A quick survey of YouTube returns a long list of videos featuring Reb Zalman.  They are listed here in the following categories:

Jewish Renewal, Organismic Paradigm, Reb Zalman Davvenen, Inner Life, Kavvanah, Calendar/Lifecycle,  Intimacy and Spirit, From Age-ing to Sage-ing, Deep Ecumenism, Tshuvah,  Reminiscences, Psychedelics, Communities.

With gratitude to the many videographers, (most notably, Rabbi Sarah Leah).

Jewish Renewal

Hello Renewal
Reb Zalman reviews his legacy
What is Jewish Renewal?
Renewal Visions for future
Renewal Visions for future 2

Organismic Paradigm

We are just a cell
Shifting toward healing the planet

Davvenen

Tour of Reb Zalman’s davvenen space
Putting on the tallis
Praising with Heart and Flesh
Andalucian Zikr

Inner Life

In Your Blessed Hands
Covenant is unique to yiddishkeit
Rosh Hashanah inner work
Rosh Hashanah inner work 2
Freeze-dried Psalm 23 as Reb Zalman heats it up
Affirmations and Jew-ing
Interpersonal aspects of the inner life
Reb Zalman’s legacy of increasing attunement
Using the imagination, Baal Shem Tov and Star Trek
On relating to God during prayer and role of ego
On Avot 1:14
The Baal Shem‘s Spirit

• Kiss of God, shmooze with Father Thomas Keating, descriptions of closeness with God that they share

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

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I have always thought of Thanksgiving as a Jewish holiday.

Each year, I have made a pilgrimage to my family and gathered with my extended family and friends for a joyous celebration. 

And so, it feels like a blessing to me to have Reb Zalman’s new texts for the prayers of this day. 

https://www.jewishrenewalhasidus.org/wp-content/uploads/for-all-the-boon2.pdf

It is his suggestion to us for our Thanksgiving day, which he bases upon the formula of the insert-prayer we already have for Hanukkah and Purim.  It is to be included in Hebrew or English as part of the Amidah / eighteen benedictions and in the Birkhat Hamazon / food blessings to be recited after the festive meal.

An additional text provided in the link above is a hymn which, it seems to me, can be sung in a spirit of deep ecumenism with the traditional Christian melody at our Jewish celebrations (“We gather together,” etc.).  Or alternatively, it will also work sung to your favorite Yigdal.

Giving thanks is very Jewish.  Please consider these texts as part of your celebration this year. 

Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor

Dear Friends:

I want to let you know about a wonderful four-day event that will be coming to Boulder, Colorado this October, 2010.

Reb Zalman Schachter, Rev Matthew Fox and Reggie Ray “will engage us in in-depth conversations and practices that offer new life to the spiritual journey.”

Referring to the upcoming event, Rev Matthew Fox writes,

“I look forward to this experience to plant real seeds for the future evolution of humanity and spirituality and the gathering of deep wisdom from three of the world’s great spiritual wells.”

To learn more, and to register, please visit www.wholeheartedretreat.com

Here’s the brochure:

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The following comes from Reb Zalman on this week’s Torah portion, Balak.  [NOTES by Gabbai Seth Fishman] 

When Balak called on Bilaam to come and curse the people, 

Balak, as we get it  from the Torah, was an Aramean, because Pethor, the city where Balaam was, was near the Euphrates and not quite where the Moabite country was.

[NOTE:  Numbers 22:5, “Balak sent messengers to … Pethor, which is by the river of the land of his people.”]

now there are several words being used for curse:

The Zohar has a remarkable thing about how Balak was a magician. 

[NOTE:  Zohar Balak (3:184b) states that Balak was called “ben Tzipor“ because he would use a bird as a means to perform his magic and he also understood wisdom by way of a bird.]

For Balak, there was something impossible at that point about handling the Jewish people’s presence, and therefore, he wanted to have a kind of curse put on.  Not everybody believes that verbal curses or magic and voodoo can really influence things, but this is exactly what Balak wanted; he really believed that curses work.

The lightest curse is kal, l-kalel, which comes from “making light off,” and just sort of like, “insulting.”

The next one is arur which is really much stronger.  And it was this second kind of curse, arur, that Balak wanted to do. 

