Reb Shlomo taught us that when we stay up all Shavuot night and learn Torah we give ourselves the strength to be fearless and to face everything that G-d puts in front of us. Let this Shavuot mark a new beginning to give us strength to begin all over again. Let this Shavuot help us understand that the deepest holiness is how we pray for our children.

Here are some of Reb Shlomo’s teachings for the Shavuot.

• Shavuos: Putting a little bit of Heaven into our lives
• Shavuot: Vessels to contain G-ds Light
• Shavuot: Opening gates between heaven and earth
• Lag B’Omer, Shavuot and Kiddish Levanah: You should always have someone to tell your secrets
• Shavuot: The Holiness of Shavuot Night
• Vav: Truth and beauty
• Ruth: the soul that really died for people

Reb Shlomo taught us the some of us are so worried that our children should be religious. He taught us to first make Yidden out of them. The deepest holiness of us Jews is not only in the way we keep Shabbos and eat matza. The deepest holiness is how we pray for our children.

Here are some of Reb Shlomo’s teachings for the month of Siwan.

• Shavuos: Putting a little bit of Heaven into our lives
• Shavuot: Vessels to contain G-ds Light
• Shavuot: Opening gates between heaven and earth
• Lag B’Omer, Shavuot and Kiddish Levanah: You should always have someone to tell your secrets
• Shavuot: The Holiness of Shavuot Night
• Vav: Truth and beauty
• Ruth: the soul that really died for people

Look at our civilized world with all its infinite knowledge: it’s a dead world. Peace without being connected to the Torah doesn’t last and has no meaning,

You know, when I see an anti-Semite, I’m sad. But when I see a Jew, who doesn’t know what it is to be a Jew. I feel destroyed and heartbroken. Every year a new Torah is coming from heaven. It’s the same Torah but so much deeper and so much more alive. What we didn’t do in a lifetime, we can do Seder night. This year, Seder night, we will be up all night learning, praying and singing, initiating a new world which cannot be destroyed, the big world of all mankind and the little world of you and me

The Torah is from Heaven. Not from a Heaven which is far from earth, but from a Heaven which is right here, the Torah Heaven. It’s not a light which can be darkened by darkness, it is the light of the Torah which turns the darkness into light.

On Shavuos, the Torah says, “G-d came down from Heaven.” On this night, in this early morning, G-d is coming to every individual Jew and through us, hopefully to the whole world, to put a little bit of Heaven into our lives, Please come and stay up with us all night until dawn. We can’t do without you! We need all of Israel and all of Israel with us. Please sleep the afternoon before and be ready!

May the light of Shavuos go with us all year! If you don’t know how to carry it, G-d is giving out shopping bags on request.

Love from Mount Sinai and Jerusalem.

New York, Sivan 5754

Reprinted from Cong Kehilath Jacob News

The Torah is not a book. It is not words, it’s the light from beyond, it’s the most heavenly revelation, But night and, especially, the one hour before dawn are the holy of holiest. According to our holy tradition, all of nature, the entire cosmos, stood still when G-d told us “I am your G-d”. It is a must for all of us to be together at the holiest of all nights so we will learn from midnight to dawn. With great joy and fire, it will not be a learning with our heads alone, it will be taking in the Torah into the deepest most eternal chambers of our soul. Can’t wait to see you on these holy moments.

New York, Sivan 5753

Reprinted from Cong Kehilath Jacob News

But Shavuot has changed the whole world in the most unbelievable way. Because on Shavuot G-d opened gates between heaven and earth. Until Mount Sinai there was no bridge between heaven and earth. On Shavuot heaven came down to earth. Each time we do something good, we bring more heaven into the world. So the closeness of us Jews is to fill the world with G-d’s heavenly light.

Our holy rabbis reveal to us that although the rest of the world didn’t show up at Mount Sinai, didn’t hear G-d’s voice, they all heard the echo. You know what a good Jew is? A Jew is someone who is the microphone for G-d’s voice. The real Jew is somebody who has G-d’s microphone in his heart to let the world hear the most most beautiful echo of G-d’s voice. Let it be clear to us that in spite of all the evil in the world that wants to disconnect the earth from heaven, our microphone is getting stronger by the minutes You know what the Six Million did in the gas chambers? They put new batteries into our microphones.

I have the privilege a little bit to see the world. There is an awakening in the world. People want more than to hear just G-d’s echo — they want to hear G-d’s voice. So the second day of Shavuot we read the story of our holy mother Ruth who is a messenger from the whole world to Jerusalem. She opened a bridge between the echo and the voice. I would like to be there — you, me, and all our children — when the whole world will come to Jerusalem. Then we’ll hear G-d’s voice again. But then it will be more than just hearing G-d’s voice. We will BE G-d’s voice. When you love somebody the most, when you see them you hear them, when you hear them you see them.

New York, Sivan 5752

Reprinted from Cong Kehilath Jacob News

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.

“They slept that night,” the Alexandrer Rebbe answered, “because of their great humility. They had learned humility from Moses who was the most humble man on Earth. On the night before the revelation each family member thought to himself, “G-d will reveal himself to all the Jews but not to me and my family because we really don’t deserve it” All the parents told their children on the night of Shavuot, “let’s not go tomorrow morning to the revelation we will be the only ones who will be sent home by Moses, telling us that we are not ready yet.”

The Alexandrer Rebbe then asks a second question. “Why do we behave as if their decision to sleep that night requires correction. After all, we have just said that their decision to sleep was based on humility, which would seem praiseworthy. Yet we commemorate. their action by staying awake as if we were connecting an old mistake. Why should we stay awake if their sleep had such holy meaning?”

