;.l1,6,60,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
EDIT OF R. SHLOMO CARLEBACH, TRANSCRIPT OF A TALK OR TALKS ONPURIM.  

Archive info:  TRANSCRIPT OBTAINED FROM JOSHUA WITT by S. Amdur 1/89. Inventoried as J1 NO DATE, PLACE, TRANSCRIBER, OR EDITORNOTED ON TRANSCRIPT.
Let name of transcript = "Purim -- Not knowing"
Doc=Purim1   On 3.5 Disc 'R. Shlomo', sa, Modi'in. EW 7.6

Edit info:  Conventions in edit:  direct quotes from transcript
enclosed in quotation marks ("...").  Interjections by editorenclosed
in brackets ([...]).  Material not enclosed in quotation marks is
partial or total paraphrase, and must be vetted by Rs. Joshua or
Shlomo before publication, & before circulation beyond chevre.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

	"On Purim, you are supposed to be so high that you don't know the
difference between Mordecai and Haman.  You don't know the diffaerence
between good and evil.  You go beyond the whole thing.  Basically,
Purim is 'al lo yda', '[to the point that] I don't know.'
     The Gemora says that Yom Kippur is yom (day of) k'Purim (like
Purim).  Yom Kippur is a day like Purim.  That means that Yom Kippur,
which is a actually the highest day, of atonement, is just a little
bit like Purim.  Purim is even higher."
     On Purim I eat and drink, and send out gifts to others, but I
don't even open a book and study.  I have gone beyond even studying,
to the point where "I don't know". 

     Once the Ba'al Shem Tov sent Reb Ya'acov Yosef, his second-
greatest pupil, an outstanding scholar and kabbalist, to test the
learning of Reb Yechiel, a prospective son-in-law for his daughter
Udel. Reb Yechiel came from a simple German Jewish family.  When Reb
Ya'acov Yosef returned, he told the Ba'al Shem Tov, "Reb Yehiel
answered 'I don't know' to everything I asked him!"  The BeSHT said,
"Ahhh...Gevalt, I'd like to have him as a son-in-law."
     So we see that there is a type of not-knowing which is even
higher the highest imaginable knowlege.  And it is this type of not-
knowing which we try to reach and taste on Purim.
[paraphrased by sa from transcript p1]

	Nowadays, so many people talk of "self-expression" and "self-
fulfillment" as if it were the goal of life.  But this is not the
highest good.  It depends upon what you are expressing, and what dream
you are fulfilling.  Yet if your consciousness is limited to what you,
your-self, know, then you may believe  that self-expression and self-
fulfillment is the highest imaginable good.
    
	If I admit that there are limits to whatever I think I know, that
really, on anything important, I don't know, then I can beg for
forgiveness.  I can go up to someone and say, 'I know I hurt your
feelings, and I don't know how deeply, please let me beg your pardon.'

    "Sadly enough, we have a lot of power over our children.  Nebach,
they are little.  They can't do anything against us.  They are in our
hands.  I think my child did something wrong, and I yell at him.  Then
G-d has compassion on me and I realize that I made a mistake.  So I
say to my child, "Can you please forgive me?"  But even this is only
atonement on the level of knowlege.  I don't know how much hurt I did
on the deeper levels, the levels of 'I don't know'.

   Maybe we remember, we know, what we did.  And on Yom Kippur we beg
forgiveness for all our bad deeds.  But we don't know the effects, the
reprecussions, of our bad deeds.  Maybe I yelled at you for two
minutes, but it hurt you for years.  I don't know.
    So on Purim I stand before G-d, and I do not say anything, because
I don't know anything.  I don't even know what I did wrong.
    [[On Yom Kippur I acknowlege my misdeeds, and maybe I hope and
pray that I won't do them again.  But I don't know.  And on Purim I
admit that I don't know.  I have to get beyond self-expression.  It
takes something higher than my self.]]

    To study the Talmud is a privilege.  Yet on the level of knowing,
it is like any other book.  But if we really 'learn' it, on the level
of not-knowing,  it touches the "deepest depths" of our being.  Even
if we can never put in words, never 'know' what we learned.  
    Sometimes I may walk past someone, a beautiful girl or a lovely
child, and something connects, and even if I never know her name or
anything else, I know her on the level of not-knowing, which is so
much deeper.
    "Once I was walking down Broadway and stopped by a little book
sale.  As I was looking, a black woman, a little drunkard, came up to
me.  She sad, "Brother, can you spare a dime?"  So I took out a dollar
and gave it to her.  She picked up the dollar, held it up, and said,
'Thank you,G-d.'"  And later that day I went to conference of
theologicans, but they didn't know as much as that woman. But of
course they didn't know that.  She was on a Purim level.
       
