;.l1,6,60,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
;.l2,15,75,192,2,20,25,127,15,0,
;.l3,20,75,192,2,25,127,20,0,
;.l4,25,75,192,2,127,25,0,
;.l5,30,75,192,2,127,30,0,
;.l6,12,90,192,2,16,22,127,12,1,
;.l7,17,125,192,2,127,17,2,
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.h2, B=SA_HAON0393:esh32893; topically re-arranged editted exerpts(sa) from sh032893, Seminar by R. Shlomo 
.h3, Carlebach, taped Yakar, March 24-25, 1993; Yakar, POB 30028, Jerusalem 91300;      --
Tape available from Yakar; Videotape from Natanel Shur, Nachliel, Israel.
May not properly be distributed nor reproduced outside the chevre without permission from Yakar or R. Shlomo

R. Shlomo Carlebach can, with persistence, be contacted via Congregation Kehilat Jacob, 305 West 79th St.,New York, NY 10024; via his answering service in NYC at (212)-265-4300; or most likely via R. Joshua orEmunah Witt, Jerusalem, 972-2-248620.

Typed to disc by S. Amdur, Haon, 15170 Israel; Tel 972-6-757511.
=IBM-PC, 720K, DOS 3.30, EinsteinWriter 8.x
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I have indulged myself in offering comments on some of these remarks -- eventypists get bored -- but will try to pack those off into endnotes, where theymay be conveniently disregarded.
=====================================================================
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I.  MISCELLANEOUS

R. Shlomo often says "You never know -- you never know."  
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He means, in part, you meet someone, you form an impressionof them, but you may never know from their outwardappearance, their inner depths of religion.  (This isexemplified in his popular tale of the Shwartzer Wolf, one ofthe Lamed-Vov Tzadikim -- everyone who saw him thought he wasthe most despicable Jew in the forest; a crude, unmannerlyman, but one rabbi who had the courage to perservere throughthat defense glimpsed a being of extraordinary spiritualbeauty.)
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And perhaps this is one reason why R. Shlomo always"greets all people with a smiling face" -- andgenuinely, on a deep level, not like the Smiling Face ofthe USA.  You never know
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A torah from all the rebbes:
Had we eaten from the Tree of Life, we might need to eat only oncein "40 days".  Basically, food has infinite energy. [13-1]
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PRAYER, AVODAH

"The avodah [religious duty, service] of Yidden is that we arealways connected to that which is higher"
The Shema -- I close my eyes -- in G-d's presence I'm not existing-- 

(I only say Sh'ma twice a day, because if I'm living on the levelof [Union] I can't live -- G-d wants me to live  [[in the materialworld, as long as I've taken all the trouble of coming here--sa]]

Everyone knows that kaddish is Eyn Sof.  You can get completelylost [[in the level of consciousness to which it takes you, "aboveand beyond"]]
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MESSIACH

"If it's for us to bring Messiach, it means he's already part ofthe world."


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JUDAISM IN EXILE

The shul is not empty...but gevalt are they empty when they'refull.  [A synagogue in galutz.]

In galutz some synagogues have the custom to have a guest speakeron Shabbat.  R. Shlomo says:  it's like you have a date with agirl, but you tell her you're not sure you like her so much, soshe'd better bring along a friend.  "Shabbos is not enough, youneed a guest speaker?"
If you call Reb Nachman [simply, in academic style] 'Nachman' itmeans you're not aware of the `Beyond' of Reb Nachman.
[Much of R. Shlomo's teaching is exegesis of texts by R. Nachman]
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If I think they [the Patriarchs] were completely Beyond [[nothuman beings]] then what good is it?
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[[That is:  think of the Patriarchs as human beings, notmerely as archetypes or some such, and then you will betterlearn what they represent -- sa]]
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HIPPIES

The hippies...saw [that in the 'bourgeois' 'conformist' `square'world-view] there was nothing Beyond [materialism, 
"marriage a-la-mode", etc.]..."They wanted so much somethingBeyond, but they didn't know how to bring it down to this world." Only the Torah brings it down to this world.
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[[One might say: there are two moves in religion: recognition of the `transcendent' [`getting high' `sartori'`samadhi' `blissed out' etc.] and the `transcendental'integration of that recognition into everyday life.  Onemight further suggest that some religions, eg Christianityand Buddhism, focus on the transcendent, where others, egJudaism and the Native American ways, focus on thetranscendental. -- sa]]
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SECULAR JUDAISM

