=scha0013 < (=scha2a1 +=scha2c) < =scha2a < =scha2
RSC, 'The Carlebach Haggadah', Critical Retype, Teachings 00
through 13
This is the 2nd doc in my critical transcription of 'The Carlebach
Hagadah'  
                       
The first doc is =scha1
It is just introductory notes.
This doc will be followed by =scha3
The sequence is presently as follows:
[ =scha1 + (=scha2a + =scha2b) + =scha3 + =scha4 + =scha5b +
=scha6 ]

N.B.:  I will retype excerpts verbatim, but will use the standard
abbreviation (not adhered to by Chabad, nor by this publication)
for the term for Deity. 
For various reasons, I capitalize and put in scare--half-quotes
the possessive pronoun for Deity; and sometimes capitalize the 2nd
person formal pronoun for Deity.

Incidentally, the English translation of the Hagadah in this book
follows the (in my opinion) quaisi- [whatever 'quaisi' means] -
idolatrous custom of Artscroll et al. tending to use an indefinite
noun ( 'the [Ineffable] NAME') as if it were a proper noun.
Like, USA frat-row informality.
Like, a bit of decorum, Quorum.

If this all ain't crystal clear, or leastways  pellucid, eat a
Fishburger.


============================================================

TEACHING #: 0
Back cover:  
Topic:  "Whoever is hungry, let him come and eat"

RSC excerpt:
SOURCE:  DON'Y YET KNOW:
                                  
[START RSC EXCERPT]
Friends, this is our generation.  This is you and I, but most of
all it's our children.  There's such a hunger in the world for
something beautiful, something holy -- a hunger for one good word,
one holy word, one message from G_d.  People are hungry for
something lofty, glorious.

So this is my wish for all of us:  Let the hungry people get
together -- everyone who's hungry for holiness, for friendship,
for love -- with the people who are hungry to give their children
one word from G_d.  Let's get together!  Let's you and I fix the
world.
[END RSC EXCERPT]
=================================================================
             
TEACHING #: 01
First teaching -- pp4:5
Topic:  "About this Hagaddah"
Text reference:  Rebbe Yisrael, VIZHNITZer
Teaching:  Seize every mitzva you can, even if you're unworthy
SOURCE:  DON'T YET KNOW                              

Described onlly as "A story Reb Shlomo himself told many times"
I do not recall that story:


[START RSC EXCERPT]
     I was in Waco, Texas, and I was heading for a mikveh there. 
I'm just about to walk in when a big limousine pulls up.  Somebody
steps out of the car, wtih a big cowboy hat on his head and chains
around his neck -- he looks so not Jewish.  He starts heading
toward the mikveh, and I ask him, 'Who are you?  

     He says to me:

           "I want you to know who I am. You're probably wondering
what I'm doing here -- obviously, a person who goes the mikveh
should also keep Shabbos.  Well, I come from a little village near
Vizhnitz.  From there my family came to America.

           "The Shabbos before we left, my father took us to the
heilige Rebbe Yisrael Vizhnitzer.  There were so many hundreds,
maybe thousands of Chasidim there, my father told me I might be
crushed.  So at the end of davening my father took me and put me
under the table next to the Rebbe -- he said that there, at least,
I'd be safe.  The Rebbe knwew I was sitting there, and he gave me
challah and fish.  He took care of me the whole time.
          "Then the Rebbe started saying Torah.  I didn't
understand it, but suddenly I had a feeling that something special
was happening.  I saw the Rebbe get up, and he was mamash crying.  
           "The Rebbe said: 

              "'Yidden, I want you to listen to me.  Sometimes a
Yid wants to do a mitzvah and then Brother Devil comes along and
says, 'What are you, crazy?  Now you're doing mitzvos, but I know
what you did wrong before and I know your plans for later.  Who
are you fooling now when you do a mitzvah?'
     "The Rebbe began yelling:
               " 'Yidden, tell the Devil in my name, 'Please leave
me along for one minute.  I don't care what I'll do later; right
now I want to serve G_d."'  
          "He sat down, put his holy hand under the table and laid
it on my head.  He said to me:
                'Do you hear what I'm saying?  I beg you never to
forget."

     
     The stranger says to me:
           "I want you to know, I'm here in Texas; I don't usually
keep Shabbos.  I usually eat on Yom Kippur, but sometimes I fast. 
I hate to say bad things, but the Evil Inclination is my master. 
But from time to time I mamash want to do something holy.  This
afternoon, I don't know why, I have a feeling I've got to go to
the mikveh.  A little voice tells me, 'You're crazy.  You don't
keep Shabbos.  What  are you going to the mikveh for?'  but I'm
going, for this one minute."  {Note 1}
                                                               
    On Pesach, the Seder night, we're crying and begging, 'Give us
these few minutes to feel as if we're leaving Egypt right now.' 
We're leaving the GALUS that we sit in all year round.  We wear a
white kittel to become like the holy angels.  We want to be beyond
ourselves, beyond the exterior, shallow things.  We want to be
heavenly , beyond time.  Let's take these few infinite moments of
freedom with us throughout our lives.
[END RSC EXCERPT]   

{Comment (sa):  I'd question if the last paragraph, past its first
sentence, is verbatim.  Especially the words 'exterior, shallow
things'.}
                                                   
=================================================================
Teaching #2
Second teaching:  pp8--10:  bDIQaT ChaMeTz                
SOURCE:  DON'T KNOW
I do not recall this teaching.
APPROPRIATENESS:  OK.
                                      
[START RSC EXCERPT]
    We came out of Egypt in the month of Nisan, in the spring. 
Everything is becoming free, every flower, every blade of grass;
colors are returning to the world as the leaves and the flowers
come out from hiding, reminding us that they can't be
suppressed{?} forever.  There's so much freedom in the air, so
much sweetness.  
     What keeps us from being free sometimes is a very small
thing.  Chametz is ASSUR B'MASHEHU -- it's forbidden for us to
have even the smallest amount of it in our possession, because
sometimes one crumb can destroy your life. 

