Kabbalat Shabbat with Avraham Tal

Yesterday I went to Haifa together with Hadar to see and hear Avraham Tal perform. When I had just met Yoram about one year ago, one of my best friends in Malmö, Malin, lend me the first album from Shotey HaNevoa, the group that Avraham at that time was a central figure in. Malin had required that CD during her period in Israel several years earlier. This was my first serious contact with Israeli music and I was immediately enthralled with the brilliant music they created. Listening to Shotey HaNevoa became my channel to Israel, and consequently also to Yoram, and I listened to it 24/7. Sitting on the train to the university every day I dreamed myself away to the warm and vibrating country far away, where my lover was, and the music soothed me from the painful knowledge that I had several months before me before I would see him again. It was also a natural way to get used to the Hebrew language. When I started to study some Hebrew, I started to identify words in the lyrics and this made me love the songs even more. Soon I found Shotey HaNevoa's second album and when I was in Israel during the winter I got my hands on Avraham's solo album. The music he makes is highly creative and intelligent and an amazing mix of various influences and this makes it very unique and genuine.

Yesterday we arrived quite early during the sound check, and walking towards the scene with Avraham standing there singing, sun shining and almost no people around, was an almost magical experience, just as if it was all for me. I got goose bumps all over. The concert was amazing, the atmosphere was still remarkably familiar and there was not more people than you could walk around freely also just in front of the stage. He played new songs, as well as old Shotey HaNevoa songs and people were dancing and singing, children as well as grownups. It was a true folk fest!

As the last number he did Kol Galgal, probably one of his most famous songs, although the lyrics in this case is not his own. These words are found in the Zohar, one of the most important spiritual scriptures in the Kabbalah, or the Jewish mysticism. The Zohar is a commentary on the Torah and it contains a mystical discussion of the nature of God, the origin and structure of the universe, the nature of souls, good and evil, and the relationship between God and man.

Not only is Avraham Tal a brilliant artist. He is also a totally humble and genuine person, which is not always easily found among artists, who often are reticent and filled with an inch too much of megalomania. No matter how I have been in contact with Avraham, he is always the same person, ready to share his good energy, and this is highly honourable. This was the first time I saw him perform live, but certainly not the last. It was just a pity that I could not bring Yoram, who was busy. This concert gave me one more of those unexplainable feelings of a natural and self-evident belonging here in Israel. I am home...