Carlebach #1-R' Yaakov Homnick - Secrets of Reb Shlomo: Inappropriate or Righteous? Insider's view

ready one of you so Malaysian welcome welcome to meaningful interviews we have Batman uh we have a back a popular a popular guest s hold on we cannot hear me and you're muted somehow you can hear me how can I hear you okay now you can hear me I do not have so I don't know what to check here um I heard you before when we started but you meeting huh yeah yeah now I hear you I had a I had a headphone plugged in okay so welcome to our medical interview with me um interviews with um yaakov hamnick who we had on before Shem and uh it was a very successful uh continuous people continue so today is a flamer panel box yard site um the flamer uh yaakov yaakov knew him so I wanted to hear from him really uh mostly I won't be saying much I've written a book about it I've yaakov read it I'm sure he has much to say but um today tell tell me what you know about the dipshoima and of course um what everyone wonders about is on one hand he was in the cut of so many Eden and surely um has been the scallion has been fulfilled by him a hundred fold and uh like I told you when we spoke about my book that there's a Booker you know uh in Lubavitch and many other uh communities yeshivas he was a taboo and uh I started to research his life and and different things I gained the respect for him although you know there were certain issues I of course ah it's not just that I that couldn't you know agree with and and and and say sanction and say it's okay but the the overall thing that he did for yiddenton for Yiddish kite for Judaism is unparalleled it's just uh it's a fact that's about it's not it's not the you know uh uh my belief your belief it's a fact on the ground that look around the world and see families and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and they're all that flame is um doing from from way back so but you knew him so I would like to hear and your father surely knew him I I know that because he was in high in Berlin and um I'm sure he was very close to your father so tell me your thoughts please yeah well first of all the way you know I always remind everybody that they used to make that slime accaba and drift who have the same yard side to a kind of a way of showing that we have and the year I wrote part of this language Supply so but uh so I'll let me try to give you a flavor of what it was like for me growing up and uh my father Albertson had two albums from Sonica the first two albums which is which came out let's say in 58 and 59 or something like that and I was born in 58. okay so it's remember it was like from the time I discovered that my father never pointed me to them but I discovered them on we had to yeah yeah we had a show off of Records and I saw these two records and and as I listened to them uh especially when my mother was lifted I was 10 years old so in that kuffa I was listening really a lot because I think it really helped me in a certain way through the availas as a young kid I'm sorry could you translate everything into English if you can so people yeah I don't know Hebrews to goofa okay no no okay excellent thanks for learning me to that I I overlooked it yeah so my mother passed away when I was 10 almost 11. and uh so during that period certainly but until my father remarried but even afterwards to an extent that during that year of uh trying to deal with it and don't forget I as 10 year old kids saying goddess at the end of each prayer I'm getting out there and saying goddess uh the prayer for the Philippines I said but I was a real orphan you know like I guess you see a guy at 50 his father died at 80. so all right you know it's it's unfortunate but you don't want to hug the guy that's not your first impulse but for me I was a 10 10 11 year old kid and I would get up and say goddess and everyone in the synagogue immediately was you know pitying me and and everyone looks at it's a spectacle so so I couldn't really mourn in private too much but and I needed to find ways to deal and then I found these two albums among my father's uh property he was alive but he was working crazy I was trying to pay for the babysitter he hired all kinds of people to take care of us including uh I should mention I haven't seen that I don't know 50 years a girl named Debbie posypuff was uh Josh Gordon's Rabbi Gordon yeah probably I assume so I I didn't track her but she she learned to base Brussels it was still about your school base riska they thrifters yeah she she was his wife she's his wife she lives in Encino California oh good so I hope she has this somehow you know I've overcome gratitude just to think of what if she gave up every night you know my father paid up a big deal she was a teenager she was there every night sometimes her sister would join her the sister wasn't even getting paid but she comes sometimes so it was very you know a lot of very special people were trying to you know help so I'm bringing this all in relation to combat that the combat music captured me in this moment of a real absence in my life and somehow I I connected with her in a deep way now my father always told me when I was a kid that kavas first uh did talk he bought for forty dollars and we borrowed 20 from forever and Chester who later became she wouldn't be well he's the received a Cumberland and my father invented the other 20. yeah that's what time you might ask you right yeah I I wanted to verify it I should address but when I first time I met Cava years later the first I asked him you know where did he get the money for his first guitar and he said yeah your father's gonna let me tell any of our ancest 11 which one he said around the spot so you know that I felt foolish about that but at least I I verified it in terms of history and it's not just me trusting my father he told me that so that was a beautiful thing now my father my father really cut ties with Karma because he was disappointed in in the direction he took but the fact is that my father Kaaba uh was very close to the sense that they were both 25 year old single guys at