Author Archive

Sefer ha-Hasidut Kislev Yahrzeiten

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

Sefer ha-Hasidut (Rafael, Yitzhak, ed., Tel Aviv: Avraham Zioni, 1972), with around one hundred Rebbes, is arranged according to Yahrzeit. Now the material has been scanned with OCR.

Here are the Kislev sections in Hebrew only. (Please click the Rebbe to see a section):
9 Kislev: Reb DovBer of Lubavitch (“Mittler”)
12 Kislev: Rabbi Avraham Dov of Avrutch
18 Kislev: Reb Rabbi Baruch of Medzhibozh
19 Kislev: Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezeritch – (“Magid”)
20 Kislev: Reb Meshullam Feivish Heller of Zbarazh
27 Kislev: Rabbi Chaim Tirar of Chernowitz
29 Kislev: Rabbi Gedalia of Linitz

ספר החסידות
הרב משולם זלמן חייא הכהן
שחטר-שלומי שליט”א

כסלו יאָהר-צייטען

ט’ כסלו רבי דב בר מליובאוויטש
י”ב כסלו רבי אברהם דוב מאברוטש
י”ח כסלו רבי ברוך ממזבוז
י”ט כסלו רבי דוב בער המגיד ממזריטש
כ’ כסלו רבי משולם פייבוש העלער מזבאראזש
כ”ז כסלו רבי חיים מטשרנוביץ
כ”ט כסלו רבי גדליה מלוניץ

Sefer ha-Hasidut Cheshvan Yahrzeiten

Wednesday, October 17th, 2012

Sefer ha-Hasidut (Rafael, Yitzhak, ed., Tel Aviv: Avraham Zioni, 1972), with around one hundred Rebbes, is arranged according to Yahrzeit. Now the material has been scanned with OCR.

Here are the Cheshvan sections in Hebrew only. (Please click the Rebbe to see a section):
3 Cheshvan: Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn
7 Cheshvan: Rabbi Yehuda Tzvi Eichenstein of Rozlo
11 Cheshvan: Rabbi Avraham Weinberg of Slonim (“Yesod HaAvodah”)
11 Cheshvan: Rabbi Menachem Nachum Twersky of Chernobyl
13 Cheshvan: Reb Baruch of Kosov
17 Cheshvan: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Hager of Kosov
22 Cheshvan: Reb David Shlomo Ibshitz of Sirocco
30 Cheshvan: Rebbe Zvi Hirsh of Riminov

ספר החסידות
הרב משולם זלמן חייא הכהן
שחטר-שלומי שליט”א

חשון יאָהר-צייטען

ג’ חשון רבי ישראל מרוז’ין
ז’ חשון רבי יהודה צבי אייכנשטיין מרוזלו
י”א חשון רבי אברהם מסלונים
י”א חשון רבי נחום מטשרנוביל
י”ג חשון רבי ברוך מקוסוב
י”ז חשון רבי מנחם מענדיל מקוסוב
כ”ב חשון דוד שלמה אייבשיץ מסורוקה
ל’ חשון רבי צבי הירש מרימאנוב

Sefer ha-Hasidut Tishrei Yahrzeiten

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

Sefer ha-Hasidut (Rafael, Yitzhak, ed., Tel Aviv: Avraham Zioni, 1972), with around one hundred Rebbes, is arranged according to Yahrzeit. Now the material has been scanned with OCR.

Here are the Tishrei sections in Hebrew only. (Please click the Rebbe to see a section):
6 Tishrei: Rabbi Aryeh Leib of Shpola (“Shpoler Zeide”)
12 Tishrei: Reb Avrohom HaMalach
14 Tishrei: Reb Yisrael of Kozhinitz
18 Tishrei: Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
19 Tishrei: Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak of Peshischah (“Yehudi Hakadosh”)
20 Tishrei: Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Ostra (“Rav Yivi”)
21 Tishrei: Reb Dovid Moshe of Tchortkov
24 Tishrei: Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polonoye (“Toldot”)
24 Tishrei: Rabbi Moshe Shoham of Dolina (“Doliner”)
25 Tishrei: Reb Binyamin of Zalozitz
25 Tishrei: Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev
26 Tishrei: Reb Aharon of Zhitomir
29 Tishrei: Reb Avraham Dovid of Butchach (“Aishel Avraham”)
29 Tishrei: Reb Mendele of Vizhnitz

