So it finally happened: we visited an Ortho place. Though there were a couple of points where I was nervous about needing to use my transliterated siddur (and being slightly paranoid that people would know I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing all the time), I am happy to report that neither of us burst into flames.
Mrs. Yid and I decided to take the folks over at the MO shul up the road up on their offer and go to their Tisha B'Av service. We probably wouldn't have gone but they said they were going to be showing a film from the OU on the importance and relevance of Tisha B'Av. "What do you think?" I asked her. "Since I'm fairly ambivalent about this holiday I guess it wouldn't hurt to find out more about it," she said. "Plus at least you should be able to get some good blogging out of it." Touche, my Eshet Chayil.
In keeping with my post-Tisha B'Av attempts to practice slightly less lashon hara and slightly more dan lekaf zechut, let's start with some pros.
- The mechitza, while certainly present and notable, was not excruciatingly misogynistic to the degree that I felt uncomfortable having Mrs. Yid sit there. The women's section was approximately a third of the size of the sanctuary, faced the ark, and Mrs. Yid was able to see what was going on. So, at least the women weren't being kept behind a one-way mirror or in a fenced in shed in the back or up in a balcony. And we stuck our noses into their weekday chapel while we were waiting for services to start and found out that all the mechitza there consists of is a waist-high curtain dividing the back portion of the room from the front (I guess they're on the honor system?)
- The rabbi had a very nice voice. His very Ashkenazic accent threw me off sometimes, but the dude could sing.
- The rabbi had a nice mini-drash on connecting fasting with ethical behavior. There was a good line on how "If we can control what goes into our mouths, we can also control what comes out of it."
- There's something nice about knowing that the people at shul are there specifically to be in shul. Yes, there was small talk and socializing, but the guys in the men's section (and by the time we were into services, there were probably about 30-35) were clearly there to daven.
Now some downsides:
- The movie didn't start until about 45 minutes after the flyer said it would. In fact for the first 40 minutes it was just us, a random Chabad guy and a 30-something gal who grew up at Beth Elderly. Eventually the rabbi showed up with his laptop and we all crowded around it in the Beth Midrash. Low marks for logistics, folks.
- The "movie" itself was actually 4 not particularly good 20-minute speeches/drashlets. We watched two and were super underwhelmed. Rabbi Weil's was first and was fairly rambling. He spent a fair amount of time drawing parallels between Tisha B'Av in Jerusalem and the Holocaust (he was very hung up on the fact that both involved people being "shipped like cattle"-- a line he repeated about 5 times, and particularly unfortunate after I found out he grew up on a cattle ranch). He also talked a lot about the 23rd kina where Rabbi Yishmael's son and daughter each get enslaved by Romans, who then decide to breed them. Maybe it was just me, but it seemed like R. Weil was spending waaay too much pathos on what is essentially a creepy pseudo-incest story. I also like how the "happy ending" of this story is the two of them recognizing each other at daybreak and dying in each other's arms. Um, hooray? My favorite part was when Weil mentioned that this kina wasn't written down until the 1000s-- because "only that generation, that had suffered the Crusades, could truly understand that first generation's pain." Yeah, or they wrote it down in response and as a commentary on their own experiences. Please tell me I'm not the only one coming to this conclusion. I mean, if we critique the Gospels because they happened a whole 70 years after the supposed fact, I don't think we should be mentioning that this "totally reliable" story from our "great mesorah" was just twiddling its thumbs for a thousand years or so before anyone decided to put it on paper.
Weil's last focus was connecting Tisha B'Av to Holocaust survivors and talking about the lasting effects of trauma, which was fine, but his tone was kind of weird. He kept saying things like, "Even though they survived, they didn't really survive. Truthfully, they died in the Holocaust." Maybe it's just me but I found this extremely distasteful. First of all, the fact that many survivors lived with, and struggled with, their memories and trauma is not the same thing as saying they died along with the rest of their families. Not only is this problematic in terms of being extremely general (on a very touchy topic), it verges on being downright dismissive of the lives that survivors worked so hard to rebuild after the war. If I was a Shoah survivor, even if my life afterwards was hard, I'd be pretty pissed at this guy for essentially writing me off as a living corpse. Not a fan.
