Ari Lesser

About Ari Lesser

Ari Lesser is a rapper on Lehallel — the filtered YouTube platform. 132+ of his recordings can be watched here, with no ads and no comments.

Ari Lesser raps the Torah. His songs follow the Jewish calendar from one end to the other, so for almost every day of the year there is a rap that tells what the day is about: "The King Is in the Field" for Elul, Rosh Hashanah raps from 5774 to "Dust to Dust" in 5787, a rap of Uman on Rosh Hashanah and Rebbe Nachman, "Avinu Malkeinu", and Jonah in the whale for Yom Kippur, when the book of Yonah is read at Mincha.

For the winter there is Chanukah - "Hanukkah Hip Hop", "Maoz Tzur" for 5776, the story of Yehudis, a menorah lighting on Cleveland's Public Square, and a light "Hanukkah Diet" with Avi Kraus. Purim brings "Mordechai", "L'Chaim!" and a Purim poetry slam; Pesach brings "The Ten Plagues" and "Dance Like Miriam" at the Red Sea; Lag BaOmer brings Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai; Shavuos brings "Sevens", for the seven weeks of counting. In the summer he raps the Seventeenth of Tammuz blues, the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza and the book of Iyov for Tisha B'Av - one of the few books learned on that day - "Sheyibaneh Beis HaMikdash", and Nachum Ish Gam Zu for Tu B'Av.

From the Torah and Tehillim he raps Psalm 27 - the psalm said from Elul through Sukkos - Psalm 140, Psalm 104 for Rosh Chodesh, the Shema, Noach and the flood, Avraham, Yonah, King Shlomo, and "Woman of Valor", Mishlei 31:10-31, the song sung at the Shabbos table. He gives his own English of Lecha Dodi by Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz, and "The Shabbos Song" with i4i; he raps the laws of kosher meat from Parshas Shemini, the mitzvah of bris milah, the four holy cities of the Land of Israel, Mount Zion, and Tzfat.

The tzaddikim have songs of their own: the Baal Shem Tov's shofar story, Yud-Tes Kislev and the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Rebbe Nachman of Uman, and Nachum Ish Gam Zu, whose words "this too is for the good" he turns into a song. Beside them stand his raps on the Jewish people and Israel today - "Hamas", "Indigenous", "Jewish Refugees", "That's Antisemitic!", "Where I Stand", "Immigrant Story", and a rap for Yom HaShoah - and "Vote Moshiach".

His calendar raps carry the meaning of each date: the Seventeenth of Tammuz, when the walls of Yerushalayim were breached and the Three Weeks begin; Tisha B'Av, the day both Batei Mikdash were destroyed; Tu B'Av, the fifteenth of Av, which the Mishnah calls one of the happiest days of the year; Yud-Tes Kislev, the day the Alter Rebbe was freed from prison, kept as the Rosh Hashanah of Chassidus; and Lag BaOmer, the day of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. The rooms on this page follow the same order: the tzaddikim, the Jewish year, the Torah and Tehillim, the Jewish people today, and his live shows with friends.

Live, he raps in Boca and at a Tes Kislev gathering at the Hillel of Rockland, and he joins friends: "Got Five Bucks?" for Oorah, "Grateful" with TYH Nation, and songs with Diwon and with Ravi and Ray Lesser. Each song opens on its own page, with no ads and no comments around it.

You can search inside the songs by what was said, play the whole catalog back to back, or follow Ari Lesser to be told when something new comes in.