     You know, friends, most married couples that get divorced do
it not because of a major event, but because of small events --
tiny crumbs.  As Peasch comes we're getting rid of all those tiny
crumbs.  Between redemption and slavery is a MASHEHU, a crumb, a
speck.  Between being a good father, a good mother, and not being
proper parents is just a MASHEHU, something so tiny.  Real
redemption comes when we walk around with a candle and find this
tiny trait{?} that's holding us back from being what we could be,
this little thing that's {?}in essence{?} ruining us -- when we
find it and burn it.        
[END RSC EXCERPT]

{Note T2}

================================================================
Teaching #3 -- bI'OR ChaMetZ -- Burning the Chametz:  pp10--11
Rebbes:  Karliner; Reb David Lelover
APPROPRIATENESS:  Karliner teaching:  OK; Reb David Lelover
teaching adds little.
SOURCE(S):  DON'T KNOW YET

     The KARLINER says, "How do you burn the chametz?  With the
fire of your heart, with the fire of serving G_d."  And the fire
goes on burning all through [START PAGE 11] Pesach.  

     The heilige Rebbe David Lelover says, 'I once  learned how to
serve G_d from the Cossacks.  I was passing by a fort where
Cossacks got their basic training{?}, and I saw them beating
another Cossack as a punishment.  I asked them, 'What did he do?'
and they answered, 'Last night he was standing guard, and in the
morNing we found him half frozen'  I said he should be given a
medal, since despite{?} the cold he held out.  The Cossacks
laughted and said, 'You don't understand!  If you're really
serving the Czar of Russia, everything you do gets done with so
much fire, it keeps your warm."          

     So on Pescah we are really serving G_d, once we found [sic;
but more likely, 'find'] the chometz and burned it and our hearts
are on fire.                                 
[END RSC EXCERPT]

{Comment (sa):  PVK often tells of the Tibetan monks, who wrap
themselves -- maybe at night -- in a wet sheet, and must dry it
with the 'breath of fire'. 
It's a useful trick to learn; but I don't see what it has to do
with Pesach.}

================================================================

Teaching #4:
ChaDLQaT NeROT -- Candle-lighting
SOURCE: Excerpt from short teaching:  RSC at Brooklyn College,
'88, the 'Baal Tchuva concert'
Transcribed input (sa '04; so not the source for this book's
excerpt) =scbc88tc.*
N.B.:  An Edit of the rest of this teachings occurs in this book
('The Carelebach Hagadah') as commentary on Page 141, which I
retype in =scha6.* 


APPROPRIATENESS:  Not appropriate; the teaching is about Shabbos
licht, not Yom Tov licht.  See comment below.
REBBES:  VILETNIKER Rebbe

----------------------------------------------------------

[START RSC EXCERPT:]

     The VILETNIKER rebbe told this story about his mother:
          "When my mother lit the holy lights for shabbos and Yom
Tov 

{N.B.: 'and Yom tov' is the compiler's addition; it is most
inappropriate} 

, you couldn't imagine a Cohen in the Beis Hamikdash, the Holy
Temple, crying for Israel with more tears than she shed [(1)text:
'prayed'] for my brother and me .  

One Friday night she lit the candles, and the time went by and it
was already Shabbos, and she was still praying over her lights. 
Her tears poured down over them and actually put them out.  When
she opened her eyes she saw the room was dark.  She said, 
               "'Ribbono shel Olam, our dear Father, don't you
know the truth, that I can't live without my Shabbos candles? 
Master of the world, YOU come and light my Shabbosdike licht
again.'"  

         "And I swear to you," said the Rebbe, "I saw a hand come
down from Heaven and relight my mother's Shabbos candles."
                                
     You know, my sweet [(2)text: 'sweetest'] friends, this story
is deep in my heart, and I'm sure in yours, too.  We're living in
an age in the world when we've seen so many candles blown out.  We
saw six million of them blown out -- so many yidden all over the
world whose light isn't shining anymore.  So I'm crying and
begging, in your name and in my name:  let there be a hand from
Heaven to relight our Bobbe's SHABBOSDIKE licht.  
[(3)text: ends here]

Let the Shabbos lights that are burning now keep burning until the
great morning comes.  Please don't blow out any more lights; this
is the prayer of every Jewish parent when we light our holy
lights.
[END RSC EXCERPT]

{Comment (sa):
Source is the Brooklyn College 88 Baal Tchuva concert teaching: 
I've input it as =scbc88tc.*
It seems to me a rather -- not even sentimental, almost shlocky --
teaching, with a poignant remark by RSC afterward.
It is not about yomtov candle-lighting, much less Pesach candle-
lighting; it is about Shabat candle-lighting.   And it fails for
yomtov, because if one passes SHKIA on yomtov, no miracle is
required to light the candles; one merely transfers from any light
lit before SHKIA.
So this is a good example of what a compilation should not
include.  An irrelevant teaching, with its irrelevance undeclared;
and a presumption that it is relevant allowed to stand.  In short,
misleading; an avera ("we have led others astray") to chalk up on
the compiler's side of the slate.                    

