Meaningful Interviews: Reb Yaakov Homnick #4 -Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, Mashgiach of Chaim Berlin

so welcome to a meaningful interviews i'm your host rabbi kayam delfin i'm here today again with uh rubiato velhamni we had such a wonderful feedback feedback is still coming just this morning i got a text from someone i don't think he's a kind berliner but he lives in lakewood and he wrote to me uh he wrote to me you know briefly he says that for that interview with rabbi hamnid was phenomenal he says i don't know how much behind bolinas enjoyed it but i definitely enjoyed it no no i i think it was there was one for everybody to enjoy and it was what they're made here to irritates everybody in some way also but you know trying to put the be honest and and and trust me it was enjoyable with anyone that's like you say honest and okay we're not this is not about gossip this is about looking at things and trying to understand yet it ain't that everyone can decide what he wants to do with it so um i'm very thankful uh to you because it took me years to get anyone to speak about kai and berlin and today i want to talk about a very special person who passed away last week i believe or two weeks ago out of the schleimer who [Music] was related a cousin a relative of the more known karo bach the singer the composer which admits hashem will do a few interviews about him around his yardstick time with rabiacos who knew him and he was a very good friend of his fathers he told me so and i know that they're flying i wrote about my book either uh i don't think it was an official talmud and we spent a lot of time in the library i heard things from people that i interviewed but anyway so when i wrote my book on the rabbith i became aware of uh an issue that there wasn't higher berlin i don't know the years i i imagine you know that too but anyway um there was a there was a disagreement between the administration and rubbish um about him being i think in the position of am i right yes yeah he was the master [Music] when my father was a talmud and uh but when heimlich moved to farah away robert miller it was a little too far for him uh and so he he because remember was the robe of israel of rugby and to bensonhurst i'm sorry not that's a nurse but to bronzeville he he still was willing to go but not as far as for occupy so once they moved to farakaway he you know nobody had to fire him he just wasn't interested in in continuing what year are we talking 1980 no no no no no no no uh when i was when i started being around heimlin based madras is before i was in the basement because because i was in the high school down the block and we would come in and she was you know being a storm we'd come in and we'd come we'd end up in the basement a little bit so uh i so i started uh in the 1960s and nine i think oh and was very much here for a couple years brother kyle without the right machine okay so get sir i interviewed him here in borough park he used to learn the lake with kayla on 16th avenue 52nd street i went to see them i went to see him there he was already an older person he must have been 84 85 he was in his 80s uh the couple got a bit i felt this head was he was he was fluent he was good he was coherent he was sharp and um we spoke he didn't want you know should be in public we went into the library section of the lakewood cable and um he told me this left an impression on me he said from the beginning although you know uh my eye in time berlin we had a difference and and uh i was let go he said you should know it was rabbi hutner zatsau who gave me my job i remember he told me that and he said you know because the word on the street was that rabbi hutner was the one who who let him go even though baby officially wasn't that way but i'm hooked and called all the shots at the end of the day in those days for sure and he and and and uh says he said i want to be that and he told me he told me how it right when he came here i think you're 47 or so after the war um he was schmettered he had no pannosa he was crushed and beaten up you know and was devastated and he made a point to tell me very clearly that that it was rabbi hutler who who saved me who who gave me a place who again at that time i think maybe he was a revenue she might i don't remember all the details now but when he when he came after the war um remember he had never been in yeshiva in europe because the war started when he was 16 or something so and he came and he was already 20 or 21. so they revealed that uh brought him in and allowed him to work his way into the base matters in such a way that of course at first he was learning with the wicked guys you know but he and and he began to he picked it up he picked up the the uh the way of learning and the and the and the sprout and all it is and he and and they allowed him to go up through the ranks you know i just went when he could he got to the next level he got the next level caruso and he worked his way up and became a clutch of atonement okay so before you tell me what you know what took place you know what what happened over here that they had this uh kind of parting of ways between the yeshiva and himself tell me a little bit about him you know as far as tell me your impressions please so uh when i came to yeshiva it was the muscular now as i said before i was in basement i was also in the high school and we we you know come in and out by lunchtime this and that like you know when when the new york jets played the uh in the super bowl so it so it was my job you know to come in and whisper in the guy's ear when i was whenever they scored a few points you know and a few guys that were interested you know right yeah i was a kid around these shoes i'm just screwing your brush right so uh and then later eventually i made it into the race managers now again because of the whole weird thing that was done with me that they graduated me from high school at 14 years old so i came to basement at 14. which i was completely unprepared for on any level except to some extent intellectually maybe