My dear friend, the deepest depths of Yiddishkeit is that I am longing for so much and I am so broken that I don’t have it yet. Yet I do have it. The Isbitzer says, if I need a hundred dollars it is because I don’t have it. But for G-d, if crying for the Torah, if crying for Yiddishkeit, it is because I really do have it. You know friends, G-d gave us the Torah on Mount Sinai and the saddest thing in the world is that we had the arrogance to think that we had it. So we lost it. When Moshe Rabbenu broke the tablets, he gave us the Torah again and the Talmud says that both tablets, the whole ones and the broken ones, are lying in the Holy Ark.

We need both.

So basically the laws of the Torah which we receive on Shavuot are not enough to protect us from the Golden Calf. So G-d in His infinite mercy gives us broken tablets –the deepest secret of the Torah, the Torah of Rabbi Akiva and Reb Shimon Bar Yochai. He gives them to us before Shavuot, on Lag b’Omer. And then on Shavuot what we receive is even deeper than the secrets of the Torah, the utmost heavenliness and G-dliness of the Torah. The Gemara says that G-d always gives the medication before the disease. So every Shavuot there is always a possibility of making another golden calf. Maybe last year we did it, maybe we are still doing it. So Lag b’Omer is the day that G-d gave us the secrets of the Torah. You know what the secret is?

The secret is something that fills your heart so much, it fills you with longing, and it fills you with depth. A secret is like a little bit of light beyond vessels. Basically, when G-d created the world, G-d was hiding in the world. G-d is the biggest secret in the world. He is so obvious and yet so hidden. So G-d gives us the secrets of the Torah before Shavuoth. And every Lag b’Omer Reb Shimon Bar Yochai and Rabbi Akiva are giving over to us the deepest depths of the Torah. Reb Zadok Hacohen says, How do you know how much somebody loves you? When somebody loves you, they want to tell you all their secrets. You know what is living on Lag b’Omer? He gives us the deepest depths, how much the Torah loves us, how much we love the Torah. Lag b’Omer we are telling the Torah all our secrets and the Torah is telling us all the Torah secrets. Reb Akiva was longing all his life to give his life for G-d. He had such deep longing for G-d. He was ready to die for G-d, to show that the way that I love G-d is beyond vessels, deeper than everything in the world. A few days after Shavuot we are mekadesh levanah (sanctifying the moon).

Everybody knows that the moon receives the inside light of the sun. Everybody knows that during the day we take care of the outside. We work, we do business. The night is the inside. The Gemara says the night is for learning, especially secrets; the night is full of secrets. Do you know what secrets are? Secrets are: after you hear the secrets you still don’t know them, there is so much more to them. The levanah, the moon, is so deep. The moon is always longing for more. When the moon is full, it is not satisfied. It knows there must be more in the world than just this light that fills it and it begins all over again. So we Yidden get together between the beginning of the month and the full moon to thank G-d for this new light. Every month the moon is new again; the sun is always the same. Inside people are always new. In other words, inside people are always so broken, but they are also always new.

My beautiful friends, I am inviting you all for Kiddush Levanah. The first Kiddush Levanah after Shavuot, whatever we didn’t do on Shavuot, whatever we missed out, we can still do, because it is the month of Shavuot, the moon of Shavuot. It is the light of Shavuot.

You know, Shavuot night we are up all night. We are reading the beginning and the end of the every parsha and tractate. We are connecting ourselves to the beginning and the end because we know the beginning is in G-d’s hands and the end is in G-d’s hands. We pray and hope that we’ll be able to do something in the middle.

The Talmud says: If all the oceans will be ink and all the leaves will be quills to write with, we still could not tell each other the holiness of that night.

And then that morning at dawn we receive the Torah with all our hearts. G-d is telling us, I am really your G-d and I am with you always, always. And you are my people. Let’s be together that night, let’s be together Lag b’Omer and let’s be together at Kiddush Levanah. We should be together, my friends, every Shabbat and every YomTov. And I bless you that you should always have someone to tell your secrets.

Reprinted from Kehilat Jacob News

New York, 5751.

On the one hand I cannot forget what happened in Europe. On the other I know that I have to help rebuild a new world.

