Remembering Reb Shlomo

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach wrote more than 300 songs and recorded more than 25 albums. It is appropriate, then, that the theme of the Second International Carlebach Conference was "The Power of Music."

Taking place in New York Nov. 17-20, the event comprised a performance by singer-songwriter Neshama Carlebach in honor of her father's 11th yahrzeit (see story next page), a day-and-a-half of lectures, a Saturday evening concert and a banquet on Sunday night. Over the four-day period, hundreds of people came to celebrate Reb Shlomo's memory and to learn about Jewish music and its role in spirituality, as well as in popular culture.

There were 14 lectures on Sunday, Nov. 20, with four to five talks running concurrently in each of three sessions. Topics ranged from the current Jewish music scene to the Ba'al Shem Tov to learning how to write your own song. The Jewish Independent attended one lecture from each session: Feminine Voices of Jewish Spirituality, Energizing Judaism Through Music and Reb Shlomo Carlebach's Impact on the History of Jewish Music.

Feminine Voices was led by Melinda (Mindy) Ribner, Rachel Trugman and Chaya Adler Poretsky. Ribner is a meditation teacher and spiritual psychotherapist, as well as founder and director of Beit Miriam meditation circle. Trugman is an Israeli-based therapist, poet and artist and Poretsky is founder of the Carlebach Chassidic Institute and co-organizer of California's Annual Carlebach Shabbaton by the Sea. The women spoke of how Reb Shlomo influenced their lives and their spiritual journeys.

Ribner guided participants through the benefits of meditation and its relation to the feminine.

"To meditate, you have to be able to become like a woman," she explained. "You have to be a vessel.... [Women] are oriented to receive." Masculine energy is that of doing; it's linear, going forward, said Ribner, but feminine energy is that of being, of receiving. She gave Shabbat and neshamah (soul) as examples of the feminine in Judaism.

Every person has masculine and feminine aspects, including God, Ribner continued. "Ultimately, we are looking for the proper balance between the masculine and feminine within ourselves and with each other," she said.

Trugman then shared her experiences with Reb Shlomo and some of his teachings; for example, that you never know, when you look at another human being, what's inside of them – that every person is valuable. She spoke of a variety of mystical concepts, the need for balance between the intellect and the heart and the need to live with gratitude, as "everything we receive, we receive from God." She ended with a call for participants to "find a way to give birth," to be creative, in their lives.

Poretsky rounded out the session with a discussion of Chava (Eve) as the mother of the world, the person who saw the value or need for redemption. Poretsky referred to the Torah as feminine and said that women have a special power to empower other people, to be happy when something good happens to others. The Torah whispers to women, she explained, and women get into trouble when they stop listening.

The session finished with an interactive demonstration by Trugman on a dance of the Hebrew letters, getting participants to spell out with movement and sounds the word shalom (peace).

In a completely different vein, Energizing Judaism was a panel discussion with Rabbi Naftali Citron of Congregation Kehilath Jacob (known as the Carlebach Shul), Rabbi Marcello Bronstein of Congregation B'nai Jeshurun and Rabbi Michael Strassfeld of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism. Each rabbi spoke of the way in which music helps people access the sacred: music can reach into ourselves deeper than words, said Strassfeld. All the rabbis acknowledged the importance of traditional melodies, of continuity, but also stressed the need to "find new voices" in order to keep people engaged, to attract new members to synagogues and to allow for spiritual growth.

Citron noted that Carlebach, with his music and the way in which he presented it, reinvigorated Jews' interest in Judaism, much the way Chassidic singer-songwriter Matisyahu is doing today. Another example of revival was given by Bronstein, whose own congregation was dying out until an intense music program was introduced and the synagogue moved away from a bimah-oriented service, where people simply listened to the rabbi and cantor, to a more chavurah (group), or participatory, style. Strassfeld said that one of the main challenges of a congregational rabbi is to engage people in prayers and that music most easily allows people into the experience of holiness and community: the prayers don't change much, he said, but the melodies can.

The question-and-answer period dealt with such issues as balancing the need for tradition with that of change and the resistance to new melodies from congregants and clergy. The rabbis stressed that each synagogue is different and that music is not just a form of self-expression, but the raising of a collective voice. As such, it is important to understand the specific community in question and to make any changes with the right kavanah (intention).

The final lecture of the day for the Independent was an incredibly informative talk given by composer, musician and musicologist Ben Zion Solomon and music historian Robert Cohen on Carlebach.

Jewish identity depends on the songs we choose to sing and how we sing them, argued Cohen. Carlebach's entire life and his music were a response to Jews' hunger for God, he said. This spiritual hunger was commonplace in the 1960s and it was reflected in Judaism by American Jews' becoming discontented with "cathedral synagogues" and the music composed for them.

This generation needed a more accessible God, said Cohen, explaining that Carlebach fulfilled this need by combining American folk music with Chassidic niggunim (melodies), which express a desire to be close to God, a joyousness in prayer and a communal bond.

Carlebach "created a body of religious folk music," said Cohen. He inspired generations and "opened the gates" to people who wanted to write their own Jewish music. In a time when there were at least implicit injunctions against changing religious melodies, Carlebach changed them all, and now his music is sung all over the world.

While Solomon agreed with Cohen's comments, he argued that folk and Chassidic music were only two of Carlebach's influences. Born in Berlin, the son of an Orthodox rabbi, Carlebach was inundated with the German style of davening (nusach Ashkenaz). He was also exposed to 18th- and 19th-century classical music, said Solomon, giving Strauss's waltzes and Beethoven's 2nd Symphony as examples of music on which Carlebach based some of his compositions.

But it wasn't just Carlebach's songs that moved people, said Solomon. "The love that he had for every Jew ... the way he selected just the right notes, in just the right order" – that's what cemented his niggunim into our culture.

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