Many
of you reading this article know me.
After all, I grew up in
Surrounded by Music
I was surrounded
by music from my earliest days. I was a child of the 1950s, when Baltimore was
a very different community. My parents grew up in Germany and escaped before
the War, b”H. I grew up in Shearith
Israel, which was situated just around the corner from our home on Jonquil
Avenue.
My parents, a”h, were both master pianists and used
their musical talents in their avodas
Hashem, filling their Shabbos and Yom Tov table with beautiful zemiros. Our Pesach Seder included the nusach my maternal grandfather taught my
mom. These were nigunim that our ancestors
sang generations before. My mother knew the German nusach of her childhood for davening and for laining the Torah and Haftorah. This was quite unusual for a woman.
In fact, for my bar mitzva, she schooled me on both the laining and Haftorah trop.
She taught thousands of children Jewish music in Talmud Torahs and led the Bais
Yaakov choir for more than 20 years.
Along with the
piano, my father played harmonica and sang in shul choirs. My mother played the
lute, a six-stringed rounded guitar that is over 90 years old and now hangs in
our music room. My father’s Bechstein upright piano glorified our home. This
piano, which was purchased in Feurth, Germany, in 1921, was moved to America,
and is now in Eretz Yisrael, at my sister’s home in Har Nof. The piano was a
very important fixture in our home. Every motza’ei
Shabbos, after havdalah, we would gather around the piano to sing “Hamavdil bein kodesh lechol.”
On that piano, my
mother accompanied the Kol Halev men’s choir and many chazanim. She played totally by ear and after listening to a song
could repeat it on the piano flawlessly. Both my parents were mumchim (experts) in classical music and
opera; they knew all the European composers and used their music to be ma’alin bekodesh (sanctify). Among the various
Shir Hama’alos we sang (a different
one for each Yom Tov), one was an aria from an opera!
Probably, the most
important talent my parents passed on to my sister and me was the art of
harmony. From our youngest age we were taught to harmonize for the sake of Ivdu es Hashem besimcha (serve Hashem
with joy). Our Shabbos and Yom Tov guests were treated to incredible zemiros, and years later, we would spend
Pesach at the Granit Hotel, where crowds gathered at our Seder table to hear
the beautiful nigunim for Hallel as
well as for the songs at the end of our melodious Sedarim. In the dining room
at the Granit, we would join with the Kunstler family for zemiros, and huge crowds would approach to sing along. Chol Hamoed
we would do a kumsitz in the lobby, once
again involving the hotel guests in spirited music.
My parents also
believed in using music for chesed. For
over 25 years, my mother organized classical concerts to benefit Shaare Zedek
Hospital in Yerushalayim, raising millions of dollars to support that very
worthy institution. And, starting from when we were very young, they would take
us children to old age homes, where we entertained the elders with our family’s
music. It is incredible how music can awaken even those with Alzheimer’s. As
Shlomo Carlebach always said, “A nigun
takes you from where you are to where you wanna be.” That saying appears on the
back cover of my book, My Shtetl
Baltimore (Targum Press 2017), where I also relate many tales in my chapter, “The Awesome
Power of Music.”
My Mother’s Special Haggadah
My mother had a large illuminated Haggadah from Germany that had belonged
to her father, William Goldschmidt, after whom I am named. The Haggadah, now over 90 years old, was
used by my mother all those years. The tunes we sing and much of the Seder nusach came from her father. The Hallel and Nishmas tunes were especially beautiful. Many years ago, my mother wrote out the
musical notes for those nigunim, and
I had her handwritten the sheet music score bound into the Haggadah. My mother also wrote her life story, which is also
included in the Haggadah. Many pages describe
the voyage that the Haggadah made
with her to escape the Holocaust and renew her life in America.
A Life Changing Experience
In 1958, when I
was eight years old, Dr. Gershon Kranzler, my principal at Talmudical Academy, who
was a master mechanach and talented
musician himself, invited a young singing rabbi to entertain us at a school
assembly. I was spellbound by the very leibidik
rabbi as he jumped up and down on the stage strumming his guitar. I call Shlomo
Carlebach the pied piper of Jewish music. It was primarily he who taught klal Yisrael
to sing after the Shoa (Holocaust). There
was Moditz and Benzion Schenker, as well as other great chazanim, but klal Yisrael was
not singing with joy. Reb Shlomo started in the Catskills at the Gartenberg and
Schechter Pioneer Country Club and the Liebowitz Pineview and went on to compose
hundreds of nigunim and perform all
over the world.
