His Gift Will Last Long After Others Have Faded , Michael Paley

Editor's Note: Cheshvan 16 (Nov. 3 this year) was Shlomo Carlebach's 15^th yahrzeit.

In the fall of 1993, I had the wonderful experience of interviewing Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Both a controversial personality and a dynamic presence, Reb Shlomo never lost his unqualified love for his fellow Jew, though he was well aware the feeling was not always reciprocal.

His apartment, located above the Carlebach Shul (formally known as Congregation Kehilat Jacob) on Manhattan's Upper West Side, was not exactly what one might have expected from a world-famous singer/songwriter.

Religious books peeked out of every corner, and the walls were barren except for a photograph of Reb Shlomo's deceased and greatly loved twin brother, Rabbi Eli Chaim Carlebach. On the table were pictures of Kever Rachel, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (complete with dollar bill), and Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneerson (whom Reb Shlomo considered a personal adviser and spiritual mentor).

As we sat at one of his long folding tables, presumably there to accommodate a wealth of Shabbos and melaveh malkah guests, I got the distinct feeling Reb Shlomo saw himself as a person who was often misunderstood.

"The world is afraid of anything new," he said. "There is a Torah insight that explains that though we think people are afraid of darkness, the truth is that they are afraid of light."

Reb Shlomo obviously felt a parallel between that statement and his own experiences in the world of Torah Judaism.

"I began my career in the early sixties," he recalled. "At that time I was accepted everywhere. And why not? There were some good niggunim, some good singing. But I realized that between songs people's hearts are open; they don't put up their defenses when I sing. So I decided to sneak in some good Torah and good stories.

"And I was really able to reach people who were unreachable . People who, for instance, were into drugs because they were searching for something higher - looking for a feeling so complete and so soul shaking."

Actually - and this, amazingly enough, is something still not universally acknowledged in certain frum circles - Shlomo Carlebach was a pioneer in the kiruv movement, a charismatic force who drew thousands of Jews to Jewish observance.

His House of Love and Prayer, which operated between 1967 and 1976, provided a milieu where youngsters in the San Francisco area, who otherwise would have been lost to their religious heritage, could express their spirituality in a Jewish context.

"Once, back in the House of Love and Prayer," Reb Shlomo related, "I was visited by [hallucogenic drug enthusiast] Timothy Leary during Friday night davening. You know, he told me that his whole life he'd been looking to turn people on without drugs. He said, 'I may be into LSD, but it's only out of emergency. But I see you Jews have the answer. Shabbos is the best drug in the world.' "

Indeed, Reb Shlomo considered Shabbos the main ingredient to the Jewish experience.

"You know," he told me, "the non-religious of Eretz Yisrael are actually quite open. If someone says the non-religious hate the religious, it's not true. Friday night, when I go to the Holy Wall, I see the non-religious. They want so much for something to happen to them. They want so much for someone to say 'Gut Shabbos' to them.

"At the beginning of my career, I played the Berkeley Folk Festival. Friday morning, when I was performing, I said to the kids, who were about 70 percent Jewish, 'I don't know what you are doing tonight, but I am going to the synagogue. If anybody wants to join me, wait for me in front of the hotel at seven o'clock and we'll go together.'

"You know what? A thousand kids showed up!"

Despite what others may have thought, Reb Shlomo felt that ultimately there was no conflict between himself and the various segments of the Orthodox community.

"They want them [i.e. the secular] to keep Shabbos, I want them to keep Shabbos. They want them to put on tefillin, I want them to put on tefillin . I don't tell people what to do; I want them first to get a taste of Yiddishkeit. And I want them to love it so much that they will want to do it.

"Back in San Francisco I struck a deal with people who wanted to come to me for Shabbos that they had to go to the mikveh first. It was unbelievable - from noon to three it was men, and from three to six it was women. Then they started keeping the mitzvah of becoming clean before Shabbos. Suddenly, the mikveh was in full swing."

As our interview came to a close, people began filtering in for a shiur on the philosophy of Reb Nachman of Breslov. Before I left, I asked Reb Shlomo to fill in a few gaps regarding his connection to his shul, which he was happy to do.

Congregation Kehilat Jacob was founded by a Rabbi Segolovich from Danzig. When Rabbi Segolovich died in 1944, Reb Shlomo's father, who came to America from Germany in 1939, assumed the pulpit. Reb Shlomo became rabbi of the shul after his father died in 1967.

I came away from our time together thinking about the sheer experience of sitting in the living room of a man who had devoted his entire adult life to bringing others close to Torah. A man who also just happened to be acknowledged as the father of modern Jewish music.

His inspired sounds pervade our existence. Of deceptive simplicity, his music reaches to the very depths of one's neshamah. His melodies have been integrated into the liturgy, they are played at simchas, they are at our Shabbos tables, and often they work their way into the back of our minds.

His gift to Klal Yisrael will last long after others have faded, and in that sense he will always be with us.

Even so, Reb Shlomo, you are greatly missed.

Michael Paley, a young and talented writer with an eclectic range of interests, died tragically in December 2006. He wrote this article in 1996 for The New Standard, a publication no longer in existence that was edited by Jason Maoz, currently senior editor of The Jewish Press.

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Editor's Note: Cheshvan 16 (Nov. 3 this year) was Shlomo Carlebach's 15th yahrzeit.

Editor's Note: Cheshvan 16 (Nov. 3 this year) was Shlomo Carlebach's 15^th yahrzeit.