A non-religious [[ie non-doti, not-strictly-observant]] person --maybe the vessels [kelim, outward conceptual and physical forms --sa] aren't so purified -- but the inside -- gevalt! 
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[[inner religious feeling can be very refined in persons whogive it awkward outward expression -- sa]]                    
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LOVE

HannaLeah:  I remember you [R. Shlomo] taught that when people areso close, they can't even talk in full sentences.

(You think the people who get divorced loved each other less thanthe people who don't?...The
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THE HIGHEST

"Why did G-d create the world?  Because He loved us so much."[4-3]


If G-d is shining all the light into me, obviusly G-d needs me.
If I build a house for you, obviusly I intend you to live in it.

G-d is as close to me as I am to `Him'. 
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[[my punctuation -- sa]]
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"G-d has no police."

-- sa]]
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INCARNATION

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N.B.:  For the Christians it is a once-in-eternity miraclethat "the WORD  was made flesh".  For Judaism it is a given,for everyone.  (And that may be why for much of Christianity,salvation is seen as requiring Divine Grace, where forJudaism it is the natural goal of all persons, and all mayexpect with diligence and perseverence to achieve it.)  Cf.Ram Das, to his brother in a nut house:  "I say I'm Jesus andthey lock me up; you say it and they pay you to go on lecturetours."  "Because I say that everyone is.")
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"My real need is my being in this world."



Torah...even if I don't know a word, the whole Torah's inside.


(The Ishbitzer said, the greatest bracha is, you should feel athome with the Torah.)

"My real need is my being in this world."

R. Nachman says...Mashiach is coming when we stop talking aboutyesterdays.

The way I operate -- my neshama is in my guf [Ie, you are not justyour neshama].  There is something when the neshama and guf aretogether, and that is called 'me'.

Sometimes you meet a person, and they wanted to do somethingwrong, and their feet won't let them.
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Curiously, I have experienced something like this duringseveral breakdowns, when I found myself nearly physicallyincapable of walking in one direction, though quite able towalk in the other; but I cannot say which direction was ineither my best interest, or in a more general best interest. And on an everyday level, we have all had the experience ofintending to do something, and somehow finding other factorsintervened and diverted us, and then later realizing that wewere most likely saved by sub- or super- conscious forcesfrom an unfortunate outcome (as-it-is-said, 'you will belifted up, lest you dash your foot against a rock' -- Psalm___).
R. Nachman says, the closer you are to someone, the moreyou're dangerous, because the close ones are the ones whokeep us from being ourselves.

When I bring someone flowers, [which are a problematic gift,since they fade in a day; so why don't I bring them a fewnice rocks?] I tell them, one day with you is worth more tome than 2000 eternities.
Davening means suddenly I cleanse my heart, there's anopening, I can stand before G-d.

Why don't people get divorced before the wedding -- becausebefore the wedding it's not contracted.  
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[As R. Zeller pointed out, this makes a nice pun between'contraction' in the sense of tzim-tzum, and the Marriagecontract.]

We're always torn apart between hesed and gevurah.  [Cf.Siddur:  'And unify our hearts to love and stand in aweof...]
.p
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IA.  ON STUDY IN GENERAL

Ishbitzer...If you learn one Torah, you have to learn all theTorahs to get close.
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(I once asked about a point in Wittgenstein's PhilosophicalInvestigtions, and C.D. Rollins answered, 'Ever try to dividean egg?'.  Wittgenstein would say:  'Many paths lead off fromhere in many directions." (PI     ).
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(Moshe says, I don't want to have my name on a Torah that saysJews have to be wiped out -- that makes Jews look bad.) [Referenceto Exodus _________; "or if not, blot me from Your book"]

If you really learn the Torah, then the Torah doesn't say badabout anyone.

(Eliahu haNavi was chosen to announce Messiach because he neversaid anything bad of anyone.)

There is evil in the world because the snake said something badabut G-d.  ((A Midrash says, the snake said to Eve that Adam wastoo old for her, since [according to Midrash?] Adam was 3 hoursolder.))

