;.c2ND EDIT, FROM S1, SHLOMO MONTEREY 1978
;.l1,6,60,66,1,0,12,72,192,2,17,42,127,12,0,
2ND EDIT OF MONTERREY 1978

R. SHLOMO CARLEBACH
remarks, exerpted & edited by Steve Amdur (12/15/88)
   DISC:  =IBM-PC/E.W. 7.5, Disc=SA1 (Alifa, Modiin), Doc=s1A
Source:  1978 California "Interview, R. Shlomo Carlebach"
(Interview with Dick Cooper for "Whatever's Right"
     xerox of typed transcript, from Joshua Witt
                                        
References are to numbered remarks in 1st Edit, Doc=s1
For page references to transcript, see that edit.

[Descriptive titles of remarks are from me, not R. Shlomo -sa]

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A FEW VITAMIN PILLS FROM R. SHLOMO CARLEBACH
                                                
"I'll put it like a vitamin pill before you; if we make it onthe level of food, we'll have to eat for three hours." (p10)
               
1.  ON JOY:

"The first sign of a free person is joy." (p1)

"In heaven they don't know anything about sadness, they onlyknow joy."

"Every human being has a safe in Heaven somewhere, witheverything they need." The more you're connected to Heaventhe more joy you have. It's as if  you had to panhandle on astreetcorner for a quarter, but you were Baron Rothschild andso you knew you had infinite riches stored in a safe place.

2. ON DRUGS:

In 1966, on the West Coast, I realized that it was not drugswhich were so magnetic to young people; they were looking forsomething deep and something holy, and sadly enough thesynagogues didn't have it.

3.  THE MEANING OF ME'OR MODI'IN:

We are building a little village in Israel which is calledMe'or Modi'in -- which means 'the light of letting the peopleknow'...I live in Toronto a little bit, but my heart lives atMe'or Modi'in all the time.  We hope that this little villagewill become one of the great spiritual centers of the world.

4.  THE MELODIES OF PROPHECIES

Most of my songs are melodies for prophecies, becauseaccording to our tradition each prophet has a "school" andhis prophecies were sung to instrumental accompaniement by  
that school.  At the very moment when we'll know the melodyof the prophecy, then it will come true." 
.p
5.  ON PARADISE:

On Shabbos you have to be in a different place than duringthe week; you have to be higher.  So everybody knows that G-dcreated Adam and Eve on Friday, the sixth day of creation. And according to our tradition, on that very day they ate theforbidden fruit, and just one second before sunset they weredriven out from Paradise.  But then on Shabbos G-d took themback to Paradise.  So even if the whole world is driven outfrom Paradise during the six days of the week, on Shabbos thewhole world has a chance to go back to Paradise.
     But imagine:  if Adam had not been driven out fromParadise, where could he go for Shabbos, that is higher thanParadise?  Our rabbis teach:  G-d would have taken Adam toJERUSALEM.  "JERUSALEM, basically, is even higher thanParadise.  Because Paradise, heaven, has a little opposite --hell."[[Or more precisely, 'sheol'?? --sa]] But there has tobe something so holy that it has no opposite --  and this isbasically JERUSALEM, which we haven't tasted yet. 
Because the Jerusalem we know now is the Jerusalem which isbelow Paradise, but that JERUSALEM which is above Paradisehasn't been revealed to us yet, and we're just waiting forit." 
    Paradise is the one place we know from before, because wewere there before.  Every person in their soul wanderings hasbeen in Paradise before coming to  earth, and all we have todo is try to go back.  But then there has to be something newwhich I've never experienced before; this is the JERUSALEMwhich is above Paradise...So this is the 'New JERUSALEM', andI think the world is getting more and more ready for this newJERUSALEM." (p5).

6.  ON ECLECTICISM:

"I don't want to make a gefillte fish out of all religions."

"If I see somebody else has a very beautiful nose, it doesn'tmean I have to go there and take off his nose and put it onmy face...basically every religion is a revelation from G-d,and all I can ask you is let me know a little bit what G-d isrevealing to you, but I have to do what G-d is revealing tome, because if I cut myself off from my own revelation, thenagain I'm not living up to G-d."
                                     
7.  ON POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

The saddest thing in the world is that the world is still ledby people who really shouldn't be their leaders today,because they are not really connected to the time of today. They are still here on earth for only the purpose offinishing up unfinished business.
.p

8.  ON RABBINIC RESISTANCE TO NEW FORMS OF INTERPRETATION

Collectively, all the great rabbis are still holding out.

I don't mean changing any word of the Torah, because everyword that G-d told is is so holy.  What we are looking for isnot less, we're looking for something much deeper than everbefore. (p7)

9. ON R. TZADOK HACOHEN  

The world calls a person religious who goes through themotions of religion without meaning it.

