The following excerpt from Reb Zalman’s book, Integral Halachah, deals with the question of ways to emphasize new aspects to our practice of adding an additional day of Yom Tov outside of Israel.   Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor

“I feel, also, that when we are coming to the issue of yom tov sheni shel golyus / second day of celebration for the exiled, people have not been taking it seriously enough. 

“When it had once looked to me that I and my mishpacha / family were going to make aliyah / immigrate to Israel, after having been to Israel a couple of times, setting things up, living there for half a year, I was on the level of daato lachzor la-aretz / knowing I would be returning there, and therefore only had to keep one day yom tov.

“And something about Jewish renewal says to me that the second day yom tov as it’s been celebrated in the past, (because we don’t know if it is yom tov, and similar things,) doesn’t sit well with me. 

“On the other hand, when I study hassidus and I read that the second day of yom tov is important in chutz la-aretz / outside of Israel because whither it has to come down, whither it has to be taken inside the nefesh / soul, I really feel that the last few times, second day of yom tov was a very important way of doing a kind of secular way of doing the same yom tov.”

{Gabbai Seth:  The view was that when one is outside of yisrael, the shefa / abundance flowing from God, effected through prayer on the holidays, has to flow further to reach us and therefore requires more effort.  Additionally, a nefesh / soul not in eretz yisrael needs more of the shefa / abundance just because they are not in eretz yisrael.}

“Like shavuos, for example:  To do the first day of shavuos in shul with all the things that one does on shavuos with yizkor at one point [is good, it’s important].  But part of shavuos has to do with outdoors, has to do with green.  It is, after all, chag ha-katzir, it’s the time when the cutting of the wheat harvest begins. 

“There is something so ecological about the yom tovim that we need to do the second day yom tov for ecology, to tie them to the natural seasons, and to find celebrations to be able to do that.  And to do it with the kahal. I’m not saying it should be just a picnic.  Rather, I feel that the second day of shavuos should be a kind of outdoor davvenen with the picnic afterwards, that the davvenen part is important in the way of doing it.

“Then the chagay hashana k’efsharut l’chaven tikkunim l’ripui hateva / we want the holidays of the year as enablers to effect repairs to the health of the environment, to do the second days in a way similar to  the ways we think about tu b’shvat when we plant trees.  I think we need to create more such opportunities for doing things for the ecology. ” 

Dear Friends:  Here is Reb Zalman’s translation of this beautiful prayer from Shalosh Se’udos formatted along with the Hebrew.  Happy Shavuot.  Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor

Dear Friends:  For your Shavuot celebrations, please read the following, Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor:

From Reb Zalman
Date: 2008/05/30 Fri PM 12:48:11 EDT

With Shavuot coming next week, we have been preparing for receiving the Torah, and I have been occupied with some concerns I want to share with you.

Professor Heschel taught that the Torah is an answer to our questions. This is a wonderful way to look at it, emphasizing that it’s not just one-sided, with God sending down.

So the questions we bring are important.

Alas, I fear we have forgotten what the questions were.

One of the ways we traditionally prepared for the questions was by reciting the catalog of Written and Oral Torah during the night of Shavuot, called a Tikkun of Shavuot / Repairing of [our condition at this time on the planet through receiving Torah on] Shavuot. It included a digest of a few sentences from the beginning and the ending of every Parshah of the Chumash, then the same from the rest of the books of the Tanakh / Scriptures, and then Mishna, Talmud and Zohar. This was our preparation for the questions.

The story is told of Rabbi Aaron of Karlin: After having spent a night doing the Tikkun of Shavuot with his Hasidim, he announced to them from the pulpit, “Now deliver the goods,” as if to say, “Enough at the catalog.   Now, we have studied Torah and must fulfill what the Torah said.”

The reciting of this Tikkun Shavuot was intended to stimulate receptivity for those parts of the Torah that need to come down.

So we need to be sure we are in touch with the right questions for our time.

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From Reb Zalman’s 1994 Elat Chayim shiur, “The Next Rung,” Reb Zalman discusses the Patah Eliyahu which you will find below along with Reb Zalman’s translation. Happy Lag B’Omer! Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor.

