Shlomo Carelbach

Moderators Note: WARNING. Nothing more needed to be said. If you don’t figure it out, then your going to get booted.

We’ve had enough of the trolling.

i’m no Shlomo Carelbach fan!!!

Joseph, your link goes to a discussion about a different personality. I never heard of this “Carelbach” either but that’s no reason to pretend he doesn’t exist.

BS”D

LOL I fell for this one; I knew there was a well known Torah personality named Carlebach (from Chaim Berlin???) but I did not know that his first name was Shlomo. There are several Carlebach families, all related and all related to the musical performer, and the name Shlomo is found across the families.

Years ago, the head of computer sales at 47th St Photo was a Lubavitcher chossid named Shlomo Carlebach. At the time I was starting my business and shopped there quite often for office equipment and I’d constantly hear the name Shlomo Carlebach over the PA system. One day I asked the salesman who was serving me if they could also page Mordechai ben David and Avraham Fried so we could have a concert.

Itzik_s: that’s really funny!!!

i heard that the amshinover rebe sais that his “mimkoimcha” is from the beis hamikdash. doeas anyone know which one? as far as i know, he had 2.

I am not a fan of him.

The Chofetz Chaim says that one may not ask somebody if a shiur was good, because each person has different preferences.

Music should be no different – his voice, his songs, the music accompanying him — You must not comment on anything about any singer about your ‘personal preferences’.

And why is that?

Was this thread just bumped up because of the recent article about Shlomo?

Well, when I read the post and then looked at the author, I was very taken aback. That’s what happened.

Rabbaim: I’ve heard that marijuana will do that to people.

We need to realize who and what Carlebach was. He was a gifted song writer (although personally I don’t enjoy may of his songs.) He also had a tremendous level of ahavas Yisrael. Actually, not just for Jews – he really loved everyone. Of course, that was a standard thing for most hippies.

However, many people view him as a great Rabbi. Yes, when he was younger, he learned in Lakewood, and supposedly did very well there. But when he got older, things changed. The things he did with women are well known. He encouraged mixed dancing, and he used to hug and kiss women he didn’t know. He also performed with non-Jewish singers on stage (notably Bob Dylan).

Is this how a Rabbi should be acting? Obviously not! So if you want to learn from Carlebach, learn what it means to love your fellow Jew. But don’t make him out to have been an incredible Rabbi. The fact is that not only did he sin with regard to the opposite gender, he encouraged others to do so as well.

It’s forbidden to say lashon hara about a dead person, especially if he was a talmid chacham. No matter what he did, there doesn’t seem to be any to’eles in discussing it. If you want to find out what you should learn from him and what you shouldn’t, look in the Shulchan Aruch, or ask your rebbe. Let’s just be dan lekaf zechus, and assume that whatever choices/mistakes he made were done with good intentions, and the rest is none of anyone’s business. If you enjoy his music, fine. If you don’t, fine.

ROB: Please don’t wait for “another time” to explain his “good reasons” for kissing strange girls. And while you’re explaining that, please also address the nonconsensual issues.

two answers:

to feif un:

First, shlomo carlebach received smicha, as far as I know, so whatever his sins (if any) he is a Rabbi. You do not have to agree with this, but semicha gives you the right to be called a Rabbi and therefore Shlomo Carlebach was indeed a rabbi.

Second- I was not there forty years ago, so what you are saying about your cousin may or may not be true. Halachically, it is even beyond “ed mipi ed”. I wrote that ,indeed, Shlomo Carlebach hugged women (more of that later)but how you wrote about it is beyond disapproval.

to avhaben: I am not going into the debate of “kirvus le’aryos” because there are different shittas out there on that. Shlomo’s argument (and he said that many times) about hugging everyone he came into contact with (men and women) was based on the gemoro of saving a woman drowning. the gemoro says that if someone says: “I cannot jump into the water to save her because I can’t touch her” he is a “chossid shotteh”,(a stupid chossid) thereby saying clearly that you cannot use an esoteric reason when someone is dying and you must save him/her to avoid saving her.

Shlomo said that this gemoro is talking about physical danger, the person (woman) is drowning in the physical world and we must save her,regardless of the problem of being in physical contact with a woman. Today, there are thousands of people-including women- who are drowning in the spiritual world and we must do all we can to save them. If this includes putting aside the question of “negiah’, then so be it. Saving the person (woman) from spiritual drowning supersedes this, based on the gemoro.

You don’t have to accept this reasoning and ,indeed, many people have been able to bring back jews without this approach but it is a rational approach and shlomo used his approach to save thousands of jews- all singlehandedly.

His influence on the Jewish people cannot be underestimated.

I used to walk out of shul if they were “doing a SC shabbos. Then I started predicting it and avoiding those times and shuls. I’ve mellowed a bit since.