There are other infelicities in the compiler's edit, but I don't
now have the energy to go through them.  
Oh well: (it's a day later):
[(1)text: ] -- 'prayed' not 'shed' -- as Ryle might have said: 
one 'prays for' but 'sheds over' -- to pray in tears is to hope
for better, to look to the future; to shed tears is to bewail a
disaster, to regret the past.

Just one note:  This is [(2)txt: the compiler has 'my sweet
friends'.  That may be just a typo; the text is 'sweetest', not
'sweet'.
RSC always said, 'my sweetest friends', as far as I recall.  So I
wonder how many of RSC's teachings the compiler attended.  Or
maybe it was just a typo.


-----------------------------------------------------------

my Transcription is:  
From =scbc88tc.*

Narrative:  chanted (with synthetic syrupy shlock music intruding
in the background):   
[I'll edit ad lib ]
Listen to me:
?Let me?
Somewhere in Russia -- Reb Yisrael, the helige Rebbe of ?Valednik?
-- in those days all the yidden lived so much in peace and
holiness and sweetness.  ONe day he was he was told that the wife
of one of the hasidim -- XX -- XXX -- XXX.  Tell me the truth --
why did you move back to XXX.

I want you to know:  your husband -- XXXX the Beis Medresh -- and
he is crying and begging G_d that you should come back -- 
And this is what she said:

Heilige Rebbe -- my holy Master -- 
I want you you to know:
I didn't leave my husband because I don't love him -- on the
contrary, we love each other so much -- but we have no children --
and I can't bear --- X live in the house no more --

A house without crying of children -- a house without laughter --
is like the broken Holy Temple -- and I couldn't bear it any more. 

And the she said:  Rebbe, if you want me to go back, bless me to
have children.

But she was a very clever woman.  She said, Rebbe, if you bless me
with children, why don't you bless me to have children (?)like
you(?).

The holy master, the heilige Rebbe, thought for a while.  And this
is what he said:

If you promise me to be like my mother, I promise you you'll have
children like me.

Let me tell you about my mother.  Two little stories:

(It should never happen to anyone:)  My father left this world
when I was very young.  I was 4 years old, and my brother was 7.

One morning my mother woke up, and she was so sick.  She said to
me:  Yisroel, you're my teire kind [dear child] , I'm begging you,
bring me the prayer-book, bring me the X siddur.  XXXXX -- I
brought my mother the siddur.  She has the siddur in her hand, and
she said, Rabbenu shel olam, Master of the World, I'm so sick, I 
don't even have strength to pray to YOU.  But, she said, Master of
the World, you know the truth, if I don't take care of my
children, nobody else will, so please for the sake of my children,
make me well.  

And I swear to YOU, ?Rebbe,  Rebbe?, I swear to you, she got out
of bed and she was well.  She was cured.

One more story:

When she kindled lights, when she kindled the holy lights, I could
not imagine that the holy Priest in the Beis haMikdash should cry
for Israel with more tears than my mother prayed for my
?brothers?.  

One Friday night she kindled the lights.  It was ?already? [or?:
maybe] Shabbos, she was still praying over the candles.  Tears
were flowing over the candles.  When she opened her eyes, it was
dark.  And she said:  Rabbenu shel Olam, Master of the World: 
Don't YOU know Rabbenu shel Olam, Master of the World, heilige
?Tatige?, you know  the truth, I can't ?claim it? -- I can't
?pray? without my shabbisdike candles.  Rabbenu she Olam, Master
of the World, YOU come and kindle my shabbisdike licht -- and I
swear to YOU -- XXX -- coming from Heaven -- and it kindled my
mother's shabbisdike -- 


You know, my sweetest friends, this story is so deep in my heart,
and I'm sure yours too -- we're living in an age in the World --
we saw so many blown-out candles -- we saw six million being blown
out -- so many yidden all over the world -- their light is not
shining any more -- I'm crying and I'm begging XXXX -- let there
be a hand from heaven to rekindle ?my mother's? shabbisdike licht.

--------------
================================================================ 

TEACHING #5
SiMni HaseDeR -- The Order of the Seder :  pp18--20
APPROPRIATENESS:  Not about the order of the Seder as a whole; but
good teachings on Kadesh, ok on Urchatz.


[START RSC EXCERPT:] 
[GENERAL:]
     I remember it -- when we were little, my brother and sister
and I would sit down at the table on Seder night.  My father would
begin telling us, 'Children, tonight we are all kings, we are all
princes.  We are eating at G_d's table.'  I can remember how our
eyes were glowing.                  

[KADESH:]
     The beginning is when we call out "Kaddesh, make me holy! 
Mater of the world, all year long I thought so little of myself. 
I didn't know how holy I could be. Tonight I know I could be so
holy; I'm begging you, kaddesh, make me so holy.  Make my children
so holy, make the world so holy." 

[URCHATZ:]
    Then we say Ur'chatz.  All year long, when I see someone with
a dirty face, or a little dust on their neshamah, on their soul, I
turn away.  This night I say, "Master of the world, I would love
to be a cleaning man tonight.  I have a little soap -- I have
matzah, and it's the holiest soap in the world.  Matzah is just
flour and water; no air, nothing blown out of proportion, it's the
real thing.  One piece of matzah cleanses the soul.  Please let me
clean the world."

