                     ....  IMAGINE

Not for commercial redistribution without the permission
of the Holy Beggars of the House of Love and Prayer

San Francisco, Iyar 5732

Transcribed by Steven Maimes
Reb Shlomo speaking

    There is a very beautiful saying In the Talmud which says that heaven
and earth would like to kiss each other, but how can heaven and earth
kiss each other If the people on earth don't kiss each other. So every
kiss you give to someone else can bring heaven a little closer.

.... Elijah the prophet took a little walk on the beach of the world,
somewhere where the waves are, where the sand is waiting, and he
saw a little fisherman. Elijah asked the fisherman, the sweet holy
fisherman, have you studied G-d's word? Have you studied the five
books of Moses? Have you studied the Prophets? Have you studied
the Talmud? Have you studied all the mysteries of the world? The
eyes of the little fisherman begnn to shine with tears, and he said,
Elijah, holy Prophet, believe me, I tried, believe me I tried, I have
tried so hard but my mind is not strong enough, the Almighty has not
blessed me with such deep understanding to fathom His holy words.
So Elijah the prophet asked him: Little fisherman, tell me are you a
good fisherman? And suddenly his eyes began to glow with joy, and he
said, "Believe me, Elijah, I'm the best fisherman on the coast." And
Elijah the prophet began to cry and his tears mingled with the ocean.
He said: "fisherman. do you know why you are such a good fisherman?
Because you know that life depends on fishing. If you only knew that
your life depends on knowing the word of G-d you could have been the
greatest scholar in the world. And Elijah the prophet is still crying
because is not this world a ocean? Are we not all drowning in this
ocean? We need good fishermen to bring us back to the sand, to the
beach of G-d. So if you want to become a little fisherman, a pure
little fisherman. we need people to study G-d's word, the truth, words
are full of light. When you meet Elijah the prophet tell him I know
one word. but thls one word carries me for a whole lifetime.

  G-d gives us signs all the time. We just don't want them. Remember
the story? Someone came to the holy Baal Shem Tov, and the Baal
Shem Tov told him that divine providence Is so strong, whenever a
wind blows, divine providence knows exactly where every leaf has to
fall. Divine providence Is on every leaf, knows exactly where this leaf
has to fall. And this leaf has to fall there. So someone says to him, I
can't believe that! Divine providence? G-d In heaven has plans for
every little leaf? After a hurricane, where every leaf should fall? I
can't believe that. The Ball Shem Tov says, you can't believe It? You
don't want to believe it. So he keeps on saying.- no, I can't believe it.
The Baal Shem Tov says, "You can't? You don't want to." That was it. So
he walked away. He walks on the highway and there is a little peasant
sitting on top of the hay on his wagon, There he has to make a little
U-turn, he doesn't make It so good, the whole wagon tips over, the hay
falls down, the horse falls over the wagon, and he is all alone on the
highway. So he sees this man walking and he asks him, will you please
help me turn my wagon over and help my horse up? This great rabbi
thinks, I can not stoop that low to help a little peasant. He says: "No, I
can't. So the peasant got very angry; he had a whip in his hand. He gave
him a strong whip over his face, and he said: "You can't? You don't want to!"

I had one great teacher, he was one of the greatest in the world. I
remember we learned one page of Talmud at one time for six weeks,
every word was shining. But then, how long can you go on, so we
went on to the next page. One morning I come into his little office,
and I see he Is learning the page we were just leaving. He was sitting
over it and he was in so deep concentration, he blocked out everything
he ever knew before, like starting, all over again, real darkness. but
the pre-light darkness, So I said to him,"Rebbe, we learned this page
for six weeks!" "The first thing," he says, if you ever want to
understand anything, you have to know that what you understood
yesterday has nothing to do with understanding today."

One old Jew says to another, "why do Jews always answer with a
question?" Answer A why shouldn't they answer with a question?
Answer B: Why? Is there another way?


....The truth Is you cannot be a prophet without the utmost,
unbelievable, most infinite imagination. A person who has no
imagination can never be a prophet. You can be the holiest man in
the world, but if you don't have any imagination - doesn't work.
What is really a holy soul? Someone who has great imagination.
Take Reb Nachman - just to make up the story of the seven beggars
takes the holiest imagination in the world. Or the story of the
master of prayer. Way out imagination, right? What Is the
difference, i'm not knocking it, between the great holy rabbis who
only knew gemora and those who were the great kabbalists?
Imagination. The more your imagination works. the closer you
feel to the secrets of the world. The real truth Is that to learn
gemora properly you also need imagination the most way out
imagination you can put in every word of the gemora. But this is
already if you are on the level, because then it becomes also a secret.
The holiness of the soul is really the holiness of imagination. What
is a person who Is really tied onto this world imagining? What is the
whole thing of believing In the Messiah or not believing in the
Messiah? It is a question of imagination, right? A person says,
listen, I see the world. People believe In money, people believe in
war. You will tell me that suddenly some day the Messiah is coming
and on a donkey! - he'll blow a little trumpet, the whole world will
come running, and everybody will say, ich ves, "Shalom Alehem!"
It's crazy! It's a question of imagination. If you have good
imagination why not? That's all there is to it. Why not?

....Why are we dreaming at night? Because at night the only thing
which we have is imagination. And the greatest vessel for dreams
is imagination. Reb Nachman says the most way out thing -- the
strongest imagination that you need is to believe that G-d created
heaven and earth, and to believe that you really need imagination.
You look at the world and you see a solid world, you need the
strongest and holiness imagination that G-d created heaven and
earth. Reb Nachman says that all the holy tzaddikim, all the holy
people, they had this strong imagination. And if you have this
tremendous imagination not only can you receive dreams but you
can interpret dreams and even uplift someone else's dreams.