Holy Harmony

Photos: Menachem Kalish

I t’s twilight hour on Friday just as Shabbos is being ushered in. Walking down the streets and alleyways of the mystical city of Tzfas the niggunim of Kabbalas Shabbos crowning with Lecha Dodi echo from the many shuls dotting the town.

“The whole world is waiting…to sing a song of Shabbos…” The hypnotic niggun wafts from the windows of a small building in a narrow alleyway in the Old City called Simtat Meginei Tzfas. Dozens of people push toward the entrance but only a few actually manage to squeeze into the shul while the spillover crowd brings the energy of the minyan to the street. They stand crowded side by side swaying back and forth to the rhythm of the nostalgic tunes the repetition of which creates a trancelike cloud on the cobblestones.

It’s a diverse crowd here at Beirav shul’s weekly Carlebach minyan; some are sporting brand-name litvish hats others wear shtreimels others are wearing knitted kippahs and there are also those whose heads are covered for the first time with those silk yarmulkes they give out at bar mitzvahs. But as far as the eclectic-looking baal tefillah is concerned a Jew is a Jew and it does not matter how is head is covered nor how frum he is or to which stream he belongs.

“My prayers belong to everyone in Klal Yisrael and that includes anyone who was born to a Jewish mother ” he says within earshot of a young man who’s obviously new to a synagogue experience. “Every Jew really yearns to be connected to his Creator even if he is not aware of it. Deep within him his soul is on fire urging him to find his connection to Hashem. He might even be anti-frum but his soul has directed him on an unknown track in order to reach this shul.”