Snake says:  It's a mitzva to release your anger.[10:1] 
Ok, [so if it's a mitzva] first put on your Shabbos clothes, andthen you yell [if you still can feel like it, with Shabbatconsicousness upon you.] [[That, folks, was a reductio adabsurdum. -- sa]]

Learning Torah not just for oneself, but for all Israel.
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IB.	ON ISRAEL

"The world wants to take away Israel from us because this is G-d'splace -- basically they want to throw out G-d from the world."    

The Rambam says, the world begins with the Holy of Holies [in theSanctuary and Temple] ...the whole world is holy because the landof Israel is in the world.
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[That is:  holiness emanates outward from the holiest spot,into the land as a whole, and into the world as a whole.]
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Whatever happens in Israel, the world is turning over...becauseobviously this is the headquarters.
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IC.  JERUSALEM

In Yerushalim is the place where I realize, when G-d created theworld, He created the world for me.

When you walk away (from the Holy Wall) you take the whole Wallwith you -- the Third Bet HaMikdash.

ID.  MISSIONARIES

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I say:  one mountain, many trails; but (as-it-is-said) 'withone tochas you can't dance at two weddings' -- or at leastthat's  mighty hard, especially if you want to stay human.  Ialso say (as-it-is-said):  'blood is thicker than water'. (Especially in our mid-20th century generations, where theHolocaust and the ('beginning of the', if you insist)Redemption of the land and people of Israel places all ofJewish descent under a uniquehistorical/ancestral/religious/political obligation.
As inter alia Ruth Wisse indicates (Cf. eg The New Republic,4/19/93, defending her book 'If I am not for Myself -- theLiberal Betrayal of the Jews') there are points, if onewishes to try to live as a full human being rather thanmerely as an angel-in-exile, when one must give precedence,over disinterested rational considerations, to theexistential demands of one's particular condition.  (And thatis only how I can rationalize a willingness, and I would say('existential', but also 'transcendentally imperative', andin that `necessarily subjective' sense `objective')obligation,  to serve in the Israeli armed forces despite afundamental belief in pacifism).

I also say:  everyone knows that the Moslems are our cousins(heck, if you're a homesick USA Israeli in Europe, would yourather talk with a Moslem from the territories, or a familyof holy rollers from Georgia); I say, the Christians are ournieces and nephews (so much for Judeo-Christianity).  And itcan be a great escape to play with kids (heck, they even usedto like to dress up in our clothes -- you know, the specialones that we tried to put aside and can't wear again until avery special occasion)  but you shouldn't entirely forgetthat you can't be a kid any longer; one must assume at leasta few adult obligations before going back to pasture.
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"Sometimes missionaries come up to me and say -- `I know G-d -- doyou?'"
Jesus -- for a person who lives in utmost darkness, it's aflashlight -- on Monday and Thursday, when we take out the Torah(it's like psychedelic light)...do you know what the lowliestsoldier feels [in religious awareness]?...go to Germany; bringthem some light [[they're pretty dark there, with 364 days ofdrizzle a year]] 
                 
You can blow you mind over every word of the Torah.  You can blowyour mind over the fact that G-d gave us the Torah.
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That is, from a philosophic standpoint:  as Cavell would say,go up one level of abstraction; instead of taking it forgranted, consider as problematic the prerequiste 'fact'(logical, spiritual, religious, national-mythic (as W. mightsay) or historical (as literalistic orthodox Judaism holds) 
that human beings -- and even more problematically, ourparticular ethnic group, intelligent and likeable enough butnot noticeably more distinguished than any other -- have beengiven the Torah.
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For whenever one discovers something new and good, onewants to share it with all one's friends, not justfamily; and I have repeatedly noticed, to my surprise,that one still encounters barriers between other minds - a curious blindness, or resistance, amongst gentileswho profess themselves eager to learn of Judaism, tosuch simple pleasures as washing one's hands beforestarting a meal, and trying to let go of one'smanipulativeness, at least of the material world, duringa Sabbath.
As R. Zalman says, what's truly esoteric nowadays is notKabbalah -- heck, that's sold like junk jewlery in everypaperback bookshop -- but halachot, which like Poe'spurloined letter are out for everybody to see, andnobody to recognize and acknowlege.
[I'm not just trying to name-drop and keep myselfentertained while I type; I'm trying to suggest how R.Shlomo's ideas, veiled in an everyday style, are wellanchored within the harbours of contemporary secular andacademic thought; and so to commend his work to thosewhose primary affinity is to the latter.  For everyoneknows that, in virtue of his background, training, anddemonstrated ability, he is one of the leadingtraditional Jewish thinkers of this period.  Indeed, onehas long wished that someone with a strong background intraditional Jewish texts, who can recognize andunderstand his myriad references, would annotate histalks from that perspective.
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II.  MITZVOT