the same time in in the super world where there was not too many of those guys left most people were married 22 23 24. my father didn't get married till a few months before his 26th birthday so he him and comeback would he would hang out uh you know in the Pioneer Hotel in these places where part of the idea was to meet women you know that was I mean whatever else was going on that night maybe there was a concert but that was part of the idea so but my father was very uh conscious of like trying to do it in upstairs to go ahead now today it doesn't exist anymore you don't go someplace I hate women it's taboo yeah but another stage it was done but yet but there was a line like it was a very subtle I had to be careful not to cross it where you know you make it's clear that you're a super box you're not doing anything physical or anything like that and just you and and you committed a girl you know what I have sugar but it has to be done right in a very able way so my father always was convinced that he had it he had a downright and he took off his being a little elusive so he but okay but there were still bodies and uh and doing that and also Carver had had tried a few jobs already you know because he didn't stay in here until 25. he tried some jobs and uh my father's impression was that he was a Hitler which is a a Jewish way of saying that he he tried but he wasn't succeeding at a few different jobs uh one of them that was that he was they made him the rabbi of a town in New Jersey where where a group of Hungarian Jews who had come from Europe and still had European ideas had made had set up chicken farms and uh near each other they had and they created a show and produce individuals with the tickle funds so and they hired Cowboy for a while but but these people were ignorant in the classical sense you know the phrase which is a Jewish phrase that means people of the Earth they were really people at Earth they were farmers even in America didn't know a lot they were doing drunk to him enough that they hired him but he was really much more scholarly than them and so he had to figure out how to come down to their level and which and it didn't last that long over there but my father told me that when he would come cover would come to Camp Morris which was the heimbling camp to this day it may be in a different location out of this but it was traveling Camp cameras and Karma would come and and everyone would hang out well he told stories and he would imitate the accident the new Targaryen Farmers exactly and and he was like a showman a performer before he was a singer he just could get a crowd around it it's not you know without rushing her but just to give it a flavor of whatever right right right right right and so uh and so it was a real entertainment it was a very entertaining guy everyone enjoyed being around him but he wasn't making a living at you know so and he was getting married so now if someone reads your book you'll understand a lot in the background in terms of his family and the other things that were going on but he's the buffer didn't know that usually they're dealing with a guy in Yeshiva sort of an enclosed world to different environment so he was considered to be a pretty good at learning you know one of the things about later once I knew covers personally one of the things about him which was interesting is that uh yeah he when Yeshiva would crowd around him or sometimes he'd make a concert and he'd do his regular Vibe was speaking to Ordinary People and trying to draw them in but sometimes the supermarket would show up so he threw him off his game a little bit but then later once he said goodbye to all the regular people you see we both would hang around a lot of times and so she was going to try again to say something and learning you know and so in that environment he he like reverted back to his biggest receiver talked to describe and he and he was uh and he'd be a little braggadocious about you know yeah the environment caused the city you know there were only two guys who really understood the chair and rebellious way I mean you know it's they'd say stuff like that but but and I could tell was the nerd asking the questions because I thought that's not cool you know but there's always guys is it true that you if I was the best book I like that it'll be it would be a little stupid like that then he would and and he would bring out another party be a little off his game because like this when he was the performer he controlled the environment he's able to give a certain impression when these guys were crying around him you know because she had a he had a connection in his heart to the receiver world you know like any other connections no question but on the other hand he was sort of out there so so when these clusters of people from those worlds would show up it it was you know like I'm sure compared to the action over because I'm trying to remember in a certain way and when he comes into the room the room is transformed everyone is you know you see a real salad and so every interaction with him he's able to control the interaction he's not he doesn't seem to make enough to control it's just the order that he has controls with kawas because she was a hangman you know there's a lot of history but he was never had that quality forever where where he could really thoroughly control the environment if the guys who cried around a bunch of super guys that do it and they wanted to hack so he reverted a little bit you know so that was a funny a very interesting thing if you live through it and you experienced it it was interesting about it but it was a beautiful side of him also because in his heart he was he said about he could go he could be transformed back there and uh why did your father break away from him so my again you know uh after he started having contact with women an inappropriate contact so a lot of guys broke away so I'm I know I I think I told you it sort of the record before but the uh and the roboticon is still alive he should live and be well not as well as he went but I think he still takes