Here is a transcript of Reb Zalman’s opening remarks delivered this past Monday night at the ALEPH: Alliance For Jewish Renewal Kallah 2013. His words are reflective of the theme for this Kallah which is כל אחד  Kol Echad : Connecting With the Divine, Within & Around Us [NOTE: Kol Echad means all one, it’s all one, everyone together]:

“Welcome. Welcome. Shalom Aleichem / greetings to you. It’s so good. Boachem l-shalom / Come in peace. I’m so glad you have faith to participate in this Kallah.

“What a wonderful theme: Kol echad and connecting with the Divine within and around.

“When we first began that [bringing together], we began with a connecting situation because, before the Kallot began in the 1980’s, I would be traveling on the East Coast and on the West Coast. And that’s where we built all these new Renewal havurot and congregations. And it was wonderful! But I all had to keep it together on my little PDA [personal digital assistant] that had the addresses and the phone numbers of people.

“And it was then that Reb Jeff Roth and that Reb Mordechai Liebling helped create the first Kallah that we had at a College outside of Philadelphia, [Cabrini College, Radnor, PA]. And, it was a remarkable meeting because, then it wasn’t necessary [for just me] to be the one who brings people together. People who felt they wanted to do one kind of thing would meet with people who felt they wanted to do the same kind of thing in another locale and they met.

“It is very necessary today to bring together the inner and the outer. Divinity, as it is understood in all ways of the past, as if God were not with us but outside of the universe [and] coming in from time to time and checking us out, does not work.

“Since we have seen Earth from Outer Space, there was a fantastic shift that happened.

“And if you go with the teaching with Chabad and Hasidism, you get it very clear that we are dealing with divinity that fills the world, m-male kol almin [lit., fills-all-worlds] and divinity that surrounds the world, sovev kol almin [surrounds-all-worlds].

“Once we are in touch with the Source of life and [then] we [can] allow ourselves to be re-calibrated so that we can be agents of the healing of our planet and bring about what we have called the Messianic days, the ways in which each person will live the fullest possibility, (at the same time, not injuring anything), as it is said:

[Isaiah 11:9], לֹא יָרֵעוּ וְלֹא יַשְׁחִיתוּ בְּכָל הַר קָדְשִׁי / lo yareoo v’lo yaschitoo b-chol har kodshi / there will not be any evil, nor will they destroy anything up on the holy mountain. Instead of that:

‘כִּי מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ דֵּעָה אֶת ה / ki malah ha-aretz deah es Hashem / the world will be filled with the awareness of God

כַּמַּיִם לַיָּם מְכַסִּים / kamayim layam m’chasim / as the water covers the sea.

“It says it’s really possible that we do that. We look at this possibility and everything that you will be doing at this Kallah can be dedicated to that possibility.

“I just want to ask you: Don’t come in with your mind made up of who of you are and what you are going to come out of Kallah with. Allow the process, in which divinity sends healing and recalibration to us, to work.

“And Yivarechecha Adonai viyishmirecha / may God bless you and protect you, Ya’er Adonai panav elecha veechuneka / may God lift up the awareness of God in your mind and give you grace and joy, Yeesa Adonai panav elecha / may you feel that you have the ability to look at this and see divinity  viyasem lecha shalom / and be in peace with that. Amen!”

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 4th, 2013 at 3:36 am and is filed under Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Participatory Epistemology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.