Shalom! In the first of his 1992 Germantown, PA lectures on Kabbalah, I asked the following question. Reb Zalman’s answer follows:

Seth: Dear Reb Zalman, in this lecture, I hear you mapping the tradition onto  modern cosmology and coming up with very rich imagery. But where is Eyn Sof in space time as we imagine it? Before the Copernican revolution, or at some such time when we felt ourselves locked here on the earth and looking in the sky, we saw a kind of ceiling. Reading Bereishit, we could think that creation was light and water up there. Was the concept of Eyn Sof tied to the Copernican revolution? Did Eyn Od come in with the Kabbalists? Given our current model for the universe, Space/Time and Quantum physics, etc., as one sends one’s imagination to the ends of the universe, where is Eyn Sof?

Reb Zalman: Let me say this. I’m excited about the challenge of the update. I see in Kabbalah a software for god-ing, (if I were to use those terms).

I want to have some connection with God. If I treat if as the picture of the old guy sitting in the sky saying all those no-nos and punishing all the bad guys, etc., that’s shattered for us; Auschwitz shattered this once and for all.

So then the question is: “All right, then how do we continue to be Jews?” So, it is like needing an update on the software.

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The University of Colorado Boulder hosts some wonderful oral histories which I’ve been going through and I’m sharing here a transcription excerpt from the interview with Avi Dolgin. You can listen to the whole interview by clicking here, then searching for the “Avi Dolgin Interview” and clicking the Access URL. Here’s what he says:

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I remember Zalman saying that he was a Jewish practitioner of the Universal Religion. The thing I came to really value and appreciate in my connection with Zalman was all the other spiritual paths that were around us.

He would bring into a course on Jewish thought, Buddhist teachings. He would talk about how we saw things one way, how Islam saw it in a parallel way, (although maybe Islam had a better take on it than we did). He certainly knew his Christianity well and one of the reasons I think Christians came and studied from him was that he was willing to learn from them. Elsewhere there are statements documenting his relationship with his Black Rebbe with whom he had studied much earlier, [Rev Howard Thurman obm].

So that was such a wonderful thing for me.

I was the guy who went to Hebrew School. I went to Jewish camps. I went to Camp Massad north of Winnipeg for a number of summers. I went to Camp Ramah down in Wisconsin for a number of summers. I was a Chazzan at the Junior Congregation. I had a good Conservative Jewish background, but through it all, … nobody else really looked at Judaism in a broader context of the world’s spiritual paths and religions.

Basically, insofar as Judaism was discussed with any others, it was from a chauvinist perspective of, “We are better!”

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Here is my transcription of, and excerpt from, a 2003 video interview in which Reb Zalman z’l answers questions about prayer. The interviewer, Sarah Y. Goldfein, used some of the video interview with Reb Zalman in her DVD series called “WHO KNOWS ONE: Jewish Perspectives on God.” You can see the two-part video of her interview with Reb Zalman here: Part I and Part II and, you can see her DVD series trailer here. Gabbai Seth Fishman

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Sarah:

Why translate the Siddur? Why not just have people davven whatever is in their hearts and learn to talk to God on their own? What’s the advantage to having the translation?

Zalman:

Reb Nachman of Breslov teaches us that we should do hitbodedut, which is to speak from the heart, but my sense is that many people don’t have vocabulary to speak from the heart.

I’m going to read you a prayer here, the ahavat olam and you’ll see how this gives you an answer:

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At the recent ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal event commemorating the eighth Yorzeit of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (a’h), Rabbi Yitz Greenberg delivered the following words regarding Reb Zalman’s legacy. I sent him an email asking if he would share the text and he sent the text below along with this reply:

Dear friend,
Thank you for asking for the text of my words about Reb Zalman. I wanted to honor his memory as I believe that he was one of the religious greats in my/his generation. Therefore, I am grateful that you will distribute these words more widely. Yitz Greenberg

Here’s what he said:

The Talmud says:

Tzaddikim – great religious figures – loom greater after death than in their lifetime.

[NOTE: cf., Talmud Bavli Chullin 7b:10]

I think the Talmud means that with the death of the great ones, all the trivia falls away – the personal limitations, the competitors, the confusion around their most original approaches which people did not understand, the failures. What remains and stands out is the light they shed, their originality and greatness.