[YACHATZ:]
    The KOZNITZER  maggid says about Yachatz: 
          "The world is so broken, but our chldren can make the
world whole again.  We break the matzah; the small piece we keep,
and the big piece -- the bigger brokenness -- our children take
away.  Then they bring it back to us whole, to serve as the
Afikoman at the end of the seder."  
     Our children are the ones that are taking brokenness away
from us.                          

   You know, friends, sometimes I come home from a concert at four
o'clock in the morning, and I'm dead tired.  After that, if
anybody woke me up at five o'clock I would be angry.  But if my
children wake me up, oh, it's so beautiful!  Master of the world,
how can I thank you for children?  They are so perfect, so good. 
I don't want them to grow up in a broken world.
    Broken doesn't mean that you're broken by pain and sadness. 
!Broken means that we don't know what's good and what's evil, we
don't know whether we know or we don't know.!  Master of the
world, redeem us!
[ END RSC EXCERPT ]                          
 
{Note T5}

===============================================================

===============================================================
TEACHING #6
START TEACHING:  Middle Page 20
QaDeSh -- Kaddesh

[N.B.:  Hebrew almost never doubles letters; English tends to
double letters. In my transliteration, of course, I use no
'significant' English letter (defined as a single ASCII-value, ie,
case-sensitive) that does correspond to a Hebrew letter in the
original word.  So that means, I don't use double letters.

[START RSC EXCERPT]
Source is probably one of the input HBG / CNS teachings, all of
which were editted (albeit rather lightly). 

     All year long, wine may make us drunk; but Seder night we're
drunk with freedom.  We know that YOU have chosen us to show the
world what freedom is.  Freedom doesn't mean I can do what I want. 
It means free to serve G_d, to correct my neshamah, to perfect the
world 

{Note 6a}

Wine ... [3-dots book] the grape has to go through so much pain
until it becomes wine.  When it's wine at last, it's so beautiful. 
We have to go through so much until we reach where we have to be. 
You know, if you asked the grape about it in the middle of the
process, the grape would say, "Do you know what I'm going through? 
Everybody steps on me.  Once I was so beautiful -- look what has
happened to me now!  But I would tell the grape, "Wait; soon, soon


     The Ishbitzer Rebbe says that wine is the symbol of the
forces in the world which make us forget what we really are; the
ones which dehumanize us.  An alcoholic is capable of destroying
himself, as well as him family and friends.  You know what I do? 
I take the cup of wine in my hand and I say, "There's no power in
the world that can make me forget ther is only one G_d.

    In this world, when you want to show you're the master, you
put yourself above the others by putting them down.    

{Note 6b}

But with G_d, how does HE show HE's the master.  'HE' says, "I
lift the others up."                        

{N.B.:  I wonder if RSC used the term 'He'.  I don't recall having
ever encountered it before; and would have; it's problematic for
me.  Not the default-gender, but the anthropomorphic pronoun.  Or
rather , the finite pronoun for an infinite -- not even 'object' -
- say, an infinite -- ---- whatever ----- [that's AL's term; I
never began to appreciate it until now -- just had enjoyed it,
without knowing why }

You remember, when we are Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, we were
downhearted.  We were broken.  Then we became servants of G_d. 
You know wht G_d did to us?  He lifted us up!  So according to our
holy tradition, we lift up the cup of wine.  You lift it up to the
same level your heart is at.

{Note 6c - Editorial note}

=================================================================

TEACHING #7  [I OMIT THIS TEACHING.  IT'S THE ONLY ONE IN THE BOOK
THAT I OMIT.  DETAILS FOLLOW:]

HAGADAH TEXT:
"Who made us holy with 'HIS' Mitzvos"
V-QDaShNU B_MiTzVoTON
                              
SOURCE:  This is the story of Yossele the Holy Miser.  It's
published in various places.
But it does begin, which I hadn't remembered:
"It was in the lyear 1550, and we wwere so persecuted and poor.  
In the ghetto of Cracow there was one rich Jew whose name was
Yossele ..."

and it continues:

" ... The Chief Rabbi of Cracow in those days was R. Kalman, who
was a great scholar ..."

[START RSC EXCERPT:  pp22--27]:
Evaluation:  Landfill, and not even topsoil landfill.

First of all, the structure of this Hagadah is to comment on,
elucidate, 'magnify' in the Christian sense ("My soul doth magnify
the LORD'-- Cf. Bach, Magnificat), the various stages of the Seder
-- like, this is like the realm of Asiyah - I mean, yetzirat
Mitzrayim is like the first time in history the Jewish people as a
whole -- as distinct from our archetypic progenitors -- actually
gets off its duffus, after  all that time in the whatever of
Mitzrayim, and does an act -- leaving Egypt is the first step to
jumping into the Reed Sea -- like, we were were thrust out of
Egypt, but we freely jumped into the Reed Sea -- 

So ok, this is the story of Yossele the Holy Miser, which I have
as input, so who needs this edit.

It doens't even make it as commentary on the passage it's tied to.
I don't think it would make it as commentary to anything; it's
just a dumb story.