What’s a holocaust memorial? Is the last will and testament of the six million to have a memorial? Their last will is that we yidden should be yidden. Unfortunately, many yidden give two million dollars to a holocaust memorial while their own kids don’t care about being Jewish.

Inconsistency in one’s emotions or thinking is a human quality and a very honest expression of one’s humanity. A deceitful person attempts to reconcile contradiction through conniving reasoning and by stretching the truth.

My goal is to turn people on to Yiddishkeit or whatever other religion or spiritual path they were born into. And to make frumm (religious) Jews conscious of our world mission. Orthodox Jews keep G-d’s commandments but have trouble accepting their responsibility to help make this a better world for all of humanity. On the other hand, the enlightened Jews who came out of the ghetto sought to achieve social responsibility but completely neglected the commandments.

Rav Kook taught that the so called secular Jews by settling in and building the Holy Land, were guarding the body of the Jewish people, while the religious Jews were watching its soul. Today the body of the Torah, the laws, are being guarded by the religious Jews, while the soul of the Torah, the fire of its teachings are being watched by the so-called secular Jews.

We orthodox Jews have to deliver G-d’s message to the entire world and that’s why I travel to a place where there aren’t that many Jewish people now. That’s why I came to Poland. It’s a place that has especially bad memories for our people. But that’s the very reason that it makes Poland a prime choice for change. In the Bible we find that Shechem is the city where Dina was raped. Years later it was the city where the brothers sold Joseph and the split of the twelve tribes began. But it’s also the headquarters for the tribe of Joseph who symbolizes the start of the redemption.

So the greatest tribute we can offer to the Six Million is to return to the place of their eternal rest and swear to them that we shall dedicate ourselves to spreading their values and their dreams to the entire world. Holocaust memorials have been turned into a business by people who haven’t the slightest idea of who the pre-holocaust Jews were and what they stood for. We cannot allow assimilated Jews who speak in an alien tongue be our spokespeople to the world. We must address the world in our own Divine language. If I let out tztzis and payus everywhere, then when I return to Germany, I let them out even longer. I was in Hamburg once and a Jewish lady told me that I wasn’t in Jerusalem where I could let my religion hang out this way. I told her that in all the times I’ve been back to Germany, no German ever made such remarks to me. Her comments are, cholila, Nazi-like. The Nazis wanted to wipe out our people and she wants to wipe out our religion. Another time, in Hamburg, I walked into a restaurant with a German TV reporter. He saw me eat some fruit and told me, thank G-d you eat kosher, that he had interviewed a famous Israeli pianist the week before, who ordered ham and cheese. I felt a sigh of relief, he told me. Thank G-d, the Fuehrer didn’t succeed and there are still Jews who are proud to be Jews.

We frummer Yidden can make such a Kiddush haShem with our behavior, that we can inspire the whole world. But first we have to clean up our own act. A little Israeli boy once told me that the reason he doesn’t go to a Jewish school is that he lives near a yeshiva and he hears the children crying whenever they get beaten by the teachers.

Any parent or teacher who hits children is, G-d forbid, keeping Der Fuehrer’s way alive! G-d’s words can be taught to our children and spread throughout the world only in a loving way that is completely free of all anger and hatred.Majdaneck, Poland 5749

Originally transcribed for Connections Magazine by Rabbi Sam Intrator

How does a person know the taste of joy?   We are living between two worlds.

We live in the world of thinking and in the world of beyond thinking.

The Tree of Knowledge level means “everything is thinking”.

The tree of life level means beyond thinking (a first flash).

If you only live on a thinking level you never put your life together….

Beyond thinking goes much deeper.

Love does not come from thinking.

It’s so much deeper.

Doing a friend a favor without hesitation is also beyond thinking.

How much does a person have to work on himself to know when to think and when not to think?   Why does Rosh Hashanna come before Yom Kippur? Rosh Hashanah is like the tree of life.

It’s beyond thinking.

The whole value of doing teshuva before Rosh Hashanah is that something inside of me wakes up.

Yom Kippur is all thinking.

Every one of the six million Jews had a flash from God: LEAVE! A German person told me, “I was a spy for Russia.