After that concert,
I was so awestruck
by Shlomo’s music that I begged my parents to buy me a guitar. It was off to
Schubert’s, a shomer Shabbos music
store in Pimlico, on Park Heights Avenue, where Herbie Froehlich owned the
music store. Mr. Froehlich, a brother-in-law of Rabbi Shimon Schwab (his sister
married Rav Schwab), was a master piano tuner and tuned our piano every year.
He picked an acoustical, steel-string Goya guitar. I now had a first-class
instrument to accompany my singing, but I needed to learn to play it. My mom
taught me the basic chords needed for Jewish music. With those four or five
chords, I could play any Carlebach song. I also took guitar lessons at Schubert
from a Mr. Dijon.
Realizing early on
I would not be the next Andres Segovia, I concentrated on learning all of
Shlomo’s nigunim and, later, the
songs of the Rabbi’s Sons. Pirchei choirs were making records, and young
soloist Yossi Sonnenblick was who every musical frum kid wanted to be. Some friends and I started a yeshiva band: Elli
Kranzler became a well-known musician and singer and later joined D’veykus.
Eliezer Liff became a longtime rebbe in Neve Yerushalayim Seminary. Avrahom
Reich, our drummer, lives in Yerushalayim. Our band played at our TA and also
did some community events around Baltimore. We did many a local kumsitz and went on to play for Pirchei,
NCSY, and Yavneh college events. I entertained in Louisville, Kentucky; Cleveland, Ohio; Pittsburg,
Pennsylvania; and Washington D.C.,
playing for NCSY groups and other Jewish gatherings.
More Teenage Musical
Experiences
Another important music event for me occurred when I was 14 years old. I
attended a siyum mishnayos during a
Pirchei trip to Boro Park. That Shabbos I went to a shul where Cantor Moshe Koussivitsky
davened Mussaf. What an experience it was! (Today, Cantor Helfgot is bringing
back such memories. When I davened in Vienna, recently, the chazan and choir were so beautiful that both
my wife and I were truly moved.
My guitar traveled
everywhere I went. In 1966 and 1967, when I attended Camp Agudah in Ferndale, New
York, I was part of the camp band. Upon my arrival, the camp’s master musician,
Rabbi Eli Teitelbaum, who played the clarinet, asked that I see his father, the
morah d’asra of Camp Agudah. When I
got to his office there, I found that Rav Zisha Herschel, head counselor, Rav
Simcha Kaufman assistant head counselor, and Rabbi Borchhardt, head of the
Agudah, were also at the meeting. Knowing that I had brought my guitar to camp,
Rav Teitelbaum instructed me to only play Carlebach songs from before 1963.
Totally bewildered, I left the room and inquired with Eli Teitelbaum what that
was all about. He explained that the hanhala
(administration) was not happy with Carlebach’s direction in kiruv. They couldn’t forbid him completely as Rav Aaron Kotler’s
favorite nigun was “Lulai Sorascha,” so I was permitted to
play songs pre-1963.
As the band formed,
I would need to buy a pick-up and amplifier to turn my guitar into an
electrical guitar. I still use that amplifier, which I purchased in 1966 in a
general store in Ferndale; it sits today in the music room of our Baltimore
home.
In 1968, I went to
Camp Munk and played in the Munk band with Yisroel Lamm, who later became
famous in the music industry on the trumpet, and others. Color war and camp
choirs were so memorable as we sang songs written by Shlomo, Rabbi Michel
Twersky, and Boruch Chait.
My favorite
activity was taking my guitar to a lake and playing in a boat, where only the
fish could hear.
I attended many a
Carlebach music event in the early 1960s and, over time, got to know Shlomo. He
was certainly a huge influence on my world of music. In those early days, the
guitar was not a very Jewish instrument, and Shlomo, my mother, and I were the
only guitarists I knew. While visiting friends at Yeshiva University for a
weekend in 1969 or 1970, I was walking down a hall in the dorm. I thought I saw
an apparition bouncing down the hall. It was Shlomo all alone. He approached me
and asked, “Holy brother, do you have your guitar?” I did. One hour later,
Shlomo and I made a chasana for a
young couple in the YU dorm. (This story is included in the biography, Shlomo Carlebach: Life, Mission, and Legacy by
Natan Ophir [Offenbacher].)
