Here’s a translation of Reb Zalman’s writings on Lag BaOmer from his Sefer Yishmiru Da-at.  The original text in Hebrew and English plus some background are provided below.  Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor

Lag BaOmer
excerpt from Yishmiru Daat
by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Lag baOmer – is Hod sheb’Hod / splendor of splendor (in the accounting of Sefirah).

(Genesis 32:25) “And he touched the hollow of his thigh and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was sprained, etc.,” which was [the thigh of] the left leg, Hod / splendor, (cf., Pardes Rimonim Shaar 17 ch. 1).

And the one who wrestled, i.e., Esau’s guardian angel, had not wanted Jacob, (who is Tiferet / majestic beauty, presence, mercy), to feel his own beauty (yafyo), and his attack was intended to diminish his esteem, as though he had no Hod / splendor whatsoever.  And one who is smitten like this may think that s/he has no chen  / grace, Hod  / splendor or yofi / beauty, but rather, s/he may think s/he is ugly.

However, when a perceived external reality appears to indicate some turn for the worse in one’s grace, one may nonetheless feel, at core, that one is in Hod sheb’Hod  / splendor of splendors; one may yet feel this at a time when one’s inside, innermost places cannot access a shemen sasson / oil of gladness meant to revitalize oneself when one loses one’s sense of chen / grace.  For this reason, we pray when we count the Omer on Lag BaOmer:  “May it be Your will… that in the merit of the Omer count that I have counted today, that there be corrected whatever blemish I have caused in the Sefirah Hod she-b’Hod,” i.e. those times when within one’s innermost places one feels a sense of ugliness.

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Many thanks to Chaplain Gloria Krasno for sending another week of her wonderful meditations.  Enjoy

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We continue with week three of Sefirah Meditations from Gloria Krasno.  Thank you, Gal-or-Ya!

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For me and others, Reb Zalman shows us ways to bring the Sefirot inside.  There are seven times seven days between the night of the second Seder and Shavuoth.   We count these days and weeks as follows:  Day 1 is chesed of chesed; day 49 is malchut of malchut.  In between, we go chesed of chesed, gevurah of chesed, tiferet of chesed, netzach of chesed, hod of chesed, yesod of chesed, malchut of chesed, chesed of gevurah, etc., through malchut of malchut. 

If this doesn’t mean anything to you, then a good place to begin is Chaplain Gloria Krasno’s meditations for Gevurah.  Enjoy!  Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor

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Dear Friends:  Chaplain Gloria Krasno sends the following meditations for this first week of counting the Omer.  Good Yom tov!  Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor

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This week, Reb Zalman and Rabbi Debra Orenstein conducted a WebCast about Passover and ways to deepen Seder.  During the event, a listener asked Reb Zalman about the Birkat Hachamah / Blessing on the Sun, which occurs this year on erev Pesach, 14th of Nissan in the morning.  Here’s Reb Zalman’s response.  (Intro by Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor)

“Oh how wonderful. 

“The last time this happened was 1981 and, we went up to the Empire State Building in New York City to watch the sunrise.  

“We had a service there and, we read the Torah right at the parapet on top of the building. 

“Then we released seventy balloons as a kind of sacrifice for the seventy nations of the Earth. 

“That was a time when we made a great deal of fuss about solar energy. 

“It is a ‘Saturn Return’ for the sun

[NOTE:  The ‘Saturn Return’ is an astrological phenomenon that roughly corresponds to the frequency of this blessing.  A year for Saturn is about 29 1/2 earth years.  The term is used to identify major stages in a person’s life, i.e. 0 to 28, 29 to 56, 57 to 84 and beyond.  As Saturn returns to the position it occupied at the time of each person’s birth, approximately every 29.5 years, a person crosses over a major threshold and into the next stage of life.  With the first ‘Saturn Return,’ a person leaves youth behind and enters adulthood; with the second return, maturity; and the third and sometimes final Return, a person enters old age.  Gabbai Seth]

“and it happens to be that every twenty-eight years, the sun is in the same place, (as the Rabbis have figured it), where it was at the time of creation. 

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In this article, originally published in “New Menorah,” Reb Zalman takes us from that moment in our Seders when we will eat the Afikoman, to the opening of the door for Elijah the prophet, and beyond.  Please consider these suggestions for your Pesach celebrations.  (Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor) 

When we read through the section of the Hagadah that deals with the Wise Child, the way the response is written implies that one is to give the Wise one all kinds of instructions in Halakhah because of hir having asked an excellent and intelligent question.  And one such Halakhah, singled out in the text is the laws of Afikoman.  Specifically, it states:  After having finished eating the Afikoman, one may not follow this with any dessert.  This seemingly trivial law must be taught to the one who is wise.

In the time of the Holy Temple, the afikoman rule meant that after having eaten the Paschal Lamb, one was not to refresh one’s palate with anything else; the taste of the Paschal Lamb was to linger. 

In our day, too, although we are no longer able to offer the sacrifice in animal form, the commentators say that we are to have the taste of the matzah, the Afikoman food of our time, linger with us for the rest of the night. The only other taste in which we can still partake at that point of the Seder is the wine in the cups that are to follow; and especially that of the cup of Elijah.

Now I want to talk about these two points in the Passover Seder, (afikoman; Elijah’s cup), and I want to first draw upon something we have learned from Reb Arthur Waskow.  Reb Arthur points out a way we can understand the image of the fringes at the corners, the tzitzit, which occur in many laws in the Torah.  There are subtle extensions as a mitzvah injects itself into the fabric of our lives and Reb Arthur has described this as the tzitzit.  So, I’d like to bring to mind this image, as we continue to look at the way that the  lingering taste of the mitzvah of the afikoman extends.

