Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was one of the 20th century’s most renowned teachers, philosophers – and, as it turns out, poets! Heschel’s early Yiddish poetry inspired the contemporary cantor and performer Basya Schechter to compose Songs of Wonder, an entire album set to it. Songs of Wonder was released to great acclaim in 2011. Repentence is one of the central tenets of the High Holy Day season, and this track strikes me as both brash and pleading in its insistence.

“Tshuvah” (“Repentence”)