Back in 1997, ALEPH was looking for a new executive director and, at that moment I also was looking for a new job (a story in itself). I applied and was offered the position. However, as the first person who really needed to live off the salary (previous directors had served without pay and/or loaning their personal funds to keep ALEPH afloat), we committed to raising three years in advance so that I would have time to build more effective fund raising.
Reb Zalman was among the people who contributed to this effort on the understanding that I would manage ALEPH’s Reb Zalman Legacy Project and begin by preparing what he called his foundational works for distribution. And so we birthed Credo of a Modern Kabbalist, The Kabbalah of Tikkun Olam, Renewal is Judaism NOW, and Integral Halachah. Each of these was carefully reviewed by Reb Zalman, down to punctuation, so that we could be sure that I could continue this project without him when the time came.
In his initial talk to the Rabbinic Cabinet (the precursor of both the AOP and OHALAH), he said the following:
I believe that the stuff I have squirrelled away over years, talks that I have given, things that are on tape, things that are in writing. these are not things that I can take to a publisher and say, I would like to have them published by Warner, because they are in house things. I have many things that are not for outer publication but it is in house material, SO I want to have these people help me to produce these things.
If challilah, I were to die today, and people would go over what is left over, the likelihood is that a lot of it would look like junk. It is a pity because it has to be worked out enough so that the notes that are there, scribbles by hand over the years, that these become at least accessible enough so they can be worked out – edited and passed through the process again.
Over a year ago, I posted about 200 teachings that Reb Zalman and others had recorded, representing at least 300 individual cassettes. Slowly, I made digital copies of them all and made them available to everyone via the ALEPH Canada website and my personal Dropbox account.
Now, I am sharing with you the completion of the last phase of my commitment to my beloved rebbe, the uploading of at least 1500 individual word files. Many were quite old and, whenever I could, I updated the version and did light editing. I left some files which were written by others which R. Z. had saved. If you come across any of them which you like, please do your best to contact the writer.
There are treasures in these files, writings and musings of R. Zalman that didn’t make it into books. For example, there is a series of talks on Chabad Kavvanot as well as many descriptions of the sephirot. There are messages to his klei kodesh and documents on the creation of the rabbinic chevre which later morphed into both OHALAH and the AOP.
Important lesson to absorb: As R. Art Green said, Zalman can’t be easily compartmentalized nor can authoritative pieces be written about his beliefs because he changed so often and expressed his thinking in relation to who was asking and the moment. I think this makes these files of particular value in helping us be aware of Reb Zalman’s process as well as his conclusions.
The files which he uploaded to me were free of the personal. At the same time, there are a few in which he expressed his concern over his own inadequacy and yearning for God’s presence. Some of this can be found in his poetry. I think it’s important that these are present and accessible so that we can see Reb Zalman as close to being a full human being as we can.
For the time being, I hope people will listen and read these files while online. How the files will be made more easily accessible and how they will be used is up to ALEPH and all of you.
With this, I affirm that I have fulfilled my promise to my rebbe and the many years that I have devoted to this project, both while on salary and as a volunteer, have come to an end.
Daniel
To access the sound and word files:
Go to https://www.alephcanada.ca/new-page and use the links you need to proceed.