- The second clip we watched was from Rabbi Weinberg. His tone was slightly cloying (How can our fellow Jews not realize how lame golus is? Because it totally is, right guys? Who's with me?), but at least much less offensive than Rabbi Weil's. I feel like it might be interesting for a liberal Jew to have a conversation with Rabbi Weinberg just to offer him a different perspective on the notion of perfection and ways to attain it. It's not that we don't see that the world is imperfect, it's that we aren't expecting the Messiah to come and fix it.
We couldn't stand to watch the other two videos, but I may get around to checking them out eventually.
- There were only 5 ladies on the women's side, including Mrs. Yid. She reports that they alternated between davening (younger folks) and gossiping (older ladies). She said that her favorite part was when the rabbi folded the bimah around like a crazy transformer toy/Star Trek console. She used an Artscroll siddur for the first time and described its commentary as "Repeatedly starting off with a reasonable to plausible statement, then jumping immediately to a crazy conclusion, and always in the most authoritative tone you could imagine."
- The breakneck speed of the davening on the men's side was pretty tricky for me to keep up with, though I did my best. I was slightly taken aback by how quickly everyone around me was davening, and, from my end, it seemed like more of a chore to get through rather than a particularly spiritual experience for any of them (except maybe the Chabad guy next to me). I suspect this was probably a combination of being really ready to go home and eat and the fact that when you daven multiple times a day it probably loses some of its buzz.
- Not to be overly picky, but... despite the fact that we were clearly new folks there, only 2 people came up and said hello (the one lady in the Beth Midrash, and the rabbi, and he was rather curt and a tad prickly). Again, to give the benefit of the doubt, this was probably due to it being the end of fasting, but still a little annoying since we had been supposedly invited. I was trying to decide what to call the shul on the blog today and right now I'm leaning towards Congregation Rodef Shaarei, because after 3 hours there I was running for the doors. (I would be open to going back there again for a happier holiday, potentially even as part of more community-wide collaboration, though I do think not letting the women participate would probably be a deal-breaker.)
To sum up: I suppose, as always, we have a bit of the goldilocks syndrome going on here. We don't really get a lot out of super touchy-feely anything goes services a-la Bnei Hippy, but the service at Rodef Shaarei wasn't all that meaningful or stimulating, either. Bnei Hippy was a little too centered around everybody's individual issues rather than looking at Tisha B'Av, but Rodef Shaarei and the OU film seemed overly focused on pat answers like, "You have to want geula," or, "We didn't learn from our mistakes and so God let the Temple be destroyed again." I'm certainly open to the idea of using Tisha B'Av as a mussar opportunity, but a theodicy-based view of history doesn't really work for me.
Like I said in part 1, I see Tisha B'Av as primarily a holiday of commemoration. There's room in there for an emotional and personal component, but I personally don't feel that it should be overshadowed by either my own ego or supposed ethical/ideological failings. Sorry Rabbi Weinberg, but I don't buy the argument that my personal lack of yearning for Moshiach is why we still live in an imperfect society.
Next year if we can't find a decent middle-of-the-road service, I may just get a book of English-translated kinot and we'll study and discuss that.
Showing posts with label Personal Practice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal Practice. Show all posts
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Milestones
Part I- Planning a coup
Apparently my friend Abraham has a master plan for taking over Beth Elderly and turning it from "the friendly but ancient shul" into "the friendly shul with lots of old people and a bunch of young folks, too." Interestingly enough, a lot of it hinges on me and Carlebach-style davening.
Like us, Abraham and his wife used to frequent Evil Minion quite a bit. And, like us, though they enjoyed the davening style, they found it a little hard to connect with the community. So they kept looking, eventually ending up at Beth Elderly, where the people are friendly but the davening is, sad to say, kind of dead. The cantor has a penchant for warbling and the rabbi likes Carlebach but can't carry a tune. Some of the older folks are interested but they don't know enough to lead it themselves. So when Abraham found out I can sing quasi-decently and knew all the tunes to Kabbalat Shabbat from our several years going to Evil Minion services, he got very excited.
Basically, the plan is to start our own breakaway minyan... except instead of breaking away from Beth Elderly, we'll instead take it over.
