The day of Ezra Schwartz’s funeral on November 22, 2015 was an especially tearful one for parents of youngsters studying in Israel for their gap year. Ezra Schwartz, an 18-year-old graduate of Boston’s Maimonides High School, was studying at a yeshiva in Beit Shemesh for his gap year in Israel. As he was on his way to deliver food to soldiers stationed near the West Bank settlement of Efrat, where three teenagers had been slain the year before, he was gunned down by a Palestinian terrorist.

For Rebecca Teplow, Teaneck resident, musician, music educator and singer/composer, it was an unbelievably painful day. Teplow’s daughter Tamara, also a musician who specializes in flute, was studying in Israel at the time.

Teplow started composing her “Avinu Shebashamayim” that very day. “My intention was to dedicate it to the memory of a young man [who] eulogy after eulogy described as being a special neshama who always wanted to help others. I felt that we should learn from him to really care about our fellow Jews even when we don’t know them personally. We are all really linked; Ezra, Gilad, Naftali, Eyal, Kobi and the countless other children and adults who were murdered simply because they were Jewish.”

Avinu Shebashamayim is one of the tefilot we recite between Shacharit and Musaf on Shabbat. In this poignant prayer we turn to Hashem, our Rock and Redeemer, to bless the State of Israel and shield her beneath His wings of kindness and His canopy of peace. We ask that He send light and truth to her leaders and direct them with His good counsel. We beseech Him to strengthen the defenders of our nation and crown them with victory.

When Teplow saw these words on the list of liturgical selections for which she had been commissioned to compose melodies for Cantor Azi Schwartz of Park Avenue Synagogue, “I knew this would be my vehicle for honoring Ezra’s memory and those of the other victims of terror.”

Teplow had composed two music CDs, one in 2004 and one in 2008, which combined her classical music background with her distinctive take on spirituality. Avinu Shebashamayim is her first music video and has been viewed by thousands on Spotify since its launch. Her background on the video is the rolling sea. “It had been a gray and melancholy day but during the taping there was a sudden windstorm. When I got to the words ‘God, send your light and truth’ the sun suddenly came out. It was surreal. People have noticed the correlation to the Hebrew. They are also moved by the raw emotion I express in it. It gives them a connection to Ezra.”

Teplow grew up in an Orthodox home in Brooklyn. She attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush through eighth grade. While in grade school, she began taking piano lessons from a local teacher who was a survivor of the Holocaust, a woman she considers to be one of the major influences in her life.

After successfully prevailing upon her parents to allow her to follow her dream of attending the High School of Performing Arts, made famous in the movie Fame, Teplow pursued her musical training in violin, voice and composing. “Throughout high school, I stayed orthodox and retained my Judaism despite many challenges along the way. I believe strongly that it was the music that kept me connected,” claimed Teplow.

Teplow went on to study violin with Izhak Perlman and the composer Robert Starer. The musical arrangements that she writes for her own original music, choirs, cantors and performances, are inspired by the tutelage she received from these giants.

When asked to comment upon the musical techniques she utilized in her debut music video memorializing Ezra Schwartz, HY”D, Teplow explained, “Listen to the way the words of Avinu Shebashamayim are interjected towards the middle and end of the song, on the highest notes of the piece and at the climax of the musical phrases. When I am composing, I do not have an intentional awareness of my musical techniques. But because I try to ‘enter’ the holiness of the words, the musical techniques mirror and reflect the deeper meaning of the words.”

To contact Rebecca Teplow for piano and voice lessons, email her at [email protected] or call 347-223-9974. To contact Tamara Teplow for flute lessons email [email protected] or call 201-417-8728.

By Pearl Markovitz