Yitzchak ben Leah — Jerry Strauss: It’s really my pleasure to welcome Shlomo tonight, as I said before, all the way from New York today, you know, and direct from a whole happening last night in New York and here with the study group this afternoon. I also want to thank Yitzchak Muller for helping us today with the study group and songs and everything else, and he’ll also be accompanying Shlomo tonight. And it’s just real special because I’ve just recently moved here, to see so many special people, and trying to get to know the community, and for my wife Linda, and thanks to Serena, also, my mom, really my wife’s mom, but it’s really like the same. And from the deepest depths of my heart, as Shlomo would say, I wanna now really give it over to Shlomo and let him bring the light of Chanukah into our lives.

[Shlomo plays an opening number, then addresses the audience as follows]

Shalom to you, my sweetest friends. Good evening. You know, friends, the difference between words and singing? It’s very simple. Imagine if somebody talks to me, and while they talk to me, I also say the same words. It’s crazy, right? Then I don’t hear what they say, and they don’t know what I’m saying — the whole thing is falling apart. Singing is the other way around. When someone sings, and I don’t sing with them, then I absolutely don’t know what they’re singing about, right? The second difference is that words — if I go over them a hundred times — the more I utter those words, the less taste they have, right? If I say, one and one is two, one and one is two, one and one is [his voice trails off] that’s it, right? I know it already, right? Singing is the other way around. The more I sing the melody, the deeper I begin to understand the melody. As far as I’m concerned, a melody, unless you sing it at least 200 times, you — [end of tape]

From the series, Reb Shlomo at Congregation Beth Ami, 4676 Mayette Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA 95405 . Sunday, November 30, 1980 (22 Kislev, 5741), Parashat Miketz. (Two days before Chanukah, the week of Parashat Miketz.)
Recorded and transcribed by Reuven Goldfarb.
Transcription dedicated to the complete refuah of Yitzchak ben Leah — Jerry Strauss, Shlomo’s great friend and supporter — who organized the concert and learning at which these teachings were given over.
Copyright held by the estate of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.

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Categories: Transcriptions
Tags: Melodies, Singing