Shlomo Carlebach

Okay, now I want you to know something. The saddest thing is — without saying anything bad, you know — my luggage didn’t make it, and I had brought about 200 books with me — the deepest depths — from the Ishbitzer on dreams. So anyways, I’ll have to rely on my memory from last year, hopefully, or just make it up. What’s memory? You make it up, right? L’Chaim! (Drinks some of the milk he had asked to be brought to him earlier.) From last lifetime.

I want you to know something very very deep. If someone talks to me face-to-face — I’ll tell you as an example. Listen to this. Yesterday I walked on Broadway, and I met this absolutely beautiful girl, right? And she was just so cute and so sweet, and I just fell in love with her very madly — okay, mazel tov. Nothing happens before, nothing after, right?

But you know something else, yesterday I was — yesterday was Shabbos; I couldn’t be on the subway — so Friday, I was on the subway, and for one split second I saw a girl on the other side sitting there and, mamesh, every night I dream about her. What’s deeper?

Or I’ll tell you something else. This is one of the deepest, deepest depths of Reb Nachman. How close do you have to be to a person to tell them something straight? Basically, a stranger can ask me, “How much is one and one?” I’ll tell him “two”. I don’t have to love him; he doesn’t have to love me — I’ll tell him “two”. There is certain language which is only given when you love somebody very much, right? It’s the deepest depths, right? On one hand, it’s maybe not so clear. On the other hand, it’s so much deeper, right?

You know how a Jew makes it in exile? A Jew in exile does not make it because [of] all the G-d revelations he ever had — or he will ever have. A Jew in exile when he goes sobbing, is mamesh in the lowest depths, is crying, is broken, a Jew is making it because of all the dreams. You know what dreams are? You know, I can tell you a dream and you say it’s stupid, right? If you are logic[al], if you are straight, it’s nothing, right?

Joseph comes [to his brothers] and says, “I had a dream I’ll be the King.” Ha! You can laugh in his face, right? Imagine Joseph would have come — “I had a clear vision, a clear revelation — a prophetic vision — that I would be the King of the world.” So that’s what it is, right? Where would Joseph be? He would never become as holy as he is, as deep as he is. He had a dream. So the brothers consider him as if he is crazy, right? But can you imagine how deep the dream was, that he knew it’s not crazy?

How deep it is?

You know, I’ll tell you, I had this absolutely crazy dream — I discussed it with my psychiatrist — I had this crazy dream that there’s a ladder, you know, and like I’m lying on the floor, and there’s a ladder going up from me to heaven. So my psychiatrist discussed it with me, right?

It’s stupid, right? It’s…gevalt! You know, I don’t want to say anything bad, but imagine, G-d forbid, Jacob would have seen a psychiatrist the next day, you know? Where would you and I be? Where would we be? Where would we stand? He’d say, “Listen, you have some kind of complexes, you know, and all kinds of things — ” A dream is so deep, and here I want you to know something. You see, what does it mean, “We are in exile”? To be in exile means that G-d cannot speak to us face-to-face, ’cause officially he’s angry at us, and officially we’re angry at him, right? But you know what’s going on? When nobody’s looking — when nobody’s looking — we are sending love letters to each other, right? You know how deep this is? You know how deep this is? It’s the deepest depth there is.
What’s the whole world telling us? Listen, Jews, you’re on your way out — forget it. What are they telling us now? Forget it. You’re in Israel? It’s a joke. Tomorrow morning the Arabs will drive you out. But gevalt, gevalt, every Yiddele knows — every Yiddele knows — it’s not true, right? It’s not true, right?

Imagine I would come to Yerushalayim, and there’s this beautiful holy Temple, and it’s just real, just, just renovated now by brother Max Cohen from Miami donated the paint. And it’s just so beautiful, and we have an interior decoration, and we go there, and it’s our pride. It’s this beautiful building — how touching would it be? Honestly. And there Rabbi Goren has his office right on the first floor. Really, realistic. Would you shiver when you go there? No. You know why you shiver? ‘Cause it’s broken. It’s broken. And the Zohar kodesh says, even when the Holy Temple will be rebuilt, it will be both broken — and rebuilt.

How could G-d take away the holiness of the brokenness, right? You know what happened to the broken tablets, when Moshe replaced them? You threw out the broken tablets? We have both. Broken tablets? You know why the first tablets didn’t last? Because they weren’t broken. It has to be together — broken and not broken.

So, dreams — G-d reveals Himself in a dream only to broken people. So deep, right? The deepest depths there is. Okay, now I have to tell you something very fast. Why was Joseph the first one to be sold? The first Jew to be going into exile, being a slave, was Joseph. Everybody knew by prophecy — this was clear prophecy to Abraham — that “Your children will be slaves.” And you know what Joseph was praying all his life? Let me be the one for all my brothers. Let me be it for all my brothers. Don’t put it on my father.

And you know, everybody knows, basically the Gemora says that Jacob was supposed to go down to Egypt in chains. [Shabbat 89b] And, mamesh, Joseph did the whole thing for his brothers. But you see what’s so crazy, imagine you walk up to somebody, and you tell them, “I love you the most in the whole world.” And they think, they say, “Huh! I know what you mean. You want to manipulate me, you want to take advantage of me.” Right? So you know, when Joseph said, “I’ll be the King,” what did he mean? He meant, “I’ll carry the whole burden for you.”

You see, an unholy king is someone who is really taking advantage. “You work for me, you’re my slave, and I’m the king.” What’s a holy king? What’s a G-d King? Not that “you’re working for me” — he is working for you, right?

From the series, Reb Shlomo at Congregation Beth Ami, 4676 Mayette Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA 95405 . Sunday, November 30, 1980 (22 Kislev, 5741), Parashat Miketz. (Two days before Chanukah, the week of Parashat Miketz.)
Recorded and transcribed by Reuven Goldfarb.
Transcription dedicated to the complete refuah of Yitzchak ben Leah — Jerry Strauss, Shlomo’s great friend and supporter — who organized the concert and learning at which these teachings were given over.
Copyright held by the estate of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.