Parasha
Hazzan Daniel Halfon has been commissioned by the Society of Heshaim in London to record the entire cycle of Parashiot according to the custom of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation of London. These recordings are a tribute to the Rev E.S. Abinun (z'l), the former senior Hazzan of the congregation.
Mr Abinun, as he was always styled, served the community for over 50 years and bequeathed to it an indelible musical legacy. It is no exaggeration to say that Mr Abinun's readings brought the parasha to life. His rich baritone voice, clear articulation and mastery of the Hebrew language all combined, with singular effect, to bring out the import of the text.
The 'London' approach to reading the parasha, which Mr Abinun came to define, differs somewhat from its counterparts in Amsterdam and New York, in that it is markedly less rigid and distinctly more interpretative. A consequence of this is that the rendering of certain ta'amim may be subject to variation depending on the particular context.
The recordings on the Heshaim site generally follow the ta'amei hamikra and pointing of the 1767 edition of the Pentateuch edited by Yehuda Pisa in Amsterdam which has been, since its publication, the definitive 'Parasha Book' of the London community.