After spending three
years at Ner Yisrael, I attended Yeshivat Shalavim in Eretz Yisrael. On the way,
I passed through Paris and started playing my guitar on the steps of the Sacré
Coeur, singing Carlebach and Israeli songs. Within minutes, a large crowd had
gathered. Israelis and Jews of all kinds joined into a large kumsitz, bringing all together in song. Then
it was on to Eretz Yisrael, where, whenever I was AWOL from yeshiva, the Rosh
Yeshiva knew I was in Tzfat with my guitar taking a needed break.
Our Family Spreads the Music
My sister, Aviva
Sondhelm, led the Stern College woman’s choir for three years while at Stern.
She plays piano and guitar and teaches music in Har Nof. Both her children and
mine love music and carry on the family heritage of harmonious music. Her first
guitar was a Guild, also purchased from Schubert Music in the 1960s.
My Guitar Helped my Shidduch
With all the
enjoyment my guitar has brought me over the years, perhaps the most important
one was its role in winning my life’s partner. I serenaded her with my guitar
on our first date. Ronnie, too, comes from a musical mishpacha. Her grandfather, Saul Schwartz, and her father, Bernie
Schwartz, were chazanim. We were also
delighted to find that my wife and I were both taught in choirs led by New
York’s master choirmaster Seymour Silbermintz. Mr. Silbermintz would come to
Baltimore six times a year and lead the 100-member boys choir at TA, Yeshivas Chofetz
Chaim. Our knowing much of the same music therefore created an important
connection between us. We are both from Leviim mishpachos so maybe that is why music is part of our
After getting
married, we traveled a great deal, and my guitar accompanied us to many foreign
countries. I often took it into old shuls not presently in use, where I played songs
of Hallel and Tehillim to walls that had gone silent for many years. Often groups
would join me in this expression of Jewish song, which brought back melodious
life to the silent walls.
Fast-forward about 20 years, and our children are getting married! At both of their chasanas, my friends and I sang the
special Shir Hama’alos which, in the
German minhag, is sung after the chupa
under a tallis. Instead of a band, my
mom accompanied us on the piano. I clearly remember a great, well known gadol and major posek, our cousin Rabbi Dovid Cohen, coming up to me after the chupa and saying how beautiful this minhag was. As the Shir Hama’alos ends,
Ur’ei banim (you will see offspring), so we should, iy”H, be zocheh to repeat
this at our grandchildren’s weddings one day in the future.
Shuls
My youthful
memories take me back to many shuls that were filled with harmonious tefilah. I grew up in Shearith Israel, a
Yekkish kehilla, led first by Rabbi
Schwab, then by Harav Mendel Feldman, and now by, ybd”l, by Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer. The Yekkishe nusach for Lecha Dodi and
a popular Yom Tov kaddish is still
sung in many Baltimore shuls, and Levindovski’s Tzadik Katamar was sung at the Breuer shul in Washington Heights,
New York. There were special kaddishim
for Yomim Tovim and
beautiful singing for returning the sifrei
Torah to the aron.
My wife grew up in
Far Rockaway’s White Shul, where music was an important ingredient in the tefilah; her father was one of six
rotating chazanim. Today, when
staying in Eretz Yisrael, we have the zechus
to daven in Yerushalayim at our shul Yeshuran, in Rechavia, where chazan Hainowitz davens beautifully, and
on many Shabbos mevarchims does a Carlebach Friday
night nusach with a choir. Not far
away, past Jaffa Road, is the shul next to where Rav Kook lived. They still do a Carlebach
Friday night davening led by one of the Solomon brothers. With fewer than 40 mispallelim, the walls tremble from the
intense ru’ach. The only other time I
experienced something similar was in Tzfas, at a Carlebach minyan; there, the whole
mountain was shaking as the olam was
filled with incredible levels of avodas
Hashem.
A Piano Playing Rosh Kollel
There is a
wonderful kollel in the outskirts of
Yerushalayim, called Aliyos Shlomo. The Rosh Kollel, Rabbi Dovid Lipson, is a
great talmid chacham, who uses classical
music to support his exceptional kollel.
The Kollel is named after his Rebbe, Horav Shlomo Friefeld of Shor Yoshuv.
Rabbi Lipson is an extremely talented classical music pianist and a maestro. He
uses that talent to give concerts and raise needed funds to support his Kollel.
When he gives a concert, he appears in a long black coat which one may think is
tails but is actually his kapote.
Rabbi Lipson’s first concert in Baltimore was at my parents’ home, and Rabbi
Lipson often practiced on my father’s Bechstein piano. Today, he performs in New
York, Lakewood, Baltimore, Florida, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Mozart, Brahms,
Beethoven, and Hadyn never knew their music would be used to foster the
beautiful music of Torah learning.
