Re: [Chasidus w/o Borders] Rosh Hashanah Lab'heimot
Rabbi Karpov
Seder Rosh HaShannah LaB’heimoth (Very Rough Outline)
brought down by Rabbi R. Karpov, Ph.D. on 1 Elul 5773
© 2013
Folks:
This is the best I can re-construct what I think I remember.
Am taking Reb Dan's advice and sending this via e-mail not attachment, so there'll be a permanent record.
In order for this to be gotten out in time (and mine is now more limited than ever) and available, other people’s input as to the rest of it, will be more than a little welcomed.
brought down by Rabbi R. Karpov, Ph.D., on
1 Elul 5773
<< DRAFT (WORK IN PROCESS): REDLINE AND RETURN, PLEASE! >>
* * *
I. Initial prayers and kavvanoth
A. Initial frontispiece prayer, "Emeth ve'emunoh . . . (as Tikkun Leil Shavuoth, Tikkun Leil Hoshannah Rabbah 7th nt of Pesach, etc.), . . . "uviz'chuth . . . b'yomeinu omein : "
B. " T'filoh kodem halimmud," prayer before study; possibly with additional Unification Blessing kavvonoh "l'yacheid sh'meih d'k'b'h ushcinoteyh . . . b'limmud zeh," for the Unification of Kudsha B'rikh-Hu and His Sh'chinnoh via this study.
II. Selections from TaNa"Ch:
A. Torah. Some fairly obvious; others not so much. These include:
1. Things from parshas B'reishith, incl. p’ru ur’vu, (in any of the ways we do --- not all of us procreate our hardware
2. The part also in parshas B’reishith where (as my teacher Grace Spotted Eagle a”h pointed out, so let’s don’t be too smug if we’re ethical vegetarian) Kayin, the vegetarian, killed Havel, the carnivore; and
3. Noach; the non-pediatric version not as simple as “two by two,” there were seven of the kosher animals (and this Noach section with the animals which will foreshadow the familiar Mishnah on Noach, which we'll get to later); and
4. Of course there’s the ‘ayil, the ram, in the Akeidoh, that has to be included; in this drama it is Yitzchok Avinu’s “understudy” (the masoreth uses the word “tachath,” “instead of” but literally “under,” as in “understudy” if the one player for some reason was absent in a drama).
5. The sections on kindness to animals, Parshath Emor etc., as w the nesting mama-bird, that you may keep the eggs if you can shoo her away from them, good luck with that.
6. Chukath – the Parah Adumah.
6. Also, there’s what we include for the Avodah Service on Yom Kippur and the other selections like it, where there’s a “language of animals” even as there’s a “language of flowers”. The goat is generally on the side of the fence where you didn’t want it. The sheep generally stays where you put it, except occasionally she sheep take off in some direction . . . you walk for a long time in one direction or another, and then back in a different direction which is where they did head off to . . . this is a fairly ordinary experience in open-pasture sheep-herding. Or any pastoral experience, come to think of it, as anybody who’s had a congregation or done any sort of pastoral counseling
5. Please be sure to include the narrative foreshadowing our reading it again in a very few weeks, w Avraham Avinu, and Avimelech and Phichol Sar Tz'va'o: which from where I sit looks like the kind of thing that happened back home in Navajo/Hopi country, fist-fight between two groups of sheep-herders over a well of water and then somebody called the Hopi cops, no they didn't here because these are the Jewish ancestors but same idea. So then Avimelech pipes up with "I dunno, news to me, first time I heard of this, never heard of this before today," which gives the impression of either here's a man whose career has gotten away from him and/or he's saving face and/or something; so that by the time Avimelech and Phichol Sar Tz'va'o has come to an agreement with Avraham Avinu and they go galumphing off in some other direction they look like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, befuddled and in their own little world, but wisely separating.
6. Please include – for me – the part about not yoking two animals together, the larger and the smaller, and making them work together, as the larger one will drag the smaller one around and wear it out.
7. Some things from Parshath Mishpatim. If you see the ass of someone who hates you collapsed under its load, you must help the beast up, not leave it there for spite and rationalize that it’s none of your business. There’s a limit below which civil discourse must not sink, no matter how uncivil things have gotten. Of course that has to be taken in context.
Chazak[?] / Kaddish
B. N’viim. Some fairly obvious, as the raven in M’lochim (Kings) I, 17:6, that picks up on the raven in Parshas Noach; and that foreshadows the raven in the commentary on Noach, in Mishnah. Also, let’s not forget that passage about King David having been hidden in the cave by the spiders who spun their webs (which will be picked up on later by the other spider story from later literature). Without going into detail here now, as I need to finish this up and send it out, for today’s draft -- other passages from K’thuvim.