That is how I feel about Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.

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At a recent Aleph (Alliance for Jewish Renewal) gathering in commemoration of Reb Zalman’s eighth Yorzeit, I shared a few words based on a public talk Reb Zalman gave titled: Reb Zalman on Psycho-Halakhah (March 13, 2005). Barukh Hashem, the talk and many more of his shmoozes were recorded by Michael Kosakoff, (a’h) and are available on the Yesod Foundation’s Youtube site. Gabbai Seth Fishman

Halachah refers to Jewish law and it has been something to guide the day-to-day life of a Jew.

The Halachic basis that we inherit from the past took its underpinnings from the book of Deuteronomy. Moses gave us the law the second time, sending, at the same time, a message:

You shmegegs! You backsliders! I’ve had tsures for so many years shlepping you around! I’m telling you: Don’t you move to the right; don’t move to the left; it has to be exactly as I tell you. Don’t mess with it.

But just a little bit later, with King Solomon we find something more dynamic:

A time for everything! A time to do! A time to not do! A time to do this! A time to not do that!

Things shift and change, no longer absolute.

So we were dealing with one kind of a frame in the book of Deuteronomy and, later on, a different frame when King Solomon said in Proverbs 1:8:

שְׁמַע בְּנִי מוּסַר אָבִיךָ וְאַל־תִּטֹּשׁ תּוֹרַת אִמֶּֽךָ / Listen, my child to the reproof of your father and do not forsake the Torah (teaching) of your mother.

So the same Torah will appear to some people as mussar avicha / reproof of your father, (i.e., you must always do like Deuteronomy says), but sometimes, it will appear like Torat imecha / teaching of your mother which wants,  (again, Solomon speaking in Proverbs 3:17), dracheha darchey no’am / the Torah’s ways are ways of pleasantness. E.g., so many things in the Torah have to do with Shalom Ba’yit / peace of the home and all the books in the Bible speak about taking care of the poor. So one gets a different attitude from looking at mussar avicha than looking at Torat imecha, the mother teaching.

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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.

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This video was recently shared with me by Zevi Slavin. It was a 1978 Panel: “Jewish Mysticism Today” with Rabbi Zalman Schachter, Rabbi Arthur Green and Dr. Charles Rosen.

Zevi writes:

Moadim l’simcha! I thought you may be interested in sharing this beautiful exchange on your group.

I was raised in Chabad and after exposing myself to some of the other Mystical traditions of the world, I began a channel called Seekers of Unity to further my explorations of universal mysticism and find other ‘seekers’ to join.

Reb Zalman was a big inspiration for me and I was fortunate to be able to publish this historical gem of a dialogue.
I hope we can further this conversation with as many like-minded individuals as possible.

Dear Friends:

I was invited to speak about Reb Zalman to a Jewish Group in Ottawa, Canada. Here is a PowerPoint presentation I gave at that time. And below the presentation is a link to the audio.

Blessings, Gabbai Seth Fishman

In honor of our teacher, R. Zalman Schachter-Shalom, ztz’l, on the occasion of his fifth Yahrzeit which begins at sunset tonight, 5 Tammuz, July 7, 2019, I offer this translation of Tikkunei Zohar 132a. May the memory of R. Zalman forever be a blessing! Gabbai Seth Fishman (Original text may be found clicking here)

My son: A merit comes to the one who unifies the blessed Holy One with His Shekhinah in this world because these parts suspend from these commandments. Then, the blessed Holy One couples with Her, with His Consort, in that world. And whoever comes near to bring an offering for Him [and] for His Shekhinah, the blessed Holy One comes near to Her, to His Consort. And whoever makes for Him a sanctuary, as scripture states, (ibid 25:8) “And they shall make Me a sanctuary” for the blessed Holy One, He makes for him, in that world, a house to dwell (for him) there which is the “holy of holies.” And whoever makes Him a Sukkah, the blessed Holy One forms shade over him in that world, and protects him from all destructive angels when emerging from this world and going to that world. Whoever blesses the blessed Holy One, and sanctifies him in his prayer in this world, the blessed Holy One blesses him in that world, and sanctifies him. And no sanctifications if less than ten. And also, thus, the blessed Holy One makes ten wedding canopies in Gan Eden for him.

Entire text below:

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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.

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