One night at two am, I knocked on the door of my neighbors and told them “they are arresting you at three am.

He laughed in my face.

I had to tell this to another person.”   In 1967 we came back to the Holy Wall.

It was the awakening of Rosh Hashanah.

At this time we must cleanse ourselves from anger.

We are playing with our lives if we are angry.

G-d is building a new world and what are you doing — yelling! It’s of utmost importance that parent’s don’t yell at their children on Rosh Hashanah.

Yelling is destroying the world!   How do we cleanse our hearts from anger and fill our hearts with more joy? When we stand before G-d we have to stand straight.

Standing straight means my head is on top of my shoulders.

It means that I’m listening — my head is connected to G-d.

We hardly know what people are really saying to us! If we are CONNECTED TO ABOVE we know what to say to people.

We need to pay attention to the red lights and the green lights.

Whatever we need to fix can be fixed in one second if we pay attention to the moment.

To know the moment is so deep! Not every moment is meant for getting married — they call out in heaven the moment you are getting married.

A wedding is like the tree of life.

I don’t love you because I THOUGHT.

When you meet your mate you are beyond thinking — you become completely cleansed of anger when you get the first flash.
How can I make someone else dance at my wedding? If I’m really happy with my joy, others will dance at my wedding.

When the bride and groom are not happy, then there is no desire to dance when people are fill with anger.

Between husband and wife — if you think, you’ll never make it! Marriage counseling needs to be connected on a “beyond thinking” level to get rid of anger…

The Shofar doesn’t come from thinking: the Shofar has no words.

It comes from the deepest deepest depths…

The soul operates on the level of the first fig.

The Isbitzer tells a Torah of the greatest joy being to come back to the Holy Land.

It was the greatest thing to take the first fruit and come back to the Holy Temple.

Imagine Michele the slipper coming with his first fruit of one fig! Baron Rothschild comes with ten thousand figs.

Word gets around that Michele is coming with one fig for his fruit for the holy temple.

Baron Rothschild is also coming with his ten thousand figs to Yerushalyim.

Both are coming with their first fruits.

Michele thinks inside– “Baron Rothschild squeezed the blood out of poor shleppers like me to get his ten thousand figs– I won’t dance with Baron Rothschild.

Michele was not happy with his one fig.

(When people brought their first fig — you don’t know what jealousy was!) The problem of the world is people aren’t happy with their portion.

How much a person has to cleanse him self to know when to think and when not to think.

It must start with the first flash in your head — without thinking.

The soul operates on the level of the first fig.

People whose lives are not so good do not bring their first fig to the Holy temple.

What is the greatest ANTI first fig? The arch enemy of G-d is when you don’t listen to the first flash of your heart.

Imagine in Sanz do you think that people didn’t listen to the inner words of the Rebbe? The greatest thing is to teach each other to listen to the first flash.

You don’t listen when your heart is full of anger.

Anger destroys everything inside and you lose touch of the little holy prophesy.

The Isbitzer says we must cleanse ourselves of anger.

To cleanse myself from anger I have to start first to fill my heart with joy.

Only a heart that is full of joy can be void of anger.

Anger destroys everything in the world.

It is hard to tear out anger from your heart.

Imagine you wipe out Amalak, that you have cleansed yourself of anger.

When Michele with one fig and Baron Rothschild with ten thousand are dancing together! Gevalt! Israel is only given to us completely when we have cleansed ourselves from anger.

Anger is still evident in Yerushalyim.

Cleanse yourself from anger at the Holy Wall.

Everybody knows that there’s nothing wrong with the tree of knowledge, that it is okay to think and to use your brain.

Just know what comes first.

First Adam should eat from the tree of life — the first fig — then he should eat from the tree of knowledge.

Wishing everyone the sweetest and most joyous New Year.

Transcribed by Michele Garner for Connections Magazine Issue.

Fall 1988.

From a class given by Reb Shlomo in Chana Klemberg’s  home.

Machshava means what I’m thinking with my head.

Hirur the Gemara always says, is what king in my heart.