but i i didn't have the maturity right to be able to go through the process of putting in a few hours of learning preparing for the [ __ ] and listening to the [ __ ] and so i was you know i either either had no rooster at some point or i had a russo who was really like from a non-uh learning background to who maybe went to some high school and got through it and you had to go to base manager otherwise you were a loser right but i had these guys who weren't really roy very much and i my instincts of learning were already better than this but i wasn't that interested in either so so in my mail it was it was a very unhealthy mix and i started 14 years old in the basement yeah and my father had this thing that he did with me where he would learn with me when i was 11 or 12. he's loaned me a replying brisket on a rambam yeah to try to right so he teach me to about the but i don't know anything i only know the words that around me and then they start teaching me to reconcile and he's asking me the kasha and i got to work on the class over there when i'm going i don't know and my father always go you have enough information and let's see what you have to say an hour ago no no i don't have enough information which was a funny little guy of a kid rather than saying hey i'm a little kid leave me alone i always say i don't have enough information i blamed it on the lack of information so i had the confidence if i had the information i'd solve it you know but anyway so it's and that's how my father kind of trained me which in those moments i might have been impressive for my age but then now you got to go and do it all day you know what i mean it's like you're dating and you're good on the dates but now you got to be married 24 hours a day seven days a week it's a different thing so but so you know that's basically so i wasn't the truth is in all honesty i just wasn't ready to be investigating 14 years old now he's much care for me like he is for everybody else and i'm sure he felt bad for me you know because because right so he would always try and uh to wonder i'll give you emotional one of the things that i did for uh for a little bit of escape is that i would uh after first saying that i would i'd maybe grab a bite or not and i'd go to the park to play basketball that was a little scary for me but and i would but then i'd come an hour late for a second say or an hour and a half you know i it went by the game yeah i think about a clock and i'd come in and he'd look at me you know all right and uh whoever my second saying the carissa was there was some long-suffering character and and so i always had two types of versus either guy was so weak that he just needs somebody to sit next to him or a guy who's so strong that he doesn't really need me so if i'm not dave's learning anyway so those are the two kinds of and i was happy to have the stronger one it's a better look when you're sitting with the stronger guy yeah but meantime i'm not there so so do what kufis where he would ignore it for a while then he'd call me over and say what are you doing in the middle of the afternoon so i realized i have to tell them something you know so i started talking about that i'm going to the library it wasn't true but i figured right with the german background his german background right right that he'll have more tolerance for that idea than i'm playing business right so all right i said listen you know they're learning it's a lot of them young you know so i yeah you go to the library okay that wasn't so bad he could he live with that and you know i'm just giving you so but here he and it took really for me four years before i i mean three years to it i got pretty close to it the fourth years when i really i mean after four years rather the fifth year when i really started learning seriously and i was just a regular guy and and by the way and even that happens a lot a lot i give a lot of credit for slimy braunstein who's still alive who was the nightside to muscular so yeah i'm showing you how to mosquitoes we're all looking at me always trying to figure out how to how to help me how to stop me from being another like how to stop me from being a loser you know so but the united i walked stand in the beginning of my fifth year i walked in the door like the first day this month and i'd say that and he's slimy bronstein should be well he said to me yeah i come down but how old are you i said 18. he said oh okay so now you're in a regular shoot about it you're 18. and that was murray like in one sentence he gave me a kaylee right that trigger in my mind that i'm not anymore he did with kids who's there under the age of 18 i'm a regular guy i it's my first year all right use that as an advantage but you gotta learn and and that was a real trigger so i'm just showing you what these mushrooms were doing with me i was really they were working harder i mean than all the other people oh so was ripped labor carl bach's type of more with a strict stern approach or more not not just with you with overall what was his general approach more with ava or yidda so i for my observation and my experience uh he always tried to use alva if possible and it was he alva was the first you know first he tried wrong then if he's then you you're right right so he he would always uh he would try to do whatever which i think worked better for the people who either were pretty good on their own or people order people also who who were trying hard was in the way heimlich was structured in those days you don't have this anymore but in those days there was there was stronger guys i should really say three categories do it is super strong guys and there was like 20 of those and they talked to each other and they were like a yeshiva within issue and then you had the basic guys they were pretty strong they're learning they're trying and then you had this this this bottom class which may have been a third of these shiva in numbers of guys who they were from kids from the flatbush bar park and you know you're supposed to go and and put in a few years after high school