On a sunny day in July 2015, the Jewish music world was suddenly darkened by the unexpected and untimely loss of one of its most talented composers of contemporary Jewish music, our dear departed chaver, Rabbi Chazzan Seymour Rockoff, a”h. When the devastating news came to us at the Belz School of Jewish Music of Yeshiva University and the Cantorial Council of America, we were immediately and painfully aware that we had lost not only one of our most gifted graduates and an irreplaceable source of cantorial knowledge and musical creativity. Even more significantly, we had lost a long-time, beloved friend.

Seymour was one of my oldest and dearest friends. I first met him in the 1950s when I was a freshman in Mesivta Torah Vodaath High School in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I had heard that there was a young man – so dedicated and committed to learning Torah – he travelled over one and a half hours by subway each day from Washington Heights to Williamsburg. I thought it was a myth, a PR department exaggeration! But when I finally met Seymour, not only did I realize that it was true, but I also began to admire him from that day onwards for his sincerity and tenacious stick-to-itiveness. We both went on to Yeshiva College where we collaborated on various college musical projects, such as the Annual Dean’s Reception which featured an original musical play presented by each class of the college. It was at these and other events that I first began to recognize Seymour’s innate musical talents.

On July 9, 2015, I gave the eulogy for Seymour on behalf of the Belz School and the CCA. His funeral was held at Congregation Kesher Israel in Harrisburg, PA, where he served as chazzan for over 30 years. In my remarks I revealed that when I performed in 1962 at my very first “official” concert – before an audience of 1,200 as the “musical interlude” between speeches at the 75th Anniversary Convocation of Yeshiva University in the huge YU Lamport auditorium – Seymour was my right-hand man. He had come to me and volunteered to carry and setup the sound system for my guitar as well as to record the event on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Today I have converted that recording to a CD, and whenever I listen to it I remember Seymour for the true and selfless friend he was. That was the kind of human being Seymour was. He always sought to do something for his fellow Jew, and his lifestyle and his music reflected that as well.

By 1960, we were classmates in YU’s Cantorial Training Institute, today known as the Belz School of Jewish Music. We studied music theory and the art of davening/Jewish Prayer. We both joked and cavorted as college students do, but Seymour had a little more bounce in his step than the rest of us. Even then we all knew that he was an extremely talented musician and chazzan. While still in college, and learning to master the Eastern European nusah style, Seymour became the chazzan of a large German synagogue in Washington Heights. The synagogue followed Western-German traditional nusach and laining which Seymour mastered in a relatively short time. We were all amazed that he was able to accomplish this “feat!”

Seymour went on to receive Semikha from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at YU, and also earned the Cantorial Diploma from C.T.I /the Belz School. He was a talmid chacham – a true Torah scholar – extremely bright and capable, but his first love was the music of the synagogue. He was a lifetime student of the history and theory of “davening,” and he dreamed of recording his own davening someday as a contribution to the world. Unfortunately, he was not blessed to see that happen.

But his recordings – his composed songs and amazingly creative lyrics were wonderful – even phenomenal. For example: “There’ll be a New Moon/ Der Moilad vet Zain,” the beautiful “AI Taster Panecha,” and my favorite: “The Sting and the Honey,” his translation of Naomi Shemer’s “Al Kol Eleh. …