;.l1,6,60,66,1,0,5,75,192,2,10,15,20,25,127,5,0,
.h2, SHLOMO51690:EXCERPTS --
MISCELLANEOUS EXCERPTS FROM R. SHLOMO CARLEBACH
Editted excerpts, sa
Not to be reproduced beyond the chevre without explicit permission fromR. Shlomo Carlebach


B1, p2:
"Shevach nosnim lo col tzevamarom" -- The angels in heaven are singingHis praises, and if the the angels can, why not we?  You know thedifference between angels singing and my singing?  It's very simple. When we sing I always think, you know, I sing better than you.  But anangel always says, "Oh, the other angels sing so beautifully, what aprivilege to hear them."  So, can we maybe sing like angels just for alittle while?

B2p1:  What happens to the people who always begins fights betweenpeople?  They are really the opposite of perfection.  You think theyare happy?  They are miserable.

B4ap1:  "Some people...keep Shabbos, and sometimes your noses tells you'I can't stand their Shabbos'.  Why?  Their shabbos isn'treallly...integrated into their whole being and their whole life...it'ssticking out like a stone, coarse.

B5, p1:
	Then there is a little sinner man, you know, a little sinner. He's a cute little sinner, wants to have a good time.  You see thething about this sinner is that he's really not bad -- he's a sweetlittle man, he's looking for pleasure.  The only thing is, nobody evertold him that the glass of beer is not the greatest pleasure, butstudying is a greatest pleasure, doing someone a favor is a greaterpleasure....Someone, nebach, think's he's going to a French Restaurantand he pays for one little plate of soup twenty-five dollars and he haspleasure.  Friday night, a piece of challah is more pleasure.

B5p2:
[The worst thing is] someone who tears people down....Here G-d crated aperson, G-d made something out of him.  And this person tears himdown...Ibn Ezra says, ...If I take a person and I tear this person down
 ...I am tearning down his soul...Where do I have the audacity toenter...even where G-d trembles!
	...The Talmud says that G-d can forgive everything in the world,but G-d will not forgive you if you say something bad about anotherperson. [[Cf. a Christian saying, that Heaven will forgive everythingexcept a 'sin against the Holy Geist' (Spirit,  'ruach hakodesh').-sa]]
                                                   
B6p1:
Until someone comes to you and tells you 'I love you' you are still astranger in this world.   You feel like a stranger -- you're not reallyhere yet.  Do you know what it means to take a stranger and invite himinto your house and into your heart?  The Zohar Kodesh says that meansI'm giving this person even more existence than G-d gave him.

B7p9:
"How do I know what is really G-d's word and what is not G-d's word?
Or if I am on the level to feel G-d's word, you know?  Someone canteach you G-d's word, [but how do you differentiate if] you are socaught that you don't feel it?  The Beis Yakov says...'ha-nevah v' hanetzach l'elokeynu(?)' [[l'hai elokim? -- quote from Rosh HaShana?Piyut?]] -- beauty and eternity [pertain] to G-d...The great thingabout a holy thing is that it is [both] beautiful and eternal.

B7p15:
Why is it so hard to listen when someone tells you, do better? Because, you're really not interested in doing better, right?  Yourinterest is in improving the world, right?  Most of us....If you findsomeone who is ready to listen when someone is reprimanding him, thatmeans he is really walking in the way of life.