“The Patah Eliyahu is taken from the Tikuney Zohar and is the first point in that book which references the ten S’firot. The Sefer Y’tzirah talks of ten S’firot, but they are a different set than the one here in Patah Eliyahu. So this is the first source of the ten S’firot to which Kabbalah makes reference.

“The author of the Zohar has heard the secrets from the prophet Elijah of how God emanated ten S’firot. The implication is that if one hears it from the prophet then it is a transmission of truth. 

“In any Siddur which has been influenced by Kabbalah, the Patah Eliyahu may be found in a T’filah Kodem Hat’filah / a preparation for prayer in the beginning of the book, and/or before the Minha service on Friday afternoon.

“Once the S’firot are seen in the body, one understands them. As an idea alone, there’s no understanding. In the body, it becomes clear how a thing is held.”
 

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I found the following piece by Reb Zalman in 49 Gates of Light: Kabbalistic Meditation for Counting the Omer, by Rabbi Yonassan Gershom.  Rabbi Gershom reprinted this from the B’nai Or Newsletter 1983 issue. 

I affirm the power of positive affirmations.
I affirm that the Shekhinnah surrounds me and blesses me.
I affirm the lightbeings in G-d’s service who support and guide me.
I affirm the blessings of Abraham and Sarah in my life.
I affirm the sacrifice of Isaac and G-d’s power over my life and death.
I affirm G-d’s holiness and my growth toward it.

I place my Self under the protection of the Sephirah of Keter which will shield me from all harm and neutralise it.
I invoke the flash of Hokhmah to align my intellect to clarity and purposefulness, to inspiration and realisation.
I invoke the care of Binah to lead me to G-d’s heart.
I invoke the abundance of Hesed to bring me to atonement.
I invoke the power of Gevurah to see me through trouble and lead me to redemption.
I place my Self at the compassionate heart of G-d’s Tif’eret and affirm the healing, balancing and integrative centering light within me.
I support my Self on the pillar of Nezah channelling to me all manner of blessing and prosperity, and place it at the disposal of the redeeming Messiah, unfolding to witness the Shekhinnah‘s residing in Zion.
I support my Self on the pillar of Hod, making order in my life, gathering all the forces from dispersion and settling them in the blessed Jerusalem where I offer my thanks to G-d’s glory.
I base my Self on the foundation of Yesod to act righteously and justly, to assist all righteous effort in the world and to become peace-full to work for peace.
I affirm that Malkhut, the Shekhinnah, is the one offering these affirmations in me and is attracting the flow of blessing to suffuse my life.

The following excerpt explains why it’s so important to make the Sefirot / Divine attributes real for you.  As you count the Omer this year, keep this teaching in mind.  The excerpt is from Reb Zalman’s 2003 Shiur “Inner Space” given at Elat Chayyim, and available on the  DVD Set called “The Space Within,” which you can obtain from Aleph.  Gabbai Seth Fishman (BLOG Editor)

There’s a special thing we have as Jews and that’s the notion of covenant  …  The torah tells us that we are children of God.   It says, in effect, our dna matches that of the Ribono shel olam / God [lit. Master of the World].  We are also asked to enter into a covenant with God.  A covenant must have two sides to it, i.e., our commitments to God and God’s commitments to us.  

We chant on Rosh Hashonna and Yom Kippur:  Ki anu amecha v’ata malkenu / We are Your people, You are our ruler.  There is a relationship between us and God.   We’re connected.  A kind of relationship comes out in the liturgy because underlying this is a root metaphor that we have. 

Watch this expression, “Root Metaphor.”  It’s an important one.   It means a metaphor somehow deeper than our ways of thinking, and also deeper than our ways of feeling.  The root metaphor was established in us and it included a kind of relationship with God, a covenant, and that business of relationship is what is so essential to defining our Judaism. 

In the Jew-God relationship, there is this chutzpadike moment, infinite arrogance almost, when we say that we can make a deal with God. 