In my head, my thoughts change every split second, and even if I think the same thing, I don’t think of it the same way. Then there’s “hirhur be libo” – you know I can walk around with one thought in my heart my whole life, and the more real I am, the less it changes. And this is so deep, like the Gemara says; my heart is only telling my heart.

Now let’s talk about the tribe of Issachar – they know what to do in the moment. This is very important. A lot of people know what they have to do always – but what do you have to do in this moment? We were learning it at Purim – why is the megillah called a book and a letter? If I love someone very much, do I send them my book? A book is for the whole world … but a letter – this is from my heart. Remember what Amalek said to us just after we left Egypt. His vibrations made us so cold; only 40 days since the miracles of Egypt and we were so cut off that we made the golden calf. Amalek says to you, “Yeah, religions beautiful, G-ds beautiful, the ‘always’ you have, but the moment…” I know what G-d is telling to all the Jews, to the whole world, but what is He saying to me?

The truth is the Ribbono Shel Olam is sending each of us a letter every moment but you’ve got to know how to read it. And this is Issachar. Somebody says, “I don’t know what to do.” Watch the signs. How do you know how you are to somebody? It’s how well they read your signs.

The Izbitzer asks,” What’s the letter Vav?” Most of the letters need other letters to pronounce it – aleph is aleph lamed pe, gimmel is gimmel mem lamed. Vav is the one letter that I only need the same word to pronounce it. This means that nothing foreign gets to the inside of my heart. The two Vavs represent Emet and Tiferet. The Vav starts up in heaven and comes straight down, non- stop because the truth is non-stop. We have to know the truth in our heart and know the beauty in our hearts. But did you ever see anything uglier than someone talking about their own beauty? How do you make somebody else beautiful, by giving them honor, right? Kavod knows no words, it comes from the heart. When the students of Rabbi Akiva couldn’t make each other beautiful, so to speak, the month itself couldn’t bear it. This month, Nature is mamish us how beautiful the world can be.

We have to work our whole life on this one letter – the Vav – truth and beauty. When Moshe Rabbenu came down from Mt. Sinai he knew Am Yisroel’s neshamahs were very high, but their heads were in the wrong place, so he had to break the tablets. But what did the Golden Calf teach us? It was the end, and Moshe Rabbenu went right back up the Mount, back to the beginning. Gevalt, Hashem, I don’t want to learn from the Golden Calf this year; teach me how to learn right from the beginning.

Pesach and the redemption from Mitzrayim is G-d’s revelation. Sefiras ha- Omer means, what am I doing with it? Everybody has to count in order to fix his own neshamah. In one ways waiting for G-d’s , His revelation, and in another I have to search and trust my own heart in the deepest way. lyar is the fixing of the heart. Nissan is the fixing of the head – a slave is listening only to his head. What does it mean to be in exile? It’s being so petty. Every year we are fixing again leaving Egypt until we receive the Torah. But this year I want to receive the Torah without making a golden calf.

Originally published in Kehilat Jacob News New York, Iyar 5746.

According to Beis Shammai, the first (Rosh Hodesh) is Rosh Hashona (New Year of Trees), and according to Beis Hillel, the fifteenth.

What’s happening? Listen to this.

What’s “beitah — stuffing”? Why can’t I chew? According to the Arizal, every month corresponds to a letter of the Hebrew alphabet and to one of the twelve tribes.

This month, the letter is “tsaddi” — whose letters stand for “Amha Kulom Tszddikim — Your entire nations righteous”.

Listen to this: The holy Izhbetzer says that a Tsaddik is someone who helps you get your outside shining, who gets your outside shining into your inside.

The inside– we have it already.

The only thing, sadly enough, when it comes to the outside, we’ve lost the shine.

An awesome Torah.

It’s so deep, you know, it’s beyond words.

The Tsaddik is one who gives you the vessels, that your outside should be vessels for your insides.

What happens to most people? Inside they’re a gevaldt, right? But their outside has absolutely no vessels for what they have inside.

So the inside gets lost.

You know what the Izhbetzer says? The moment we got out of Egypt we make Moshe Rabbeinu so much trouble.

We do it all wrong.

In Egypt we never did anything wrong.

Why now? In Egypt, everything was “inside”.

Inside, you don’t do wrong.

