New York – A new song on singer Lipa Schmeltzer’s latest album has listeners wondering if perhaps this time the colorful singer has taken things a step too far as he takes on an unusual topic: beards.
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The song, “Where is Your Beard?” an original composition by Schmeltzer, with lyrics also penned by the Chasidic superstar, challenges the notion that a person’s worth can be measured by the length of his beard. With tongue twisting lyrics the song asks “Yid, yid, where is your beard? Beard, beard, where is your yid?”
Schmeltzer, who has never been known to shy away from controversial issues, acknowledged that there will be those who may not agree with the message of his song.
“I like to talk about the things that people don’t want to talk about,” explained Schmeltzer. “It is a good message and the people who like my music will appreciate it. The people who get upset aren’t the ones who listen to my music anyway.”
Schmeltzer references the words of Pirkei Avos, as well as stories from both the previous Skverer and Satmar Rebbes in the song, to illustrate the old adage “you can’t judge a book by its cover.”
“There was a story about the Satmar Rebbe zt’l, when Mike Tress wanted to daven for the amud and someone told him he couldn’t daven for the amud because he didn’t have a beard,” Schmeltzer told VIN News. “The Satmar Rebbe explained that a person’s appearance isn’t what really matters.
Video below preview of the Beard song.
Some Jews will come to heaven and they will say to him ‘Jew, where is your beard?’ but for others who have long beards but are lacking in mitzvos they will say ‘Beard, where is your Jew?’ What I wanted to bring out in this song is that you shouldn’t just judge a person by his looks and what is on the outside.”
Schmeltzer readily admits that songs like “Where is Your Beard?” come from his own experiences.
“I know what rejection means,” said Schmeltzer. “There are people who reject me and people who love me. I don’t look back.”
Those same life experiences play a pivotal role in Schmeltzer’s upcoming full scale Broadway musical, “Lipa on Broadway”, which will take place on Sunday December 29th.
“It is a story that is based on people’s struggles, including my own, and it will make people cry and laugh a lot,” said Schmeltzer. “This isn’t a concert like what you would see on Chol Hamoed or Chanukah. This is about giving people good, kosher, Jewish entertainment at an affordable price.”
The fact that he is the first Jewish music star to stage a full scale Broadway show of his own comes as no surprise to Schmeltzer.
“That is why I am Lipa,” said Schmeltzer. “I am always one step ahead of everyone else.”
Below video preview of Lipas latest album
I think hes very talented and a good guy who makes people happy with his songs and antics and energy, but I think he might be losing it just a little bit.
Artists have always challenged the status quo.. GO LIPA!
Where’s the controversy? All he’s saying is that how you really act that’s what matters, not your beard, lack of beard or long beard. If you act like a Torah Jewish is supposed to act, that is all that matters.
We’ve become awash in the style over substance ways of hoi polloi and apply in ways that are far worse than the Hellenists. Sadly the amoraim wouldn’t pass muster with some of them and they of our present sad state of minhagim who are self-appointed and dynastic. There is probably nothing worse than having people reflect on their own shallowness and if this is the case with this song – GOOD.
lipa is basically a spokesperson for the people of new square who can’t take the rules and leave. but they remain frum, each according to his own idea of frum. some convert to another chasidic sect, mostly viznitz, and are quite chasidic. the answer is not to overburden people with ultra frum rules and chumras that they can’t feel comfortable with. i know lipa personally since he was a kid. he just couldnt take the pressure. so now he sings about it. he isn’t knocking beards. he’s knocking empty beards.
This time he crossed a red line!
The story of satmar rav is one thing, and for lipa to shave off half of his beard and make a song about it, is outright “prikas oil” behavior and disgussting!
Satmar rav made his comment about reb mike tress z”l who needs no words of validation here, whereas lipa wasn’t raised and is making a chilul hashem and mockery of everything holy….
Mesorah to lipa plays no roll what so ever! And riboinoi shel oilum what in the world is he thinking, our teenagers are struggling as it is, what kind of a messege is this to our youth?
Did anybody ever dispute that a yid comes before a beard?
But to shave it off when one is raised with a holy mesorah, and then act like it dosnt make a diffrence what so ever, spreading it to a struggeling generation, is mind boggling!!!
And now lipa is going to come out and say that, we have no idea what we are saying, because only he alone knows how many off the derech bucherim are out there, and he is actually helping the generation…
We have heard this argument from him before, and all of us know his thinking is distorted, lipa is in core a guy like you, me, and everybody in between, he has a heart of gold, and truly means well, but unfortionatly this one is way overboard…
Lipa, if only u would have made a song about satmar rav’s mesiras nefesh to stay with his beard during the holocust, then perhaps our comments would be different…
Gotta love Lipa!!!
I have been saying this for year do not judge by the beard and uniform etc…. I do not see what this is controversial. It’s pure emes, case closed.
Why does Lipa have to shlep the frum oylem to Broadway? Is Brooklyn too small for him? I feel it’s a chille Hashem!
Number 6.
You took the words right out of mouth! My sentiments exactly,
Nobody says just to wear a beard without having midos tovos etc..
But to make choizek and say it’s not necessary to have a beard when there are plenty of sources and mesora to wear a beard is unfathomable.
Unfortunately, people will grab onto this and slide further claiming this and more is not necessary to be a good jew until they won’t be recognizable as mitzvos won’t be performed either.
I agree 100%. I do not have to give extra or special kavod to a Yid because he has a beard.
Well said. Thank you for making this concept clear. No one is denying that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but he defiantly crossed a line.
yeah yeah a beard is nothing if there’s no YID, but nisht a burd in nisht a yid ?!?!