and so they they were going through the motions and and it was very hard for those guys because if nobody ever shopped them and got them to get the system so to break through how the questions and answers are going and how the reading is going so a lot of them were stuck but they were very early so he said a good thing with those guys a very admirable thing is that he would take those guys and bring them into his home so the guys who love them he never approached for his commission right you know their sister's working for them but the guys whose assistant was not really working for them but they were sincere he those were the guys he pulled into his commission and some of them loved it i mean you would see guys come out all excited uh very energized at the end of this year he gave it maybe from three to four in the afternoon did he have a did he have did he have a good house butter yes fantastic as well and that's also this is just in the measure of the man and turn you know it was great just as a human being because he came to america and and had to figure out how to speak english right it's not just he didn't have the other background it's a new language too everything is from express after suffering you have to lose miss parents you have to roll it up and that's why i advise everybody uh you should it's well worth the four hours to watch his because he gave four hours of testimony to the spielberg foundation foundation and it's on youtube look for understanding right it's well worth it and and i saw one of the bloggers gave a link to it it's worth the time because it's brilliant and and he patient with the with the lutnik who's interviewing him a real movie but he keeps his cool so anyway so after all the suffering that he went through the whole fact that he survived is amazing and he had siblings that had several siblings that were alive because they had been shipped out earlier but they were all in either israel or england right and he ended up in america and uh so he taught himself english and like a lot of people who teach themselves english from the dictionary they have a better vocabulary than the average guy occasionally they may occasionally misuse the word but they know more words yeah so i was the guy who liked english i was always a little entertaining to talk to him just to listen to his use of english i'll give you one time and when he was trying to muscle me ice in a nice way but a stern way and he said to me i don't want to preside over your demise that's good i never forgot that that's what he don't it's brilliant that was good so let me ask you um okay tell me about the relationship in the early days when him and rabbi hooked her what can you tell me about that well look you know we're not in to close behind closed doors on any of us obviously but the fact is uh and i i told you this in the previous interview that and you have to report this made this in yeshima yes absolutely in the lunchroom but in those studies it was rafa and his family which by my time his kid is ready to delight for for jonathan so it's true and then his robertson there will be artists and his ravens and his kids and versailles and and his kids that was basically and then a few it brought from that were either the assignment or they or or balichuva or estranged from their home for some reason or they lived out of town that that was the rest of the table of people who didn't have a place and and the land would take those guys in and and it was very vulnerable to them uh including some and the emotion have turned out pretty well i i mean there was maybe one or two that blew up and turned out badly but now ninety percent of them turned out almost it was there was always the mills lesson was there with the with the terror because you always were a few of those guys and the great thing that label rudder did is that he took notes like what his parents were from they had a bakery in there but but they weren't he felt as a yeshiva man he should be around yeshivali accepted himself so he basically always came on youtube every single little remark of what the way he wrote down so if you if you take his safer it was unauthorized and extraordinary yeah but there's tremendous material there uh he you know every all kinds of remarks and caches and direction plus he tries to write the bigger my mom but you don't need him for that you have the right you right let's get back to the points what was the story so no i'm just saying so but of the four families that were there kyle buck was one of them and it was very warm it was very warm everyone was together absolutely absolutely one large family right right right right so i'm saying first off a man who was the austin both parents were killed who had to teach themselves the language who who who had to marry into a family of of of yankees of course at the leviah his his son or his grandson said that he that he was behind that whole family that whole family they were a beautiful yakuza family but they had the acacia tradition that everybody was and he was the first one who learned the coyote and it was review and and now it is uh you know that that whole family is full of young goliath right right okay now take us now to the next step what happened that there was some kind of issue and falling out yeah i don't know if that's the next step but but okay well you take us to the next step whatever you know right no so therefore so i'm just trying to i try to give you this picture that he was he he was a stern he could he could put on the stern face and it was his default face as the masculine was because he's looking at you like you're supposed to be learning but then he you also had a beautiful smile and he and when he spoke to you of course it could be very warm and um he was not teaching muslim there wasn't much to say that and then when the muslim satan came he took out it muslims and he learned it seriously but he did not teach muslims it was his share that he gave to that group that would like i said was mostly the guys who weren't really the right group of learners so that share