If I do a mitzva and it feels like I'm doing it forever, it'sholy.
Sometimes I talk to a person for a minute and that one minute wasforever.

"When G-d said, 'don't kill', suddenly He was shining into us, howprecious life is."
If you're more of a person, yhou also know 'don't kill' means'don't ignore' -- the preciousness of life.

"Why is there no peace in the world -- because they don't knowwhat peace is...how precious people are.

Don't steal...we have no idea how precious it is when somethingbelongs to you

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HALACHA

A person who cant stand Shulhan Aruch [the code of religious law]-- they can't stand tzimtzum.  (They want the Eyn Sof.)

.P
III.  ON PASSAGES IN THE CHUMASH

We have to wipe out Amalek "from under the sky" [shemayim,heavens] (Exodus, 17:14) -- that means `Amalek' is `between' usand the `sky' ... the `Beyond'. 

IV.  PASSOVER, GENERAL

Erev Pesach is yomtov -- because after bedike hametz [searchingout and removing the last hametz (that which is spoiled) from yourhabitation] you're not the same person.

Erev Pesach you daven fast -- fast is -- if I don't know the way,it takes me a long time to get there.

The way the Bobov Rebbe danced  from the baking to the oven...

(Hassidim asked R. Levi Yitzhak what the most important thing wasbefore Pesach.  He said) Make sure that no one yells at the womenwho bake the matzva.

Why did G-d take us out of Egypt.  Because we prayed so much.

Purim is `al lo yodeah' -- I don't know what it is, but I knowit's true.... On Pesach I don't get drunk like on Purim, because Ibrought it down a little bit.
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Ref:  the tradition that on Purim one must become sointoxicated [[though not necessarily on alcohol]] that one'does not know' the distinction between the tzaddik Mordechaiof blessed memory and the adversary what's-his-name]
At the Passover we are to drink 4 cups of kosher wine atfixed points in the Seder. 
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[Kosher grape juice may be substitued or mixed (althoughR. Glazerson reports that R. Moshe Feinstein held thatone should endeavor to drink wine.  
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Nowadays it is accepted to drink more wine duringthe festive meal (that is, after the 2nd but beforethe 3rd cup); I do not know what R. M. Feinsteinheld on this point.)
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If my inside is a slave to Pharoh, it is not Pharoh's fault, it'smy own stupidity. [4-2] 
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[This is the notion that we're not to blame for being limitedby external circumstances; but need never let them tempt usto surrender our inner freedom.  Cf. Whitney Houston's songfor Muhammed Ali:  "No matter what they take from me, theycan't take back my dignity"]]
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Seder night is:  everything is inside still...when it comes tooutside (vessels, kelim) children don't understand it.
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Notice here the compressed combination of imagery typical ofexpert orthodox exegesis (and characteristic of one type ofpoetry):  R. Shlomo combines the Biblical image of thechildren of Israel in Egypt remaining inside their homes onthe first Passover night, with the distinction between innerreligious experience and outward religious form [kelim],refers this to the distinction between the religiousconsciosness of children and adults, and references it to thecentral role of children at the Seder, in a manner thathighlights his deep respect for children.
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I would say that respect for children is one of R.Shlomo's strongest teachings [see eg my excerpts fromhis teachings on children,  eallkids].  If he is leadingprayers and a child cries, he will interrupt (unless itis a section that one cannot interrupt) and not proceeduntil someone assures him that everything is ok.  He isunequivocal on the prohibition against hitting children(my mother taught the same -- she said, a child can'tunderstand that violence); although he is one of themost tolerant (or better, 'compassionate') people I'veencountered (the more so when one realizes that,although he will rarely speak ill or even lightly ofanother, except in the mildest way, he is 'nobody'sfool'), the one thing I have heard him become angry atwas a report that someone was hitting their children.
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At the Seder -- to yell and be angry is everything the Seder isnot.