ספר החסידות
הרב משולם זלמן חייא הכהן
שחטר-שלומי שליט”א

תשרי יאָהר-צייטען

ו’ תשרי רבי אריה לייב משפולה
י”ב תשרי רבי אברהם המלאך
י”ד תשרי רבי ישראל מקוזניץ
י”ח תשרי רבי נחמן מברצלב
י”ט תשרי רבי יעקב יצחק מפשיסחה
כ’ תשרי רבי יעקב יוסף מאוסטראה
כ”א תשרי רבי דוד משה מטשורטקוב
כ”ד תשרי רבי יעקב יוסף מפולנאה
כ”ד תשרי רבי משה שהם מדולינא
כ”ה תשרי רבי בנימין מזאלוזיץ
כ”ה תשרי רבי לוי יצחק מברדיטשוב
כ”ו תשרי רבי אהרן מז’יטומיר
כ”ט תשרי רבי אברהם דוד מבוטשאטש
כ”ט תשרי רבי מנחם מנדיל מוויז’ניץ

Yom Kippur Blessings

Friday, September 21st, 2012

[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.

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For Rosh Hashanah (Zeh Hayom)

Wednesday, September 5th, 2012

Here is a translation of Reb Zalman’s Rosh Hashanah piece, published before in its original Hebrew here.

“This day is [the anniversary of] the start of Your handiwork, a remembrance of the first day.”

Much is written on these verses and to this, behold, I add, from what Hashem has graced me about this current age, as it is written, “You are all standing this day,” in our era at which time even we, who are on the level of “your water drawers” or “your woodcutters”, the entire leadership of Israel during the days of ikvata d’mashicha relies on us holding it up.

And as is put forward in sefarim, the point of Rosh Hashanah is binyan hamalchut as we pray, “reign over the whole world in Your dignity.” And besides what one needs to be in shofar blowing, (simple strain of “Father, merciful father”), there is much else that is cast our way from the level of itaruta d’l’tata / arousal from below, that is begun for us in the month of Elul which begins with [Aleph Lamed] Ani Ldodi V‘dodi Li / I am my beloved’s – in arousal from below, – and so too the month of Tishrei, i.e. they begin from the end of the alphabet – going upwards — TavShinReishKuf and after, V’dodi Li / my beloved is mine.

And what is our role? To raise Binyan hamalchut! “Pronounce before me verses of malchuyot, etc” (in order to make me your Sovereign) and through this we arouse the Divine will to be our king for another year. And some particular efforts on our part are needed to make us worthy of this service.

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An Organismic Way to Reality

Sunday, August 19th, 2012

A different and organismic way to understand the Sparks and other Kabbalistic Ideas

In order to have a better reality map, I look at the terminology of the Kabbalah and then I ask – “Do its teachings relate to the quantum field?”

A [key] question [of one’s reality map] is, “What is it that the soul intuited and came to [see as] knowledge?”

The soul’s intuition (and Kabbalah’s) is of a spiritual totality which happens in the right hemisphere of the brain where representation is not done through words.  However, in order to remember what I have experienced I have to tell it to myself in the verbal/conceptual language of the left hemisphere.  For this, I have to find some words.

If I try to teach anything of Kabbalah to you,  I know that I have to use words to make myself understood.  On your part, I need to invite you to stretch from the words into what the words contained in their inner meaning. My challenge in the communication is in trying to describe something for which there is not a good vocabulary.

Therefore, to explain Kabbalah we borrow vocabulary from left-brain philosophy. Unless we learn how to hear what is behind these words and to find and attune the reality in the words to the vibratory regions of consciousness to which they refer, the words will not convey the reality that lies behind them.

Remember that  all descriptions from mysticism are translations from the experienced reality. The reality was experienced and made conscious by the right brain sensors in a simultaneous way with all the inherent paradoxes occurring to  one in that consciousness in a parallel fashion. However, the only way that theophany is forwarded to the left brain is in serial fashion – one word at a time.

Unless you, the recipient, are able to somewhat restructure the information — by emulating the parallel manner of the original intuitive experience and by making way for incorporating the paradoxes through disconnecting the censor who waylays the information with its protestations of “contradiction!”  — then the communication of the right brain will seem worthless and ridiculous.

