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Teachings
and Writings of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach
My
Beautiful Friends...
New York, 5751
I
just returned from Yerushalayim, from the Holy City, from
the Holy Wall, from everything holy and beautiful in our lives.
And we are in the middle of counting, counting our days, counting
life, counting beautiful things. I will share with you a little
bit about Lag B'Omer, about Shavuot, and about Kiddush Levanah,
the Blessing of the Moon. My dear friends, 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 Rabbeinu 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-d holiness
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, 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
Shavuot.
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 parshah 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
Yom Tov. And I bless you that you should always have someone
to tell your secrets.
Love,
Shlomo
Copyright
© by the Shlomo Carlebach Foundation
Teachings
and Writings of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach
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