I have met many Jews in many kinds of shuls who wear a Tallit which was designed by Reb Zalman in the 1950’s. When I pointed this out, most of them didn’t know its background and history and so, I’ve decided to share it here. Much of what I wrote below is taken directly from an interview of Reb Zalman by Rabbi Yonassan Gershom from around forty years ago. Gabbai Seth Fishman
The B’nai Or Tallit Design
From Reb Zalman’s 2004 lecture given at Elat Hayyim and published by Spirit of the Desert Productions, R Sarah Leah Grafstein, may she be blessed!
Samachti B’omrim Li Beit Hashem Nelech. I was so happy to come to Shul today because there was a resurrection of a part of the Davvenen that, by and large hasn’t been happening anymore in the way in which one finds it in the average synagogue.
How so? Because when you’d come in to shul on Shabbos morning, first there are [only] a couple of old-timers there. [Then,] they send an old-timer over to the Amud and he buzzes through Pesukei D’Zimra.
So the worlds of Assiyah and Yetzirah [where one is to get in touch with] the action directives where Torah flows into our lives and the places where we get excited over God, that was sort of [glossed over]…
Finally, the Cantor would get up and sing, “Shokhen Ad Marom“, etc. and then it would begin, (as far as the “service” is concerned).
Barukh Hashem we are resurrecting the body in Birkhot Hashachar. And it’s so beautiful to see how people get into their bodies and dedicate the sight of the eyes [with] Pokeach Ivrim, Zokef K’fufim / the stretch and everything else; and we are in the body.
And then, for all the times that it says, “Praise God with a drum and with a dance,” and people were saying that [buzzing through quickly], what was happening [in the text], i.e., a drum or a dance or something like this, wasn’t happening in shul.
So for this, I’m very very grateful: Shehechiyanu v’Kiy’manu v’Higianu Laz’man Hazeh that I lived to see this being resurrected and brought back to people in davvening.
There is another area which needs some great, great work. And I feel like Jacob on that night he had to go across the river and pick up the last bits that he had left there. So before I can go on up with the ladder and deal with things that come at the end of life, I feel that the Pachim K’tanim [that] there a few containers, small containers that haven’t been recovered yet.
Reb Zalman, a’h was asked: “When you come before God. I wonder, what is that ‘God’ to you? Who is this that you come before? And what is that like?”
Here’s his reply:
Ok. It’s such a good question!
And I want to say that at another time I was describing how William James, the great psychologist who wrote about varieties of religious experience, one day made his way and came to a town in New England and, he asked one of the wardens of the church, “Who is God for you? What do you place yourself in front of?”
He answered: “An oblong blur.”
Now he was talking to a New England transcendentalist who was very much afraid to say anything of shape because that’s a “no-no.”
The mistake is that the head has to know there’s no shape. But the heart has to have a root-metaphor.
I can be in a monistic place in my head but I can’t be in a monistic place in my heart. In my heart I have to have the other whom I love. That’s where I’m in the I/Thou relationship.
Rabbi Daniel Siegel sends the following: The ALEPH Canada Web Site, https://www.alephcanada.ca/catalogue, offers Reb Zalman’s books, CD’s and DVD’s as digital downloads. Prices are in Canadian dollars. Other items listed below are offered by Amazon.
Here is the current listing (updated 7/10/2018):
* Credo of a Modern Kabbalist (with Daniel Siegel) ($18)
* An English Siddur for Weekdays (temporarily unavailable)
* First Steps to a New Jewish Spirit (with Donald Gropman) (available from Amazon)
* Gate to the Heart: An Evolving Process (edited by Robert Esformes) (available from Amazon)
In the final public lecture of his life which you can read here, Reb Zalman, (a’h) said:
“You will see: The more you do it, there will be a moment of the breakthrough that you will have the sense that ‘Ah! Today, not only did I talk to God; today I knew that I was heard by God and I was given back an answer!’, though not necessarily in words. So keep trying that. I wrote a piece called ‘Why Theologians Have Trouble with Prayer,’ and if you write to me, I’ll send it to you so you’ll see it’s all laid out there.”
Here is the referenced piece so that your Pesach will bring some mamash Davvenen… Gabbai Seth Fishman
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Why Theologians Have Such Trouble With Prayer
By Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
of Blessed Memory
The more conceptually correct and abstract the notion of God is for the theologian, the harder it is for him/her to pray.
It has been my good fortune to meet and share with great theologians; with philosophers of religion. When we spoke about the conceptual, the intellectual realms, we were in great harmony. And with those who were in touch with the spirit of the times and had, within themselves, made the paradigm shift away from triumphalism and the mechanical reality map and onto a Gaian perspective, having a sense of the quantum realities, the zero point field, string theory or even developmental theologies such as Teilhard DeChardin’s evolution of creation growing toward God, or with those people who had traced the evolution of God ideas over time, when it came to discussing prayer beyond its psychological benefit for the individual, they could not meet me in a place where there was ontic facticity to the One who hears the prayer; nor could we connect on the real/empirical efficacy of prayer.
