We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Priestly Blessing - Birkat Kohanot

from Alphabet of Wrongdoing by Daniela Gesundheit

/

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited Edition Double White LP Box Set with 108 page Hardcover Libretto Book and CD.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Alphabet of Wrongdoing via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 14 days
    edition of 500 
    Purchasable with gift card

      $135 CAD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Limited Edition 108 page Hardcover Libretto Book with CD.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Alphabet of Wrongdoing via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 10 days
    edition of 200 
    Purchasable with gift card

      $65 CAD or more 

     

  • ALPHABET OF WRONGDOING - SPECIAL EDITION

    WHAT YOU WILL RECEIVE IN THIS PACKAGE:
    A personalized postcard from Daniela sent to you by USPS
    Instant Download of the full Alphabet of Wrongdoing album in your preferred format
    PDF of Alphabet of Wrongdoing 108 page full color libretto (emailed to you within three days of purchase)
    Relentlessly good vibes

    ***PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL AND MAILING ADDRESS WHEN YOU ORDER SO WE CAN SEND YOU THE LINK TO THE DIGITAL LIBRETTO AND THE POSTCARD***


    This companion 108 page full-color ebook is a libretto, a roadmap to follow in sequence while listening to the album, or you can turn to any page, regarding each facet you encounter as a koan that can hopefully illuminate the more esoteric aspects of this work. This debut collection of poems and essays asks, Can we transmute a world’s weight of unforgivable acts, an Alphabet of Wrongdoing? Both the album and the book investigate communal gestures of forgiveness - attempts to "Restore dignity to existence through music…" (poet Alan Felsenthal)

    Designers Brankica Harvey and Ken Deegan took an artful dive into the realm of typography to reveal the alphabet to us anew. The book also features stills from a video for All Our Departed, directed by Johnny Spence, filmed by Caitlin Woelfle-O’Brien, choreographed by Erin Poole, and performed by Erin Poole, Eric Cheng, and Daniela Gesundheit.

    *You may also apply this purchase as a credit towards the double LP box set and hardcover book which will be out in 2021.

    10% of proceeds will go to The Loveland Foundation. No one turned away for lack of funds. Send an email to hello@alphabetofwrongdoing.com for more information.

    Excerpt from Alphabet of Wrongdoing Digital Libretto:

    We have un-vowed, we have pounded our hearts open, we have prostrated ourselves on forest floors, pine needles pressing into our bellies, and we have fissured our hardened shells all to see if there is some shining, iridescent yolk of incorruptibility inside of us. From that place, where the shards of who we once were somehow fertilize the soil around us, a date palm begins to grow in rapid time-lapse. The summation of brokenness feeds the date palm, moves up its proud, upright trunk as sap, moves into its branches, first as blossoms and then as sweet endless fruit. Just glimpsing the palm sway we feel more whole, more alive: “fresh and full of sap.” This perpetual transmutation is justice.



    Artwork, typography, and layout by Brankica Harvey and Ken Deegan
    Cover photograph by Dawn Garcia
    Edited by Kristen Bulger (English) and Dana Reginiano (Hebrew)
    Fonts Flecha and Grifo designed by Rui Abreu of R-Typography
    Booklet photographs by Caitlin Woelfle-O’Brien
    The images are stills from a video for All Our Departed, directed by Johnny Spence, choreographed by Erin Poole, featuring Erin Poole, Daniela Gesundheit and Eric Cheng

    Includes unlimited streaming of Alphabet of Wrongdoing via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.     ... more
    ships out within 7 days

      $13.13 CAD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1.11 CAD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

about

Priestly Blessing / Birkat Kohanot ברכת כהנות

HIGHLIGHTS: Sari Lightman and Romy Lightman (Tasseomancy) priestessing, Johnny Spence's femme dirge synth. "Ancient source of kindness warming the new cold corners of our life …"


DESCRIPTION:

If the high priests were the gatekeepers to the true name of God, and to all of the esoteric threads of Jewish life in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, and if only those high priests — after a series of ritual purifications — were permitted to recite the Priestly Blessing, then what did those cloistered and guarded utterances and rites sound and feel like? What were the ASMR sensations ascending the spines of the priests as they gathered in ecstatic, private devotion? How did reciting the true name of God re-arrange their cells, driving out chaos and anxiety, instilling a vibrant, luminous array?

