An Unforgettable Evening with Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach

The night I understood what my Jewish roots were all about

I am Jewish. My parents were Jewish. My grandparents were Jewish and all their parents and grandparents were Jewish. My father’s father’s name was “Abraham.” His brother’s name was “Moses.” I was circumcised, went to Hebrew School, was bar mitzvahed, and ate more than my share of bagels, lox, and matzoh balls. Like any good Jew, I celebrated the High Holidays.

Wait. Hold on a minute. I don’t think “celebrate” is the right word.

Make that “endure” — me as a young boy being far more devoted to baseball and playing with my dog than fiddling around with that silky red prayer book marker separating one section of indecipherable Old Testament text from another.

My Rabbi, the very forthright, wise and benevolent Rabbi Alvin D. Rubin, always seemed, at least from my adolescent point of view, to be wondering if he had taken a wrong turn out of the Sinai desert, finding himself as he was these days shepherding a flock of polyester-wearing suburbanites way more interested in their golf game than the unpronounceable name of God.

These were my roots — not the grey roots my canasta-playing mother religiously turned blond the day before each…