The Alexandrer Rebbe explains that what our forefathers did not understand is that no one can prepare himself well enough to actually deserve the Torah. It is solely a gift from heaven. We stay awake all Shavuot night in order to tell ourselves and our children, “It’s true we have not prepared ourselves properly and it’s true that we don’t deserve to receive the Torah but G-d wants to give me a gift and I’d better be there on time.”

Some of our sages explain their decision to sleep in a slightly different way. They say that we can compare our ancestors to a bride and groom. When do a bride and groom most feel like calling off a wedding. A few minutes before the wedding is when a bride and groom suddenly how awesome a marriage is and become frightened. In the same way our ancestors became frightened that the Torah would be too much for them. When we stay up all Shavuot night and learn Torah we give ourselves the strength to be fearless and to face everything that G-d puts in front of us. Let this Shavuot mark a new beginning to give us strength to begin our Yiddishkeit all over again. Let us not flinch from the responsibilities which this gift carries with it. Let us remember that the precious gift of the Torah is given to us not because we deserve it, but because it is indicative of G-d’s great love for us.

Reprinted from Kehilat Jacob News New York, 5748.

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.

In Israel, in former good days, the four corners of the field belonged to the poor. The law is very strong; it’s not that you cut off the corners of the field and give it to the poor, because then it is yours, and you are giving it away. You can’t cut the four comers; they don’t belong to you.It is the poor man’s field. Another law is when you gather from the field, if you forget something you are not allowed to go back. If something falls it also doesn’t belong to you. So, when Ruth and Naomi came back to Israel Ruth went to gather food, and by divine providence she went to the field of Boaz, who was actually a cousin to her husband. Boaz came to look at his field, and he saw a very, very beautiful woman; not just beautiful, in every way shining. He asked who she was, and his workers told him she was a princess of Moab who came to Israel, poor now. He said to the workers, Please make sure that a lot is forgotten, and a lot falls down, and during lunchtime, when you eat, give her some olives, some bread. The Torah says that the Moabite is not to be accepted into the congregation of Israel. Only if a Moabite converts, then after three generations he can become part of Israel. Why? It says because he did not bring you bread and water when you went into the desert.” Who was the tribe of Moab? Moab was the son of the daughter of Lot. Lot the nephew was the of Abraham. Abraham rescued Lot from Sodom by his prayers. That means Moab owed its whole existence to Abraham. Moab had a chance to pay back to the Jews what they owed them, what they owed father Abraham, by bringing them bread and water in the desert. In those days who was to bring bread and water? Only the men. In those days women wouldn’t go out of the house to bring bread end water to the desert. Suddenly, on the very day, the very instant that Ruth and Naomi crossed the border, the high court in Jerusalem started discussing the law which says a Moabite cannot come into the congregation of lsrael. They said this means the male Moabite not the female, because she cannot be accused of not bringing bread and water. This became the new law.

In former good days the law was that if someone died, leaving a wife without children, someone in the family had to marry her. The day after the court decision Boaz said, “Someone has to do somthing for this girl. Someone has to marry her.” There was one man who was a closer relative than Boaz, but that man was super-holy, and he said, “No, I couldn’t marry a girl who was converted. I know the holy court decided the woman Moabite is O.K. but I am not so sure about the holy court.” Boaz said, “O.K. then, I am next.” Boaz married her, but the very sad thing is that Boaz died the next morning. That means he was married to Ruth for only one night. The Zohar says the reason Boaz came into the world was for just that one night. Ruth had a son, Obed; Obed had a son Yeshai, and Yeshai had a son David, the king of Israel, the ancestor of Messiach.

O.K. now, who was this woman, Ruth? Our father Abraham, had two star pupils. One was Lot, his nephew, and the other was Chedorlaomer. Abraham was really giving; that was his message to the world. Suddenly his star pupil, Chedorlaomer, turns around and becomes the king of Sodom, where the law was that if you were were caught giving something to the poor you were killed. If you killed someone, you were rewarded. If you hit someone you got paid. Everything completely perverted … and Chedorlaomer became the king! A few months later the second star pupil of Abraham, Lot, took off also and became the high judge of Sodom. This was the end for Abraham. The Zohar says that after Lot left was the first time that Abraham really prayed for a son, because all the time he had thought, “I have two sons, maybe not physically my sons, but they are spiritualy my sons. After they left he realized he had to have ason who would really continue. Listen to this. Who was the real star pupil of Abraham? The real star pupil of Abraham was a little girl, the daughter of Lot. She really absorbed all of Abraham’s teaching. When her father went to Sodom she didn’t want to go along, but what could she do? After she came to Sodom the most horrible thing happened. The poor wouldn’t die in the streets anymore. The Sodomites couldn’t find who was feeding them. This went on for a long time. If you remember the story, two angels came to Abraham and one of them said, “God sends word to you: Her crying reaches Me, and I am going to destroy Sodom.” The other angel told Abraham he would have a son, Isaac. The Zohar asks what “her” crying is, who is this “she”? The answer is that day in Sodom the little girl was caught giving a piece of broad to a poor man. The Sodomites poured honey all over her and they put her on the roof, and she was eaten by the bees. This is the most painful death anyone can be subjected to.

When the time is right, God works fast. The next day Sodom was destroyed, and Abraham needs another star pupil, Isaac. Although Isaac was very holy, be was ready to die for G-d, he doesn’t compare to that girl. That girl died for giving a poor man a piece of bread. Tne Zohar Kodesh says that the soul of that girl came back to the world, and she was Ruth. So Messiach is the descendant of those two star pupiIs, Isaac, who was ready to die for G-d, and Ruth, the soul that really died for people. That’s the story.

House of Love and Prayer, San Francisco. Sivan, 5732. Reprinted from Holy Beggar’s Gazette, vol 1 no 3.