There is a spare room in the shul that is in the process of being cleaned out. Right now we're thinking that we will be able to set up shop in there and start doing some Carlebach stuff by January. If people like it, we will hopefully be able to attract some of the regulars (and maybe even some new folks) out of the main sanctuary and into our clutches. The goal is to have two services, give people a chance to do what they like, and then have both finish around the same time for a joint kiddush/oneg. The key to the plan is that once the alternative minyan gets more attendees than the main service, the rabbi has agreed to have the two groups swap rooms. The hope is that eventually, most people would opt for the livelier service while still giving the old-timers the option to stick with their preferred tunes if they wanted to.
At first I was a little alarmed by this idea, since to me it seems a little mean to boot the old folks out of their sanctuary. But I also realize that if Beth Elderly is going to keep going, it needs fresh blood, and this might be one of many ways to make that happen. So I'm on record as a potential minyan member, and we'll see what happens come January.
Part II- An early start
Abraham and I had this conversation a while ago, so it's been in the back of my mind. What I wasn't expecting was to get a dress-rehearsal for it last weekend.
I should back up. Mrs. Yid and I went to our first ever shul retreat! It's a big tradition and we'd heard a lot about it. Usually we are both a bit on the shy side at shul so it was a little overwhelming to think about spending a whole weekend with 100-odd congregants, but we decided to be brave and go for it. As it happened, it was a wonderful weekend. We got to spend lots of time with different people from shul-- some we already knew, like Abraham & Sarah and the rabbi & his wife, and some folks we only knew by sight who we now know a little better. I was happy to have Mrs. Yid there to help me get out of my shell a bit, and I think the whole weekend was the better for it.
One huge thing that happened was on Friday night. We got into the hotel late (it was about 50 miles out of town and we were driving during a rainstorm) and were gulping down dinner when the rabbi came over and mentioned to Abraham that he was thinking of doing a Carlebach tune or two during services. Within a minute or two, this somehow morphed into him turning to me and asking if I'd like to LEAD a Carlebach Kabbalat Shabbat! (My brain stopped working at that point so my memory is a little foggy, but I seem to remember Mrs. Yid having something to do with it.) I stuttered that I'd have to think about it for a minute and sat back down. Luckily I had insisted on bringing our transliterated siddurs to dinner, so I whipped one out and started going through the service to see if I could actually remember all the melodies. With some help from Abraham, I got through them all, and with lots of encouragement from my wife, decided to take the plunge and go for it.
I was quite nervous when we started the service, but I did my best to keep my eyes on my book (or closed during the niggun parts) and got through it. Half the time I even had some fun. And it was really interesting; a lot of the people seemed to really get into it. I had been worried some of the older folks would be annoyed that it was so different, but a lot of them were enjoying the energy of the davening-- especially the rabbi's wife, who said that loves Carlebach and used to go to a Carlebach minyan in Israel a lot when she and her husband were studying there, and has missed it a lot in the last few years. When we were done, one of the really active board members came up to me and said, "That was really great. Our services should be more like that. In fact, I think I services should always be like that!" Abraham and I were pretty happy after that.
The rest of the weekend was lovely and we had a lot of fun (though I got bested by an aliyah yet again!), but for me that was the absolute highlight. I've led Jewish stuff at my house before, but that's always been in a setting where I'm the most knowledgable one in the room. It's a very different feeling to be leading things in a group where people know what they're doing, in many cases probably more than you. It was nerve-wracking, exciting and special all at the same time.
Part III- Aftermath
The rabbi sent out an email before Shabbat. He thinks we should start doing Carlebach style davening more regularly-- at least once a month! I don't want to take too much credit, but I know that at least part of this is thanks to last week's service. I did something and it made a difference. I did something that had an effect, if only in a small way. All of a sudden I'm feeling like I'm really part of the community... and that the community is a part of me. I'm very happy to have been part of that service, and very hopeful that this direction, along with other things the shul is doing, help make the community more vibrant, sustainable and engaging.
Part IV- Epilogue
The Saturday of the retreat I realized we were just one week past Zayde's 16th yarzeit. Even though I was past the date, I said Kaddish for him anyway-- for him and Bubbe. Together and apart, images and reality, all of it mixed up together, as always.
It's amazing to think it's been sixteen years since he died. Sixteen years of me growing up in a mental shadow, or at least reflection, of him. Sixteen years of doing family research, discovering so much about where he and the rest of the family came from. Sixteen years of trying to better understand his faith; of learning about Judaism, and then actually putting my knowledge into practice. Sixteen years of forging my own identity, one strongly, even intensely, rooted in my family's past, but focused on my future.