And I like the way it says in the book of Devarim, “ani heemarti … atem heemartem” / I have bespoken you …  You have bespoken Me (Deut 26:18, ff.)  You get the idea:  Bespoken, i.e. addressing, one to another.  And the Latin translation of the Hebrew really helps out here, because it shows me something still deeper about the root metaphor which goes like this:  What’s the Latin root for speaking?  diction.  And what’s the Latin root for speaking to, addressing, bespeaking someone:  ad diction. 

So the chumash is telling us, that God is saying, “I’ve become addicted to you; you’ve become addicted to Me.” That’s a sense that I like, davka, about addiction. 

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This is Tiferet week  in our counting of the Omer (CLICK HERE for an overview from Reb Zalman on the counting).  The following notes from Zalman’s 1994 Elat Chayyim class, “The Next Rung,” will help you with ways to connect to Chesed, Gevurah and Tiferet.  Gabbai Seth Fishman (BLOG Editor)

The word “Tiferet” is generally understood in terms of Rachamim / Mercy, because it doesn’t have an attitude-association otherwise.  So we need to make it more concrete and we further explain it as being associated with Rachamim.

From the morning Torah service, we sing, L-cha Hashem hagedulah v’hagevurah v’hatiferet v’hanetzach v’hahod / Yours, God, is the greatness, the strength, the splendor, the triumph and the glory (I Chronicles 29:11).  It gives the impression God is a big-shot. 

HaGedulah / largesse, from the word gadol [is associated with Chesed].   

HaGevurah / mighty, from the word gibor.  What kind of strength is gevurah?  The gibor is the one who is able to contain himself; the one who is really able to exercise control over himself, whether through policy or law.

HaTiferet, we understand as rachamim / mercy.  Chesed is often pointed to by ahavah / Love, Gevurah by pachad / fear, as in Pachad Yitzchak / fear of Isaac, [a common appelation for God in the siddur, which connects Yitzchak with Gevurah], and Tiferet by Rachamim / mercy. Tiferet is a balance between Chesed and Gevurah and we can think of Rachamim / mercy in this way too.

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The following text is one of the four times the Torah asks us to be sure there is a telling of the Exodus from Egypt to our children. 

From the above text plus the three others, the Rabbis had the idea of Four Sons of the Haggadah. 

The Rabbis were Piscean New-Agers, and in those days, they read bin-cha as “your son.”  That’s how they understood it.  Instead of “your son,” we read it as “your child,” the Four Children. 

In Hebrew, the word “children” can be either Yeladim / young boys and girls, or Banim / offspring (of any age).   When the word bin-cha occurs in the Torah, the “children” refers to the latter usage, i.e., child of any age, offspring.  

It is also understood to mean the child within oneself. 

So at the Passover Seder, we must speak about Exile, Pessah, Deliverance, Faith and Healing with our sons, our daughters and the child within ourselves.

While the Seder speaks of four kinds of children, we can also say there are four kinds of parents who answer:  1) the body, 2) the feeling spirit, 3) the intellective soul, and 4) the intuitive God-spark in us.  What a blessing to give voice to all these four and to open these four in our children. 

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We are the Pharaohs of the environment,
And we live in the time of the current plagues

A kavvanah for the Marror

Blood, frogs, vermin, …, goes the catalogue of the plagues of Egypt.

Polluted earth, water and air, —  goes our catalogue —, Ozone holes, Acid rain, Argon gas, meltdown, genetic flaws, dead rivers and lakes, dying oceans and extinct species.

We are the Egypt; and we are the Pharaohs whose hearts have been hardened and who refuse to let our Mother, the Earth, heal.

We must shout a Dayyenu — Enough – No More! to that — and begin to act.

I feel ashamed as I look at the seder plate, its signs of life, the egg, the green, the salt water of the seas.  It all tastes bitter, and the Charoseth does not sweeten it enough.

As we are fastidious about the laws of Pessah, we must become fastidious about what is helpful to Earth, and like Chametz on Pessach, we must avoid what destroys her.

Chad Gadya‘s domino effect is no longer funny. The Angel of Death is at the penultimate end.

We must redeem it with two Zuzzim we must move-zuz from our present way to a new and eco-redeeming way. 

     by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi     (Pessach 5749 / 1989)