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From: "Michael Ozair" <m_adin@hotmail.com>

To: reb-shlomo@shamash.org

Subject: Crying for the Past, but Fixing the Future

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The following article, appropriately titled for Yom HaShoah, "Crying for 

the Past, But Fixing the Future" is an incredible article you will want 

to read about Reb Shlomo's historical tour through Eastern Europe, 

written by Darlene Rose for the LA Happy Minyan Newsletter and Kol 

Chevre in Jerusalem.  







CRYING FOR THE PAST BUT FIXING THE FUTURE





"If you have the power to destroy, dont you suppose you have the power 

to rebuild?  I came here to shake hands with everyone in Poland." With 

this nationally televised response to reporters asking, "Why would you 

even want to come here?  It was the worst place.", Rabbi Shlomo 

Carlebach began his electrifying music tour to Poland in 1988, a land 

filled with many rich memories for the Jewish people and yet so many 

difficult and tragic memories for us. 



Within hours Shlomos first concert sold out as people wondered, "Who is 

this guy?" The audience of 500, mostly non-Jews, was made up of people 

at every level including diplomats, government officials,children of 

people who committed atrocities and  children of Holocaust victims. At 

one point, Shlomo stopped the concert and said to the stonefaced 

audience , "Youre sitting here like youre in an old folks home.  If 

you want to get anger out of your heart, its the hardest thing to do.  

The only antidote to hatred is to fill your heart with so much joy  you 

cannot possibly hate.  For this you need two hands and two feet. Lets 

go!" With that, the chevra traveling with Shlomo went into the audience. 

And they danced!!  As he once said, "Sometimes when the door is closed, 

you have to go through the walls."  



The story above was told to me by a member of that chevra as I prepared 

to travel to Poland with Shlomo two years later in 1990. His long 

-awaited return came at the invitation of Rabbi Michael Shudrich, 

Director of the Ronald C. Lauder  Foundation youth programs in Poland 

and our music tour guide for nine unforgettable days.  His invitation 

was on behalf  of the Crakow Jewish Music Festival organizers... 

non-Jews who established this festival every two years to express their 

appreciation for the Jewish contribution to Poland.  Seventeen of us 

from Holland, Austria, Germany, Israel and the United States joined 

Shlomo voluntarily for outreach in Cracow, Wroclow, Lodz, Warsaw and 

Lublin. Through  Shlomos eyes,  I found the answer to a challenge fired 

at me during my preparations. "Its not appropriate to sing and dance in 

a graveyard.  Music in Poland? There are no Jews left.  Why bother?"



At a reception in his shul just before we embarked, Shlomo told  the 

Polish ambassador to the United States that he prayed for peace with 

young people all over the world but "no one prays for peace like the 

young people in Poland." Across the old Iron Curtain countries there is 

a new generation of  Jews and non-Jews just learning what it is to be 

free in thought, action and faith. The ambassador, in turn, assured him 

that there are "friends of friendship in Poland".  In Warsaw, Second 

Secretary Scott Edelman of  the American Embassy commented during a 

concert intermission, "Everyone who comes to Poland comes either 

grieving or mourning or they come angry.  Shlomo is the first to come 

with a message of peace and just to share being Jewish."



For all of its horror, Poland was also a source of strength for Shlomo. 

At the very first concert, Shlomo began with a slow, heartfelt niggun.  

"I was just singing a prayer for new eyes,"  he told the audience. 

"Were living in a time when G-d is giving us new eyes if only we want 

to.  Tonight when I saw all your beautiful eyes, it was SO good for me, 

and Ill never forget you. I wish I could take all of you with me to 

Yerushalayim, but Im taking all your beautiful eyes."  The response 

from the audience was a thrilling oneness as they joined their dreams of  

peace to Shlomos.   He taught us the prophetic truth:  PEACE IS ONLY 

FOR THE WHOLE WORLD. "When some people say that G-d is one, they mean 

there is one G-d.  If you really understand  it,  you know the whole 

world is one."



 The concerts were messianic as the non-Jewish world saw that a Jew who 

is for real is someone who warms up the world and makes it beautiful 

again. "When the Six Million went up to heaven, they had only one 

prayer, Please, G-d, it just cant be like this any more.  You have to 

open the gates of love between people. "  "The Talmud says,  Some 

people sleep until the morning; some people know they have to bring the 

morning. Every night when King David went to sleep there was a harp 

over his bed and at midnight a wind blew through the harp and King David 

heard the song of the next morning. The real enemies of G-d are people 

who dont believe that things can change.  They never heard the song of 

the next morning."