Sixteen years ago I didn't know what a kippah was. Sixteen years ago the only Jewish friend I had was as clueless and disengaged as I was. Sixteen years ago I had never observed Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, much less Sukkot, Shavuot or Tisha B'Av. Sixteen years ago I wouldn't have imagined I'd ever have a Jewish blog, belong to a synagogue, or lead a prayer service.
I'm not the kind of Jew my grandfather was, and in some ways I regret that, because I know how incredible important that identity, that practice, and that worldview were to him. But I also hope that if he were here, there would be a part of him that would see how far I've come, and how much of it is rooted, at least in part, in wanting to better connect with him, and that he'd be proud.
Because I am.
Apparently my friend Abraham has a master plan for taking over Beth Elderly and turning it from "the friendly but ancient shul" into "the friendly shul with lots of old people and a bunch of young folks, too." Interestingly enough, a lot of it hinges on me and Carlebach-style davening.
Like us, Abraham and his wife used to frequent Evil Minion quite a bit. And, like us, though they enjoyed the davening style, they found it a little hard to connect with the community. So they kept looking, eventually ending up at Beth Elderly, where the people are friendly but the davening is, sad to say, kind of dead. The cantor has a penchant for warbling and the rabbi likes Carlebach but can't carry a tune. Some of the older folks are interested but they don't know enough to lead it themselves. So when Abraham found out I can sing quasi-decently and knew all the tunes to Kabbalat Shabbat from our several years going to Evil Minion services, he got very excited.
Basically, the plan is to start our own breakaway minyan... except instead of breaking away from Beth Elderly, we'll instead take it over.
There is a spare room in the shul that is in the process of being cleaned out. Right now we're thinking that we will be able to set up shop in there and start doing some Carlebach stuff by January. If people like it, we will hopefully be able to attract some of the regulars (and maybe even some new folks) out of the main sanctuary and into our clutches. The goal is to have two services, give people a chance to do what they like, and then have both finish around the same time for a joint kiddush/oneg. The key to the plan is that once the alternative minyan gets more attendees than the main service, the rabbi has agreed to have the two groups swap rooms. The hope is that eventually, most people would opt for the livelier service while still giving the old-timers the option to stick with their preferred tunes if they wanted to.
At first I was a little alarmed by this idea, since to me it seems a little mean to boot the old folks out of their sanctuary. But I also realize that if Beth Elderly is going to keep going, it needs fresh blood, and this might be one of many ways to make that happen. So I'm on record as a potential minyan member, and we'll see what happens come January.
Part II- An early start
Abraham and I had this conversation a while ago, so it's been in the back of my mind. What I wasn't expecting was to get a dress-rehearsal for it last weekend.
I should back up. Mrs. Yid and I went to our first ever shul retreat! It's a big tradition and we'd heard a lot about it. Usually we are both a bit on the shy side at shul so it was a little overwhelming to think about spending a whole weekend with 100-odd congregants, but we decided to be brave and go for it. As it happened, it was a wonderful weekend. We got to spend lots of time with different people from shul-- some we already knew, like Abraham & Sarah and the rabbi & his wife, and some folks we only knew by sight who we now know a little better. I was happy to have Mrs. Yid there to help me get out of my shell a bit, and I think the whole weekend was the better for it.
One huge thing that happened was on Friday night. We got into the hotel late (it was about 50 miles out of town and we were driving during a rainstorm) and were gulping down dinner when the rabbi came over and mentioned to Abraham that he was thinking of doing a Carlebach tune or two during services. Within a minute or two, this somehow morphed into him turning to me and asking if I'd like to LEAD a Carlebach Kabbalat Shabbat! (My brain stopped working at that point so my memory is a little foggy, but I seem to remember Mrs. Yid having something to do with it.) I stuttered that I'd have to think about it for a minute and sat back down. Luckily I had insisted on bringing our transliterated siddurs to dinner, so I whipped one out and started going through the service to see if I could actually remember all the melodies. With some help from Abraham, I got through them all, and with lots of encouragement from my wife, decided to take the plunge and go for it.