This iteration of the “Priestly Blessing” addresses its recipient in the feminine conjugation and refers to the feminine presence of the divine, the Shekhina. It is a tactile blessing — the text asks God to envelop the person receiving the blessing until peace emanates. Parents recite this blessing to their children on Shabbat —the Sabbath — placing their hands on their foreheads. The blessing is complementary to the rabbinic lore that on the Sabbath, those who approach the day with sacrality receive a “second soul.” For a moment, let us imagine this text is animate, that upon being sung — with the intention of blessing its recipient — it starts to swirl like a benevolent cyclone, gently lifting up everything and everyone in its path, carrying it for a time, and placing it back down on the earth enlivened.

lyrics

תְּבָרְכֵךְ יְיָ וְתִשְׁמְרֵךְ

כֵּן יְהִי רָצוֹן

תֵּאֵר יְיָ פָּנֶיהָ אֵלַיִךְ וּתְחַנֵּךְ

כֵּן יְהִי רָצוֹן

תִּשָּׂא יְיָ פָּנֶיהָ אֵלַיִךְ

וַתָּשֶׂם לָךְ שָׁלוֹם

כֵּן יְהִי רָצוֹן

May God, the divine spirit, bless you, protect you, surround you in light, and bring you peace.

credits

from Alphabet of Wrongdoing, released September 22, 2020
Alphabet of Wrongdoing 

by Daniela Gesundheit

18 tracks, run time 47:14 

Produced by Daniela Gesundheit and Dan Misha Goldman

Performed by 
Daniela Gesundheit voice, percussion
Dan Misha Goldman nylon string and electric guitars, synth, clavinet
Johnny Spence synth, piano, percussion
Basia Bulat autoharp
Sarah Pagé harp 
Evan Cartwright percussion
Alex Lukashevsky voice, percussion
Sari Lightman voice
Romy Lightman voice
Jason Sharp bass and baritone saxophones
with string arrangements by Owen Pallett performed by the Macedonian Symphonic Orchestra (Oleg Kondratenko, conductor)

The melodies and texts herein are traditional, though the vocal embellishments and ornamentation are original. Many of the selections on this album adhere to a form of a refrain that has a set, congregational melody, and that alternates with verses that are improvised within the nusach or mode of the piece. The verses in these pieces are improvised. 

The instrumental arrangements and production are original. Many of the pieces were re-harmonized by Dan Misha Goldman. Track twelve, Mi Chamocha, features a melody written by Rabbi Hanna Tiferet Siegel.  www.HannaTiferet.com

Mixed by Steve Kaye at Sunking Studios in Los Angeles (Kol Nidre mixed by Dan Misha Goldman) 

Recorded by Dan Misha Goldman in Montréal, Leon Taheny at Boombox studio in Toronto, Nicolas 
Pétrowski at Mixart in Montréal, and Daniela Gesundheit in Los Angeles 

Mastered by David Travers-Smith at found.sound

Artwork, typography, and layout by Brankica Harvey and Ken Deegan

Fonts Flecha and Grifo designed by Rui Abreu of R-Typography

Cover photograph by Dawn Garcia

Booklet photographs by Caitlin Woelfle-O’Brien. The images are stills from a video for All Our Departed, directed by Johnny Spence, choreographed by Erin Poole, featuring Erin Poole and Eric Cheng.

LP packaging printed at Precision Record Pressing in Burlington, ON Canada. Book printed at Conti Tipocolor in Calenzano, Italy.

All included Hebrew texts are traditional, and edited by Dana Reginiano; all English translations and English translation excerpts are by Rabbi Richard N. Levy z”l, from his volume of High Holiday liturgy, On Wings of Awe, courtesy of B’nai Brith Hillel Foundations. All other English passages are by Daniela Gesundheit, edited by Kristen Bulger.

This album was recorded on the traditional territories of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat people, and on the unceded lands of The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation and the Gabrielino/Tongva people. 

Alphabet of Wrongdoing was recorded with the assistance of a Canada Council for the Arts Concept to Realization Grant. 

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Daniela Gesundheit image

Daniela Gesundheit Los Angeles, California

@alphabetofwrongdoing

Daniela Gesundheit is a vocalist, composer, and cantor who lives in LA and haunts Toronto. As Snowblink, Gesundheit writes non-denominational devotional pop music and has released three critically acclaimed albums.

"Daniela’s voice is like clear glass that she frames a kind of playful, velvet privacy with. The sounds are sparse but so rich and carefully wild." Leslie Feist ... more

contact / help

Contact Daniela Gesundheit

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like Daniela Gesundheit, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Saxophonist Isaiah Collier chats about his new LP and the influence of Pharoah Sanders.
listen now