Listen to this.

Imagine, without saying anything bad, when somebody gets divorced.

After getting married or before? You know, on a joke level, someone once told me, he wants to get divorced first and then married– why should he ruin his marriage after? Ok, it’s a joke.

But you know what it is? What’s marriage? Marriage is connecting your outside to the inside.

Inside, it’s ok, inside I connect.

The outside, mamash, day to day life.

Washing negel wasser, brushing your teeth — outside.

That’s what summer is all about.

Summer is the inside coming outside.

Ok now listen to this.

Awesome, awesome.

Everybody knows that this month is the fixing of the beginning of the downfall of everything.

The snake tells Eve, Listen to this, deepest depths.

You know what G-d told you not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge.

That’s how G-d became G-d.

Listen to the deepest depths.

Do you know what brother snake is saying? What do you think G-d is about? He’s a famous kabalist.

He took an intensive weekend in Kabala.

Do you really think G-d is anything special, something awesome? Nothing.

You eat an apple.

You eat a PhD in Kabala and you have it.

What is “stuffing”? No inside.

Just stuff it in.

Who cares, right? Holy stuffing is the other way around.

I want the inside.

I want the holiest to shine into me.

I don’t want the outside to interrupt from the inside.

G-d should put it into me the way it really is.

Ok, now here comes a really deep Izhbetzer Torah.

What’s the difference between a cute little vegetable and a tree? How come a vegetable is dead when it’s done? A tree can live for hundreds of years.

He says the deepest Torah.

The tree prays to G-d; please make something out of me.

You know what’s praying the most? And this is one of the top ten Izhbetzer Torahs.

It’s good to remember.

How come one apple tree tastes so good and another one not? When the apple seed is praying before G-d the very last second before it’s completely disintegrated it’s the prayer of the deepest depths.

And if its prayer is not so deep…There you have two trees.

I mean the depths of this Torah are awesome.

Gevaldt, it’s the very last prayer we say before we leave the world…

A vegetable prays a cute little prayer.

A vegetable grows and then just stops…

But an apple seed, it prays so much.

Its every second.

It can’t stop.

The apple seed’s prayer is a “forever” prayer.

So the tree lives forever because this seed prayed so hard.

Shvat is the Rosh Hashanah L’Elanot, the new year– the headquarters– of the trees.

Now listen to this, it’s so deep.

A vegetable when it disappears doesn’t cry.

It says, “I had my day.

I’m happy.

I had a summer.

I had a good time on the earth, saw the sun, went to the supermarket, ended up on Shabbos in the chulent…Halivei (it should only be).Do you know what the tree is crying out? The tree is at is end, each year.Listen to this.

The tree when it reaches the end, mamash, all its prayers are rising up again.

The tree prays all its prayers again.

Awesome.

I want to tell you something very very deep.

Imagine I need coffee.

I say, “Please G-d, give me some coffee.” And G-d answers me, “Ok, I’ll get you some coffee”.

But when I pray for something very deep, my prayer is all that there is.

The more I need something from G-d, the deeper the depths my prayer touches my neshama.

And that prayer touches all the prayers which I ever prayed in this lifetime and perhaps other lifetimes as well…

what do we know…

You want the real truth.

I don’t know.

You see there are two types of Torah — from the Tree of Knowledge and from the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Knowledge Torah, cute…

the Tree of Life Torah — beyond choice.

Don’t choose.

Just stuff it down.

I don’t have words to explain it — it’s the deepest Torah…

So deep…What is Seder night all about? Seder night, G-d is mamash giving me His light.

What is the deepest freedom in the whole world? You know what our problem is? We take the deepest holiest thing and we cut them short.

Chew here, chew there, and change it all so that it fits…

What is Kadesh about — the first item in the Seder — what do we do with the cup? Everyone is chewing it down from all sides so that it fit…You want to love someone the most? Stop chewing! What is the fixing? Can you swallow it without chewing it? Take it in, not like Esau.

Esau wants to swallow up the whole world.

What is winter all about? G-d is putting something in the trees beyond chewing.

A tree cannot taste.

Rav Tsadok haCohen tells us that during winter G-d gives us something so holy, it is beyond our vessels.