service every day yeah so he's hanging in there and uh and he uh this was the crazy story that happened my father told me part of it and we don't call him son Army who was a monkey it's a great guy uh he told me the other part of it that his father told her but essentially what happened was trying to be my car of Kaaba in the sense that he he felt that and then but he also that he was having a problem with Panasonic sort of what I wanted to figure that if he helps him make more pronouncer he'll help him get a sitter and she that was he was trying to Matt put all the pieces together so bring him into the uh to learn a decision Dad I'll give him a job and he'll help me and if it all comes together that might be this before he was doing concerts foreign was when it came into heimble and they they treat them with very high respect in the learning category and they put them into this haburra uh that was not in the regular where the best marriage was going for Rockaway or in Bronzeville but but they had Kyle garaya which was in Crown Heights yeah on President Street right and the club garage was or the top of them who were like too cluster ready to just be with 18 year olds so they put carback over there and uh and in fact he wanted to have Russia with your business and David Smith yes it was uh you know over 90 years old yeah you know regular uh and they were learning and I was told that in Dad's mind that he was harusum innocent they were learning [Music] so the talmud of course is the basic uh let's go on because time so uh so the other thing we're about to try to do for him and but then he was he was doing starting to do concerts a little bit while he was there and uh and the word came out that a uh a woman went up on the stage I think about you all I don't know why that's in my head may or may not be accurate the woman came up on the stage and kissed him and he well he didn't do any effort to bring that about he just spontaneously good and it was you don't go to the hero with Iraq groups are starting you know it's a funny time I mean they're not quite but it's really getting in the 50s the fans are ready in a musical world it's time to heat up in funny ways and uh and he was in certain ways built to people like that so uh sort of couldn't have decided that he has to leave this year but he didn't want to throw him out so what he did was he deputized with David Cohen to throw him out as as a peer you know he he should tell him as a parent it's time to go so he told her that we're going to do it and now we're done with Cohen uh or was a fiery individual and uh famously uh jumped up during Progressive Basics Hospital emergency room to say that he was my son that he wasn't speaking about them with the right coming so you know he was he had with the Firebrand I mean my boots are made us down the clock will be gone guys but if I ever and uh and the Republican gave him the job to throw out Kaaba so uh Rebellion Cohen made a meeting with cava and he told them yeah now this piece I was pretty sure I heard from my father I love Army confirmed the content but if my father told me that your double con Center that the right solution for you and this monster would be to kill yourself he says because the Ivan says that if somebody did public affair and he wanted he's allowed to kill himself that's great that's great so he said you know if you would anyway so the point was he kicked him out and I really should be away like you're not wanted him anymore then later a few months later we're putting the culture of Doug calling them to come to his office and whatever color came he was he was they said Somebody's inside and you you're next and then he hears whoever's inside here's the laughing it's like Hamish and the door opens the slavicaba comes in so he was really hot under the cow you know like the receivers sent me to do the you know the dirty work and he smiled to him and he and he's still hanging around with him and working with him so so he was really and we're putting up either he intentionally arrange it or he surely wasn't careful that they shouldn't be so what happened was when he came in and he says remember how could you do this you you you don't want to talk about you double crossed me yeah yeah so he told him yeah yeah the left hand pushes away with the right hand side that's right that's right and and so it was a big lesson for a double card also to see that yeah play both sides of different so they kept assassin and maybe years and my time as a Bach which is much older obviously uh and and if I was a wedding uh Sean selling it he passed away a couple years ago almost home he died young but he uh at the wedding the guys were in a good mood you know and so they spend it used to be a stick the band would have to stop at 11 then the guys would sit at the table without the band and make like a concert so they started singing not just Karma but they're saying Lord get me high get me high get me high Lord get me high get me higher which the the Mortal Kombat songs the lyrics sort of lend themselves to some kind of a scary interpretation because it's one thing to say you know bring me up Carry Me Up Elevate me lift up my soul it's a lot of but when you say get me high and that period get me high was a drug so when he said when so in a way that's how you see about to reacted to it Lord get me high was it felt like you were Bridging the world between the hippies and the regular people and uh and then when they sang that so somebody snitched her appointment about it and we were putting that uh called Old about her man he was supposed to be giving that day and he said I can't give a after this I said that I heard that uh that they were singing who said something like that and he worked out and there was no canceled this year so so but that also you know now that's really setting the public thing and then he probably told guys that he doesn't really want to encourage the senior comments but but his official objection was because they used that English uh the thing that's tradition so so the Missouri's just kind of tension where I'm sorry I didn't