“Rabbi Andrew Hahn (Reb Drew) maintained an interest in music throughout his years of academic and rabbinic study and ultimately began to attend Sanskrit kirtans led by Krishna Das, Wah!, Deval Premal and Miten, among others. Reb Drew learned to play harmonium. It seemed only natural to Reb Drew, as someone who had danced in synagogues and pounded more than a few Sabbath tables, that Hebrew would function wonderfully in a kirtan framework.”

“Every few generations, Judaism transforms itself. One such radical change has been underway now since the 1970s. A powerful force within the current wave of revitalization—the ecstatic movement—counts among its proponents, an emerging leader, Rabbi Andrew Hahn, ‘The Kirtan Rabbi.'”
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“When the lights dim at the Owings Mills Jewish Community Center on Saturday night, Nov. 10, the chanting will begin. The drums will beat. Voices will vibrate.

From 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., the JCC’s Adult Life department presents ‘Kirtan Rabbi: Mystical Hebrew Chant.’ The evening, according to adult life coordinator Miriam Abramovich, ‘from start to finish is going to be really exciting.'”

“The combination of music and religious ritual is well known: church choirs, stirring Gospel singers in black congregations, Sufi music, the earth-shaking song of the Tibetan monks, the almost intoxicating song of mystical unification which bursts forth from the temples of the Sikhs, and the holy drums in Afro-Caribbean rituals. The place of music within Judaism is also not absent, and there is space in it for cantors, niggunim and chants. And if it is possible to take what’s good from all worlds — well, why not? Meet Rabbi Andrew Hahn, known simply as Reb Drew, a New York rabbi who does kirtan.”