Since it’s beyond our vessels, from Outside it looks — oy! — Stupid.

Reb Tsadok haCohen says winter is the highest.

The only thing, I’m not enough in touch with my Inside to know what is really so bad.

You know, sometimes, between people, husband and wife, parents and children, you’re angry at each other, you yell at each other.

But when you think you are far away, that is the time when you are really the closest.

Reb Nachman says that if you’re so close that you can be angry at somebody, then gevaldt, are you close! When you’re so close that you can even hate somebody, then gevaldt, are you close, right.

Gevaldt you are so close.

And if you’re already that close, Rebbe Nachman tells us, when you are angry at another person, at that moment G-d gives you the vessels to fix his/her soul, in the deepest, deepest way.

Imagine we are angry at our children.

Gevaldt we can fix their souls forever.

Gevaldt, gevaldt…Everybody knows that the tribe of the month of Shvat is Asher.

Barukh m’banim Asher — the blessing of Asher is children.

You know when a baby is born, he can’t chew.

Do you know why? Children don’t just want a little milk from their mother at feeding time.

They want their mother to give them over their heart, their soul, everything that there is.

What is Asher’s blessing? Asher had the most children.

You know, sometimes you go to school and the way they teach you to be a Jew is all chewing.

It’s so stupid because they think children are so stupid.

You know what? The truth is just the opposite! Asher has the blessing of children.

Asher has the vessels to stuff children.

Don’t chew.

When it comes to food, maybe they swallow it.

When it comes to something really deep and holy, they chew it down…

to nothing.

And here let me tell you something awesome.

You know what it means to chew? Chew it in, chew it out.

Chew it again.

Tree of Knowledge.

Why are Shevat and Adar the last two months of the year? Because Nisan, Pesach is already the month of Redemption, Moshiach, no chewing.

When it starts to grow again, do you think people who chew so much are growing? Yeah they grow, but how much are they growing? Could you say humanity has grown unbelievably since the Second World War? It hasn’t grown an inch.

Right? You know it also says of Asher, “Tovl b’shemen raglav” — he immerses his feet in oil”.

What does Raglav (feet) really mean — his habits? It means Asher has no habits.

His wisdom is the deepest wisdom.

Everything Asher does is done with the deepest consciousness.

His habit is to immerse in the Torah.

Sadly enough, we do everything out of habit.

And what is my biggest habit, my biggest chewing — cutting someone down from Heaven.

You can even love as a habit.

Imagine I meet a girl, right, and I’m madly in love with hereafter one day.

After a week I marry her.

Ok, now it’s a habit.

What happened –I chewed it down to nothing.

But Asher is so deep.

No habits.

And listen to this.

What do we do — we give over to our children our habits.

Everything we do is by habit.

I’m a Jew by habit, you be a Jew by habit, too.

I love people out of habit; you love people out of habit, too.

I bless you.

I bless myself.

I bless all of Israel this Tu B’Shvat, with the blessings of Asher, Barukhm’banim v’tovl bashemen raglov.

I bless us all with the blessings of children.

That we immerse ourselves, we immerse our children in the deepest depths, beyond habit.

Yerushalyim, Shvat 5741.

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.

I mean the depths of this Torah is awesome. Gevaldt, it’s the very last prayer we say before we leave the world… A vegetable prays a cute little prayer. A vegetable grows and then just stops… But an apple seed, it prays so much. It’s every second. It can’t stop. The apple seed’s prayer is a “forever” prayer. So the tree lives forever because this seed prayed so hard. Shvat is the Rosh HaShona L’Elanot, the new year– the headquarters– of the trees.

Now listen to this, it’s so deep. A vegetable when it disappears doesn’t cry. It says, “I had my day. I’m happy. I had a summer. I had a good time on the earth, saw the sun, went to the supermarket, ended up on Shabbos in the chulent… halivei (it should only be).

Do you know what the tree is crying out? The tree is at is end, each year. Listen to this. The tree when it reaches the end, mamash, all its prayers are rising up again. The tree prays all its prayers again. Awesome.

