X-POP3-Rcpt: sahaon@kinneret

Return-Path: owner-reb-shlomo@shamash.org

Received: from shamash.org (shamash.org [207.240.86.25]) by kinneret.kinneret.co.il (8.6.12/8.6.9) with SMTP id RAA18138 for <sahaon@kinneret.co.il>; Fri, 29 May 1998 17:47:05 +0200

Received: (qmail 3806 invoked from network); 29 May 1998 12:38:29 -0000

Received: from shamash.org (207.240.86.25)

  by shamash.org with SMTP; 29 May 1998 12:38:29 -0000

Delivered-To: reb-shlomo@shamash.org

Received: (qmail 3767 invoked from network); 29 May 1998 12:38:17 -0000

Received: from alpha.netvision.net.il (194.90.1.13)

  by shamash.org with SMTP; 29 May 1998 12:38:17 -0000

Received: from default (ts010p6.jlm.netvision.net.il [194.90.120.188])

	by alpha.netvision.net.il (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id PAA11384

	for <reb-shlomo@shamash.org>; Fri, 29 May 1998 15:39:26 +0300 (IDT)

Message-Id: <199805291239.PAA11384@alpha.netvision.net.il>

From: "Micha Odenheimer" <mzo@netvision.net.il>

To: <reb-shlomo@shamash.org>

Subject: Tzaddik 

Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 16:40:26 +0300

X-MSMail-Priority: Normal

X-Priority: 3

X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1161

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Sender: owner-reb-shlomo@shamash.org

X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.2.06 -- ListProc(tm) by CREN

X-Mozilla-Status: 0001







Dear Shaul, 



Somehow, this is the second time that you have stimulated me to write a

response to your words--you  must be a provocative teacher. 



First of all, I find the idea that you have "ideological" reasons that

cause you to object to someone calling Shlomo Z'ZL fascinating. Obviously,

if people call him Zazal, it means that they experienced him as a Tzaddik.

Is it wrong to feel empowered enough to give expression to this feeling?

Should there be an official canonization committee be established, to

create criterion for elevation to "tzaddikhood"? I will certainly lobby

that such a committee, if it is brought into being, include several

distinguished professors of history, along with specialists on the

Philosophy of Ethics, along with a few rabbis emiritus. In all seriousness,

if you don't think Shlomo was a tzaddik, that also flows from your personal

experience--not ideology. He may have hurt you in some way (perhaps his

dismissal of academia?). I don't really know. But, in all due respect,

aren't you hiding behind the word ideology? 



You bring up a crucial question: what is a Tzaddik? If being a Tzaddik

means being perfect, then I would agree with you about Shlomo; he was

alive, he was human, he made mistakes and had aspects of his personality

that still were not completely filled with light. But exactly on the basis

of your criterion, "personal evolution, sacred behavior, and refined

consciousness" I personally have no better candidate then Shlomo for

Tzaddikhood. Sacred behavior--was there a person with more mesirut nephesh

than Shlomo in this generation? Remarkably, his extreme of self sacrifice

was for the whole of Israel, the whole of the world and for each

individual. Will others on the list back me up when I say that I saw Shlomo

go out of his way and beyond his strength and means for hundreds of

Shleppers that no one else in the world would give a second glance

to--crazy people, street people, super draining nudniks, lost souls that

suddenly gained some sense of meaning being around him. "Personal

evolution"--how many non-Tzaddikim that you know had transformed and

conquered anger in the way that Shlomo had? How many non-Tzaddikim have the

kind of energy that Shlomo did? A Tzaddik is a conduit for divine

energy--and Shlomo healed so many people with that energy. He just did. Ask

people--they'll tell you. Inner miracles would happen when he was around.

Not always, but often enough to almost be able to count on it. It was a

miracle of caring, of love, to just remember the thousands and thousands of

people that he did, the context he had met them in and something of who

they were.       

 

I don't like to write hagiography, and as I said, Shlomo was not perfect.

But that was also part of it, part of his unique "tzaddikhood", uniquely

suited, I think for this generation. He allowed us to feel his

vulnerability. HE didn't hide behind the authority his genius and talents

could have given him. His humility was to be just one of us, just Shlomo.

Did he have an ego? Of course. HE let us see it, and he mocked himself for

it. But

do you know that I never remember him once taking advantage of his charisma

by getting people to do things for him? Instead of becoming a guru sucking

up a flow of money, he gave his money away, supported his students (as well

as homeless etc.) instead of being supported by them. 



So I don't know what you want from people, who think we know a tzaddik when

we

see one. Not a "perfect master". But someone in whose presence our hearts

were opened, and someone who was completely identified with his redemptive

mission, and was out there trying to transcend and often succeeding, every

minute of a very long day. 



Finally, I have ideological problems referring to Shlomo as zz"l. I

> prefer z"l. the term Zaddik should not be used lightly. It is about

> personal evolution, sacred behavior and refined consciounsess, not merely

> about profundity, charisma, wisdom or influence.

>

>

> Shaul

>