The Carlebach Music Room
In our home, we
have a wonderful music room, named the “Carlebach music room.” The room is
filled with memorabilia of Shlomo: most of his vinyl records, many books, and
videos of Shlomo. Joining my Goya guitar, now over 60 years old, are five other
guitars, including a 12-string guitar. My mom’s lute, electric guitars,
classical nylon string guitars, and many other instruments decorate its shelves
and walls. An electronic piano keyboard, flutes, violins, and my father’s many harmonicas
are also displayed. In addition, the room has recording equipment and three
microphones. We have performed many a musical events in this special room and
can fit as many as 20 fellows fort a kumsitz.
Many visitors from all over visit our music room, and enjoy the vibrant sound-around
acoustics and special aura and ambience of this spiritual musical makom.
Other Music
Hobbies
My latest music hobby is not music at all but an art form: collecting
paintings of violins. I commission an artist to paint these violins, and I have
17 finished canvases portraying beautiful violins. One is the shiva minim of Eretz Yisrael. Others depict the Fiddler on the Roof in a shtetl and many gardens and flowers. I
also collect guitars, violins, and mandolins; these are actual instruments
covered in stained glass and adorn the music room.
Other Guitars
I keep guitars in any place I frequent. I have a guitar in our Jerusalem
apartment and two in our condo in Deerfield Beach Florida. I recently did a kumsitz in Deerfield Beach with Rashi
Shapiro, a very talented musician originally of the music band Rashi and the
Rishonim. Forty-eight years ago we learned together in Yeshiva Shalavim, and
now, 48 years later, we picked up where we left off. With Rashi on the keyboard
and me on the guitar, you could not tell that 48 years had gone by with no
rehearsal. The music plays on. I also jam with Ruby Blumenthal, a resident and
talented piano buff in Deerfield. I have traveled all over Eretz Yisrael and
Europe strumming my guitar and singing beautiful nigunim to audiences of many different cultures. Music is a bridge,
bringing people closer together even when they can’t communicate in words. Music
is a universal language that everyone can understand and enjoy.
We Are Like a
Guitar
Each of us is like a guitar or, indeed, any stringed instrument. We are
born finely tuned, totally in pitch, and perfect in our ways. But as we get
older, we often get untuned and off pitch. Hashem gives each one of us the ko’ach to
return to our original fine-tuned ways, and with just a small turn of the
string keys, we can
do teshuva. The strings
represent our different paths in life, but the most important thing is the
bridge of the guitar or violin, which holds up the strings. That bridge is the Torah,
our support, which all our paths must follow. Just as a musician presses on the
strings with his fingers to change the tones, our deeds determine our spiritual
“tone.” Hashem orchestrates our entire lives, but He allows us bechira (free will) to compose our destiny
through our actions. It is up to each one of us to bring harmony and beauty to
our lives by immersing ourselves in Torah, avoda,
and gemilas chasadim. When a person
leaves this world, after 120 years, the crescendo of his or her life is the
giving over the Torah values and family legacy to the next generation and
generations to come.
For musicians and
fellow guitarists, look at the strings (E,A,D,G,B, and E) and note correlation
of a six-string guitar to how we need to live our lives. I think they correspond
to the following traits, which Hashem expects us all to have:
E=Emunah (faith)
A=Achdus (unity)
D=Davening (praying)
to Hashem
G=Gemilas chasadim (kind deeds)
B=Ben or Bas Torah
E=Ehrlichkeit (integrity)
We use these
traits to create the concert of our lives. We are the conductors, living in a
way that produces a harmonious symphony. Although we struggle with these six
important aspects of our lives throughout our years, if we can bring them together
and do as Hashem expects of us – leaving a Torah legacy – we will, after 120
years, iy”H, get a standing ovation
in both Olam Hazeh (this world) and in Olam Haba (the next world). We will be rewarded for the
wonderful music of ma’asim tovim and sincere
avodas Hashem that we created.
Serve Hashem (and
Others!) with Joy
What I learned from my parents is that if Hashem gives you a special
talent, use it to serve Hashem and to make others happy. Ivdu es Hashem b’simcha is the way to use your talents to serve
Hashem and klal Yisrael. I learned from my parents to keep my guitar and my life in
tune. I was taught to harmonize both in music and in life. The goal is always
to bring achdus to Klal Yisrael and mankind. May we
continue to sing the praises of Hashem, and may such harmony bring us closer to
the geulah sheleima bimheira biyameinu!
