Photoessay #1018 - Shlomo Carlebach

This week in my writing class, for our last writing assignment, we are to write something about spirituality in our lives. What, what, what?

My mind came back to my experience as a teenager being caught up on Reb Shlomo Carlebach's Song Of Shabbos. I'll include the piece. Reading some commentary on his message gave me some new insights which fit perfectly with my experience and my writing piece.

Looking on YouTube, I could find only one version of that song which I'm including.

Reb Shlomo Carlebach

"The whole world is waiting to sing this song of shabbos" Over and over, mesmerizing hypnotic, absorbing.

1968, I'm 16 years old and Reb Shlomo Carlebach has come to our congregation. Shlomo is the same age as my parents, bearded, with his guitar and maybe other instruments and musicians. Steeped in the hasidic tradition where music, dancing and chanting can reveal mysteries to seekers. The hasidic sect is, in no way, mainstream and I'm at the event at our our very mainstream congregation with the youth group. But also adults, like my parents, not sure why.

I don't know what to expect, probably few in the room do. But Shlomo quickly takes control of the event. He starts soft and slow, humming, whistling. Singing, chanting playing the guitar.

"The whole world is waiting to sing this song of shabbos" We listen.

He repeats with a little louder with some more guitar and other instruments and, with a little more emphasis...

"And I am also waiting to sing this song of shabbos"

The charismatic leader soon has the attention of everyone in the room. He repeats the verses with variations maybe just chanting or humming along. We start to sing along, sway and swing to Shlomo's song of shabbos. Pretty soon we are on our feet dancing and dancing to the song of shabbos.

"The flowers and the trees all sing this song of shabbos" with plenty of crooning and verses just singing 'la la' to the tone repeating over and over. I'm loving it, pretty soon all the kids are dancing. And, get this, the parents are dancing. We are ALL dancing to Shlomo Carlebach's song of Shabbos.

Transformational, drawn into the moment, more than just prancing around a Reform congregation in central California. The whole evening dancing to Shlomo's music. I've never forgotten that experience.

But step back, think about it, deconstruct this in time and space. I see it as a glorious experience for myself at age 16, straining against my constraints, wanting to get away, live my own life, discover everything in the world for myself. Shlomo appeared and inspired me, never occurred to me until now to put Shlomo Carlebach in some kind of context. Born into as aristocratic rabbinic family in Germany, his family was able to emigrate in 1939. He spent the rest of his life as a teacher and inspirational singer, traveling, sharing. Looking at his life, I'm quite surprised that his 'song of shabbos' is in English. He came from the Orthodox tradition and, though in California, during this moment, he made aliyah to Israel performing there and around the world.

From Professor Shaul Magid on Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach Havruta: A Journal of Jewish Conversation vol. 2 no. 1 (Summer 2009)

Shlomo changed the way Jews relate to their tradition and the world, something that only an itinerant can accomplish. He was a fleeting source of inspiration, lost as easily as discovered.

Shlomo founded the House of Love and Prayer in San Francisco (1967-1977) welcoming all seekers combining the unlikely partners of Hasidic Judaism and California counter culture. That's exactly what I experienced that night in 1968. I'm kind of surprised that I don't remember this place in San Francisco, being in California, of a certain age influenced and dipping into the counter culture of the time (see UCSC 1970)
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Regarding singing...Part of my family inexplicably converted to the Lutheran Church earlier in that decade. I remember going to church with them and being stunned with the singing of the hymns. People singing out the words, belting out the verses, so uplifting. Most Jews mumble the traditional songs. Why? They don't know the words, at least nobody in my family did. You get the opening phrase and fake the rest. Also the singing relates more to the individual not to the group. Yes, you all join in together but the experience always relates to the individual. In Judaism, there is nothing between you and God, it's all intensely personal.

Maybe that's the magic in Shlomo's message. If you with your community come together and sing his songs, things will be revealed to you in your own personal journey.