Reb Tzadok HaCohen, one of the greatest scholars andkabbalists, lived 150 years ago.  He had only 50 followers,because to understand his teachings you had to know everyword of the kabbalistic teachings by heart.  He said that 
the world is getting less and less religious, but the soulsof people are getting more and more refined.  He also saidthat there was a time when everyone wanted to be anintellectual [the 'Haskala', enlightenment], but that dayswere coming when everyone would want to be a prophet.  
.p

10.  PARABLE OF THE BURIED TREASURE IN YOUR OWN KITCHEN
                                       

"This is what's happening to our Jewish people today":

This is a classic story:
[Re-told from transcript in a style for children by sa]

Once upon a time there was a poor man named Reb Yankele  wholived in Cracow, Czechloslovakia.  One night he had a dream,that there was a buried treasure, and that this treasure washidden under the bridge in Prague, Poland.  At first he paidno heed to the dream, but then he had the same dream again,and then again for a third time.  So he said to himself "I amso poor, I have nothing to lose.  I might as well go toPrague and see if the dream is true."  But because he was sopoor, he had to walk all the way to Prague on foot.
    When he got to Prague, he went to the bridge, and starteddigging under the bridge.  But in those days the ThirtyYears' War was going on.  So an army officer saw him digging,and ran up and said, "Are you crazy?  There's a war going on? Why are you digging here?  Are you a spy or something?"
	The poor man answered, "I am not a spy."  The armyofficer said "If you don't tell me why you were digging here,and will have to arrest you."  So the poor man was so broken,he had nothing to lose, and he told the army officer abouthis dream that there was a buried treasure hidden under thebridge in Prague.  He thought, now the army officer will digup my treasure and keep it, but at least I won't be arrested. But instead the army officer just laughed and said "Now Iknow you are crazy.  Because I had I dream too, just likeyours.  I dreamt that there is a buried treasure hidden underthe kitchen floor of some poor Jew named Reb Yankele inCracow.  But I not so stupid and crazy to go all the way toCracow to look for it.  It's just a silly dream."
     Reb Yankele, who was a lot smarter than he looked, saidnothing, and so the army officer let him go.  So then RebYankele went right back home, and went right to his kitchen,and started digging in kitchen (though his wife yelled at himat first) and found the buried treasure, which was very verybeautiful, and they all lived happily ever after.
.p
11.  ON HIDDEN PAGANS  

The purpose of religion is to serve G-d, to cleanse myselfmore and more and more, just really to be aware that there isone G-d.  It takes a lifetime.  Because we are living in apagan world. I can sit in a synogogue or church and pray dayand night and still be a pagan.  To be a pagan doesn'tnecessarily mean that I take a piece of wood and I throwmyself down [in front of it; I can worship G-d on a paganlevel.

12. ON CONVERTS FROM MT. SINAI, AND BIG & LITTLE GOLDEN CALFS
According to our tradition all the Jews  and even those nwhowill be Jews later on between now and the end of the world,were on Mt. Sinai.  Some of them were born by Jewish parentsand some just born anywhere else and are making it back ontheir own because they really heard G-d's voice on Mt. Sinai. We Jews were on Mt. Sinai and then sadly enough we made aGolden Calf, and our whole Jewish history is to cleanseourselves from that golden calf.  We still haven't cleansedourseleves completely yet...everybody has their onw littlecalfs hanging around.  But the non-Jews who came back to us, were the people who were  there on Mt. Sinai but  didn't takepart in the Golden Calf...although maybe they have their owngolden calf at home, whatever it is.  So when they come they bring with them this [uncorrupted] revelation of Mt. Sinaiwhich they remember...So they are really bringing new life toour religion in a very deep way.  
	In Kabbalistic terms we may ask why it is that KingDavid's grandmother had to be Ruth, who comes from a paganfamily and is a convert.  Our superficial reaction is toimagine that it would be more beautiful if King David wasJewish on both sides. [But that can't be, because it wasordained from Heaven that King David be descended on one sidefrom a convert.]   So the answer obviously is that the nonJewish nations of the world also have something very holy anddeep, which we don't have yet, and for the Messiah to becomplete there has to be this holiness brought in from theoutside, even from the pagan world...I feel it very strongly: before the end of days, something.is happening to ourreligion -- so many people from other nations are coming andjoining us that it will just make our relgion so complete, ina very deep way.
[pp10-1ll].
.p

13.  ON WRITTEN AND ORAL TORAH:

In the Midrash it says that when G-d spoke to us on Mt. Sinaiall the gates of Heaven were opened and we literally saw fromone corner of the world to the other. But when Moses camedown from Mt. Sinai, he taught only the Revealed part of theTorah to everyone who was there on Mt. Sinai; but the innerteaching was only given over to Aaron, to the priests[Cohenim], and to the seventy elders, and to the chosen few." (p13)

14.  ON TOURIST KABBALISTS:

One time I gave a little class in Jewish mysticism in NewYork, and taught from one of the deepest books which we have,it's called Mei HaShiloach, it's the deepest fountain inJudaism.  But someone in the class couldn't believe it wasreally kaballah, because I didn't draw little charts on ablackboard.  He was a tourist kabbalist.  It's like if I'm atourist in Paris, I walk around with a little map, and ifsomeone who lives there tries to give me directions, I say,"How can you give me directions?  Where's your map?". (p1415).

"The world is so hungry that they go to any fake in theworld, because they're so hungry."
 