I was quite nervous when we started the service, but I did my best to keep my eyes on my book (or closed during the niggun parts) and got through it. Half the time I even had some fun. And it was really interesting; a lot of the people seemed to really get into it. I had been worried some of the older folks would be annoyed that it was so different, but a lot of them were enjoying the energy of the davening-- especially the rabbi's wife, who said that loves Carlebach and used to go to a Carlebach minyan in Israel a lot when she and her husband were studying there, and has missed it a lot in the last few years. When we were done, one of the really active board members came up to me and said, "That was really great. Our services should be more like that. In fact, I think I services should always be like that!" Abraham and I were pretty happy after that.
The rest of the weekend was lovely and we had a lot of fun (though I got bested by an aliyah yet again!), but for me that was the absolute highlight. I've led Jewish stuff at my house before, but that's always been in a setting where I'm the most knowledgable one in the room. It's a very different feeling to be leading things in a group where people know what they're doing, in many cases probably more than you. It was nerve-wracking, exciting and special all at the same time.
Part III- Aftermath
The rabbi sent out an email before Shabbat. He thinks we should start doing Carlebach style davening more regularly-- at least once a month! I don't want to take too much credit, but I know that at least part of this is thanks to last week's service. I did something and it made a difference. I did something that had an effect, if only in a small way. All of a sudden I'm feeling like I'm really part of the community... and that the community is a part of me. I'm very happy to have been part of that service, and very hopeful that this direction, along with other things the shul is doing, help make the community more vibrant, sustainable and engaging.
Part IV- Epilogue
The Saturday of the retreat I realized we were just one week past Zayde's 16th yarzeit. Even though I was past the date, I said Kaddish for him anyway-- for him and Bubbe. Together and apart, images and reality, all of it mixed up together, as always.
It's amazing to think it's been sixteen years since he died. Sixteen years of me growing up in a mental shadow, or at least reflection, of him. Sixteen years of doing family research, discovering so much about where he and the rest of the family came from. Sixteen years of trying to better understand his faith; of learning about Judaism, and then actually putting my knowledge into practice. Sixteen years of forging my own identity, one strongly, even intensely, rooted in my family's past, but focused on my future.
Sixteen years ago I didn't know what a kippah was. Sixteen years ago the only Jewish friend I had was as clueless and disengaged as I was. Sixteen years ago I had never observed Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, much less Sukkot, Shavuot or Tisha B'Av. Sixteen years ago I wouldn't have imagined I'd ever have a Jewish blog, belong to a synagogue, or lead a prayer service.
I'm not the kind of Jew my grandfather was, and in some ways I regret that, because I know how incredible important that identity, that practice, and that worldview were to him. But I also hope that if he were here, there would be a part of him that would see how far I've come, and how much of it is rooted, at least in part, in wanting to better connect with him, and that he'd be proud.
Because I am.
Monday, July 30, 2012
New experiences, some conversations, and choices
Since Mrs. Yid and I have joined Beth Elderly there have been a bunch of developments:
Also in the mix have been several "community events" bringing together multiple liberal congregations in the city. The first one was Shavuot, which included Temple Burning Bush, Beth Elderly, Temple Old Faithful, and B'nai Hippy. Rabbis from each community led study sessions on different topics and people chose from a programming "menu" to decide where they wanted to go. Mrs. Yid and I attended a session on Hasidic storytelling and a discussion of whether the Torah can be considered true by rational Jews. The second session, led by the rabbi from Burning Bush, was quite fascinating. The rabbi is from an Orthodox background and has a major axe to grind with literalist interpretations of Torah. Funnily enough, much of the talk involved more liberal congregants arguing with him that he was treating the text super-literally in order to set up a straw man. The Reform and Renewal people were actually arguing for the integrity of the Torah against a Conservative rabbi! Very fun. (It made me think a little of the Oven of Akhnai, actually.)
The second community event was Tisha B'Av, which, like Shavuot, neither Mrs. Yid nor I had ever celebrated. Apparently the liberal community in the city had been abuzz by how many people came to Shavuot, because this time in addition to the four original congregations, there was Beth Halfpipe as well as three or four indie minyanim and kehillot. This time the rabbis opted for a whole-group approach. After dinner we had short drashot alternating with some singing. When we were moving into the sanctuary to read Lamentations, one of the singers came up to me.
"I liked your singing."
"Yes, I could see that it moved you."
"So, are you, like, an Orthodox guy?"
"No."