Yossele the Holy Miser has no particular relevance to Pesach.  It
is also a stupid story; 'sentimental' in the worst sense; shlock. 
Like: it's nice that the guy gave lots of tzdaka, but why did he
have to act like a jerk all his life.
That contradicts the halachic principle:  give with a smiling
face.
The story hooks us because we're all a bit bad, and most folks
think that most of us are bad, and we like to imagine we're really
wonderfully good inside.  So here's this guy who everyone thinks
is the worst creep in the world, and it turns out he's been
supporting half the town secretly.
Ok, there's a teaching that the best tzadaka is given anonymously
-- I learned that from the Jewish Treasury of Folklore, before I
hit adolescence, in the USA late '40's or early 50's -- but like
Jesus said, that doesn't mean, hide your light under a bushel.  I
mean, like, you might be stealing someone else's bushel-basket of
corn, or apples.  Like RSC said, humility doesn't mean, act like
less than you are.  It just means, try not to act like more than
you are; you'll probably get the act all wrong anyhow.



=================================================================

TEACHING #8:  Maggid:  MaGID

Commentary on:  "Whoever is hungry, let him come and eat."
START BOOK PAGE 30:
SOURCE:  Looks like several sources; one at least ("I've walked
the streets ...") from a tape I've transcribed, though I don't
offhand recall which; probably a published tape.
PLACE IN THE CARLEBACH CANNON:  Some very good material (on an
elementary level, like almost every teaching in 'The Carlebach
Hagadah'.  Like, this book was clearly aimed, like Yael's 'Shlomo
Stories' at a broad market, kiruv, outreach to our benighted co-
religionists in exile at assorted Temples etc.; may they speedily
see the light, rent out half their condo's, and tithe a check to
Moshav Mevo Modi'im (Hooray Harry).

{Note 8a}

[START RSC EXCERPTS]


     "Kol dichfiin, yeisi v'yeichul, whoever is hungry, let him
come and eat."

Friends, this is our generation.  This is you and I, but most of
all it's our children.  There's such a hunger in the world for
something beautiful, something holy -- a hunger for one good
world, one holy word, one message from G_d.  People are hungry for
something lofty{?}, glorious. So this is my wish for all of us: 
let the hungry people get togetherm eveyrone who's hungry for
holiness, for friendship, for love -- the people who are hungry to
give their children one word from G_d.  Let's get together!  Let's
you and I fix the world.

    Friends, hungry peole feel so close to each other.  Who's
bringing peace to the world?  Not the politicians!  Not the great
orators ! 

{Oy, enought with the exclamation points!} 

Not the great businessmen!  Only little hungry peopel.

[SOURCE NOTE:
OK, what follows now is a new cut, and excerpt from anotehr
Source:  it's chanted on one RSC's publicly released recordings --
which makes its claim to copyright here pretty dubious, it
presumably being already taken -- without permission, else there's
be a prefatory acknowlegement -- from copyrighted material.  Cha-
cha--cha.]
       

[CONTINUE RSC EDITTED EXCERPT:]
   I've walked the streets of the world.  I've walked in
Yerushelaim,  in Berlin{?}, in Washington, in Moscow; I've walked
in Sydney and in Copenhagen.  

{Comment (sa):  That was just a chant, RSC never intended it as a
serious teaching.  His point was:  they're all nice cities, but
they ain't Jerusalem.  As for the reference to 'Berlin' -- I doubt
it.  Yes, RSC's family lived there before WWII, and I'm sure he's
returned there, but I think for him visiting German cities
remained problematic, although he was at home in the cities of the
rest of the world -- continuing the cosmopolitan tradition of his
family, although their cosmopolitanism had been within the the
Austo-German lands.} 

The world is hungry, so hungry.

{SOURCE NOTE: 
Ok, I think what's next comes from a different teaching, also
input.  Maybe only input by me; I don't recall.}

Sometimes peple stop you on the street and ask you, "What time is
it?'.  They have a watch.  Do you know what they're telling you? 
"Half of my life is gone and I'm still hungry.  Maybe you have a
good word for me?"

{N.B.:  I think that in the preceeding paragraph, "and I'm still
hungry" is the "Editor"'s (Compiler's) insertion, in an attempt to
tape pieces of different teachings together.  It doesn't really
work.}

    Some people ask you, "Where's the next street?".  They're not
idiots.  They could find it if they wanted.  They're telling you,
"I don't know where to go. -- I have the address -- I'm a rich man
I have everything; but I don't know where I'm going.  Maybe you
have a message from G_d, from someone that  loves me -- a message
to show me the way to fill my heart, to fill my soul?"

{Now I think we go to another teaching:}

     "Hashata hacha, this year we are here, next year may we be in
the land of Israel."  Yerushalayim, the holy city, is the
headquarters of the hungry people.  Someday the hungry people will
get together.

     This is my prayer for your children and my children:  let's
all get together, the whole world, wherever you are!  Let's all
get together, {?}pray together, pour out our hearts together{?}

   At the same time, remember all the good people of the world who
were here before us.  They prayed for us, and they pray with us
now.  Let the day be soon when the whole world gets together in
Yerushalyim, the holy city.  This is what the Prophet says:  "Ki
betsi bets tefillah l'chol ha'amim.  My house is the house of
prayer for all nations."           

[Section break in book, whatever if anything that means.]

    Do you know what we're saying?  "All who are hungry, come and
eat."  Is there anybody in the world who needs food?  Is there
anybody in the world who is broken and needs a friend?  Tonight is
the night!  My door is open, my heart is open.  It's open because
all the gates of Heaven are open.  On Seder night, I'm so real,
I'm so close.  Heaven and Earth are close to each othr.

    What was the first great thing Avarham did after he became a
Jew?  The Torah tells us:  the first thing he did was to welcome
strangers into his home. 