(If you're out of Egypt, then the Torah has a place for you.)
 
((I'm all of the four sons.))

Ishbitzer says:  You have to look for hametz in all the cracks ofyour soul.

((What is being passed over?  Leaping steps in the spiritualjourney.))

What is matza -- The Torah is getting inside me. (Ishbitzer)

Matza is the greatest light from heaven.  Without tzimtzum, yetthe biggest tzimtzum in the world -- 18 minutes.

Pesach -- the beginning is -- G-d disregards me.

Ishbitzer:  "My own angel of death -- my own mistakes -- I'mhanging on to my yesterday mistakes with all my strength."
(March 24, 1993, 16:09 P.M.)

((So much we want to do for your children, and we only do a littleof it; so much they want to do for us.  When do they give it backto us -- Seder night, when they ask 'ma nishtama'.))
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[Because the Seder cannot proceed until the youngest childasks that question.]
Torah from R. Nachman:
When I ask as an adult I say 'I know everything in the worldexcept this one thing'.  But when a child asks -- I reallydon't know.
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(The destructive force is saying to us -- who needs you.  A childhas this fear.)
"When do we tell our children that we couldn't do without them --Seder night."

Beis Yakov:  People who don't like children, the child they don'tlike the most is the first-born.
(Suddenly it was clear to the children of Mizraim that theirparents didn't want them, and so they died.)

The holiness of Pesach is that G-d jumped over [our] past [sins]

Matza is G-d's light reaching my kishkes.
R. David Zeller:  The Kotzker says, it's not 'pour out your wrath'
(Reference, Hagaddah' 'Pour out Your wrath on the nations thathave not known You), but 'pour out your warmth' [chamas] on thegoyim.

Why is it hard work [at the Seder] -- because I have to makemyself into a vessel for hesed sh'b' hesed [the Sefira with whichwe begin the counting of the Omer on the evening after the (first)day of Pesach].

To a baby you can talk baby-talk, or you can talk much deeper thanyou can talk to an adult.  (So with the Torah.  ((Seder night wedo not talk baby-talk, we talk as babies tallk.)) [my phrasing].
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VA.  PASSOVER/SEDER/AFIKOMMEN

Why are we not permitted to eat after the afikommen?  
Because I need the taste of the ... Light forever. 
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[[Briefly:  The strictly ceremonial and festive meal withwhich once a year Judaism acknowleges the "Passover" is theSeder.  The customary ceremony of the Seder is governed by atext called the "Hagaddah".  To some extent the Seder waspatterned after the feasts at Hellinistic Symposia.  However,at the Seder the closing refreshment -- the afikommen("desert") -- is simply a small piece of matza -- hastilybaked flour with water; the 'bread of poverty'.  That shouldstrike us as problematic.
	The Hagaddah, without explanation nor exegesis, picksonly this tersely-stated rule ("[eat] nothing after thePesach" 
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[lamb, in priestly Temple Times; but in rabbinic postTemple times, eating bread (or during Passover, matza,which is unleavened bread) at the family table stands inplace of offering and in part consuming certainsacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem]
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Some rabbinic opinion holds that offering charity,(itself a commandment), stands in post-Temple placeof those sacrifices that were entirely consumed bythe flames of altar,  not eaten.
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to exemplify the response one would give to a "wise son"[studious young person] who wished to learn all the religiouslaws governing Pesach.

That is the traditional point of discussion from which R.Shlomo's above commentary begins.
(Except that he also knows and presupposes the traditionalcommentaries on this point -- a very extensive literature,largely untranslated.)  
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The exoteric explanation is:  so the last taste in yourmouth as you end the Seder will be the taste of matza.
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(Although strictly speaking the afikommen, whichshould be eaten before midnight, concludes only thefirst half of the Seder; although nothing more iseaten, there are still the 2nd 2 of the 4 cups ofwine to consume.)                                  
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VB.  PASSOVER/SEDER/"WISE SON"

The hochma [Wise Son] wants to know...what is my place inJerusaliim.