"Ah, I thought that you might be Orthodox because of your beard."
"No, but my grandfather was Hasidic."
"Ah, so you have some Hasidic DNA in you."
"A pintele!" (This got a chuckle.)
Then Mrs. Yid came up and said hi. Looking at both of us, the guy remarked, "You both look very Hasidish." We shrugged.
Turning to Mrs. Yid, he asked, "Do you also have Hasidic ancestors?"
She replied, "No, but I have very venerable Protestant ones!"
"Ah," he said. "So you're a Jew-by-choice?"
I looked at her for a minute.
"Yes," she said, taking my hand. "And honestly, so is he."
Later I went home and Googled the guy. Turns out he's an old friend of Shlomo Carlebach. Zayde would be so proud. (Abbot Yid, not surprisingly, had never heard of Shlomo.)
- I successfully attended morning minyan (next one will be this week) and davened with Zayde's tefillin. Between the tefillin and my Moses-eqsue beard (hooray for summers off!) I am definitely rocking some impressive Ortho-vibes.
- For our one-year-anniversary, I got Mrs. Yid a new siddur and she got me my own tallis. In related news, we are huge Jew-nerds.
- I have slowly gotten more comfortable attending Young Guard Havdalah stag. The most recent one was held on top of a fountain and included the rabbi's candle burning through his kiddush cup. I think this will be the last time we use a beer pong cup for this purpose.
- I have started using Ayn Keloheynu as a basic Hebrew primer. It's slow going, but has been very satisfying to finally see some progress with my reading ability. I'm actually able to sound some words out-- and was sort-of able to follow along with the chanting of Lamentations at Tisha B'Av in the Hebrew.
- I ordered some knit kippot and have started wearing them more. This one is my favorite. I told Abbot Yid I was contemplating wearing one when I start my new job-- if Mrs. Yid can cover her hair it seems only fair I do something, too-- and not surprisingly, he's really, really not a fan. I also got a tallis katan but have concluded that even in San Francisco, that stuff is too darn hot for the summers. Maybe I'll try again come winter.
Also in the mix have been several "community events" bringing together multiple liberal congregations in the city. The first one was Shavuot, which included Temple Burning Bush, Beth Elderly, Temple Old Faithful, and B'nai Hippy. Rabbis from each community led study sessions on different topics and people chose from a programming "menu" to decide where they wanted to go. Mrs. Yid and I attended a session on Hasidic storytelling and a discussion of whether the Torah can be considered true by rational Jews. The second session, led by the rabbi from Burning Bush, was quite fascinating. The rabbi is from an Orthodox background and has a major axe to grind with literalist interpretations of Torah. Funnily enough, much of the talk involved more liberal congregants arguing with him that he was treating the text super-literally in order to set up a straw man. The Reform and Renewal people were actually arguing for the integrity of the Torah against a Conservative rabbi! Very fun. (It made me think a little of the Oven of Akhnai, actually.)
The second community event was Tisha B'Av, which, like Shavuot, neither Mrs. Yid nor I had ever celebrated. Apparently the liberal community in the city had been abuzz by how many people came to Shavuot, because this time in addition to the four original congregations, there was Beth Halfpipe as well as three or four indie minyanim and kehillot. This time the rabbis opted for a whole-group approach. After dinner we had short drashot alternating with some singing. When we were moving into the sanctuary to read Lamentations, one of the singers came up to me.
"I liked your singing."
"Yes, I could see that it moved you."
"So, are you, like, an Orthodox guy?"
"No."
"Ah, I thought that you might be Orthodox because of your beard."
"No, but my grandfather was Hasidic."
"Ah, so you have some Hasidic DNA in you."
"A pintele!" (This got a chuckle.)
Then Mrs. Yid came up and said hi. Looking at both of us, the guy remarked, "You both look very Hasidish." We shrugged.
Turning to Mrs. Yid, he asked, "Do you also have Hasidic ancestors?"
She replied, "No, but I have very venerable Protestant ones!"
"Ah," he said. "So you're a Jew-by-choice?"
I looked at her for a minute.
"Yes," she said, taking my hand. "And honestly, so is he."
Later I went home and Googled the guy. Turns out he's an old friend of Shlomo Carlebach. Zayde would be so proud. (Abbot Yid, not surprisingly, had never heard of Shlomo.)
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