Chazak[?] / Kaddish
C. K’thuvim.
1. Passages from T’hillim. Obvious.
2. Passage(s) from Sepher Yonah (which we’re about to read in another 39 days), including the end with the phrase one my mother a”h used to quote, indicating that we have to be kind to little animals: “Uv’heimoh robboh,” which she translated as “and even the little animals” – “and many animals;” the point that part of the need for compassion on the city of Nineveh, as horribly as the humans had behaved, had to do with (besides their having made T’shuvoh) how many animal lives also didn’t deserve to suffer.
2. Iyyov, 12:7-9: “Ask the animals and they will teach you; and the birds of the skies, and they will inform you. Or speak to the earth and she will show you; and the fishes of the sea will declare to you.”
3. Without going into detail here now, as I need to finish this up and send it out, for today’s draft -- other passages from K’thuvim.
Chazak[?] / Kaddish
III. Mishnah
A. Talmud Bavli, Eruvin 100b, where it says that even had we not been given Torah at Sinai, we would have been able to learn the same exact things by observing the animals.
B. Ah, the commentary on Noach which I learnt at Netzach Yisroel, the Jewish Renaissance Center in NYC, where Rabbi Meir Fund directed me and where I was so happy to absorb and to learn. Over the years, this story has taken on such meaning and resonance.
So we’re familiar with Noach got the two of every non-kosher and seven of every kosher animal onto the Teva (the ark), and his family and himself, that’s everybody; and then after the Teva was sealed it rained etc., we’re familiar with this, it’s in the Torah. So there was a rule on the Teva, no mating on the Teva; except the ravens decided that “they don’t give no never-mind what Papa don’t allow” and you could hear them at it more than you wanted to, but what could you do, they couldn’t very well kick them off the Teva as there was nothing out there but the water and it was boiling-hot, too (says the Midrash). So there came a time when Noach wanted to see whether the waters had abated, and wanted to ask the raven to please go out and see whether there was any sign of dry land. The raven didn’t want to; he had gotten a wrong idea stuck in his head, that Noach was only sending him out because Noach had a secret agenda that he wanted to be alone with the raven’s mate. In fact Noach had no such idea, no interest in the raven’s mate – she’s a bird, plus he was perfectly happy with Mrs. Noach – and was just trying to find out what kind of a day it was. So finally the raven went out and quickly came right back in, and said still nothing but water as far as anybody could see, that was all. Next time, Noach wisely sent the dove.
So what do we learn from this? (1) When somebody accuses you of having a motivation that is so far from what you were actually thinking that it wouldn’t have occurred to you, that was not what you were thinking at all, generally they’re actually describing somebody else, probably themself (cf. Freud on projection); and (2) If somebody wants to Make You Wrong, they will find ANY stupid excuse and make up ANY stupid story.
(Folks, the hyperparathyroidism is again unresolved, and I have brainfog. Does anyone remember where this story is from? Also, what about the rest?)
C. Midrash BaMidbar Rabbah 2:9-10, and I think what’s around it.
D. Other things from Mishnah, on communicating with animals – Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 17a; Sof’rim 16:9; Talmud Yerushalmi D’mai 1:3.; and
E. The elaboration on Parah Adumah.
F. Bava Metzia, 85a. Obvious. Parallel, somewhat, with Aesop’s fable about the wanton calf; which so freaked me out as a child that when my Great-Aunt Pearl (may she rest in peace), when we went to the Chinese restaurant in New York, tried to teach me to eat Wanton Soup, I was really reticent: Why would I want to eat anything like that calf's behavior?
G. Bekhoroth 8:10, and other things. Tithing of cattle.
H. Midrash Tana D’Bei Eliyahu Rabbah, Ch. 1, has some things about how Kudsha B’rikh Hu, in creating the various classifications of animals, intended them to be among other things medicine for humans.
I. Snake story [folks – where is this from? I can’t figure the exact reference]: Once there was a man who healed a wounded snake. The minute the snake began to regain its strength, it turned on the man and bit him, bit his hand half off. “Why?” asked the man, dying; and the snake said (with its beady eyes): “Fool! Don’t you know my nature? And from now on, don’t befriend just anybody.” That’s the other part of the “context” to which I’d referred above in Mishpatim. I have to remind myself of that more often. It’s a lesson learned in blood. It’s also the same story in Sufi (scorpion) and, I am told, Native American traditions. For example: There’s the Comanche parallel: So after Dog, who believed that if he loved everybody then everybody would love him, had ferried all the other animals across the river on his back, the only one left was Snake. The other animals told him DON’T, he’ll BITE you; but Snake said he wouldn’t (cf.: “He promised he wouldn’t do it again” from the once-again victim; and “Oh don’t insult me that I wouldn’t restrain myself,” from the about-to-be-once-again abuser). So Dog swam across the river and went and got Snake and put him on his back and swam towards the other side, except most of the way across, Snake bit Dog; and it practically killed Dog. “Why? You promised you wouldn’t!” said Dog. And all the other animals, including Snake, said: “Snake will be Snake.” (Mishlei says keep away from a bad neighbor.)
