Gift to the Rebbe

Shlomo Simcha, LEC

“Gift to the Rebbe” is a music video made with more than 1,200 students of the Lubavitch Educational Center in Miami, across the Early Childhood and Boys Elementary and Middle Schools. It sets an original tune to the pesukim that correspond to the first and last letters of the Rebbe’s name. The film follows a student who cannot remember them, until his teacher, the singer Shlomo Simcha, and his classmates help him get there. I shot it.

The full story

This is one of a run of films made with the Lubavitch Educational Center since 2023. They premiere at the school’s annual dinner, in front of the people they are about, which is a harder room than it sounds: everyone already knows the story, so the film has to be worth their time anyway.

That relationship has produced a music video with 1,200 of the school’s students, honoree films, and a set of interviews I did not see coming.

The films premiere at the school’s annual dinner, in front of the people they are about. That is a harder room than it sounds. Everyone present already knows the story, so the film cannot rely on information. It has to be worth their time on its own terms, which changes how it gets written, shot and cut.

Shlomo Simcha sings it. The film was made for the Lubavitch Educational Center in Miami, and like the rest of that work it was built to be watched by the people it is about rather than by strangers.

Read the full case study.

It premiered at the LEC dinner on 25 February 2025. Composed by Yossi Green, produced by Yossi Tyberg, performed by Shlomo Simcha, arranged by Eli Klein and Yitzi Berry, inspired by a song of Shneor Jarouffi. Executive produced by Rabbi Yakov Garfinkle, produced by Rabbi Mendy Shachar. Filming a thousand children means working around the school day rather than through it: classrooms, hallways and grounds, with kids as young as a year old singing along. Release coverage: COLlive.