Elana Schachter

[Aryae Coopersmith]

Recorded at the House of Love and Prayer reunion at Josh and Lilianne Ritchie's house in Jerusalem, December 20, 2003.

Elana: I was going to college at a little school in Claremont, California, and I became a hippie. (laughs) And this friend of mine says, "Come, we're going to see the singing rabbi." It just so happened that this was the same friend that turned me onto LSD, so if figured, I can trust his judgement. (laughter)

So we drove from Claremont to Santa Monica, which is quite a drive, that's a ways. And the concert was in a Unitarian church in Santa Monica. And it was set up with bridge chairs. It was the kind of thing where if you accidentally bumped elbows with the person next to you, you go, "Oh, excuse me." And by the end of the evening, Shlomo had everybody singing and dancing and crying and hanging on each other and sweating together and just... you know. You all know what he could do to an audience, right?

So I come back, and I said, I don't know what happened, but this guy is onto something. I mean anybody who could that to people, he's onto something. So I said, maybe there is something to this Judaism stuff after all. So I went to my local temple that next Friday night, which happened to be a Reform temple in Claremont, California. And there was a lecture that evening on sex education in the schools, and I’m like, is this the same religion? (laughter) This is not what he was into!

So I started reading Martin Buber, I started reading Tales of the Hassidim, and none of it was Shlomo. It was all very sweet and nice, but none of it was Shlomo. So, of course Shlomo had given me his card, because he gave everybody his card, so I called him up and said, "I want to set up a concert for you here in Claremont." Cause I figured that way I would get to see him again. So he came. It was May Day 1968. And he said, "I just started this house in San Francisco called the House of Love and Prayer, and everybody's invited to come for Shabbos."

So that summer I was hiking in Yosemite, and I was hitch hiking back to Los Angeles, and I got a ride, and they said, we'll take you as far as San Francisco. When we got to San Francisco they said, Where should we drop you? So I whipped out the card, and it said Arguello Boulevard, so I said, how about here? And they dropped me off. And as I got out of the car, everybody was piling into the VW bus, and they said, "Come on, come on! Get in, get in!" And I said, "Where are you going?" And they said, "We're going to the mikveh!" And I said, "The what?" (laughter) And they said, "Never mind, just get in." (laughter) It was Friday afternoon, and we went to the mikveh. And that was it, I'm still there! (laughter)

So that's how I got there. And I walked in ... I didn't even make it in the door before I felt welcome!

When I was living at the House I remember going down to the farmers market on Friday and collecting produce from the people there that they didn’t think would make it through the weekend. (laughs) I remember one time there was a dumpster and they put this humongous squash in the dumpster. It was like (shows how big it was) … It was a hundred pound squash! It was damaged on one end so we cut that off and used the rest. And bringing home cases of, I don’t know, and Meira would turn it all into Shabbos food.

One of my strongest images is Meria making challah, in one of those pots like that, sleeves rolled up to her armpits… (gestures to show rolling the dough) (laughter) Hundreds of people. Hundreds of people.

I remember one Shabbos … remember Hybiscus? There was this guy named Hybiscus, who was like… Let’s just say he was eccentric. (laughter) He used to dress in lace tablecloths. (laughter)

Shulamis: He was from the Sutter Street Commune…

Elana: … from Sutter Street. He was the creator of the Cockettes. It was the gay Rockettes dance troop. (laughter) One Friday night he brought his whole chevra, his whole dance troop. And they had gone to the flower market, like we went to the vegetable market, and they got all roses that wouldn’t make it through the weekend. They came with this truckload of roses. And I remember they scattered rose petals over the whole floor of the House of Love and Prayer. As we were dancing, the aroma of roses was just overwhelming. So amazing. All night, it was just like – roses!

Meira remembers about crazy Harry...

Aryae & Moishe Yitzchak: Hershele!

Elana: Hershele. He had, I think, epilepsy, or something. And whenever the energy would get strong, he was like a barometer. Whenever Shlomo would start teaching and the energy would get strong, he would start having fits. He was like ...

Aryae: …talking in tongues...

Elana: …talking in tongues, rolling on the floor, doing his thing, you know? (laughter) So one day ... first of all, Hershele fell in love with me, and he kept following me around and saying, if you don't marry me I'm going to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. And I was like, jump! You know... (laughter) ... have a nice ride. And it was pathetic because I really wanted somebody to fall in love with me, but not Hershele. (laughter) And one day he got really upset that I rejected him and he pulled a knife on me. And I said, "Hershele, put that away!" And I don't remember who it was, but somebody turned around and said to me, and this is a classic line, they said, "You can't yell at him like that! This is the House of Love and Prayer!" (lots of laughter)

[Natalie Zarchin]

Elana - how wonderful to have you appear on my conputer. As far as food at the HLP, one thing I remember is making trips to Canyon, in the East Bay hills to pick up 5-gallon cans of honey from a bee-keeper.

I also remember our friendship and love reconnecting with you. When you wrote about the transformative qualities of chanting and dancing at the house, it reminded me of a trip I took (with Yosepha and about 8 other HLP regulars) to Boulder, Co for the first Meeting of the Ways. Yogi Bashan was there and the Buckminster Fuller people, Swami Sachedananda (sp?), Steve Gaskin from Monday Night Class and tons of other spiritual leaders and followers. I went to Denver airport and picked Shlomo up and brought him to the festival. He went to the main stage and started to play and sing, and people just came streaming into the area from all corners of the campus. We danced and sang for a long time and when we were finally done, Steve Gaskin went on stage and said that all the gurus tried to teach us how to get to that magical place but Shlomo just took us there.

[Yehudis KaplanFinman aka Judy]

Oy Elana thanks for the memories...... yes I remember walking in on Hershele in the living room trying to convince some young pretty thing that because the Sefer Torah was there it made the room holy- well- DUH! which made it kosher to do whatever he had in mind to do right there. Thankfully she did not fall for it. He went into a holy fit instead.....
Then there was Todd- remember Todd? Well there were hundreds of people and like, after the Shabbos squash which you had brought in was finished - well what would we eat? We were all so spaced out and high on Shlomo's Torahs that food was not on the list of things to think about.... but then at some point the stomach begins to feel empty...food would have been nice. So there was Todd baking fresh whole wheat bread every day- he was really into making sure there was a steady supply of this bread during the summer of 1970, the flour was from the US government excess, they also gave big blocks of butter, and there was honey- so we would have our little feasteleh. By the time it was finished Todd would have more loaves in the oven Thanks Todd- that was awesome bread. It was also awesome of Louise to let him do that every day. And thanks Elana, for having the foresight on Fridays to go to the market-