A goat has a beard, that does not make him a Rabbi. That is what Lipa is trying to say…
He is right on the mark. It is very easy to put on a costume every day, how much harder to actually live al pi Ha Torah.
It is easy to eat kosher every day, but hard to avoid Loshon Hora every day.
Easy to keep Shabbos, hard to act in an ethical and proper manner with all people, Jews and gentiles alike every day.
Get it, bubbulah?
Satmar rebbe hid his beard with a scarf. But the issue here is empty beards and empty beketches. There are today a growing number of apikorsim among fully uniformed heimisha. Granted they are a minority. I have one question. Why are the streimels getting taller and the beards and wives dresses getting shorter.
At least he didn’t shave OFF his beard & take off his yid-lid like Mattisyahu!
People don’t like him because he is appealing to so many disenchanted yidden – youth or not. As far as I know/see, he hasnt done anything against halocho – and in fact promotes yiddishkeit a lot more than the nay-sayers.
Go Lipa!
To all that love Lipa,
The song stinks, but the message is powerful!!
To all the haters,
You guys give Lipa waaayyyyy to much credit. Mind your own business. Lipa is an artist, and is entitled to release whatever song he wants.
Why is it that we are in need of a singer to address key core ideals of areas in our system that are broken (along with high divorce rates, robbing parents to pay for seminaries, nonfunctioning bochrim yada yada) instead of Gedolim? While today’s Gedolim do make statements, they often do not take a loud firm stance on issues that will trigger backlash and define our system for us- no one is forbidding boys to ask for support, no clear across the board statement on abusers etc.
the point is obvious- but there are many wifes who have ” accepted” their husbands lack of enthusiasm for yidishkeit – yet appreciate that at least he looks like his mesorah or the fathers in his childrens school –
ask a yankee player to walk on the field wearing a “redsox cap” and say dont judge me i’m still a great player ( the cap is nothing)?????
What about the sefira group AKA PELLA? In their last cd they had a song “hang up the phone” which spoofed the internet asifa.
No controversy there?
Lipa on Broadway! Lipa You’re Mechazik Klal Yisroel. Go Lipa!
Mike Tress was a “real” erliche yid, so the beard, or lack of it, did not matter. Unlike Lipa, who is a dropout, with a message designed to make young people reject their upbringing. Big difference, but he doesn’t see it. Sadly, he and his ilk, constantly need to reassure themselves they are right and bring others down with them.
To ALL Bali Muser over here. The Gemarah states: “Kabail Es Emes Mime Shaomro!” THE MESSAGE IS PERFECT! GO LIPA!
When I first heard the song I was bristling with righteous indignation, how dare Lipa compre himself to R’ Mike Tress, a Yid a tzaddikw ho grew up in an era where beards wherent the norm to himself cutting it on purpose? BUt you know what? I got over my anger, and it’s a fun and catchy song and I don’t really care anymor.
Lipa is a good man!
I feel that had Lipa not shaved his own beard his message would be more credible. Having touched his beard, his message sounds more as an excuse….
I’ve been around the block, and am well aware of what teens desire and are after, and I’m not convinced for one second that lipa’s music comes close in terms of both, disturbing substance and superier quality to what the seculer world has to offer,therefore, teens who search for the seculer will not subsitute lipa’s music for what’s really out there…
Lipa’s music alone is not so much of an issue, as it is what he stands for and is promoting…
Staying ahead of his peers, is forcing him to always be different, and to constantly reinvent himself, and that is where he gets tangled up…
Although music has changed and keeps on changing, yiddishkeit does not…
Let us talk about yiddishkeit…
Yiddishkeit is not so complicated as some make it out to be…
Let me explain…
Every thing in yiddishkeit has one underlying concept, and that is the constant question, is what I’m doing connecting me to hashem or disconnecting me from g-d…
Now, when hundreds of teens who learn in chassidisha yeshiva’s and are pure souls who follow in their parents traditions, are hit with lipa’s album, listening to the beard song with glossy photos of a new lipa, beardless, kewl, funky, and again containing a messege, of beard yid yid beard, don’t judge, etc. Dont you think that a good few who considered to not touch their beards will now reconsider, especialy teens at a young age when they are the most vonerable and easy to sway one way or another, now is this considered a deed that brings one closer to g-d or the other way around?
Like I said before, he is doing kiruv which is wonderful, but whether he likes it or not, besides dropouts teens who seek to rebel his audiance is also made up of thousends of pure neashumes who seek true inspiration, and his album will reach them regardless of the messege it carries inside, and as a result the damage might outway the benefits…
Schleping people of manhatans streets to broadway might acomplish a great amount of kiruv, and is considered connecting with g-d, on the other hand, schleping people from boro park, monsey, and flatbush, to broadway, is an outright distortion of kiruv, and is considered disconnecting from g-d…
People who go to broadway all year round, will absolutly not change their habit of not going to goyisha shows…
But of course I might be wrong…
You decide
That is yiddishkeit for you, in a nutshell….
Lipa is an artist. He is free to express himself. He is free to dress and sing how he wants and where he wants. He is not a Rosh Yeshiva, he is not a standard bearer.
That people turn an artist into a role model is their problem.
Lipa is free to express himself. I am also free to express my taste and choose my artists, and I will NOT buy this cd and will NOT allow it into my home. I do not place the environment in my home to chance – I set it carefully. No need to bash Lipa. If you like it, buy it. If you don’t, dont. I won’t. Let everyone decide for themselves. That is what free choice – bechira chafshis – is all about.
LIPA WE NEED YOU!!!!
I love the new cd.
If u don’t like his music don’t listen to it but also don’t keep commenting about it