After a 1989 visit to Germany, Shlomo declared at a concert just before 

Purim, "I bring you greetings from the children of Haman , and they are 

ready to teach the deepest Torah in the world.  What do you think will 

happen to the children and grandchildren of those who committed 

atrocities?  They went to Bnai Brak and were teaching Torah.  Like the 

grandchildren of  Haman, theyre coming back to us because they KNOW--it 

was so wrong. The question is-how will we receive them?" At Majdanek, a 

group of non-Jewish German high school students traveling with their 

teacher fell apart when they viewed the mass collection of shoes taken 

from Jews in the concentration camp.  "This is so horrible," said a 

seventeen year old girl,"but I dont want to feel guilty.  I didnt do 

it." Sobbing, they ended up in the arms of members of our tour, who 

invited them to a small concert at a Jewish restaurant on our last night 

in Poland.  They didnt even know who Shlomo was,  but they changed 

their itinerary and bravely entered the restaurant just to be brothers 

and sisters.  We all experienced the holiness of new beginnings, of 

tikkun.  Shlomo was overjoyed to see them. "In a world with so few 

friends, every friend counts two million times."



Shlomo wasnt naive;  he came to Poland "for my children, for your 

children, for all of  G-ds children. Maybe my father and your father 

werent such good friends but our children will be the best brothers and 

sisters in the world."   He once said, "An Israeli  Embassy in Poland is 

okay but what we really need is to fix the relationship between people.  

When Shlomo urged the audience to "clap and sing with me", he was fixing 

the world.  "The world doesnt know what to do with their hands.  They 

think hands are only for counting money.  Were here to show that with 

your hands, you can bring so much love to the world."



To effect change, Shlomo always spoke to the inside of the inside of  

the inside.  He begged and implored us passionately, with compelling 

urgency, not to hate.    "There is a time when you say, "Im Jewish, 

youre Catholic, hes Hindu.  And there is a time when we are one.  In a 

hospital you dont ask.  The whole world is a hospital. The whole world 

is sick.  Hatred is a sickness.  Do you think I help the world by 

getting sick myself?  We cannot afford to be sick anymore!", he shouted.  

"We cannot afford to be sick!  So Im inviting all the doctors to pray 

so hard, so hard for peace."  The following day we davened together, 

Jews and non-Jews, at the Ramah Shul in Crakow.  Fixing the future.



Just outside is a cemetery, centuries old, where many of the greatest 

rebbes are buried , including the Bach from whom Shlomo is descended.  

When it was reclaimed from the Nazis, broken headstones used to pave the 

streets were re-assembled into a wall surrounding the cemetery.  It was 

here at the Ramah Shul that Shlomo composed the Crakow Niggun.  It 

begins as a  slow, heavy march with the feel of agony and futility.  

Midway through , the melody  is transformed  into a messianically joyous 

song of the next morning. "As this sad melody was coming into my head, I 

saw them, the six million, looking back at us and saying, "Is this the 

way to go to Yerusahlayim? Why dont you dance!"  They were walking 

backwards," Shlomo said, "the way one backs away from The  Holy Wall,  

paving the way for us."  



To Jews Poland feels like a graveyard.  Yet it is a very Jewish place 

rich in sacred remains.  There is buried treasure in people, too.  We 

were heartened by individual non-Jews who created and supported the 

Festival concerts  who, though normally shy, came READY to dance with 

warm eyes and open arms.  "The deepest connection between people is when 

they hold hands. Have you ever noticed there are no barriers between 

people when they dance?"  On one very holy night, everyone came on stage 

and encircled Shlomo as he often urged the audience to do. "Come close, 

come close. Dont stand so far." In a place where there had been such 

horror, no one was afraid of anyone,  no one hated any one.  I didnt 

want the dancing ever to  end. How long must G-d be waiting, too, for us 

to bring the morning!  "Your feet will take you where your head wont 

go!" We went from bliss to ecstasy to something beyond time and space.  

It was so heavenly - was G-d "dancing" with us?  Shlomos face was 

shining as he basked  in the revelation of G-ds oneness coming into the 

world through our connectedness.  Im sure it was one of the highest 

nights of his life. 



When the music  finally ended,  he said, "Do you know how much light we 

just brought into the world?...and light travels very fast."  Then I 

knew what Shlomo never doubted for a moment-one day it will really 

happen.  Im sure I heard dancing feet on the streets of Jerusalem. We 

dont have to be sad , broken until then.  He told the audiences that 

"Some people wait until everything is good before they rejoice, but King 

David said, "Im rejoicing now because I know, because I know, G-d will 

answer my prayer!"



Elie Wiesel writes in "We Are Here",  a collection of Holocaust songs 

and their stories , that they sang- to escape their suffering and 

through melody could then experience ecstasy.  Our leaders and martyrs 

throughout  Jewish history have defiantly sung and danced in the face of 

persecution and to worship with joy.  Their songs and stories 

strengthened me during our visits to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek, to 

the Warsaw Ghetto, and to the cemeteries in Cracow, Warsaw and Lodz.  In 

the camps, the shuls and at the graves of so many precious people, we 

became committed to living.  We cried and davened and took them with us,  

In their memory, we promised to keep singing and dancing.  At his 

concerts in Russia in 1989 Shlomo told all the young people , "Do you 

think you were the only ones on the stage who were dancing?  Every Jew 

since Abraham was dancing with you.  Can you imagine how proud all of 

our holy fathers and mothers are of you!" 