At 8AM, Friday, June 6, 2014, motzei Atzeret 5774 / after the Shavuot retreat at Hazon’s Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in New Falls, CT, Reb Zalman (z’l) led participants in Chol Davvenen / the weekday prayer service and taught us all powerful lessons of dvekus / cleaving to God. It turned out to be the last service and shiur / study session Reb Zalman would lead before being niftar / deceased.
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Reb Zalman (z’l):
Besides the book that’s called “Davening, A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Practice” which has been published and which I co-wrote with Joel Segal, (and it is a wonderful book; it won the National Jewish Book Award, and all that other stuff. But look! What’s more important is it guides you, it shows you how to do it, what to do so you Davven), now, if you also see another book on Davennen called “The Gates of Prayer, Twelve Talks on Davvenology,” [you’ll see that] it has twelve lectures that I gave on various subjects of Davennen and then it was transcribed. And there you will find a chapter that’s called “Blue Jeans Spirituality”. (That [whole] series is wonderful because we have it in DVD [form] so you can show it [to a group]. We [also] have it on MP3 so you can play it and listen to it and of course in print. And if you get a chance to work with a group and you would play one of those DVD’s, then any time a person wants to ask a question, etc., you can always easily stop the recording and go and have a conversation about it.) It is a wonderful series; you can learn a lot from it. Also, “Gate to the Heart” which was an earlier form, is also out again in a much nicer form because Reb Netanel Miles-Yepez did such a beautiful job with it.
And in either case, you have ways of making your davvenen work [so I want to let you know of these resources].
Here is a transcript of Reb Zalman’s opening remarks delivered this past Monday night at the ALEPH: Alliance For Jewish Renewal Kallah 2013. His words are reflective of the theme for this Kallah which is כל אחד Kol Echad : Connecting With the Divine, Within & Around Us [NOTE: Kol Echad means all one, it’s all one, everyone together]:
“Welcome. Welcome. Shalom Aleichem / greetings to you. It’s so good. Boachem l-shalom / Come in peace. I’m so glad you have faith to participate in this Kallah.
“What a wonderful theme: Kol echad and connecting with the Divine within and around.
Click here for text in Hebrew.
It’s been a long journey getting to the Land. On the way, we received the Torah and along with it, lots of laws and rules. But were those rules and the guidance they provided really sufficient for all our future needs? Was it given complete to Moses for all time with us now simply using it as our guide for every situation going forward?
The following texts will give us clues for some answers:
ספר מפתחי חכמת האמת
Keys to the Wisdom of Truth
Rabbi Saul Baumann
Introduction and Commentaries by Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Editor: Rabbi Shaya Isenberg
http://www.alephcanada.ca/store/#!/Reb-Zalman-Writings/c/5437258/offset=0&sort=normal
This book contains Reb Zalman’s lectures on a small Sefer written by a twenty-three year old genius named Saul Baumann.
Baumann was a Chabad Chossid who lived in Warsaw, Poland and was killed in the Holocaust. He was educated at both Chabad and Slobodka (a mitnagdishe Yeshivah). Through the lens of Kabbalah, Baumann brings harmony to the opposing traditions of the two communities in which he was trained, i.e. the spiritual heirs to the Vilna Gaon and Reb Shneur Zalman of Liadi.
In his lectures, Reb Zalman shares his thoughts on Paradigm Shift and required updates for spiritual connection to remain alive and relevant within the context of traditional Judaism. Kabbalah is a framework we can build upon to take us into a renewed Judaism.
Zalman shows us how the tradition can help us to reach to the places of discovering Judaism’s path into the future and how we can integrate from those places of shifted paradigms. The updates can connect us in new ways to traditional understandings of Jewish Mysticism.
Gabbai Seth
[NOTE: This piece is based on a Hebrew text of Reb Zalman’s which you can read here.]
For through the agency of this day, I will atone for you – – before YHVH you will be purified from all your sins.
This is the sentence that invites us to the work of Yom Kippur.
For through the agency of this day: There are teachings in the Kabbalah that point to God investing Him/Herself into the time of the 26 hours of Yom Kippur to effect the atonement for us. How 26 hours? Because we add an hour before and an hour after. Why 26? It is the numerical value of the divine name, YHVH. It is love begetting a response of love, 13 + 13 = 26, (13 is the numerical value of love, Ahavah).
before YHVH: I.e., Keter. In Leviticus, the Bible tells us that we had to take two goats of equally high quality and cast lots to decide which of them was to be offered to God and which was to be sent to Azazel. It is a puzzling passage because, while most everything that was to be put as a sacrifice to God was very precisely prescribed, in this situation, it was undetermined; by bringing in the casting of lots, the decision was left to the very last moment. Why this uncertainty? It seems that we wanted to reach into a place beyond any polarity of good and evil, that our esoteric visionaries realized that in order to radically transform a difficult situation it was necessary to reach so high into the infinite that the transformation would be brought about. In the Kabbalah, such a rung is called Keter, the Crown. The accumulation of the sins of an entire year would create a heavy burden for us were it not for our pleading with God to draw down for us an at-one-ment from a source that transcends all polarities so it could act as a source of grace. Such a source is implied by the phrase before YHVH, i.e. a source before/beyond YHVH. Your transgressions will be atoned for you from this source.