B7p19:  
Even if your mind is very clear, and even if you do all the greatestthings in the world, [with] your own mind, on your own, you can onlyfind what is hidden to you as a human being.  So my mind can only reachas high as I can go as a human being.  But to go really beyond my mind-- that's why we are wearing a yarmulka, [because the essence ofJudaism is the belief]...that G-d spoke to us, that we are connected tothat which is above -- I can literally reach above my head.
.p
From Holy Beggars' Gazette, Vol I #3, Sivan 5732:
	One of the books of the Maharal of Prague, who [[according tofolk-tale]] made The Golem, is called Nativas Olam, The Ways of theWorld.  G-d's name is mentioned 32 times at the Creation of the world. That means that there are 32 ways of reaching G-d via the creation. The strange thing is that 32 is [in the Hebrew numeric system, whichuses letters for numbers] lamed-bet,  =  lev, the heart.  When do youahve a real heart?  When you know your way in all the 32 paths. Physically the heart is the most delicate thing in the owrld.  ...Thespritiual meaning is that if you don't know your way on the 32 highways then your heart isn't complete.
	...This teaching is from Nativas Shalom, one of the ways calledPeace.  Shalom is Peace, and it also means perfect, whole...If Peace isthe utmost Being, then fighting is the utmost non-being...If I start afight with someone...suddenly that person does not exist in my worldand I don't exist in his world.  We really don't see each other,because if we did, how could we fight?  The moment we stop existingthere is something missing, so there is sadness.
	What is the greatest joy in the world?  What is a perosn runningafter most?  Wholeness, Shlemut.  ...In the whole Torah we only findthe words 'run after' in one place.  It says 'Ask for Peace, and runafter it.'...
	What is heaven, and what is hell?  Heaven is complete being, andhell is non-being.  What is doing a good deed?  If I do a good deed, Iam completely there...if I do wrong it means I am not there.  I justdid it, but I wan't all there.  The Baal Shem Tov said when I dosomething wrong my soul isn't really there....I have free choice -- Ihave so much free choice that I can cut off my soul for a moment.  Wetalk about the five parts of the soul.  The lowest part, nefesh alwaysstays with me.  Only the neshama goes away.  The Talmud says if you dowrong a little bit the soul somehow stays near, is watching you fromaside, walking next to you instead of inside you.  But when you getangry, destroy the peace, your neshama completely disappers.  [[Cf.Heraklitus:  it is hard to fight with anger, for what it wants it buysat the price of soul.]]  The neshama can't be defiled.  The neshama isthat part of the soul which can't take part in what you do wrong.
	Nehsama comes from the word noshem, to breath.  What is theclosest to life I get?  When I breath.  Inhaling and exhaling.  That part of me is always new.  ... A neshama person is new every minute,every second. [[Cf. Pound's imitation of the Analects of Confucious:'New, new; every day make it new."]]
	There is a passage in the psalms, "Let the sin go away, not thesinners. [[Bruria said it to R. Meir, they say.]]  If I see someone dosomething wrong I am angry, not at the person, but at what he is doing. As the Baal Shem Tjov said, the real person is not involved in thewrong doing.  He is like half asleep.  I am angry, 'Why aren't youawake?'.  But I cannot really be too angry, because he was asleep.  Thequestion is, if you are getting angry, are you getting angry at theperson, or at the evil?  If you are a neshama person there is nohatred.  If you have hatred, then you are evil also.  
	Shalom , has three letters, shin, , lamed , 
and mem [sofit] .  The first way to bring peace is to bring two sidestogether, like the middle of the shin.  Lamed is the tallest letter. It goes from the highest to the lowest.  If you want to bring peace youhave to be very high, to stick out.  The mem is closed, with noopenings.  Shalom has to be complete, like a little wall.  The wall ofpeace has to be complete.  You can't say, 'I am peaceful, but I have alittle opening for getting mad in an emergency.'

	The Maharal lists some of the reasons peace is great.  It [Psalm____] says 'great is peace', because for the sake of peace even G-d waslying.  'Great is peace' gecause G-d didn't find any vessel which cancontain more blessing than peace.  'Great is peace' because it is thelast world of our prayers 'G-d will bless (his) people with peace'[Siddur: ______].  'Great is peace' because that is what the preiestsbless us with. [[Conclusion of Birkat ha Cohenim.]]  Great is peacebecause if even the most rotten people get together G-d would be withthem because they were peaceful.  Then it says 'great is peace' becasueeven the dead need peace.  Joseph says, "I am going back to my parentsin peace.' [Genesis ________]  Then it says 'great is peace' becasueonly the righteous have it and the evil will never get it.  'Great ispeace' because even the angels in heavaen need it.  Then the Talmufsays, if angels, who never fight, need peace, how much more do people,who do fight, need peace.  All the blessings of the world are likegifts of G-d, but peace is of G-d (him)self.  It we would have thefaintest idea how far we are from that peace we would shiver.  We wouldliterally shiver.

