. That’s what I did for my first seven or eight years
after yeshivah. I was teaching in Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley. I didn’t leave until we were expecting our fourth
kid and it was very difficult to make ends meet. I had an offer
to join my wife’s family business in Toronto and took it. So it’s
very likely that I still have some subliminal guilt for having left
chinuch, being a pretty loyal Chofetz Chaim fellow, but I feel like
I’ve done some outreach and chinuch through my music. The
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Journeys albums certainly convey strong messages.
“That’s also what I’m trying to do with this book. You can’t go
to a child today and say, ‘Here’s Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch’s
Nineteen Letters. Go read it and be inspired.’ It’s not going to
work. It’s too hard. The material is too heavy. So nowadays you
have to get in through the back door. That’s what ‘The Season of
Pepsi Meyers’ does. It’s a story about baseball, but I sneak in some
very important lessons about Yiddishkeit. The protagonist has a
choice to make, and in the end he makes the right one.”
“Whose teachings did you base it on?”
“The truth is I didn’t use a particular sefer. I sat down with my
rav in Toronto, Rav Moshe Mordechai Lowy, to discuss the things
that should be included, and we decided to address four basics:
emunah in a Supreme Being; hashgachah, that the Supreme Being
cares and knows what’s going on; that He gave us the Torah, a
way of life to follow; and that there’s such a thing as schar v’onesh,
reward and punishment.”
“This is all very important, but are kids reading at all? Their
attention spans are practically zero.”
“It’s a short book, barely 200 pages long, so it doesn’t demand
that much. My son lives in a basement apartment in Lakewood.
His landlord upstairs bought the book and gave it to his 14-yearold son. A short time later he told my son, ‘Tell your father that
it’s the first time in five years my son has read a book. He loved
it, said it’s fantastic. He told me there were a few boring parts,
y’know, the stuff about Yiddishkeit.’
“I’m not naïve. When I did the Middos Machine people said, ‘Do
you really think you’re going to change kids’ middos?’ I told them
no. Rav Yisrael Salanter said that it’s easier to learn Shas than to
change a middah. But baruch Hashem, the album brought middos
to the forefront and gave parents some tools, such as songs they
could sing to their children about not getting angry or being jealous. Hopefully here too there’ll be a little chinuch for Jewish kids
who don’t know too much, presented in a way that’s light.
“It’s a story about a guy who’s got everything. You know how
kids-at-risk think they’re missing out on so much? Well, Pepsi
Meyers had it all. He was the best player in the game, he had the
opportunity to make millions of dollars, and he walks away from
it for Torah and mitzvos.
“The ultimate message here is that Torah and mitzvos are yekarim mipaz (more precious than gold). There is nothing in the
world like it. Nothing.” 