Englewood—How do you make selections for a new CD when you have 47 years’ worth of songs to choose from? Chazzan Yaakov Motzen’s “greatest hits” collection, Hand in Hand, is expected to be released shortly, after his daughter- in-law Shoshana Motzen, a graphic artist, completes the cover design. On the notes for the CD, he writes “Every piece has great meaning, either for the words, the melody, or because of the place where the piece was performed.” For example, his composition “Harninu Goyim” was chosen as a blend of all three. He wrote it in memory of his late brother, Avraham Chaim, HY”D, who was killed in the 1982 Lebanon war, and has performed the song several times at Jewish festivals in Poland and Hungary, and in Auschwitz at the 1992 March of the Living. The melodies of “M”Chalkel Chaim” and “Ein Kitzva” are from his great-grandfather. He performed them with his father and recorded them when his father was 70. He composed two of the songs on the CD to celebrate the birth of his first two children. The title was inspired by his close association with the Modzitzer Rebbe, whose music “was the perfect fusion of prayer and melody.” Some of the selections were recorded live. Others have been digitally remastered from recordings made in previous decades.
On the wall of Yaakov and Marsha Motzen’s living room is a map of the world, with pins stuck in all the places where they have traveled together in just the last four years. Israel, where Yaakov Motzen was born, is a frequent destination. Canada, where he served as chazzan for 30 years, is noted. There is a pin for Florida, where he is in residence for the High Holidays every year. Australia and South Africa have pins. There are also plenty of pins in the ocean since Chazzan Motzen frequently performs on cruises. In fact, the Motzens were married on one.
Yaakov Motzen has been a chazzan virtually his whole life. His father was a baal tefillah, as were other family members going back five generations. He can still vividly remember his first performances. “When I was about 7 years old, while my parents were resting Shabbat afternoon, I took a siddur, stood on my bed, and using the headboard as a shtender, practiced the Shabbos morning davening from the beginning, quietly, so I wouldn’t wake my parents,” he recalled.
He heard the most accomplished chazzanim of the day from early childhood. “My father took me once a month to Tel Aviv to the Great Synagogue and other shuls where I heard the leading chazzanim from Israel and abroad: Chief Cantor Binyamin Ungar, Laibele Glantz, Moshe Koussevitzky, and Jan Peerce.” He also heard Chazzan Moshe Stern, who he calls “the greatest living chazzan of our generation.”
At age 8, he became a member of the “Ohel Shem” choir of Chazzan Shlomo Ravitz. Two years later, he began singing with his father on the High Holy Days. His father taught him more than the nusach; he taught his son how to prepare spiritually for the yom tovim by reviewing all the tefilot. Motzen studied formally with Chazzan Yitchak Eshel and voice with Joseph Goland. He studies now with Lenora Eve in New York City and is already planning a lesson with her by Skype on erev Yom Kippur from Florida.
Motzen met one of the greatest influences on his life, the Modzitzer Rebbe, through a friend when he was 11 years old. For three years he joined the “M’shor’rim,” singers who accompanied the Rebbe for yom tov davening. The Rebbe was known for his “beautiful voice and heartfelt davening.”
Motzen became a full-fledged chazzan at age 17. He held the position of Chief Cantor in Givatayim, Haifa, and Ramat Gan, and sang on Kol Yisrael radio and television. In 1978 he went to Canada where he became the chazzan of several shuls over the next 30 years. Currently, he travels throughout the world giving concerts and davening for Shabbat and yom tovim. He recently left for Israel where he will be giving concerts in Kfar Saba and Ramat Gan and davening Shabbat Hagadol at the Gardenia Hotel in the Jezreel Valley. He will spend Shabbat Chol Hamoed Pesach and the last days at the Rixos Hotel in Dubrovnik and the following Shabbat he will be in Kiryat Krenitzi. When he returns to the U.S., he will be performing May 25 at the Talmud Torah in Flatbush in a Mincha/Maariv/sefira concert.
While travel is exciting and glamorous, Chazzan Motzen misses being part of a community. “When I was in Canada, I shared simcha and sorrow, I was in shul three times a day, and I gave classes. People would walk to shul for my shiurim and some shidduchum were made that way,” he said.
Chazzan Motzen said only a handful of shuls have a full-time chazzan now—in New York perhaps there are four or five. Demand is stronger in Israel, where people of all ages, including 20-somethings, go to concerts and hotels have special Shabat chazzanut.
“[Today] many in the younger generation are not introduced to chazzanus in the right way,” he said. “Some chazzanim know niggunim but not nusach. You have to combine melody and chazzanus. You have to have the right recipe, know the balance.” Motzen has developed a feel for what audiences want and he knows how to captivate them. He knew he succeeded when a young couple in Palm Beach told him how much they enjoyed his davening.
He gets his music to a wider audience with recordings. He has made over 20 CDs including a 4- CD set of the entire Nusach Tefillah Shabbat. “We were walking in Meah Shearim and I saw the CDs in a store window,” he noted.
When not travelling around the world, Chazan Motzen is at home in Englewood with his wife Marsha Greenberg Motzen, a musician in her own right and music teacher at Yavneh Academy in Paramus. Marsha Motzen is getting ready for the Yavneh choir’s performance at the Teaneck Holocaust Commemoration on April 28 and the Interschool Spring concert at Park East Synagogue in New York on May 28. She started the concept five years ago with Yavneh and SAR and now six schools are participating: Yavneh, Moriah, Park East, SAR, Ramaz, and Heschel.
Marsha grew up in a musical family in Philadelphia and knew from an early age she wanted to be a music teacher. Her father played violin in addition to being a shochet. She played violin and piano and went to a public high school known for high quality musical performances. “The teachers always treated us like professionals,” she recalled. “There was no mediocrity; you had to produce.”
For several years she had her own band, Kol Echad, in Philadelphia and also played with wedding bands in New York, where she met Yaakov Motzen, who was the chazzan at an event where she performed. Years later, after both their marriages ended, and she was teaching at Yavneh, Yaakov and Marsha married each other.
“It was yeshiva week, 2010 and Yaakov was scheduled to perform on a Kosherica cruise. We got married on the ship, although we had to have a civil ceremony before we left because Kosherica couldn’t do it officially,” she said. “Kosherica invited all the guests to the wedding and graciously let our families come as well. We were 1,000 people, and 10 chazzanim. After the meal there was an orchestra and dancing. We had to ask what to put on the ketubah for the location and were told to put ‘the Atlantic between Fort Lauderdale and Saint Thomas.”
The Motzens share the same tastes in music—mostly classical and opera. Marsha introduced opera to her students who have formed a lunch time opera club. A few times a year, she takes students to dress rehearsals at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She travels with her husband during the summer and often accompanies him on piano in performance. During free time they can be found at the world’s finest musical venues. They have been to the Opera Festival in Verona and La Scala in Milan. On one trip to Israel, they saw American soprano Renee Fleming and then went to Ramat Gan for a Paul Simon concert. This summer, they are looking forward to a trip to Israel followed by a Kosherica Mediterranean cruise and Budapest for a cantorial conference.
Chazzan Motzen’s full travel schedule means he is frequently away from home, but the couple still shares music together. “He’ll hand me 50 sheets of music before he goes to Israel and say please learn this by the time I get home,” said Marsha. “It was scary at first. I used to think, am I worthy? But I’m more relaxed now.”
By Bracha Schwartz