was influenced by ravenna the type of master but he did it but he taught it he taught it as a chiron promise and and he would go through uh parish by passing that [Music] and he was very thorough and uh but but coming from that perspective where it's important to influence type attorney and he's learning about my direction and and i got into this and it's not just like learning muslim from what muslim so so would you say that he could he considered rabbi hutner his rebbe in in i don't think there's any doubt about it because i don't see who else could possibly be a candidate i mean like he self-class you he he took this yes i didn't hear those words so what i don't i don't see what if there's any other candidate because like he acknowledged to you you know he's the awesome kid we're putting the circum game a chance to learn and develop and uh so the influence is you know it has to be from there okay next what what was what what i always like to say i always like to say this yeah this story i'm not the hero of the story i'm the goat of the story but i like to say it because it was it was a very beautiful moment that i had with my skin i always say it over that he he there was one per again he was always trying to figure out strategies and how to deal with me because on the one hand i'm from a hush for family i'm his friend's son on the other hand i'm not clearly not seriously learning and i'm not really of age where you could have too much ties on me and how do you deal with it it's a conundrum right so yeah so i want so at different points you know he he used different strategies but at one point he did a strategy where uh he wouldn't let me bottle in the basement if i sell my caboose he couldn't stop that but if i went over to any other table to schmooze he he'd come walking home and i'd have to run away and he tried this for a while and so he was really crowding me you know so one time i went to this other table and maybe he was after a minute or i think maybe he had a talmud at his table talking to him but then when he's free he's i'm there ready i'm in the schmoozer i got into the schmooze so he he he wiggles his finger you know come over i come over and i know i'm gonna get it it was a cup you know and i know i'm in trouble and so he says to me can you bring me into heaven so in chamberlain there are two kinds of till and the 90 of the homes were the ones that only had the words of the [ __ ] could you because when they announced the clout to stay tuned for something uh you took out this tillamoon it was all about really dylan yeah right but then there's some with purushim that for learning so i said with the masjid like a tillman with a appearance or that appears so he said and and i i knew in my mind i'm thinking what does he want to show him i should play somebody also i figured that's what he's going to show me right so but i'm playing a game like it like he's asking me to do a flavor so i said with am i scared it's like with appearance without appearance she says you brings it to him i provide the penis [Music] a deep love and gratitude for him because he really was trying to help me right he was trying to not ignore me but and see what can he do for this kid who's not in the right age now at a certain point i decided i'm going to go to the homicide because i felt bad for him also i felt like it looked you know it went because i grew up with the cartoons there was bugs bunny and the roadrunner yeah and it was always there was always some guy trying to catch them and they were always eluding and and that was my relationship with him i was bugs bunny and the roadrunner and he was the one chasing right right so for a bit so at one point i used to go to the [ __ ] and he said yeah you don't need much yeah you know but tell him to i went to a few weeks just to get a to get a sense of it and uh you know it was it was i saw i got to see on the inside there i'll be right i was in there and i saw those those fellas really respected him and it was it was a very nice thing uh it was something to see he had a real oil that enjoyed what he what he was doing there and he and he was smart enough like i said not to go after the big win is he a big one he left them alone so anyway what uh did that is but before you go on but was he was he was he considered amongst the older boko haram and the better buffer of a strong time in in the murderer places in the farshim not not so here's the thing and this i mean this is going to sound very funny i'm sure his own children are going to have to watch this and the truth is i i don't think anyone had a clear opinion one way to go because i mean you know everyone's wanting to be donald trump's list but but because he wasn't giving a [ __ ] in and learning there was no so some jewish one two guys who maybe had heard him as a rebbe in yeshiva eastern parkway where i think he was the 10th or 11th grade revenue uh but before he came to bittermuschke and they used to say that yeah you know it's a great rebbe and a lot of people used to say so we heard nice things about his learning but but i never saw like a guy go over to him and say what i have a problem here in the comments it just didn't occur to people to do that you you went to your rebbe or you went to russia but you didn't go to the muscular for that so uh that's hard to say oh you're respecting him as i'm saying i had a beautiful dignity about him he was right right we have nine minutes and 21 9 minutes and 21 seconds left before the zoo shuts off so we have to get to the point the bottom line yeah so the way to most likely in terms of buffer was that what year what year was it 76 77 78 i'm i think uh i think i went to liquid already in 77 so i'm going to say 76. okay go ahead and uh so basically what happened was that all of a sudden he stopped coming where we thought maybe he's sick he wasn't around for a few days then all of a sudden he came back but when he came back he wasn't talking to anybody he didn't call anybody over what it was like not working but he was he was present he was sitting by his seat and learning and