Aror is to remove the protection from somebody.  A person under the influence of a curse of Arur will not then be protected.  Then, the karmic power that was to have taken vengeance on a person is able to do so. 

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Reb Zalman talks about his journey of faith and exploration of other religious traditions in this interview with Patheos CEO and Founder, Leo Brunnick.

• http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/In-Exile-Together-A-Dialogue-of-Faith.html

Don’t miss this sweet and wonderful talk.

The following text by Reb Zalman is for this week’s Torah portion, Shabbos Chaye Sarah. (Click here for Hebrew/English version).   Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor

“And before I had finished lidaber / speaking to my heart, behold, Rebecca came forth with her pitcher on her shoulder.” (Genesis 24:45).

The “speaking to my heart” refers to the previous line, where Eliezer, the servant of Abraham said, (ibid, 42), “And I came this day unto the well and said, ‘havaye God of my lord Abraham, etc.’”  And the prayer there was described here as a dibbur / speaking to the heart, i.e. that havaye dwells within the inside of the heart. 

As explained by the holy Rabbi, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel of Apt, on the section of Leviticus 26:12,”And I will walk among you,” in the holy book, Ohev Yisrael, on section bechukotai, expounding on the text, “v’hit-halachti / and I will walk,” here’s what he says: 

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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.

Here is the current listing:

* 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)

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Tu Bishvat / the fifteenth day of the month of Shevat is The New Year of the Trees.  This year, the holiday begins tonight, Sunday, February 8, 2009.  Here are some thoughts from Reb Zalman, on this holiday, “Our Gaian Yom Tov.”

Tu Bishvat: Our Gaian Yom Tov
by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

I thought that I was glad to see
a beautiful Midrash in a tree…

When we sing the Torah back to the aron hakodesh / the holy ark, the sentence we use in our song talks of a tree:

Etz Hayim Hi / she is a tree of life,
lamahaziqim bah / to those who hold onto her

The “Tree of life” is generally thought to refer to the Torah. However, the context of this sentence from its source in the Book of Proverbs, [Proverbs 3:18], refers it to Hokhmah / Wisdom, Sophia.

If Torah and Hokhmah are synonymous, then it doesn’t matter which of them one has in mind.  But our Sages, of blessed memory, did not see Hokhmah and Torah synonymously:  They saw Hokhmah as something universal, something in common and shared by non-Jew and Jew alike; in contrast, Torah was seen as something only for Jews.  So first, for Tu Bishvat, I want to talk about Etz Hayyim, i.e., Hokhmah.

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This wonderful and inspiring talk of Reb Zalman’s, originally given in the late 1990’s, can be found on the  Yishmiru Daat dvd, available from Aleph Resources.  It paints a picture of Reb Zalman’s role in the shaping of Jewish Renewal in our time.  Enjoy!  Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor.

Renewal Is Not Judaism-Lite
by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Contents

Tamid Echad / Always and Forever One
Not Judaism-Lite
Holocaust Losses
Kumran USA
Religious Environmentalist
The Havurah Movement and the Jewish Catalogue
Jewish Renewal Gains Momentum
My Teachers
Focus: Restoration or Renewal?
Internalizing the Renewal of Judaism
A Renewal Mashal / Analogy
Renewal Is Not Heresy
Building a Future
Somatizing
Loving Jews and Loving All
Intuition
From Empathy to Compassion
Investing in Shaping the God-field
The lamed-vavniker‘s Curriculum
Paradigm Shift
Moral/Faith Development
Soul and Mind Development
Hasidism
Gaia
Eco-Kashrut
Feminism
GLBT
Ger Tzedek, Ger Toshav
Recharging our Souls in Israel
Internationlization of Renewal
A Renewed Halachah
In Conclusion

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Dear Friends:

Here’s a copy of Reb Zalman’s wonderful insert to birkat hamazon / grace after meals, for your Thanksgiving celebrations:

Tanksgiv All The Boona

It’s a beautiful prayer that will add a Jewish touch to your Thanksgiving celebration this year.  

At the same time, we need to also reinforce the notion that it would be unkosher for us to behave as some say the Europeans did as they settled in America.  

Here’s an excerpt from Reb Zalman’s book, Integral Halachah where he lists the non-negotiables, the anchors of a Halachah for our time:

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