There’s a song for every moment — even the unbearable ones.
This year, Simchat Torah carries both memory and possibility.
These are the songs that have carried us.
Music has played a significant role in my life for as long as I can remember.
My childhood home was filled with folk music and classic rock. My father always had something playing in the background — a constant soundtrack to our everyday moments. In our own home, there is always music playing (often very loudly), and over the years I’ve watched our playlist evolve as the kids introduced more and more Israeli music into our usual rotation.
Music has this incredible way of holding space for all the feelings — the big, loud ones and the quiet, unbearable ones. As we head into these upcoming days, I’ve found myself building a playlist of songs that have accompanied me — and us, as a nation — over the past two years.
There’s something breathtaking about artists who can translate our collective heart into song, who give shape and sound to emotions we can’t always name. In the excruciatingly painful traffic jam of funerals in those first days after October 7 attacks, we were standing and waiting for Amir Fisher’s z”l funeral to begin while another funeral was happening nearby. And in the background — there was Ehud Banai playing.
Jasmin Moallem was one of Amir’s favorites. Yoni reached out to her, and she came to sing at his shloshim. More than that, she opened her heart — inviting Amir’s tzevet to her concerts, building a quiet, beautiful bond with Lior, Amir’s girlfriend. A year later, Yasmin released the song רק הזמן, inspired by Lior.
Idan Amedi came to Yonah Brief’s shloshim and played there too. And when Tal Eilon was finally laid to rest in Kibbutz Kfar Azza’s cemetery — two years after he was killed on that black day — the song his family chose was אם מחר אני מת. It was heartbreak captured in sound. There are no words for moments like those — only music.
And now, as we approach Simchat Torah this year — with the fragile, flickering possibility that the hostages, both living and dead, will return home — I find myself wondering:
What will be the soundtrack of a nation holding its breath?
Because it’s not just one note. It’s part heartbreak and part hope. It’s the sound of two years of longing and pain. And maybe — just maybe — it’s the sound of return.
This playlist is a small attempt to hold that complicated, holy space.
You can listen to the playlist here — and I’d love to hear the songs that carried you, too.