Novelty

Transcribed by Samuel Intrator for Connections Magazine
Brooklyn, 5745.

No commercial distribution allowed without permission
of the Estate of Shlomo Carlebach

Rabbeinu speaking

The Bible says Melki-Zedek greeted
Abraham by offering him bread and wine. Our holy
rabbis teach us wine, the older it gets, the better
it tastes; bread is only good when it’s fresh.
The world needs both bread and wine, the world
has such longing for new revelations, for new
teachings, for new ideas, for new life. Yet,
in the deepest depth, they are crying for old
wine. Malki-Zedek, the high priest, tells
Abraham, G-d’s spokesman to the world, “If you
want to bring G-d closer to the people and the
people closer to G-d, you must know the secret
of bread and wine, You have to know that when
a person comes crying for bread, give him fresh
bread. G-d has new things all the time. As we
say in our prayers, G-d always renews the world..
Abraham, you have to know that when people come
crying for old wine, always have one drop of
old wine for them. But, the deepest truth is
G-d’s word; anything which is holy, precious
and beautiful, I knew yesterday. Yet, today I
see it for the first time, My children, I know
them from the second they were born, but each
time I see them, it is for the first time. You
know my friends, when you kiss someone you love
very much, you close your eyes and then open
them. That means I know you for eternities.
Yet, I see you for the first time, for the
first time. You know my most darling friends,
there never was a generation before that
craved and longed for something new as much as
we do. we are living in a world where so many
old ideas went bankrupt. We look at so many
people’s lives that we once exalted and later
realized they are absolutely bankrupt. So, we
are looking for something new, but, in the deepest
depths, we want the old wine. We want G-d
to reveal to us every word he taught our forefathers
on Mt. Sinai and in Yerushalayim, the Holy City.