(The hochma feels the conflict between the Two and the One.

The hocham feels the Presence of G-d.

The hochma is intellectually the highest, but I tell him, youshould eat nothing nothing after the afikommen, because the tasteshould stay with you.
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Notice that this offers an interesting challenge toempiricist philosophy of religion.  It is not only a matterof intellectual creed (sometimes, as an adolescent in theUSA, I would answer well-meaning Christian friends, 'we areJews because we don't believe that Jesus was the Messiah --but that misses almost the entire point; whilst one ispracticing Judaism, it's scarcely in one's mind at all), norof "faith" (eg 'faith in `the existence of G-d' -- whateverthat would mean!, for it piles incomprhensibility uponincomprehensibility like towering cumulous clouds, and thentries to condense it all into a spiritual vitamin pill! --yet again, this is not what motivates me when I walk intoshul; I go in because they need a minyan (and in philosophyof religion, as in any other ordinary-language analysis, wemust expect to discover, not simple models, but the obvious,inconclusive patterns of everyday experience -- so peopleturn to philosophy in search of exalted comic-stripWeltanschauungen, and the job of the ordinary-languagephilosopher, as of the psychoanalyst to whom clients comeseeking mothering, is to drive them back out again, to followtheir own trail on up the mountain (Rebbe Reb Zusha -- theheavenly court will ask me only, why were you not more likeyour (true) self).  (And so Cf. the tradition, in Zen and inJudaism's approach to converts, that when someone comesasking, you must first discourage them, for fear that theyare seeking to evade not realize their own spiritual path.)
And religion is a matter of doing certain actions, and of aritualistic structure, and of a certain set of (meta-)language-games (all points, as I recall, that the Catholic"Fideists" make, a propos Wittgenstein) -- but there issomething more -- what R. Shlomo is calling a 'taste' (forwestern philosophy, oscillating between empiricism andrationalism, acknowleges ontologically only one of our fivesenses -- sight -- and only one of our cognitive faculties --reason (as distinct from intuition, which is more or less thefaculty of psychic perception I'd guess, and something stillsubtler, which one would expect to find -- a sort of facultyof mystic perception, which may be what R. Shlomo isreferring to as 'taste'). 

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VC.  PASSOVER/SEDER/"WICKED SON" 

"The Angry ('Wicked') [one, or son], what does he say:  `What isthis [religious] service to you?'  ` 

What is bugging the Rosaha ["Wicked Son"}

He is a rasha because he tried to do good and he did not feel
G-d's presence.

The Rosha is a person who tried so hard.

The Rasha realizes G-d is still hiding from him.

(The Rasha wants to serve G-d, and he is a Jew, but his vision ofG-d is so deep, and he didn't find it.)

In all the Rebbes, the Rasha [Wicked Son] (does better than) theHocham [Wise Son].  The Rasha has a bigger neshama than theHocham.
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That is:  in their commentaries on the Hagaddah, the greatrebbes found the character of the 'wicked son' moreinteresting, and in a sense more inviting of compassion, thanthe character of the 'wise son'.

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Ref., Hagaddah, "you shall set his teeth on edge"

I'm telling him, the way you talk, you don't need teeth. 