hear that last sentence you want the official what no His official reason for objecting was the content of the of the words oh Lord get me high yeah referring to drugs right right okay but but what was your personal your personality so now with this back so and my father explained to me this whole thing about how he went from the 20 bucks yeah and how they used to go to the Pioneer country club together yeah we got it and the Lord had in the background and yeah and my father had this Gigan his head nothing just happened to you uh sound nothing happened oh no no no so uh to my father in his mind had he just understood it like this was a guy they got a good job and he kind of drifted into this he didn't see it from the perspective of the lover of Jews who had to go out there and conquer the world and it just because of his background and his relationship with him he could he could never see that other person maybe much later because once I much later once I was I brought in kavas music into the house the newest stuff and my father would listen more and more and then he began to understand like you could see a change in attitude today so like wow this guy actually went out and made a movement he wasn't just the guy who drifted off you know and so I think in a way my father is a symbol of like the whole you see with the world he's like a microcosm because the first and and you even in trusting them you you point out in your book a lot of Casino looked at it though because the beginning of just the guy who drifted off and he's been doing strange things and he's uh he's hanging out with hippies and what's going on but the fact is that over the years uh you started seeing people coming back from who who met him in some crazy place and addict showing up going to you she was going to regular Casino environment you know and and and then you realize this guy he's not really lost out there he's actually bringing people back so I'm not again there's nothing you can learn from him like there's no like okay do it come out there and you'll succeed no nobody's saying that but on let my Freya we do see that he had certain basic gardening what is mean and what does la mafreira means when someone is disadvizable you know what I mean so you said you know should I buy a lottery ticket uh it's not advisable well you got a one in the moon since then the next day when the guy won you know the guy won with the lottery ticket so what do you want it kind of changes the calculus right and uh yeah I only saw this to people I say if a thing has a 70 chance of failure then you happen to succeed it doesn't prove anything and then if the thing has a 70 chance of success do you have to fail adult it's hard for the human being to think that way okay okay so let's get back to Carl Buck yeah so uh so in Caba so I'll tell you uh a couple of uh things that I where I really wanted to respect him even more I loved the music and I built a little bit of a relationship with him which I haven't fully described it but let me I'm going to go around to some people who I met and things I learned from them about comma right what we're going to do is in five minutes or so seven minutes we're going to end and then I'm going to send another Zoom so we'll do another session okay that's great so uh after combat passed away in 1994. uh the next time I travel to Israel a few months later for whatever I know whenever I went for it I remember but I I I I made an effort to find a munu wit Witt she was she had done an issue of a magazine a retrospective magazine Where She interviewed people or people wrote in uh reminiscences in America and then she said she wants to do at least a few more maybe make it a regular thing but so I I found out where she lives and I went to be uh to give her 50 bucks or 100 bucks and I said I want to be part of this I think what you're doing it's valuable I want to be part of it so and she didn't remember me before you know so I came to our house and these kids everywhere she's she's got teenagers young kids kids are sitting learning this is learning these kids playing the guitar anyway so I suppose it up she was very touched because she didn't solicit money from me I came specifically so right you offered the donation yeah yeah so she was very close and she gave me this story now at that time she told me she said 14 kids and she was very pregnant with the 15th once she started and then it was unbelievable and so she says to me you know if I heard this it was like you know I said this is real helical mentioned holy people right was that she was 14 years old in Detroit Michigan no no not in Detroit I'm sorry maybe in a different city but she was 40 years old and she was already like had run away from home basically she was in complete class with her parents she was not religious at all and uh and somebody said come with to cover he's giving a concert so she went to this concert when she was ready to move by and afterwards the friends who brought up took her over to meet Islam and he said this girl is 14 years old and we need to do something for her she's you know the parents are giving up so he said okay I'm Gonna Get You I'm going to take care of you so he called drip slime uh Goldstein I think his name was yeah from Detroit that's Detroit yeah Goldstein [Music] it was always close with combat but he had a regular basiakov with regular uh girls from from healthy religious houses right he wasn't going to start bringing in people from so swayman called them and said you have to take this currency 14. she's starting High School she you know she'll know less than the kids who had eight years of Elementary but so early you could catch up and you got to take it and he said he said it's like I can't take a girl like this and she knows nothing she comes from nowhere maybe who knows the negative stuff is going on you're 40 years old ran away from home I'm not equipped for this he said to him if you don't take this girl you're gonna go look at him you must take this girl all right so he took her in and she became a regular basico girl in Detroit and then she said