COURIER photo/Gabriel Fenoy

Nine-year-old Joshua Bloch has his t-shirt autographed by rocker Rick Recht after Sunday’s concert at Temple Beth Israel in Claremont.

Spreading faith through a love for music

How does one cultivate faith in today’s youth? Faith for a generation of people conditioned to live in a society where celebrity is news, where information is gathered in a single click and the senses are flooded with an overflow of information. For Cantor Paul Buch of Temple Beth Israel, the answer lies with music.

“Music can touch your soul and reach into places in your being that no other form of expression can,” he said. “It penetrates the soul.”

Cantor Buch, who plays guitar, drums and, admittedly, only “some” piano, was born with a love and appreciation of music. Growing up in Buffalo, New York, his parents enrolled him in a community music school at the tender age of 4 years. Throughout his life, his parents took him to symphony concerts and Broadway shows which instilled a deep appreciation of music.

“Anybody who has known me for more than 5 minutes knows that music revolves around me all the time,” he said.

In his effort to introduce new “pop-style” Jewish music at Temple Beth Israel, Cantor Buch arranged for Rick Recht, the top-touring musician in Jewish music, to perform Sunday before a multi-generational audience.

For Jewish youth, Mr. Recht agrees that music is the most effective way of helping teens foster a relationship with their faith.

“Christian rock is about 30 to 40 years ahead of us,” Mr. Recht said. “But the Jewish community is catching up by utilizing music to strengthen our youth’s connection to their faith.”

Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Mr. Recht developed a strong Jewish identity while attending Traditional Congregation, a conservative synagogue, and later in high school, when he joined the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY), where he was deeply influenced by Jewish music.

“Music is used in times of mourning or in times of celebration,” he said. “Music is the soundtrack behind all experiences in the Jewish world.”

Mr. Recht is currently the Artist in Residence at United Hebrew Congregation in St. Louis, Missouri and is married to his wife of 8 years, Elisa. The couple has 2 sons, Kobi, 6, and Tal, 3.

After releasing 2 secular albums, Good Thing and Reality, Mr. Recht returned to his Jewish roots with his debut Jewish album, Tov, in 1999. His most recent album, Knockin’ Holes in the Darkness, was recorded live in 2007. Mr. Recht writes his own songs with music and lyrics that are intermingled with Hebrew and Jewish text.

Delivering about 150 performances a year, Mr. Recht and his band tour nationwide at Jewish festivals and Jewish day and overnight camps for youth, as well as temples throughout the United States. His touring experience included an appearance at the 11th Los Angeles Jewish Festival in 2003 in front of an estimated audience of 30,000.

For his album “Tear Down the Walls,” which was recorded Memphis in 2006, Mr. Recht assembled a group of Jewish teens at a charter school operated by a non-profit organization that also operates the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. The students, along with a group of African American students, recorded "Avadim Hayinu," which blends Hebrew lyrics describing the Israelites' journey from slavery to freedom.

During his 2-hour lively performance, Mr. Recht urged members of the synagogue to join in the music by singing along and standing arm in arm. He and his band merged the lyrics to Bob Marley’s “One Love” with Mr. Recht’s song “Tear Down the Walls” as audience members sang along.

“It’s time to break down the barriers,” he declared. “Break down the barriers between humans and humans, nations and nations. Let’s leave this world a better place than when we came.” (story continues below)