Imagine meeting one of the most famous songwriters in the world, and the first words he says to you are not about music or poetry, but a bathroom request. That is exactly what happened in Crown Heights when Rabbi Aaron L. Raskin, a Brooklyn-born Rabbi from a long line of Chabad leaders, met Bob Dylan. The Rabbi lifted Dylan onto his shoulders and danced with him in joy, before Dylan finally whispered his one request: “Where is the men’s room?”
There is something almost childlike about that moment. Here was Bob Dylan, a man known for lyrics that shook the world, choosing silence instead of talk, letting his presence carry the weight. Rabbi Raskin remembers it with fond nostalgia, describing how he never washed the shoulder that carried Dylan. It was funny, but also deeply human, showing a side of Dylan that feels tender and lighthearted, so different from the mythic figure who won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016.
Rabbi’s CRAZY Bob Dylan Story!!!
Fans who heard this story could not stop smiling. One viewer laughed and said they would also “never wash that shoulder again”. Another commented that this sounded “exactly like Bob Dylan, saying little but leaving a memory forever”. The reactions proved how people still long for tiny glimpses of the man behind the music.
Rabbi Raskin’s playful memory shows Dylan in an unexpected light but not every Rabbi remembers him with such laughter. Rabbi Manis Friedman, a world-renowned Jewish philosopher and speaker, once told a very different story. In his memory, Dylan did not dance or joke. He hardly spoke at all. It was not shyness but the quiet of a man who seemed to guard his inner world, choosing silence over words.
When BOB DYLAN did not say a word to the Rabbi
When Bob Dylan sat quietly with Rabbi Friedman, the focus shifted from humor to contemplation. Dylan’s silence felt intentional, almost spiritual as though he was searching for something deeper. Listeners found themselves curious about his Jewish identity and how it shaped his journey. One fan wrote that this story showed Dylan was “always more soul than show,” and that silence might have been his truest language.
That is the strange beauty of Bob Dylan. He can dance on a Rabbi’s shoulder one day and then retreat into complete silence the next. He has always carried mystery like a second skin. For older fans who lived through the sixties, when his songs became the soundtrack of marches and protests, these stories reveal a man still impossible to pin down. His story is not about being understood, but about being felt. Follow Bob Dylan on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, and keep looking closer. There is always more to uncover.