to me that he called her every Arab Shabbos all four years of high school every Arab service she she almost never saw him because she didn't come back around she says he called me from Israel he called me from Australia call me from Europe wherever he was he took a minute out of service to call this girl executive the understanding this you got 40 kids so it's just unbelievable what you can do with a little regards for human being a little love to someone that is not his kid right so so you saw you you saw with you heard it and saw it from the person so fought with 14 kids and a 15th coming pregnant and all the kids are learning at it and those kids by the way a lot of his things that are printed from him are from his kids said her kids said and transcribed right because transcribed for the tapes right right right so you know once once you saw that you could understand why Hashem is giving him this unbelievable backing after death that his songs are everywhere and they and right I want to ask you did you um ever hear him speak or did you speak to him about the fact I I invite I wrote it I think in the book I did but I heard a tape I have a tape I don't even I don't know where it is but I heard it and I won't forget it because it struck me while I was living in Los Angeles and uh in the mid 90s in the early 90s and he said to someone he said that you know I I'm I'm so upset they don't accept me they don't accept and who is the day the fruit the Orthodox Jews and not just the Orthodox the literature you know you know right people where he comes from where you know Lakewood Lubavitch you know I'm saying um his own family background and and and it ate them up yeah that's true I know that then I I know that but did he ever did you ever hear him speak about that that's right yeah yeah a little bit I I heard it a little bit that he's uh none of those terms I heard that in second hand but but he he clearly you know wait he would say like they don't appreciate what he's doing and and then he said when he had the radio show I don't know if you you know he had a radio show no I didn't know I didn't know when uh maybe 1990 something like that he saw it with a few interviews and said Brenner and then it was still around there after doing his thing and uh and then they said you know what and somebody bought him some time and he did like an hour a week or something and and people would call in and ask some questions and uh so if anyone has tapes in those shows they're very interesting I think they released a few I over the years I've heard some very interesting things from those shows yeah okay it was it was very revealing again you know I remember a guy called into the show and said uh is it true that uh you know that auditions or your first song and he said no no no that's my fourth of the first song you know something like that so people would ask him these give them a chance to explain some things so that was an interesting group you got those tapes they're very revealing anyway uh the thing I wanted to say was about he was definitely bothered that that people didn't accept him as much as he as he apparently thought okay but but he was a smart man he understood I think you know the the intellectual side of his brain probably understood but but I'll tell you something I used to say this when I was growing up and I used to say with a lot more anger than I was saying now now I just say it but I used to say don't you understand that when by being a rock of these people all you're doing is making them worse and and and uh in the rocket means by distancing this no no yeah I said like climate uh you know if if you everyone pushed together a person out then you're squeezing them then a lot of what they can accomplish but with their unique element it's like it's outside the camp it can't be as and and also the the camp is supposed to keep you honest but but it doesn't if it's gonna be too rigid that it doesn't keep anyone honestly okay but did you did you did you or were you president when anyone confronted him and said why are you doing this yeah yeah so so uh on the radio show people called and said to him that you know you're kissing women and so now it's interesting because yeah I think that evolved over the years into into a pretty much of a of a an impersonal system like you know it could it could even I don't want to say I like a view but but it was he had it down to a thing where even though it was his way of showing warmth to people but it was so you're doing it with everybody it became so impersonal that it really it you know again I don't want to go into that Allah but that you can you know leave to the person I'm just saying that you know when he was younger maybe you know he didn't have a you know I don't know what but later on when on the movement part of it when he would do that at all the concerts he was he wasn't making any real connection other than like a momentary thing so I I don't know exactly right but uh but the fact is I'll give you that at that point there's one story that I know that nobody in the world knows that that how long is it going to be because otherwise very very fit very fast when I lived in Chicago we had a lady who was a babysitter yeah we start to babysitter maybe we shouldn't have because she was like of limited intelligence and uh she was you know one of these kind of women who got one minute who lived at home with her mother and she was originally she's never getting married she could tell that right right she wasn't very bright but just enough to promote and she went to this concert and and he and he spoke to her and and and made her feel so important and he took her phone number and I'm you know nobody nobody who's a who's a player was interested in this woman trust me it was just a few hours to throw you in the next segment because we're going to get cut off so um is the first segment with the yaakov hamnik talking about the flynna Karbach today the test Zion my husband this is your site and um and in his honor and his memory we brought this program and we'll continue very soon the next sections bye