[Ref:  Genesis (Vayera(?), where the description of Avraham's
circumcision is followed by the description of his welcoming the 3
strangers/angels.]  
{Note 8b}

[RSC EXCERPT RESUMES]

    Whatever you do that's between you and other people, that's
what you're doing between you and G_d.  Until Avraham, G_d was a
stranger in the world.  Avraham's whole mission was to bring G_d
into the world.  And see, what Avraham did between him and G_d is
the same as what he did between him and popele.  He brought G_d
into the world; he brought strangers into his home.  Avraham's
welcoming in strangers brought G_d's light in to 
[START BOOK P32] 
places where nothing else could reach to bring it in. 
     !To welcome a stranger means that I take you into my house;
and my house should be so beautiful, so full of holiness, that by
bringing you into it I ut you up on a higher level that where you
were before.  Even just for those few minutes that you are in my
house, you are higher up.!

     Children are the greatest strangers in the world.  While
Avraham was welcoming angels, he was learing how to welcome
Yitzchak. 
     The saddest thing in the world is to be away from your
children, when your children are strangers to you.  When we, G_d's
children, are so far away from 'HIM', it's so sad.

    !A slave is someone who is not free to be himself.  He thinks,
"I do everything right but I'm alienated from each thing that I
do, becuse I'm not doing it freely, because I choose to, because I
want to -- only because I have to do it.  But if I can be a free
person, then all I do is close to me, because now it's really me
doing it.!  

    On Seder night we're free. We're G_d's children.  We're really
serving 'HIM' , in the true sense of the word. {?}  According to
our great Kabbalists, on Seder night, when I'm sitting with my
children and they feel so close to me this is the time I can ask
G_d for anything.  Because aren't we G_d's children?
[ END RSC EXCERPT ]


===============================================================

TEACHING #9
MaH NiShTaNaH -- How is this night different -- 

[START TEACHING: BOOK Page 32:]
[START RSC EDITTED EXCERPT:]
[ESTIMATED AUTHENTICITY:] (i.e., a qualitative reciprocal of the
extent of over-editting, speaking of houses with a bit of
Metzora):  Dunno Moe.  Some stuff seems a bit off, like some of
what's in my refrigerator, best's I remember.)  Not real off, just
a bit.  BZ says, Nu, he's (the Editor's) just trying to make it
accessible. I says back, Yeah, but it like tends to skew the
nuances man. ]

    The smallest child begins and then the older chldren follow. 
All the children are asking questions.  Then, when they're done,
we open up our hearts as they did and we ask your children
questions in return.  {?}Let me ask 
[START BOOK P33] YOU four questions ... {?!}

     "G_d in Heaven, why is this night so long?  Why is exile so
long?         

{Answer (sa):  because you got a BMT subway pass instead of an El
Al ticket.} 

Above all, I don't understand, how are we so free?  We were
celebrating Pesach in Aushwitz and Mauthausen.  Yidden would get
together late at night and they would sing the Mah Nishtanah. 
Master of the world, how come we're so free?"  Maybe my feet are
in exile, and my hands; but my soul, my inside, my ideas, my
culture, my understanding of the world -- they're not in exile.
{I doubt that the preceeding paragraph is verbatim RSC.-- sa}

   Nowadays we're so in exile, living withinn Western culture;
we're in exile in the perverted{?!} thinking of the world. 
{I doubt tht the preceeding sentence is verbatim.--sa}

     On Seder night you go out from exile; and I hear my children,
who are the deepest in the world, the finest, the purest.  They
say, "Master of the world, tonight everything is matzah.  Nothing
is blown up, noting is out of proportion; it's just the way it
really is."  
     Because you know what evil does: it blows everything up out
of proportion. For example someone says to me, "How are you?" and
I think I don't like the sound, the tone he says it in.  I'm
already thinking to myself, "I know he wants to insult me."  This
can start a war.  On Seder night everything is to clear.  It's so
beautiful.   
{Note T9}                                  

[Squiggle section break; presumably switch to another teaching.]

EXCERPT FROM THE EDITTED EXCERPTS IN 'The Carlebach Hagadah' (c)
2001 Urim Publications, Editted by Chaim Stefansky

TEACHING #9a_
MaH NiShTaNaH -- How is this night different -- 
AUTHENTICITY:  Stranger things have happened, but don't bet the
Shabat fish on it.
PLACE IN THE CARLEBACH CANNON:  Won't repel militant marshmellows
maybe.  A bit of a whiff of the old grape, wot?

===========
START TEACHING:  BOOK MIDDLE PAGE 33:

                                                      
It was 1943, the second night of Pesach; the last sseder in the
Warsaw ghetto.  There was just one bunker left; there was just one
Jewish family left, with one Jewish child.  Until Maschiach comes
there won't be such another Seder.

[start book p34]

    Moishele is asking the Mah Nishtanah: "Why do we go through
such pain, more than anbody in the world?"  Moishele is asking the
deepest question in the world -- and in Heaven there's silence. 
the last Jewish child in the Warsaw ghetto is asking G_d the
deepest question in the world. 
 
{This sounds a bit like Elie Wiesel's brand of profitably self-
pitying shlock. -- sa}

    HIs father starts to answer, "Avadim Hahyinu, we were slaves";
but the story is so long.  They story has no end until Mashicach
comes.

    Then moishe says, "Tateh, I have one more question of my own. 
Will you be alive at next year's Seder to answer me?  Will I be
alive next year to ask the Mah Nishtanah?  Will any Jew be alive
anywhere in the world to ask the Mah Nishtanah?"  