J. Yet other things which in the interests of time I’m not going to put in here today.
K. From where is that spider-story where when the Beith HaMikdash was burning, the spiders took out their little harps and sang? It’s a counterbalance to the other spider-story where they hid King David with their webs. (My mother o.b.m. told me this.) Also, the other story about when the Beith HaMikdash was burning, the doves brought water in their beaks to try to put the flames out; but the ravens brought more flames (and that’s why we might use a dove-feather but never a raven-feather when we bless the house for Rosh HaShannah, the one that’s for humans and is 39 days from now) – don’t remember where that’s from, either. Other people’s input is, in fact, going to be instrumental to getting this particular document out in time, as mine is limited and it has to be gotten out and available.
Chazak[?] / Kaddish
IV. Later writings:
A. Sefer HaZohar Vol 4 f. 18b on the animals for each wind/direction
B. Zohar – including from Raya Mehemna, not-so-obviously maybe; but other things, fairly obviously; except they're eluding me right now, as I'm fading.
C. R’ Yitzchok of Akko, Sepher M’irath Einayim, Bamidbar, paragraph 2, with the different kinds of animals that are in the 4 (Jewish) Directions, of which we five-fingered ones are one (as well as – what I finally fell into after years of seeking for what would work organically/spiritually for my Tu BiSh’vat Seder, both the Navajo and the Jews such as R’ Winkler said they could not tell me, I had to find it myself, which it finally fell into place and when I then told R’ Gershon Winkler he said yes, that’s the system of R’ Isaac of Akko (Sepher M’irath Einayim, Bamidbar, paragraph 2): The human in the south; the Shor (wild ox / buffalo) in the west; the nesher (eagle) in the north; and the ari (lion) in the east.
V. Final prayer / kavvonoh: Y’hi Ratzon, etc. Toph. Vov. Shin. Lommed. Beth. ‘Ayin. Per usual usage.
* * *
- Featured for Albuquerque, NM Shavuoth rollout of Tikkun Leil Shavuoth text (original + translation), 2013: http://www.abqjew.net/2013/05/preparing-for-shavuot.html , with press coverage following: http://www.jewishnewmexico.org/docs/the_link/jun_jul_2013.pdf, entire p. 2; and www.examiner.com/article/our-prayers-are-heard, May 19, 2013
- Featured on OpenSiddur.org, from traditional sources:,
- "Second Night of Rosh HaShanah Seder": http://opensiddur.org/2012/09/seder-achilat-hasimonim-the-symbolic-foods-of-life-seder-for-rosh-hashanah/ September 3, 2012
- "Seder Rosh HaShanah La'Ilan: A Four Worlds Seder for Tu Bishvat": http://opensiddur.org/2013/01/seder-rosh-hashanah-lailan-a-four-worlds-seder-for-tu-bishvat/ January 14, 2013
Tonight and tomorrow, the first of the month of Elul, is the New Year
for the Animals. In ancient times this was like a fiscal year that
determined how many animals would be tithed. But now it is open for
renewal, just as Tu Bishvat, which marked the fiscal year for fruit
trees, was open for renewal year in the 18th century and became the
Kabbalists' celebration of the Tree of Life.
Aharon Varady of Open Siddur has been campaigning to make this a
special day for reflecting on our relationships with all the animals.
It's a time to include their world and their needs within our moral
sphere. I think this is the right thing to do and I encourage everyone
to imagine creative ways to do it. Send me your ideas so I can share
them.
You can find one program that is great for Rosh Hashanah Lab'ehimoit
on neohasid at http://www.neohasid.org/stoptheflood/council/ -- this
is the Council of All Beings, developed by John Seed and his
compatriots. You'll also find a link on that page to Aharon's
opensiddur page on the New Year for the Animals, which includes the
Council for All Beings. I'll hope you'll take a look at these pages
today and tomorrow.
And I wish you all and all of our animal friends and companions a
beautiful New Year.
David Seidenberg
--
Thank you for staying in touch with NeoHasid.org through our Google Groups list.
If you have information you would like to share with the members of this list, or a song you'd like to add to the site, send it by email to rebduvid86 at gmail dot com.
To unsubscribe, send email to hasid-un...@googlegroups.com
For more mail options, visit http://groups.google.com/group/hasid?hl=en
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NeoHasid: Chasidus Without Borders" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hasid+un...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Rabbi Karpov
David Seidenberg
Thank you for staying in touch with NeoHasid.org through our Google Groups list.
If you have information you would like to share with the members of this list, or a song you'd like to add to the site, send it by email to rebduvid86 at gmail dot com.
To unsubscribe, send email to hasid-un...@googlegroups.com
For more mail options, visit http://groups.google.com/group/hasid?hl=en