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Sefer ha-Hasidut Elul Yahrzeiten

Sunday, August 19th, 2012

Sefer ha-Hasidut (Rafael, Yitzhak, ed., Tel Aviv: Avraham Zioni, 1972), with around one hundred Rebbes, is arranged according to Yahrzeit. Now the material has been scanned with OCR.

Here are the Elul sections in Hebrew only. (Please click the Rebbe to see a section):
9 Elul: Reb Tzadok HaKohen Rabinowitz of Lublin
10 Elul: Reb Pinchas Shapira of Koretz
11 Elul: Reb Avraham Yaakov Friedman of Sadigora

ספר החסידות
הרב משולם זלמן חייא הכהן
שחטר-שלומי שליט”א

אלול יאָהר-צייטען

ט’ אלול רבי צדוק הכהן מלובלין
י’ אלול רבי פנחס שפירא מקוריץ
י”א אלול רבי אברהם יעקב מסדיגורה

Sefer ha-Hasidut Av Yahrzeiten

Thursday, July 19th, 2012

Sefer ha-Hasidut (Rafael, Yitzhak, ed., Tel Aviv: Avraham Zioni, 1972), with around one hundred Rebbes, is arranged according to Yahrzeit. Now the material has been scanned with OCR.

Here are the Menachem Av sections in Hebrew only. (Please click the Rebbe to see a section):
7 Av: Reb Issachar Ber Zlotchov
Tisha B’Av: Reb Yaakov Yitzchak HaLevi Horowitz (the “Chozeh” of Lublin)
14 Av: Reb Tzvi Hersh of Liska

ספר החסידות
הרב משולם זלמן חייא הכהן
שחטר-שלומי שליט”א

אב יאָהר-צייטען

ז’ אב רבי ישכר בר מזלוטשוב
תשעה באב רבי יעקב יצחק הלוי הורביץ
י”ד אב רבי צבי הירש מליסקה

Apter Piece on Partzuf

Monday, July 9th, 2012

Reb Zalman sends a translation of a teaching by the Apter Rebbe, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel of Apt in which the Apter says it so nicely about why theologians have trouble with prayer and something for the radical monists that don’t want to agree that anybody else is listening.  In order for there to be itaruta d’l’eyla and itaruta d’l’tata (stirring from above and stirring from below), you need to believe that someone is listening.  As the Apter says, there’s a kindness of Hashem to allow us to create something like an interface.  Hashem decides to be a Partzuf relating to us.  (Hebrew text included below. Translation edited by Gabbai Seth).

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Sefer ha-Hasidut Tammuz Yahrzeiten

Thursday, June 21st, 2012

Sefer ha-Hasidut (Rafael, Yitzhak, ed., Tel Aviv: Avraham Zioni, 1972), with around one hundred Rebbes, is arranged according to Yahrzeit. Now the material has been scanned with OCR.

Here are the Tammuz sections in Hebrew only. (Please click the Rebbe to see a section):
1 Tammuz: Reb Kalonymus Kalman Halevi Epstein (“Maor Vashemesh”)
2 Tammuz: Reb Pinchas HaLevi Horowitz
10 Tammuz: Reb Meir Margolius
11 Tammuz: Reb Tzvi Hirsch of Zidichov
18 Tammuz: Reb Yaakov Aryeh of Radzimin
22 Tammuz: Reb Shlomo Karliner (Shlomo HaLevi of Karlin)
25 Tammuz: Reb Meir HaLevi of Apt
28 Tammuz: Reb Moshe Teitelbaum of Ujhel (“Yismach Moshe”)

ספר החסידות
הרב משולם זלמן חייא הכהן
שחטר-שלומי שליט”א

תמוז יאָהר-צייטען

א’ תמוז רבי קלונימוס קלמן הלוי מקרקא
ב’ תמוז רבי פנחס הלוי הורוביץ
י’ תמוז רבי מאיר מרגליות
י”א תמוז רבי צבי הירש מזידיטשוב
י”ח תמוז רבי יעקב אריה מראדזימין
כ”ב תמוז רבי שלמה קארלינר
כ”ה תמוז רבי מאיר הלוי מאפט
כ”ח תמוז רבי משה טייטלבאום מאויהעל