     WhEn he asked the first four questions there was silence in
Heaven, but when Moishele asked his own question all the tears in
heaven were flowing.
 
   HaKadosh barch Hu cried; the three fathers, the four mothers
covered their faces and started crying.  But Mohsele's father -- a
heilige Yid -- this is what he said:
    "Ki v'sheim kodshecha nishbata lo, by YOUR holy NAME YOU swore
to him, shelo yichbeh neiro l'olam va'ed, that his lamp will never
go out."
                        
{N.B.:  The transliteration is a bit difficult here, because the
compiler put in Ashenazi vocalization, eg 'neiro' instead of
NeR_o}


     Moisheles' father said to him, "I don't know if you'll be
alive .  I don't know if I'll be alive. But I know there will be
one Moishele alive somewhere.  There will still be a Moishele to
ask the Mah Nistanah, because the Ribbono shel Olam, the ONE, the
only ONE,  promised us there would always be one Moishele."

{Comment (sa):  Oy.
I'm not at all sure of this excerpt.  Don't recognize it.  Don't
know how verbatim is.  AnD it does not seem to closely address the
problematicity of the 'Mah Nistanah'.

I mean, the whole Hagadah pretty much falls flat.  It ain't
coherent, it ain't deep,  The Mah Nistanah is a really weak
introduction to what should be a discussion of the exodus from
Egypt.  I mean, it starts by discussing, not the exodus, but the
ceremony we hold commemorating the exodus.  And it starts by
questioning really peripheral aspects of that ceremony.
'
The Hagadah keeps skipping from one point to another.  
It digresses in varous places to the most facetious scholasticism
-- the debate over the number of plagues, which is mere playing
with words and numbers.

It no sooner picks up a topic than it drops it.
The Hagadah is presented as a coherent text, but in fact its a
mere collection of short annecdotes.  Aggadot collected from the
Talmud, I guess.

Like -- compare thE Hagadah to Megillat Eshter.  The latter is
well-written, coherent, moving, and deep.
Yet Purim is peripheral to Jewish experience, and the Exodus is at
the essence of it. 

Where's Reform Judaism now that we really need it.

Oh well.

================================================================

TEACHING #10
                                    
[START:  BOOK P34]
'OVEdim hAiyEnu'  --  We were slaves 

We tell our children that we were slaves but G_d took us out.  

     I remember my father always telling us, "Imagine if we'd made
a revolution."  What if we 
[START BOOK P35] 
had come out of Egypt the way it happened in Russia?  There the
poor man made a revolution; so what did he do?  He became the
master, and he killed the rich man.  First the rich man kills the
poor, then the poor man kills the rich.            

     That's not what happened with us; we became the servants of
G_d.  G_d uplifted us, so we came out of Egypt really free, from
the deepest depths of our heart.  The Talmud says than when we
walked out of Egypt, we walked out like kings.

{Comment (sa):  I'd recheck the verbatim-ness of tis excerpt.  For
one thing, it states clearly in Chumash that the children of
Israeal 'left with a high hand'; it needs no talmud to tell us
that.}

==================================================================
TEACHING #11
M'aSeH -- "It happened 
[START BOOK PAGE 36]:

Rebbe [sic, Rebbe] Akiva lived in one of the darkest periods in
our history, after the destruction of our Temple.  After Bar
Cochba's [sic, Cochba, not Kochba] uprising, which sadly enough
didn't succeed, Rebbe Akiva wasn't allowed to learn Torah.  The
Jewish people didn't have any rights; they even had to hide being
Jewish.  But Rebbe Akiva sat all the night with Rebbe Yehoshua and
Rebbe Tarfon.  Can you see them telling us that the Redemption is
coming?
[END RSC EXCERPT]

================================================================

TEACHING #12 -- The Four Children -- KNeGeD ARb'aH BaNIM

PLACE IN THE CARLEBACH CANNON:  
This is quite a teaching, on the four sons.  I don't recall having 
read it before.  I don't know how much is editorial addition.


[START BOOK P39]
[START RSC EDITTED EXCERPT]
It says in Tehillim, "lehagid baboker chasdecha", to tell YOUR
kindness in the morning, "ve'emunascha baleilos", and YOUR faith
in the nights."  To tell YOUR kindness -- when the sun is shining,
when things are good, it's not so hard to tell the world how
beautiful G_d is.  And YOUR faith in the nights -- what do you do
when the night is so long?  You just have to hold out and have
faith.                                                        

     There's a much deeper explanation by the Alexanderer Rebbe; I
heard from his Chassidim that he said it in the Warsaw ghetto. 
This is what he said:  "It doesn't say emunasi, my belief in YOU.
that's not what gives me life at night.  Instead it says
emunascha, YOUR belief.  The way G_d believes in us gives us life.
When the light is so dark and endless, what keeps me alive is just
remembering how much G_d believes in us.  He believes that we will
bring the coming day."
[START BOOK P39]
                                          
{MAYBE A CHANGE IN SOURCE}
     Let me tell you about the four children. Some children are
good, some are the best.  Some are clever, and some are not so
clever.  Seder night gives me a taste of how much G_d believes in
all of them.  
     Sometimes you see young people that are a little "off".  You
know why they're off?  Because there wasn't anybody to beieve in
them.  It's so easy to get off the highway when nobody believes in
you.  Our holy Rabbis 

{Comment (sa):  Rabbi's ain't holy; that's Rebbe's} 

teach us that the chacham, the clever boy{?},
[START BOOK P40]
is very beautiful

{?-- RSC often said: "It's cute and sweet, but it's not
Yiddishkeit."}

as long as you think that being clever is everything.  The chacham
is intellectual, he needs to be taught.  How about stopping being
only intellectual?  How about tasting the Afikoman, tasting the
depths of life, feeling deep emotion and serving G_d with it?  The
clever person isn't far away from the wicked person.  Who do you
think the wicked child is?  Someone who was never told how holy he
is.

