Hadar’s Rising Song Institute cultivates Jewish spiritual life through song. It is a meeting place and incubator for creative musicians and prayer leaders who hope to reinvent the future of music as a communal Jewish spiritual practice. Based in Philadelphia, we engage people throughout North America and around the world through communal singing, immersive study, and experimental music-making.
The Rising Song Institute is part of the Hadar Institute. Hadar empowers Jews to create and sustain vibrant, practicing, egalitarian communities of Torah, Avodah, and Hesed.
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Joey Weisenberg’s library of master classes in Jewish song and prayer features 1000+ videos offering guided explorations of spiritual melodies, traditional chants, and davening artistry. Learn how to build musical communities, play instruments, sing nigunim, and lead prayers—at your own pace, from anywhere in the world!
We produce excellent original Jewish music that is sung and played in communities worldwide. With more than 16 albums already released, and a lot more music in the works, Hadar’s Rising Song Records is a vital platform for emerging artists transforming the Jewish soundscape.
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Philosophy and Values
Singing transforms people and builds communities. Music is a beautiful and powerful tool that opens our hearts and teaches us to listen to one another and to the sacred whispers of the world around us.
Hadar’s Rising Song Institute strives to operate according to the following values:
Artistic and Communal
We emphasize the intricate interdependence between the work of advanced musical-spiritual artists and the powerful grassroots energy of people gathered in community to sing.
Particular and Pluralistic
Our singing includes many different styles of music, and our particular synthesis of these styles will find wide applications that transcend established genres and denominations.
Rooted and Radical
Our music is deeply rooted in ancient Jewish traditions, but we will also invent entirely new musical modalities.
Inclusive and Egalitarian
Our music gathers people close together and facilitates careful listening, transcending dogmatic social categories. People of all gender identities and expressions, and from all cultural backgrounds and streams of Judaism, are invited to participate and lead.
Joyous and Tearful
Our music unlocks heavy hearts and encourages therapeutic expressions of a wide emotional spectrum.
Prayerful and Torah-Centered
Music is a form of prayer, a language for opening up people’s largest questions. Music speaks most powerfully when it reflects our collective ancient-new wisdom (“Torah”).
Beautiful and Imaginative
Music reminds us of humankind’s capacity for beauty and curiosity.