not talking so it was very mysterious and then eventually he stopped coming so uh you know so who knows it was it was a modern moment now what we heard at that time was that that he felt that as part of the deal when they come when they convince them to leave being a rebbe in eastern parkway is that they said that at some later point he would become a rabbi or he'd become a shutter in the sort of ownership of yeshiva maybe that would include his children gang positions i don't know exactly and so i don't know exactly if he interpreted right the original promise and if he and and if what they offered him and that he turned down i i i we didn't follow that because we we didn't know we would just park him in the basement it was all going on in the left and at a certain point he disappeared he never came back and we understood that it is bad blood so it was very unfortunate you know and and i think a lot of us missed them i mean it was unfortunate we weren't of age to really be players and and once he left there was no zeker of him in time berlin for yeah yeah yeah once he left he he he was gone and then eventually they gave the muscular but uh but he was gone he was gone so he i you know i want to let me say spew things quickly though yeah he used to make a chanukah party in his house one night of hanukkah with uh he said a little bit of the return not too much uh some of the other rabbi would say more and and and the guys felt like it's a duty oh boy i gotta go but he would he would yeah i think he had a better feel for the crowd didn't say that much said something and then i remember one year he was very excited because he found a manuscript of my sir that had a few more stanzas in it so he gave we came to that night to the house and gave everyone a copy of this paper with extra stances of monster i support israel has its reasons you know when they pick these stanzas there's a reason but the other ones were also some interesting material he was uh he was really you know a very the the quality that the german people have did and the germany didn't have is that they're very honest and they take honestly much more seriously than others and and which is a tremendous smile now it may have a some kind of downside somewhere you know i mean maybe hard for them to to be michelangelo i don't know i know where the downside is but i mean could i also remember i i did sheamus schwab and so i i got to see that personality of the german uh and and and ripcon even though he didn't learn in germany so much except he learned from his father but he he brought that quality that was really fascinating he brought his father's quality of how the tsuru of what it looks like to be a year to tom truffan and and and a person of dignity and integrity and then he learned in america with which you know yeah right now did he did uh so once he left did you hear anything from rabbi huthra at any time just no i not from him for sure i mean he didn't really have to answer us no no no no no no i'm going to say they would say thank you very much for all the work he did you know we uh we never heard anything like that we do uh there was a story when when when there were abandonment for a rock away when time was in for ocarina where they were out of money and uh and sir obama and like this they were suffering and they were not getting paid a lot of shivers were behind but then they heard that the english teachers got paid so that got them very upset they sent to five o'clock and and i think yeah this is what i was told there were 17 that [Music] that that the the huge teachers would leave if they don't but they better obey him would stay which wasn't fairly not the test but then he goes [Music] yeah it's not true we didn't pay them so so you know it was a female moment and i was he gave him the true answer but i said you know what i don't really have to tell you you know i mean that was how he that was how he let him understand him so so go back what else did you want to say about robert carob we have a few minutes left well uh like i said he was a first of all all his children he was a beautiful parent to all his children and uh and i was closest with joseph svee his oldest son named after his father with michael bruce in handler for a while and where where does she live today i'm not positive i don't know that answer and the one with the son who was taking care of him who was housing him was yana who apparently is a man of means that was able to do that but i'm sure it was a very high expense did the mother still you know needed a lot of nurses and all kinds of things uh and then uh you know we one of the things that i believe is the boys didn't talk to the girls at also so literally i never said two words to hama but even though i shoot my friend sister and all this but um i sent her a message when i sent a message to a husband a couple years ago about an article of course that i read in the jewish review of books that i enjoyed it but i never had a conversation with him and and uh and her other daughter uh who married marmoset uh and that's very she has beautiful children grandchildren you didn't attend the leviathan you went to the leviathan no no no i was here but no it is very important for me to say by the way i consider this an absolute message we have a minute left that i got to see him a month ago [Music] right and he was coherent yeah it was coherent can you remember exactly if it was if i was me or my father and i couldn't really figure out the way i had to explain it to him for sure but he was coherent he gave me his swarm and it was and i felt like hashem allowed me to close the circle wow wow and he was 97 right yeah your father your father probably sided with uh with rabbi hutter and and berlin because it was a talmud no my father didn't died my father was his daughter was this not my i'm not into battle it's not my battle right okay and abductivity will continue mr hashem thank you very much the purpose was the purpose was playing in the good and uh offer else and thank you foreign much for your time bye-bye where's your budget