Chassidic hip-hop artist links two worlds

Isaac Miracles
Isaac Miracles

Isaac Miracles is the name on the album Desire and subsequent singles that singer/composer Richard Mechaly has released since 2009, and it’s not just a catchy nod to showbiz.

Yitzhak Nissim, of which Miracles is the literal translation, is his Hebrew name, but “it was difficult for the general public to say,” hence the English version.

Reaching the general public is what Miracles’ recordings are all about and that’s a groundbreaking concept for a member of the Bratslever chassidic movement.

Miracles also has an unorthodox background. He was born in Montreal to French-speaking Sephardi Moroccan parents who moved the family to Gaithersburg, Md.

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They brought their children up in a secular manner, but steeped them in Israeli and Arabic music that was their preferred listening. A decade later, Miracles returned to Montreal with his divorced mother and was attracted as a teenager to rap music and R&B. It was when his father died that music became his focus.

“I don’t know why, but when he passed away, I developed a tremendous urge to make music. I figure maybe it was like unfinished business he left to me because he loved to sing,” says Miracles.

“I was thrown into more of a religious setting, because I wanted to say Kaddish for my father and then I was bombarded with these ideas for songs and the hip hop and R&B meshed with more spiritually infused insights. I met a friend who has a studio in his basement, and that’s where I began recording.”

The 35-year-old Miracles has become rather an Internet phenomenon, with fans downloading and streaming his music through various global online audio distribution platforms like SoundCloud.

He also has his songs produced as music videos that can be accessed on YouTube, set in such disparate locales as at walls of graffiti, in prayer rooms where davening men pick up the beat, at his day job where he is a corporate software sales consultant, and in his own home peopled by his wife Shira and their three sons, ages 7, 3 and 2 months.

Live appearances such as the Tu b’Shvat concert he gave for Adath Israel Congregation in Hampstead are mostly one-man shows with his beatbox.

All of his songs have themes that help an individual cope with life. “Bounce Back is a song about not giving up, getting comfortable with life’s loads and using them to propel you forward,” says Miracles. “On My Way Home is about being aware of how negative thoughts affect us in a very real way.”

Yona is a beautiful and heartbreaking plea for world peace dedicated to the yeshiva students slain by terrorists in Israel.

Earlier songs were punctuated by the vocal synthesizer effects of Auto-Tune, but these have been phased out, making the sound less faddish. The more artistic contributions of turntablist DJ Killa-Jewel (Julie Fainer) add to the experience.

As a result, both lyrics and music have modernized their connection to the songwriter’s inspiration of “simplicity, joy and spontaneous prayer that I learned from the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, who coined the phrase, ‘Despair does not exist’. No, You Won’t Give Up tells you that despair is an illusion like someone who gets drunk and then thinks they can drive,” he says.

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“They’re under the influence and that’s what despair is. Be aware that your decision-making is compromised. If We Only Knew talks about how faith is actually a higher level of intelligence. It’s not blind.”

Of course, he has startled some of his fellow Chassidim, but at the same time he has plugged in many fellow Jews and even non-Jews to a dance-worthy, life-affirming approach to God and selfhood.

“I see that my music has touched and assisted people, even in minute ways, and I’m content with that,” says Miracles.