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.

(more…)

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.]

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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

(more…)

A question answered during Reb Zalman’s Ohalah talk shows a way for us to think of mashiach-zeit / world redemption.  On Hoshanah Rabbah / the Great Please Save day (today), we will pray in our Sukkah-s asking God to bring about that which we all need, which the world needs.  Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor

“The whole mythic element of where the third Temple is and how it’s going to be dealt with…  I know there are some people who are kohanim / descendants of Aaron who are preparing to offer animal sacrifices, and after what we’ve been through with the plant in Iowa, I just don’t feel that I want to talk about a third Temple in this way.

“And if there’s a third Temple in which ki beisi beis t’fillah lichol ha-amim / For my House is a House of prayer for all people, so I would want to say, mi-mizrach shemesh ad mivo’o m’hullal shem hashem / From the dawn’s,  sun’s rising unto his homecoming past the dusk, Yah’s repute is constantly celebrated. 

“The third temple is the planet sanctified and healed!  That’s the way I’d want to say it.

“And if there is that planet sanctified and healed somewhere in the future, I want to be mamshiv, I want to draw down to us right now that vibe that comes from that. 

“And when on Yom Kippur we’re going to go into the kodshe kodoshim / holy of holies it should feel like not a limited place but makom ha’aron eyno min hamidah / place of the ark which has no measure, i.e. in a place that can’t even be measured [because we will feel the sense of expansiveness in our awarenesses, and a union with all creatures, with one another, with our mother the planet and with God].

Four years ago, Reb Zalman sent a letter to Rabbis regarding his suggestions for Election Day preparations.  In it, he compares Election Day and Yom HaDin / the Day of Judgment and recommends that they be approached in similar ways, with Selichot / Prayers of humility and forgiveness, and fasting.  Here’s the core ideas from the original letter, updated to reflect Reb Zalman’s thoughts for the current climate, as I heard them in a talk he recently gave for Ohalah.  Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor. 

“To my Fellow and Sister Rabbis:

“Shalom.  This coming November 2008, we will undertake the mitzvah / obligation of voting. 

“Much depends on this election.  It is indeed a Yom Hadin / Judgment Day. 

“May God bless us with the wisdom to do what is right and to learn from what we have seen.

“May we, before entering the ballot chamber to vote, struggle with the questions of our time to the best of our abilities.  I want to do so with an open mind, and I urge you to do the same.

“A really important part of this process is to openly raise the kinds of questions with which we must wrestle if we are to learn anything from what has befallen us.

(more…)

As Reb Zalman taught on Rabbi Ayla Grafstein’s youtube site (cf., “Reb Zalman on High Holidays“, Parts 3 and 4): 

“What is to happen on Rosh Hashanah?  Here’s a teaching I got from my Rebbe, Reb Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch.  It goes something like this:

“Adon olam asher molach b’terem kol yetzir nivra / The Lord of the world, He reigned as King before there ever world was yet created, before anything was shaped / created. 

“It begs the question, since our sages tell us, and it is very clear to us too, that eyn melech b’lo am / you can’t have a king without the people [who serve], so whom did He, before anything was yet created, reign over?

“Good question.

“And this goes even deeper because the rabbis said, you must never do anything to anyone else that’s a liability to him [in his absence]. 

“If it’s unalloyed good, you can do that.  For instance, if I say this belongs to Reb Dovid and it’s unalloyed good, for instance, tax free money, then that would become yours from that moment on because zachin l’adam shelo b’fanav / we may benefit a person in his absence, the person doesn’t have to be present to take ownership. 

“But, eyn chovin l’adam shelo b’fanav / we may not disadvantage a person in his or her absence.  If it’s a liability, you can’t lay it on a person unless you have obtained consent. 

“Now follow; this goes another step. 

(more…)

The following is an excerpt from Reb Zalman’s recent Ohalah talk focusing on the upcoming New Year.  Click here to hear his singing of the traditional Hebrew nusach / melodic theme of the Remembrance (Zichronot) section from Rosh Hashanah Mussaf set to his English translation.  Scroll down to the bottom where you will find his translation.  Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor:

Each year, on Rosh Hashanah, we touch upon three themes of the holiday:  Malkhiyot / Kingship, Zichronot / Remembrance, and Shofarot / Blasts of the ram horn.   There are special challenges we face with each one, which we will need to address so we can get our prayer to the place it needs to get. 

(more…)

Friends:

Various thoughts from Reb Zalman for this season as compiled by Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor:

1. From A Guide for Starting Your New Incarnation, 2001, ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, p. 1:

“You Have Wanted Holiness in your life.  This depends a great deal on taking responsibility for the maintenance of your consciousness and conscience.

“The maintenance of one’s awareness was once part and parcel of the social life of the shtetl / small Jewish town of Europe.

“Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel, in The Earth is the Lord’s, speaks about how the landscape once was Jewish.  One would speak about the falling leaves of the Fall season as if the trees were trembling before the Day of Judgement.

“In our situation today, this is not the case…  While the eastern communities of Jews began s’lichot / prayers of forgiveness at the beginning of Elul / the last month of the Jewish year along with the daily shofar / blowing of the Ram’s horn, we Ashkenazim leave s’lichot for the week or ten days before Rosh HaShannah.  Even if we do not begin to recite s’lichot until the end of Elul, it is still necessary to begin the inner work earlier, at the beginning of Elul.”

2. In our prayer services from Elul through Sukkot, we add Psalm 27.  Click the following link to hear a niggun composed and sung by Reb Zalman with words excerpted from the Psalm:

L’cha Amar Libi  (<< Click here to hear)

NOTE:  For the full text of Psalm 27 with Reb Zalman’s davvening translation, please scroll to the end of this post.)

(more…)

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.

(more…)