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Looking in on Neshama Carlebach
Looking in on Neshama Carlebach
Date: 1/3/2015 11:29:54 AM ( 9 y ) ... viewed 1641 times
Looking in on Neshama Carlebach
Neshama Carlebach comes on stage during a performance at a World Peace Celebration, April 24, 1993, Starlight Bowl, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA. She had something to say and it couldn't wait.
I haven't looked in on Neshama Carlebach, a daughter of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (1925-1994) for numbers of years. I heard about this child before I met her. Shlomo often would name his daughter in his spiritual talks.
On April 24, 1983, the rabbi spent a weekend in San Diego at the request of our friends who were putting on a World Peace Celebration at Starlight Bowl, San Diego, California.
He gave some classes. One was on Friday night at my home. The other on Shabbat afternoon. Saturday night, he played at a New Age Concert. Sunday was our event in Balboa Park.
There is more to tell about the story and this picture.
He brought Neshama with him to San Diego. On Saturday night, we had a difficult time getting to the concert on time. He had to make sure his daughter was comfortable. She stayed in the hotel room watching TV. I appreciated his love and care for his daughter.
On Sunday, it was clear to me that he might likely be late to our gigue, so I promised his daughter $20.00 to make sure he got there on time. He did. This photo, I believe was taken by Susan Sharpe, a friend. I do not believe I took it. Shlomo was performing on stage. His daughter came up because she had a need or a question. I liked that he would stop in the middle of a song or a talk to pay attention.
My own father, Rabbi Solomon Goldman, died last February 7, 2014. There are photos of Shlomo, my dad, and I at some New Age gatherings. Shlomo played a role in the healing of my estranged relationship to my father and to Judiasm. I have gone through years when I felt closer to Judaism and years when I felt pushed out and alienated.
I am in one of those painful periods where healing family relationships is again vital.
I am calling on the spirit of my friend Shlomo.
Lot's more to tell.
Leslie Goldman
Plant Your Dream Blog
January 3, 2014
ROSES FOR SHLOMO
A poem I read a the Aleph Kallah, 2005
http://curezone.us/blogs/fm.asp?i=1329589
HOW I BECAME A REFORM JEW BY NESHAMA CARLEBACH
Original Article
i see where this caused a lot of controversy for her.
http://forward.com/articles/189479/why-i-am-making-aliyah-to-reform-jewry/
Powerful comments.
This one hits home for me.
While I still identify with Orthodoxy, I want to commend Neshama Carlebach for having the grace and bravery to express her own 'Aliyah' to Reform Judaism with inspiring sincerity.
Denominations can be useful and wonderful things. After all, even "non-denominational" Judaism is really just another denomination. At the heart of their value is the truth that one size does not fit all.
We must have the spiritual and Intellectual freedom to find and choose which community speaks truest to our identities. This can and often does change...as we do. How wonderful that we get to discuss and celebrate this growth with each other.
Also, Neshama's inclusive version of Hatikva (in the link) brought me to tears. The promise of Israel is only more holy and more real when it is welcoming, open, and respectful to ALL people.
This is Tikun Olam, This is how it becomes a Ner La Goyim.
Love and peace for all!
Bravo Neshama, you are truly your father's daughter.
Read more: http://forward.com/articles/189479/why-i-am-making-aliyah-to-reform-jewry/?p=all#ixzz3Ntd9eC9a
http://www.jta.org/2013/12/18/life-religion/neshama-carlebach-announces-shes-now-a-reform-jew
THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED A FEW WEEKS LATER
By Neshama CarlebachJanuary 3, 2014 11:28am
http://www.jta.org/2014/01/03/life-religion/neshama-carlebach-sets-record-straight-about-her-embrace-of-reform
Neshama says in it:
In my opinion, peak spiritual experiences happen when we are able to connect to something greater than ourselves, bigger than our own limited existences, beyond time and space. What the Jewish people desperately need at this moment is a greater sense of Klal Yisrael — Jewish peoplehood.
At the Reform biennial, I did not have a religious experience, but a community experience: My soul made aliyah to the greater Jewish community, to Am Yisrael. A portal opened and I saw us as one, connected and bound together by common history and purpose.
I’m still the same person I have always been. I still appreciate and follow the ritual I was raised with, still feel profoundly connected to the way I have always practiced my own Judaism. My statement was one of inclusivity. It is tragic to me that it has been misconstrued as a denunciation of the Orthodox world wherein I was raised.