From JW13, p13:
	You know when you kiss somebody, you close your eyes.  You say,mamash, it's clear to me I know nothing about you.
	Remember the first time we find a kiss [mentioned in the Tora]? Yitzak says to Yaakov, `come kiss me' before I bless you [Gen. 27:26]. You know what that means?  Yitzak thought he knew his children [but]when Yaakov walked in, it was clear to him, I know nothing about mychildren.  I know nothing about Yaakov.
	You know why the Bait HaMikdash was destroyed?  Because we hatedeach other. [Ref: `The Temple was destroyed because of causelesshatred' _______].  You now what it means to hate each other?  [If Ihate you, I believe that] I know everything about you.
	You know, when Yaakov met Rachel...he kissed her and he began tocry.  Why was he crying?  Because the Holy Temple would be destroyed. You know what that means?  Yaakov kissed Rachel and said to her, 'Iwant yoiu to know, I swear to you, I'll never say that I know you.' What does it mean to love somebody?  To love somebody is...on the levelof Matan Torah [receiving of the Torah, receiving without hesitationand and without first questioning it].
	
	So then mamash we remember, gevalt, my children, your children,mamash they destroyed the Bais HaMikdash because they think they knoweach other.  

From JW13, p16:
	A lot of people think we'll keep Yiddishkeit alive forever if wetell our children what we went thorugh in the Holocaust.  [And ofcourse the martyrs of the Holocaust are very holy, but only] the Torahof Aaron HaCohen, kindling a great light, will last forever.
	[We do not preserve Yiddishkeit by teaching women and children tofear divine retribution if they trangress mitzvot.]  We don't make aJew by making him feel guilty.  Reb Nachman says, 'doing an avera isbad, feeling guilty is evil.  Mamash, because [guilt] kills [thespirit'; what good is it?
	I don't want to say anything bad, but do you know what, basicallythe whole tsuva movement has been killed already?  They are getting afew shleppers here and there.  Because, before the Tsuva movement wasAharon HaCohen's movement -- 'b'haloscha haNeros'.  I'm looking for thegreat light.  And then the establishment took over.  And the firstthing is, they make you feel guilty.  [Guilty about' what you didbefore [you returned to Yiddishkeit.]

From JW13, p19:
	The gemorah Shavuos is called "Atseret" -- keep it inside, don'tlet go it.  ...And even if you are B'nei Gershon, even if for onereason or another you are driven out, don't ever think you are drivenout.  `Gam hem' -- mamash, you're always right there.

From JW13, p19:
	The Gemorah says it takes 500 years...[to travel to Heaven fromearth].  You know what G-d showed us when He gave us the Torah on MountSinai?  It's not true.  Heaven and earth are so close!

From F3, p1:
	The Talmud tells us [that] when G-d says 'Thous shalt not kill''it was so strong!...We can't kill -- just can't.  Sadly enough I guesswe left Mt. Sinai and we fell back a little bit, we fell down again,and now the question is -- Are you obeying the law or not?  But thetruth is, wfe havea to begin obeying a little bit, maybe we'll workourselves slowly back up again.

From F3p1:
	The Talmud says, if you sit all day Shabbos and you want to dowork, and say Oh, I'm not allowed to do it, it is not Shabbos.  Shabbosmeans I have nothing to do; Shabbos is -- I'm in another world.

From F3p1:[& ADD TO SHAVUOS]
	When G-d told us the ten commandments...just One Word was said;but after that, as it came down to the earth, when we went back towhere we came from, suddenly it was ten words...When people talk toeach other you can feel if they tell each other one word or a lot ofwords.
	If people don't have the sensitvity to be quiet it is so bad -- itmeans they are so deaf they don't even hear how silent we are.
	`We will do and we will hear' [Exodus 19:____].  If a person knowswho [he/she is] and who G-d is, what have they to ask?  You only askquestions if you don't know who G-d is and who you are.

From F3p1:
	In the morning when we wake up we say `I thank You for returningmy soul to me' [Siddur, Morning B'rachot].  `I thank You' -- that's thefirst three words we say when we wake up.