I want to tell you something very very deep. Imagine I need coffee. I say, “Please G-d, give me some coffee.” And G-d answers me, “Ok, I’ll get you some coffee.” But when I pray for something very deep, my prayer is all that there is. The more I need something from G-d, the deeper the depths my prayer touches my neshama. And that prayer touches all the prayers which I ever prayed in this lifetime and perhaps other lifetimes as well.

Background

Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica (1804-1854) was a Hasidic thinker and founder of the Izhbitzer dynasty of Hasidic Judaism. Rabbi Leiner is best known for a doctrine of radical determinism: all events, including human actions, are absolutely under God’s control, or as Rabbinic discourse would phrase it, by “hasgachah pratit.” His second most famous idea is that if everything is determined by God, then even sin is done because God determines it.

One of his most cited comments is on Leviticus 21:1 None shall defile himself for any [dead] person among his kin. Rabbi Leiner read the verse as a warning against the defilement of the soul. The soul is defiled when it is infected with the bitterness and rage that comes with senseless suffering and tragedy. Those who — like the Kohanim— would serve God, are commanded to find the resources to resist the defilements of despair and darkness. Despair is the ultimate denial of God, and surrender to darkness is the ultimate blasphemy.

Photo

First Page of Mei Hashiloach, the Commentary on the Torah by Rabbi Mordechai Yosef of Isbitza (1800-1854)

What makes us so perverted? We put so much work into our little piece of bread. What do people do for the few rubles they make? They put their whole heart and soul into it, and each time they do, they become more and more slaves. The Matza we eat on Pesach doesn’t take much time to make. We put the least amount of time into our food, and the rest of the time we have is for doing great things, to be free.

When you eat the Matza you really have to be with it, you can’t talk or joke. The piece has to be really big, and you sit and mamash eat Matza. Once a year there is a mitzvah to eat, we are commanded to eat Matza. Okay. It is also a mitzvah to eat on Shabbos, but it is not on the same level. On Shabbos we have to be happy, oneg Shabbos, so we make ourselves happy by eating. On Seder night we fulfill the biggest mitzvah in the world when we are eating Matza. The holy Sanzer would sit after the Seder, and put his hands on his stomach, and say “Ay! Tonight my stomach did so many mitzvos!”

The Afikomen, the last piece of Matza is realty not from this world. We put it away, we hide it, and then we eat it. It is coming from a completely hidden world. When we eat the Afikomen all our prayers are answered in that moment.

On Pesach we celebrate freedom, which means that G-d in Heaven opens the gates of freedom. This world is just a vessel for higher worlds, so something is happening in Heaven on Pesach night, and actually the whole month of Nisan, the month of freedom. We see all of nature becoming free. All the little seeds who were sitting under the earth and crying are now coming out, becoming free. Everything begins to grow.

There is a voice in the universe which says, “Let there be man”, and there is another voice which says, “Let there not be man”. These two voices struggle inside every person. The voice which says, “Let there not be man” wants to destroy man, says that he is worthless, he’s no good. What we don’t know is that we don’t really hate man – we try to hold back life itself when we say “He’s no good”. It is the voice inside us which doesn’t want man to be.

The Ishbitzer says this is why winter comes to the world. The voice which wants to stop life becomes too strong for a time. Then the voice which says “Let there be man” becomes strong again, and we have springtime, Pesach.

Why do we have to eat every day, over and over again? Nature doesn’t really trust, because she knows that we have something inside ourselves which wants to destroy life. So nature gives its life – an apple, or some grain we can make into bread, but only enough for a few hours or a few days, because the earth doesn’t completely trust man to listen to the voice which does say “Let there be man”.

On Pesach we celebrate the power of giving life. The Zohar calls Matza “nahama dmehemenusa”, bread of faith. It is the fruit of the Tree of Life, before Adam sinned. One fruit is enough to give you life completely so you don’t have to eat over and over again. If man would only really have faith, one piece of Matzah would be enough to last him for his whole life.

This is also why the last meal on the last day of Pesach is called Mashiach’s seuda, the feast of the Mashiach. When the Mossiach comes one piece of Matza will again be enough to give life to a person, because the earth will be able to trust man again.

House of Love and Prayer San Francisco, 5733