From a Rebbe of mine (I think I recall this speech pretty close to verbatim, but I might be off on a bit here or there):

“I don’t know what’s Muttar to say. I don’t know if I should say it. Or how to say it. But I have to say it. When they have a ‘Carlebach Kaballas Shabbos’, it’s not right. There’s nothing wrong with the tunes or the singing. I happen to find them uplifting sometimes. But I feel like to name a part of Davening after someone that that person should be someone very special. I think it’s known-the stories about him and women and him and drugs. And if it’s not known, then people really have no idea who he was. He may have been a lot of good things. Or maybe not even that. But he definitely wasn’t someone to name a style of Davening or Chassidus after.”

As a baal tfilaoh, I love to use R’ Shlomo’s nigunim. They are indeed on a spiritual level of their own.

I also recognize that he was a man who loved his fellow Jew perhaps more deeply and more sincerely than almost anyone in his generation, and in that he was an example for us all.

As to his general “touchy feely” approach to men and women, it seems on the face of it poshut that it wasn’t done in a halachic manner, but he had his own justifications, acceptable or not.

However.

The testimony and evidence of his behavior, especially with young women, especially when they were vulnerable, seems straightforward and overwhelming and is available for anyone to research. I am sure there are many, many people out there who did more and worse and with violence to vulnerable people; but that doesn’t excuse his behavior, especially as a musmach and a putative role model.

It is a real challenge for us, determining the line between a character flaw and a dangerous compulsion.

Nevuah, Ruach Hakodesh, Giluy Eliyahu, or Chochma Niflaa.

Quite likely though, it was taken out of context.

Rabbiofberlin- if you know the storeowner why dont you just ask him?

rob- are you joking. get a grip.

rabbiofberlin

It’s very interesting why you work so hard to cover up for Shlomo however you have no problem bashing frum Jews.

For the record, Frum Jews do NOT Molest children, someone that molests is not Frum.

Anyhow, the fact that he has kissed women is well known. whatever his reasoning for that would be is irrelevant.

Sam2 -“RebRY: Such a statement is Lashon Harah.”

No, it’s not. The CC says it’s only a Minhag not to speak on people who have since passed away.

Really this topic about Reb Shlomo A’H belongs in this topic -“My friend moved to uws and is now otd”.

It’s just a Nebach what happened to him. My father used to learn with him when he came back to visit BMG. My father showed me a picture of him at a Chasuna -he was Yeshivish and had a beard.

Only Chashuv Bochrim wore beards in that time.

squeak: “Amshinov time”

Good one! I got a kick out of that.

“if shlomo zz’l would have been such a bad person and such a sinner, do you think that today ,there would such a big following in niggunim,in nussach and even in loving every jew? Don’t you think that ‘min hashomayim’ they would have prevented that? In your postings, you assert that the establishment of the medinah was an act of HKBH (to which I concur) , in spite of all the faults and difficulties. Why not think the same of Shlomo’s legacy in music?”

ROB, I refrained from commenting on the zionism thread, because quite franky, I’m not “learned enough” but this comment undermines the validity of the post you are referring to and this one. If we follow your logic, the greeks must have been a great nation with their worship of the physical, or else Hashem wouldn’t have allowed them the “merit” of the olympics, which the whole world participates in. Or perhaps more applicable that “Achar”

must have been a tzaddik to merit a talmud such as Reb Meir. Do you realize what, slippery slope you are on?

When it comes to the medina some may call it min hashamyim, others “koach hasatan”.

Back to R’ Shlomo, I’m not G-d, so I can’t judge him or the holiness of his music, just bear in mind that not everybody is so enthralled with him as you are.

ROB, a couple of things. One, I am not part of the oilem that sweeps molestation under the carpet. The mindset of keeping these things and other transgressions quiet – for various reasons – is one of the most poisonous dangers facing frum communities today.

What I shared was my personal challenge with appreciating R’ Shlomo’s greatness while recognizing what I believe to have been his grave challenges. I did not ask or tell anyone to agree with me. I am not bringing anything unknown, and I am not doing anything other than expressing my own perspective.

We have been on the same side of too many arguments in the CR where we have been told what and how to think by too many participants for me to believe that you are telling me I can’t have my own opinion even if it is at variance with yours.

I have, B’H, in my life had the opportunity to know and interact with many great men and women, Rabonim and gedolim like the Lubavitcher Rebbe zt’l and the Bobover Rebbe z’tl, R’ Noach Weinberg zt’l, Prime Ministers and Presidents like Rabin, Peres, Bibi, Olmert and Sharon, 4 Canadian Prime Ministers, cabinet ministers, numerous Generals, one US President, and dozens more inspiring leaders. I have rarely encountered a leader and influencer who is so close to perfect that they do not have a challenge, or a mis step or mis speak. For some, the challenges are almost inconsequential compared to their gadlus or their accomplishments. For others, the challenges are larger, and they call into question the legitimacy of the individual’s capacity to inspire.

As I said, I don’t know where exactly R’Shlomo is on that continuum, but I am convinced by what I have learned (He lived in my city for a while, his daughters were born and went to school here) that there is – for me – what to be concerned about.