this is my interpretation of rabbi shlomo carlebach's commentary on the torah, "the stone of shlomo". each video in the series is a "chip from shlomo's stone", a stone which kabbalah refers to as the holy of holies, the higher wisdom, the stone of yakov and the foundation stone. it is said that god detached one end of this stone from his throne and put that end on the earth at the time of creation. that stone therefore is the basis of all reality. my videos seek to demonstrate the clear logical thinking that underlies the code of stories, paradoxes and metaphors that are the work of reb shlomo. chips 1-5 deal with the topic "lech l'chah" (go, man, go!) and chips 6-13 deal with the topic "covenant". if you prefer the whole turkey in one gulp, refer to the video from which this series was taken. to share comments with me: fwep@bezeqint.net.
TWO COVENANTS chip 6, p. 133. just as god has two names, elohim and yhvh, there are two covenants, one with noah and one with avraham. elohim manifests in nature, and noah walks with god in nature. yhvh is the god who created the world and is beyond it. avraham walks with god before nature. what does that mean? WORLD OF LIGHT chip 7, p. 85. noah got his strength by picking up the light and energy coming down from heaven which everyone else ignored. god made a covenant with noah that this pure world of light and energy, which is the essence of everything, will always exist. what world is this? TASTE THE WORLD chip 8, p. 94. noah's covenant is based on clearly seeing and hearing the world and using deductive logic, while avraham's covenant is based on vaguely, holistically tasting or sniffing out the world and using inductive logic. noah takes a look around and right away decides to build an ark and to invite certain creatures for the boatride. avraham, on the other hand, has to sweat out mind boggling tests before he can make his choices. reb shlomo cites the akeidah as one example. GOD WHISPERS chip 9, p. 180. god whispers to sarah in the tent that she should pray for a child. the tent symbolizes the holies of holies, the macrocosm, the higher wisdom, the pargod, the foundation stone, yakov's stone and shlomo's stone. god whispering to sarah is mystical prespeech symbolizing chochmah fertilizing binah and malchut, immaculate conception induced in a virgin, and the shechinah preparing to give birth to the jewish people. the whispering is a the oral torah, prespeech shortly before "the word" will come forth into the written torah announcing the coming birth of yitzchak. here is how to set up your own tent and do this oral torah prespeech exercise yourself. find out what god is waiting to whisper to you! GOD GET ME HIGH! chip 10, p.133. noah walks with god, elohim, stuck in nature, while avraham walks with god, yhvh, high above nature. noah's aristotelian covenant posits an organic oneness as reality, while avraham's neo-platonic covenant posits a split, dualistic model. like a performer in the brechtian theater, avraham is on top of his life, freely discovering pure ideas in the upper realm, and then using those ideas to illuminate the dead junk collage of routine, habitual life. here is a brechtian theater exercise showing you how you too, like avraham avinu, can transform your own dead forms into creative, redeemed live forms. BEYOND NAMES chip 11, p. 149. each moment of awareness is another name of god, a naming of another aspect of reality. noah collects all these awareness moments, all this light. avraham, on the other hand, symbolizes withdrawing inside to discover the pure oral torah beyond words, beyond names. this silent void is once again the voice of prespeech, the private oral torah which is prior to the public written torah. WATER IS DYNAMITE. chip 12, p. 153. avraham tells his guests, "take a bit of water to wash your feet", and reb shlomo tells us that only a bit of water is needed to dynamite the whole world, since here water symbolizes the basic pure ideas of judaism: torah, shabbat, yiddishkeit, the holy land. to decode this parable, we need to realize that reb shlomo is referring to the "waters" (pure ideas) of the world of beriah, and not to the "water" (alchemical element) of the world of yetzirah, or the "water, water" (polluted excesses) of the world of assiyah. THE MIDDLE WAY chip 13, p. 142. the messenger moses received the written torah on sinai. it deals with practical questions and answers. but the oral torah deals with ultimate rather than practical questions. in our search for ultimate truths, each of us actively sets up his own questions, and then passively receives the answers from god. this active passivity, pure process mode, is the middle way. there is no messenger involved. use this rhythm of contact and withdrawal as your "do it yourself" kit.
