Katonti

In parashat Vayishlach, “Katonti mikol hachasadim — I have been diminished by all of Your  kindness”  is  Yaakov Avinu’s prayer of gratitude and supplication before his encounter with Esau which ends with his plea of “Hatzileni nah — Please save me!”  

In Yonatan Razel’s stirring “Katonti”, the singer-composer added another verse to the end of the song: “For Your kindness is great upon me and you have saved my soul from the lowest depths.” 

Yonatan Razel experienced his own miracle when his four-year-old daughter Rivkah fell off a porch and was in a coma for weeks. While thousands around the world were praying for her recovery Rivkah suddenly woke up and was eventually healed. People who knew the story assumed that his powerfully moving song “Katonti ” was an ode of gratitude for Rivkah.  However, Yonatan actually composed it years before as a tribute to his grandfather, cellist Mark Rozelar, who was one of Razel’s early music influences. 

“He was deported from his hometown in Holland and when he found himself on a transport going to Sobibor he managed to jump off the train and save himself. He survived the war and made  aliyah,  baruch  Hashem. Later in his life he spoke to me about the night he jumped and fled into the forest: ‘I had nothing but the clothes on my back and now I have a whole family with grandchildren in Eretz Yisrael’. After he passed away, I composed ‘Katonti’ in his memory.” 

LYRICS 

Bereshit (Genesis) 32:11-12 

I have been diminished by all the kindnesses and by all the truth that You have done Your servant. 

For with my staff, I crossed this Jordan and now I have become two camps.  

Rescue me please, rescue me please, rescue me please! 

For Your loving kindness toward me is great 

And you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol 

For with my staff, I crossed this Jordan and now I have become two camps.  

Rescue me please, rescue me please, rescue me please!