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Pesach is associated with the Sefirah of Chesed. The text is from The Ten Sefirot in Sacred Time, available from Aleph.  [NOTE:  Translation by Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor.  Words in brackets [] added for explanation by Gabbai Seth.]

And on Pesach, it’s widely known that as we eat matzah we focus on haEMuNah / trust in God (Zohar II 183:) “michla dimhEMeNusa“ / “Food of faith,” (and michla d’asussa / “Food of remedy“).  Pesach is the holiday of Abraham our father, (peace be to him), she-he-EMiN / who trusted in God, and who went down to Egypt, which created for us the possibility of leaving Mitzrayim.  And, he was generous and charitable, and he put his attention to the freeing of captives.

And when you contemplate the arrangement of the Seder plate, you will discern in the three Matzahs, 1) Chochmah, 2) Binah and 3) Daat. 

[Chochmah:  Intuitive wisdom; right brain; conceptualization.
Binah: The ability to distinguish, differentiate; left brain; analysis.
Da-at:  Experiential knowledge; reality testing.] 

And six divisions in the plate as follows:
1) Z’roa / Shank bone in Chesed, [reminder of having been spared the killing of the first born],
2) Beitzah / Egg in Gevurah [recalling the churban, our punishment],
3) Maror / Bitter herbs in Tiferet [stirring compassion],
4) Karpas / Celery in Netzach [reminder of the labor],
5) Charoset / Pesach Mixture in Hod [mortar, mud, apple, sweetness],
6) Chazeret / Horseradish  in Yesod [slavery]-

All six together being ze’er anpin / short face, [term which means these six Sefiros].

7) And The plate itself, is the Nukva Malchut [final sefira which is a containing structure for the other six].

And the four cups are the four worlds corresponding to the letters of the revered name, [YHVH/Atzilut, Beriyah, Yetzirah, Assiyah]. 

And the seder begins with Kiddush in Atzilut [Keter, Chochmah] and with the telling in Beriyah [Binah, which, together with Chochmah, give birth to all the other qualities]. 

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[Intro by Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor:]  In the traditional Haggadah, the Four Children are presented as One Wise, One Wicked, One Simple and One who Does Not Know How to Ask. 

Growing up, it didn’t really feel like four choices.  I knew which one I wanted. 

And I daresay, for those of us who did not feel we could attain to a “Wise child,” we may have sometimes felt discouraged and asked, “Why bother being Jewish?”

In Reb Zalman’s sefer, Yishmiru Da-at, he has given a text which can be substituted for the traditional one.  It presents a four-dimensional kind of enneagram which is both universal and useful for teaching children. 

The original Hebrew is at the end of this post for inclusion in your Passover Seders.  Here’s my translation:

The Torah speaks of Four Children, (to be sung to the same nusach used for reading of the Passover Haggadah): 

One a lamden / Sharp Student, one a chossid / high Emotional Quotient, one a tamim / Good One and one she-ayn lo shum s’fekut u’b’eyot / Without Doubts or Problems.

The Sharp Student, [what does s/he say?]: (Deut 6:20) “[What are the testimonies, the statutes and the laws] which havaya our God has commanded you” and so you shall answer hir according to the capacity of hir sharpness of wit.

The High EQ one, [what does s/he say?]: (Exodus 12: 26) “[What is] this service to you?”  So you will make an effort to reign in hir longings,  for s/he also wants to be a part of the integrity and perfection that comes with meaningful rituals.  If you are loving, then s/he will understand devekut / cleaving, and s/he will get a taste of what it means to feel close to God.

The Good one, [what does s/he say?]:  (Exodus 13:14) “What is this?” and so you shall bear witness to hir from your own experience, that hashem yitbarach is assisting you with ‘a strong hand’, to take you out and to take hir out of Mitzrayim.

The One who is carefree, you will feed hir some maror / horse radish, so s/he will feel hir friends’ troubles and so that compassion will be instilled in hir heart.

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Reb Zalman writes: 

“The Four Worlds and the Economy was transcribed from talks I gave on two occasions covering how the Four Worlds impacts on the Physical Plane and, by extension, the economy.

“We are eager to find solutions for the current financial breakdown of society and the marketplace.  While we are giving our support to President Obama and giving him credit for his efforts to solve a global financial crisis, there is another perspective which comes from an awareness we can garner from our mystical tradition.  From the Four Worlds, we learn that changes in the Physical World, (i.e., financial), are energized from other planes of existence.  

“We must activate the repair across the board: Physical; Affective / Emotional; Mental / Intellectual; and Intuitive / Spiritual.  If we can successfully integrate with all the levels and access those other worlds, then we will nurture ourselves on higher planes along with our physical (financial) needs.  

“I hope these thoughts will help show ways we can do our part and this will thereby help with the president’s efforts so that they will bear fruit.  May you gain insights you need to steer through the difficulties of these times and may our efforts heal the markets of labor and goods, and of employment and housing.”

The Four Levels

by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

The union of male and female needs some explanation. 

[Note:  “The union of male and female” is employed frequently in traditional liturgy and chassidut representing redemption.  A world out-of-balance is like a husband and wife in separation, or the Shechina / Feminine God-aspect (literally, “Indwelling Presence”) exiled from the Kadosh Baruch Hu / Masculine God-aspect (literally “Holy One Blessed be He”).  Another usage is from the way of interpreting Shir haShirim / Song of Songs as an alegory of love between God (here considered masculine) and Israel (here considered feminine).  While traditional symbolism portrays this as a heterosexual union, this image may not work for all Jews.  Nonetheless, Reb Zalman’s point here is related to the physical and and the higher worlds and this message transcends orientation.  gabbai Seth.]

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