l2
[That is:  You think you're wordly and sophisticated, but allyou're challenging us with is instant cynicism; you haven'tchewed over and digested all the traditional problems.
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R. Zalman Shachter, as I recall, told once -- in theUSA, mid '70's, maybe the Abode, Cf. also his reprints - of how he began to return to religious Judaism.  Hehad been interred in a work-camp in Vichy France -- hetells a story of how the Nazi camp boss made them alldig up rocks with a pick-ax, in the hot sun, and thenrebury the rocks.  Zalman got so made he slammed hispick into the ground with all his might.  He then lostconsciousness; he thinks he fainted, but I guess hispick hit a rock and bounced back and struck him on thehead.  He lay there all day, no one was allowed to tryto revive him; and came to at evening-time -- Ma'ariv, Isuppose -- when a dog began to lick his face.  (As itsays of Lazarus, this is how dogs show compassion andeffect healing; there is something antiseptic in thetongue. )  After the war Zalman went, as I recall, toAntwerp, where he worked with ultra-orthodox diamondcutters, who would discuss Torah very much of the time,especially in their lunch break.  He deliberately triedto challenge them with the most confrontational,disrespectful questions he could think of.  (And one canimagine that, even then, those were rather goodquestions.)  They would hear him out, without anger, andsay, yes, that question has also been raised in ourtradition by ___________ ......  Some time thereafterZalman studied to become a rabbi, taking smicha fromLubavitch.
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You need so much deeper...but for that you have to use your ownteeth; don't use your Rebbe's teeth.
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Here R. Shlomo is suggesting that many who are disillusionedwith and disaffected from religious Judaism are not (as boththey themselves and many who are at least outwardly religiousimagine) 'non-religious'; rather, they are deeply religiousat heart, but have been left dissatisfied by the sort of'pre-digested', (if I may be so bold (or more precisely,'chutzpadik')), religion commonly taught as normativeJudaism.  -- sa
l1

We have to chew it -- to cut it down -- limitation, tzimtzum -- toget it into us -- because we don't otherwise have the vessels.
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[I'm not sure that this was the context of this remark, butthe implication -- that to be a "wicked son" is to "dowithout teeth" -- to reject the halachot from a longing forthe Eyn Sof -- is intriguing]


Ref., Hagaddah, retort to the 'wicked son', "if you had beenthere, you would not have been redeemed."
Re:  "Had you been there, you would not have been saved"(answer to the Wicked Son.)
You don't say it to the Rasha, but to his father -- what kindof Jewish education did you give to your son, (that he is nowhere but not taken out of Mitzraim).

 ...The way you gave him Yiddishket obviously wasn't deepenough 
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[Note that here, as frequently elsewhere, R. Shlomo has takena problematically strict text and given it an interpretationthat is both deeper and more humane.]                       (The Rasha says:  this is Yiddishkeit? ) ("What is this toyou")  ((-- you eat glatt kosher and yell at your wife?))

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VI.   STORIES 
(A story of how Elijah haNavi appeared as a black truck driver inBrooklyn.)
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	Judaism teaches (based on a one-sentence prophecy fromIsiah, read on Shabbat HaGadol) that the coming of theMessiah will be be heralded by Elijah the Prophet.  Andbecause the Scriptures make no mention of his dying,tradition holds that he never did die; so he is sometimesimagined as living on earth, waiting to be told that it istime to announce the coming of the Messiah, who will bringthe kingdom of heaven on earth.

	At some point, Jewish tradition started imaging Elijah,not as a glorious angel or a regal figure, richly garbed, butas the poorest of the poor -- a beggar with bandaged sores,perhaps.   In typical stories, he may appear to a supposedlypious person and not be recognized (this is a motif which hasrecurred in socially conscious Christian thinkers, withreference to their Messiah ("all's set at six and seven's/wweentertain him always as a stranger/and as at first stillhouse him in the manger" -- 17th. cent.? song).  Or he mayappear to set someone who has lost his trail back on theright path, not be recognized until he disappears.  (I amtold that Islam too has this tradition, in their version ofElijah as Kidder, the 'green man' of the desert, who mayguide lost travelers to an oasis).
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R. Shlomo's story (Yakar, March 24, 1993, about 12:10 P.M.:  Seethe videotape by Natanel Shur, Nachliel; or the tape from Yakar,c/o R. David Zeller, Efrat) is of someone who had become estrangedfrom his traditional upbringing, but kept thinking that he oughtto go to a Mikva.  One day, as he was wandering around the streetsof Brooklyn, a black truck-driver stopped, and said "You Jewish?". He said, Yes.  The driver said, Get in.  He got in.  The driverdrove him somewhere, stopped, and said.  "Get out."  He got out. It was in front of a mikva.  The driver drove off.  He went intothe mivkva (maybe a sort of entering into the depths of thewaters, where one enters fearing to be crushed, overwhelmed,drowned, and may emerge into a transformed, peaceful world, wherejewels of great value lie sparkling at the surface).  At somepoint he thought, I guess that was Elijah haNavi.

4/18, 19:41, up to p13; long way to go.
block out the categories, make a master list, keep truckin'.



