I've got a happy heart right now. I'm back at my computer after a night at the
JCC Stephen Gottlieb Music Fest watching the
Shlomo Carlebach documentary
"You Never Know." All the way there and all the way back I was listening to a review copy of the new Sojurn Records album "Shlomo Carlebach - Songs of Peace" a posthumous release of material from a pair of 1973 concerts. This is as good as it gets, folks. I'm riding a serious Jewish high right now.
Carlebach was an amazing figure, a controversial
Lubavitch Chassidic rebbe who took his faith to the streets and lifted the hearts and souls of the people he met there. And in the process helped revolutionize Jewish music and prayer in both the traditional and liberal Jewish movements. If you hear someone pickup a guitar and sing a prayer in Hebrew, you're hearing Carlebach's echo (as well a few others).
While rough in pacing and erratic in focus, "You Never Know" is an excellent documentary. It is less about Carlebach than it is about his legacy and his impact on people. It avoids narrative, historic or biographical, and instead hops around in time and place letting a diverse set of people talk, dance and sing about how Carlebach had touched their lives. It paints a picture of a rebbe who was more interested in inspiring disaffected Jews than delivering lectures to frum yeshiva students. The cost of this was his reputation in traditional circles, the benefit was his success at his mission.
And it's important to remember that if you get a chance to listen to Songs of Peace. This is a concert. It has a stage, a singer, a guitar.…