For hundreds of young Jews born since the war throughout Eastern Europe, 

just coming to grips with their "Jewishness," the Lauder Foundation is 

providing summer camps, youth groups,  schools and sponsored Shlomos 

1990 concerts and outreach events.  He was always looking for hidden 

Jews in the audiences. There was unbelievable excitement when German and 

Polish Jewish teenagers wed met arrived  for an intimate Melaveh Malka 

concert in the hotel with us.  They are our seedlings, our remnant.  

They looked like polished apples when they entered the room.  "Glowing",  

they sat around Shlomo enthralled by his stories and fiery songs about 

Shabbos, King David, the Holy Temple and Jerusalem.  He was the zaydeh 

too many never knew.  "Why bother?" is not a Jewish question.  There is 

no future in it.



Shlomo bothered.   He used every moment of  his life to make an impact 

on the world for G-ds sake and out of the greatest love for all of 

Israel.  We were cautioned by Rabbi Shudrich to respectfully expect that 

the ways of the rabbi and  25 men who attend the synagogue in Warsaw 

would not be Shlomos way. The rabbi is sweet and quiet.  Having 

intermarried, the men are without their families at shul.  The few women  

who came went quietly to their place upstairs to be neither seen nor 

heard. The synagogue itself was used by the Nazis as a horse stable but 

had now been restored to its original beauty after a three-year 

reclamation. Following the services led by Shlomo with the rabbi 

standing behind him shaking his head softly "no" and using his finger in 

a gentle gesture to indicate that the women should not sing, one man 

asked, "Is  Shlomo reform?".  I said, "No, its simcha."  "Ah, simcha, 

simcha!" 



Later there was a kidddush at which only Shlomo and the men sat around 

the table, the women standing several feet behind  them were offered no 

food.  Though respectful, Shlomos voice was growing more intense, and I 

wondered what had aroused him so.  As we were leaving, I heard Shlomo 

remark to Rabbi Shudrich , "Youre doing wonderful things for the boys.  

But what are you doing for the girls?  Its time to bring everyone back 

to shul. Youll have to start it yourself."  



 Shlomos message to all of Israel, to every person, was that it takes 

strength to come back to life and that strength comes from joy. "The 

world is drowning.  Cities are drowning.  People are drowning.  Everyone 

needs something to hold on to.  Youll say,  Shlomo. Im not strong 

enough that the whole city of Warsaw should hold onto me, but when you 

want to do something very good, G-d gives you the strength to do it."



"Being joyous is not a luxury.  Its a matter of life and death. You 

have to imagine that joy is a pillar and that you are tied to it."  

Shlomo spoke so often about how hard it is to cry with one side of your 

heart and to laugh with the other side. "Despite our tears, lets  make 

ourselves very strong...You are not permitted to stop doing what you 

have to do.  A Jew never stops!  Dont ever let anything keep you from 

doing what you know you were meant to do in this world.  We have to keep 

tragedy in our heart but keep it on the outside of your heart. The 

inside of your heart is so Divine, its like G-d.  If you dont fill it 

with joy, youll never make it."



Shlomo was my deepest soul friend, my rebbe and is still my hero- G-ds 

Water Carrier, carrying G-ds water from one generation to another, from 

one place to another, one person to another. "Its my story. Its your 

story," he said. "I bless us to be holy water carriers." Shlomo deserves 

more than just to be remembered because he tried with every fiber of his 

being, with every ounce of energy, every smile, every hug , every 

melody, every prayer, every Torah to teach us how to LIVE. I believe he 

is no longer with us because now we have what we need to really bring 

the morning. 



 Are you only crying or are you also dancing, connecting, loving, 

learning, singing, praying, blessing, fixing? Are you a water-carrier?  

Thats what it means to be like Shlomo, to be for real.  "Some people 

live their whole life, but they never taste it." Without him, if you are 

only broken and sad,  Shlomo would say, "OY! IS THAT  ALL YOU LEARNED 

FROM ME? Youre already giving up our dreams, G-ds dreams. Instead,  

sweetest friends,  give me harmony.  Sing loud! Be strong! Be strong!  

Hold on! Connect yourself to the highest things in life. Let every 

minute and every second count."



In Russia, Shlomo called out, "I dont know what Im doing here, and you 

dont know what youre doing here but, gevalt, the worlds getting 

better every second.  Come on , Yiddin!  Use your feet!" The Nazis were 

wrong.  What makes us Jews is not in our blood-its in our spirit.  If 

you want  to bless Shlomo, be a foot Jew.  How about being FOR? Friends, 

we need a NEW BEGINNING!  While we cry for the past , we must fix the 

future...Its time for all of us to stop crawling around on the floor 

like a mouse. 

Soar a little bit! 

 

Its almost morning.  I know Shlomo will be there.  How could he not? 

How could we not?













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