The Rock 'n Roll Rabbi

Before I went to the Phoebe Snow concert yesterday, I stopped in Woodstock for a burrito, where I met Rabbi Joshua (Yisroel) Gootblatt, a Hasid known as the Rock ‘n Roll Rabbi.

Like many of the other Hasidim I’ve encountered, one of the first questions out of his mouth was, “Are you Jewish?” I said no.

When he asked my last name, I said it was Streib, a standard German name. He said there was no such thing, as Jews and Yiddish had so influenced German culture that it was almost impossible to find a real German name anymore.

He asked if I knew what my name means. Now, from the name heritage sites online, it says my name is a variation on Straub, which means “unkempt,” which isn’t the most flattering thing to be named after (but quite apropos!)

“Don’t put that on yourself,” he said. He said it came from strobe, which is associated with light, as in the flickering bulb that causes convulsions.

He also brought in gematria, a Jewish mystical tradition from the Kabbalah which assigns numerical values to Hebrew letters to find meaning. By spelling my name Samekh, Teth, Resh, Yodh, Yodh, Bet, (סטרייב) he came up with the number 291. He said that was the same number as the word Yitzair (יצייר), which means creation in Hebrew.

(As an aside, I did some internet research in the burrito place after talking to him. Strobe comes from the Greek strobos, meaning “whirling,” and Yetzair has a value of 320. Eretz (ארץ), meaning “Earth,” has the same value of my name, however.)

He wouldn’t tell me why he was called the Rock ‘n Roll Rabbi, insisting that I had to get to know him to find out, inviting me to his birthday party at his house that evening.

The party was not what I was expecting at a Chabad house, a community center hosted by Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidim to spread their message of Orthodox Judaism and the coming messiah. I was expecting something somewhat solemn and conservative.

And that’s how it started out. I helped out by washing spinach in the kosher manner, checking every side of every leaf multiple times for tiny insects that normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but is against Jewish tradition.

But then, more guests arrived, along with lots of beer and lots and lots of cigarettes. There were more tattoos and piercings covering the guests then there was unaltered skin. Funk music was blaring from the speakers, and everything was rowdy.

In fact, I think I was the only sober one there.

The night finished with an all-out jam session with the rabbi on drums and guests on bass, guitar, piano, and a smattering of other instruments. But while it was fun, it wasn’t that melodic. As one person described it, “Everyone was playing very well individually, but not together.”

I knew that this rabbi was definitely someone I needed to get to know closer. So, as the party wound down, I did some dishes, and was invited to stay the night, which I did. I’m sure there’s more to come.