Put another way, at the Reform biennial I had a true “Shlomo moment.” I was blessed to experience the love for Klal Yisrael in a way I could intellectually grasp but frankly had never felt before.
To those whom I have offended — ki va moed: The time has come for us to break down the walls of denominationalism and simply be Jewish. It is time for a new way, a new vision, a new moment for us all.
My song stays the same but my kavanah (intention) is deeper, my eyes are open, my family is larger.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/01/03/life-religion/neshama-carlebach-sets-record-straight-about-her-embrace-of-reform#ixzz3NtfJiwgx
OH MY GOD! I CAN RELATE TO HER PAIN THAT SHE EXPRESSES HERE
My mother dies when I was 12. I was immediately an outcast. My mother was the center of our home. My Father depended on her. My world fell apart.
I could not believe that she was gone.
NESHAMA SAYS
Did/do people feel because you are a woman, you’re not worthy to carry on the legacy?
I was actually asked to write an article about kol isha (women not being allowed to sing in front of men) for an Orthodox women’s magazine. They wanted me to write was support for women who are not singing for men!! And said, ‘You’re kidding!’ There are Shabbat tables where women are silent or in another room. I’ve been to weddings where the men have a 20 piece band and catering while the women are upstairs with sandwiches in a cold room. I didn’t see it when my father was alive. We were Orthodox but my father made so much space for me. From the minute he was gone, the door was closed.
I often say that my father was the great umbrella, and was so protective that I didn’t know it was raining. When he died, the monsoon came. I was decimated. Not just by the loss of him but by the loss of my innocence. I suddenly saw clearly the madness he was protecting me from, and became a target for so much of that the minute he died. Everyone wanted their claim. And to diminish my mother and sister and I because we are women. Someone even said that he shouldn’t have had children, because it slowed him down. To make it worse, he had girls! So what good are they? During Shiva, people sat across the room from us, and would say things like, ‘Well you only knew him for 20 years. I knew him for 30, so I have more of a right, to sit Shiva than you.’
So I take it you’re no longer Orthodox?
No I’m not. My departure from that world was so painful. I didn’t have a shul to go to, I didn’t have a community anymore.
Bingo! I was crippled by my jewish experience as a kid...
After hearing Rabbi Rick Jacobs talking about “audacious hospitality” at the Reform Biennial, I was uplifted. Until that moment of being enfolded and comforted by the Reform movement I didn’t have any concept that I could stand on my own as a woman, Jewishly. At my show at the biennial, I made a statement that I was making aliyah to the Reform Movement.
http://heebmagazine.com/first-look-national-yiddish-theatre-folksbiene-presents-hava-tequila-nights-w-neshama-carlebach-josh-nelson/52866
NESHAMA CARLEBACH
FACEBOOK PAGE
https://www.facebook.com/neshama.carlebach?fref=ts
I LOOK FORWARD TO LISTENING TO THIS RADIO INTERVIEW
Looks to me that Neshama is doing an interfaith ministry. This pleases me.
http://www.neshamacarlebach.com/radio.htm
HER MUSIC
http://www.neshamacarlebach.com/music.htm
SHLOMO CARLEBACH FOUNDATION
The mission of The Shlomo Carlebach Foundation is to preserve and disseminate the teachings, music and stories of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, zt"l, and to develop communities which will share the love and joy which he radiated.
http://shlomocarlebachfoundation.org
I LIKE THIS STORY ABOUT SHLOMO CARLEBACH (1925-1994).
http://www.haaretz.com/life/books/shlomo-carlebach-rabbi-of-love-or-undercover-agent-of-orthodox-judaism-1.382475
SOUL DOCTOR
http://observer.com/2013/08/will-the-real-rabbi-carlebach-please-stand-up-reb-shlomos-music-shines-in-soul-doctor-but-this-story-is-thin-on-truth/
OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST
Looks like Neshama, his daughter, in her interfaith ministry, is following the Essene Way.
NOTES ON THE FATHER OF THE ESSENE RENAISSANCE
http://curezone.org/blogs/fm.asp?i=2227573
January 3, 2015
9:29 pm
RABBI SHLOMO CARLBACH SITE
http://shlomocarlebachfoundation.org
PHOTO USED
http://rabbi.zsinagoga.net/category/mese/
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