c. 2006 Religion News Service

TEANECK, N.J. _ Words like “soulful” come up when you ask Jews from the Carlebach Congregation why they choose to pray at a member’s house when there are 20 established synagogues serving the town’s large Orthodox population.

Only here, they say, can they feel the spiritual connection to God that Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach helped them experience decades ago through music.

Here they can dance joyfully in circles during weekly Sabbath prayers, pray to melodies Carlebach created, and sing the spiritual syllables of “niggun” _ Hasidic wordless melodies with sounds like “dai, dai, dai” _ with other Jews just the way Carlebach did.

The Carlebach Congregation recently celebrated its one-year anniversary. Members hope to buy a building and become the first group of American Jews outside Manhattan to build an independent synagogue devoted full-time to Carlebach’s style and spiritual teachings.

“There’s been such an incredible hunger for this thing,” said Shmuley Brodsky, who organized the congregation out of his love for Carlebach’s worship style and scholarship. “The moment that we announced we would do it … (financial support) came out of the woodwork. … Reb Shlomo brings out a lot in people.”

Shlomo Carlebach, born in Germany in 1925 and also called Reb Shlomo, was an exuberant, white-bearded, guitar-strumming Talmud scholar who struck up friendships with Bob Dylan, Nina Simone and Peter Yarrow. He became known as the most prolific Jewish composer of the 20th century.

His prayer melodies, now common at Jewish weddings and bar- and bat-mitzvahs, appealed to a wide variety of Jews _ from Hasids to hippies, as they say _ and are widely available on his CDs like “At the Village Gate.”

“His shul, as well as his concerts, would draw from people wearing shtreimels (fur hats worn by the fervently Orthodox) and payos (long sideburns, uncut to follow religious law) to people wearing torn dungarees,” Brodsky said.

Carlebach died in 1994. Congregation Kehillath Jacob, the Orthodox synagogue known as the Carlebach Shul that he helped run on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, is now run by his great-nephew, Rabbi Naftali Citron.

Brodsky, 47, said he loved attending the Carlebach Shul in Manhattan when he lived in New York, and wanted to attend a similar type of service. So he wrote to an e-mail list designed for Teaneck’s Orthodox Jewish community, asking if people wanted to join. Hundreds responded.

The first event was a pre-Rosh Hashanah celebration last September at a Moose Lodge; more than 200 people showed up.

Now, three dozen people attend regular weekly services at the home of Joshua Teplow, a member. And once a month, about 100 people come when the service is held in a larger hall.

Other Carlebach-style services are held around the state, but the Teaneck congregation is different, Brodsky said, because it has plans to evolve into a full-time, independent synagogue. It will form a board of directors later this year and is seeking to buy permanent space, Brodsky said.

On a recent weekday, two dozen people filed into Brodsky’s living room to celebrate the congregation’s one-year anniversary. They prayed and listened to Citron speak. The men danced in a circle, holding hands, to one of Carlebach’s popular songs, “Am Yisrael Chai” (“The People of Israel Shall Live”), as a flutist and guitarist played.

“I feel that this is soul music,” said Moshe Yasgur, a former synagogue rabbi. “He (Carlebach) would sing from the soul, not for entertainment. He sings soul to soul.”

Some people said they had met Carlebach decades ago or seen him in concert. Others never heard his melodies until shortly before, or after, he died.

“He was more than just a singer, he was more than just a performing artist,” said Steve Styler, who met Carlebach several times. “He was a teacher, a pied piper of sorts. He led people to religious experience, to spiritual experiences in a way that was completely unique and authentic and life-transforming and transformative.”

At the same time, attendees heard that the song and dance are meant to have a higher purpose.

“It’s not just about pretty melodies,” Citron told them. “The melodies are nice … but what it really is about is finding a place where the songs are just a springboard. … The songs are a method for helping you get into the prayer.”

(Jeff Diamant writes for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

KRE/PH END DIAMANT

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