     There's the most beautiful Belzer Torah.  The Haggaah says,
"When you talk to the wicked son blunt his teeth."  

{Comment (sa):  This is the usual translation, but other
translations are:  'set his teeth on edge'; and some frumies even
read it 'knock out his teeth'.  As for the meaning of 'set his
teeth on edge' -- Jesus reportedly used that phrase (eg, 'the
fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the sons are set
on edge' -- which, following Deuteronomy, he intended as a
reductio ad absurdum of the notion of inherited guilt.  'set
[teeth]' on edge' is close to Jesus 'wailing and gnashing of
teeth' -- it is what one does one is suddenly filled with anger --
eg, at oneself -- that one cannot act out.}


It's a little heartbreaking -- he came to the Seder, after all,
and he didn't have to come at all.  

    Now, the word RaSha', 'wicked', is made of up three letters. 
The outside letters are Resh and Ayin, making (Resh-Ayin), bad;
but the inside letter is Shin.  And what does that mean?  The
three lines that make up a Shin symbolize Avraham, Yitzchak, and
Yaakov.  If the Shin, with its three lines, is on the inside of
the rasha, that's to tell you that every Jew in the world is
connected to our forefathers.  His inside, his neshamah, is
connected to them.  So we tell the father, "blunt his teeth --
Shinav, his Shin.".  If you want to educate this boy, knock his
Shin [N.B.:  'Shin' here is the Hebrew word; not the English word
'shin'] loose from the rest of him; bring out his inner nature,
that's connected with the Fathers.  Give him courage.  Tell him
not to make you think that he's not holy, because you know that he
really is holy. 

     The tam, the simple hild, is somthing differenet.  The tam is
just what his name say: he's perfect.  He wants to know the
deepest depths of everything.

    In Hebrew there are two words for 'this': zeh and zos.  Zeh
means something tht you can point at, and zos means as if it's
dark, but I know that the thing is there in the darkness.  "Show
me the deepest depths behind everything," says the tam.  I tell
him, "G-d will show it to you.  G_d took us out of Egypt. There
are certain deep lights that only G_d can give you."

    The last son, the she'eino yodeia lish'ol, doesn't know how to
ask a question.  He's so glad to be alive, so glad to be a Jew. 
He says that he wants everything, but that even if he has nothing
he's still so glad.  At p'sach lo, "You open for him."  G_d will
pen all the gates to him.  Tonight HE opens all the gates.

[START BOOK P41]
     My blessing for you is to make the Seder night exciting and
beautiful.  Let it be clear to you:  On Seder night G_d is sending
a message to parents, "It's in your hands; you are the parents,
they're your children.  Look at ME, look at G_d."  What is G_d?  A
parent taking care of his children.   

     Sometimes our children are angry at us because we didn't give
them enough courage.  Sometimes they demand, "Why did you give us
just words, why didn't you give us a taste of it?"  The rasha
asks, "Why didn't you ever tell me how holy I could be?'  The Tam
says, "I'm so glad you taught me how perfect life is, how perfect
Yiddishkeit is. But I don't want to go around thinking so simply,
just thinking that everything is perfect and never knowing how or
why.  I want more than that."  The 'she'eino yodela lish'ol' says,
"Is Yiddishikeit a matter of always asking and begging, or is it
something much deeper?"  

{Comment (sa):  I think this is where Bob Dylan -- who had
already, and properly, been shocked by the Akeda, and expressed
his outrage -- fell off the train -- "There was a wicked
messenger/ from EL_I he did come / whose mind could magnify the
smallest matter [ie, Talmudic pilpul] ... for his tongue it could
not speak except to flatter" .  And Cf. Kurt Weil's lyric (in
translation, I don't know whose) from 3-Penny Opera: "with greed
runneth over your cup, / so start the day's blessings and lies."}

On Seder night we fix all of thls.  My blessing for you is to sit,
husbands and wives and children together, with lots of simcha, and
nay you feel every second the deepest redemption.

[END RSC EXCERPT]

===============================================================

***
TEACHING #13:
[START BOOK P42]
[Maggid, continued:]  "And I took your  father -- V_AQaT AeT
AvIKheM      
SOURCE:
I don't know the Source for this presumably editted excerp.
I'd want to cross-check the edit with the Source (the verbatim
transcription) very carefully; because the thought here is rather
subtle.                                     

[START RSC EXCERPT]
What's so special about Avraham Avinu coming to the Land of
Israel?  He knew that this land becomes holy only when a Jew
enters it. I'm this one Jew coming into the Holy Land, and because
of me it's becoming holy.  In the time of Avraham, why was it 'the
Holy Land'? Simply because Avraham was there, even  though he was
the only one and there was nobody else et here.  Imagine what
would be if we all reached that level, where every Yiddle knows 
that the Land is holy because of him.
[END RSC EXCERPT]

===============================================================
This concludes =scha0013, the 2nd doc in my WIP critical
transcription of 'The Carlebach Hagadah'.
This doc is followed by =scha1420  
Notes are cut out as =schanot1, to be kept in EinsteinWriter
================================================================
