PREFACE

SEVERAL YEARS AGO I suddenly found myself without moorings. I was at the top of my profession: My congregation was thriving, my books were finding appreciative audiences, and I was invited to share my insights with my peers and their communities across the country. Yet something was terribly wrong. I felt stale and listless.

I talked with my family, my friends, my therapist, and while all were helpful in their way, none could taste the deep sense of loss that I was feeling, and thus none of them could speak what I needed to hear. So I turned to my rebbe.

I am not one to run to gurus. I have met many during my years as a student of religion, and even more in my over twenty years as a congregational rabbi. Some were charlatans, others genuine. Some were actually saints. I have stayed in contact with several of them, and have lived among their disciples and devotees. But I seem to lack the personality to be a real disciple, let alone a devotee. I am too opinionated, too sure of myself, and my need to lead makes it hard for me to follow. Yet I do have a rebbe, a rabbi whose sense of God’s presence is far superior to my own.

There is a hasidic saying that goes something like this: There are two kinds of rebbes who experience the cold of winter. One buys a heavy coat, the other lights a fire. The first warms only himself, the second provides warmth for all who wish to draw near to his fire. My rebbe, Reb Zalman Schachter Shalomi, is a fire–lighter, and so I went to him for warmth, light, and direction.

I made arrangements to meet him during a weeklong retreat held at Elat Chayyim, the Jewish retreat center in Accord, New York. While we both had teaching obligations, there was plenty of time to speak together in private.

“Reb Zalman,” I said, “I need some counsel. I have spoken with friends and therapists, and everyone is trying to help me discover what I want, but the truth is I do not know what I want. I have lost touch with my soul and can’t discern the direction it wants me to go. I believe that you can see beyond my surface likes and dislikes, ambitions, and desires. I believe that you know my soul and can help me hear what advice it is giving. I need your help.”

Reb Zalman was silent for quite a while. I was used to this. When asked to touch another’s soul and speak on its behalf he was careful to put his ego aside, to silence his own voice so that the other could find the space to speak. After a while, however, it was clear to me that wherever Reb Zalman had gone he wasn’t coming back any time soon. I was getting a little worried and not a little impatient.

“Reb Zalman?” I said softly, hoping to nudge him back into this world.

He blinked. He frowned. And then he looked at me and said “We’ll speak about this later.”

“Later” turned out to be almost a week later. Reb Zalman was walking with his wife Eve when he caught my eye and waved me over to him. The three of us found a shady spot where we could sit with some privacy. Reb Zalman looked into my eyes for a long moment and said:

“The other day you asked about what direction you should go in. I looked to see if I could discern your soul’s path and did not like what I saw. Not at first, anyway. I had to be sure that what I was seeing was your soul and not some projection or distortion. We have been together a long time...”

“Almost twenty years.” I said.

“... and I have followed your career closely. Your books, your courses, your teaching on the internet, all of it has had a profound impact on the Jewish people both here in America and around the world. You are, as I once wrote, a prophetic voice for a twenty-first-century Judaism. So when I saw what I saw I was not happy or sure I was seeing rightly. But every time I looked the seeing was always the same: enough with the Jews.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Enough with the Jews,” Reb Zalman repeated.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“It is this way,” he said. “You have completed your work among the Jewish people. Whatever you had to say to them has been said. The reason you are feeling lifeless is that you are repeating yourself. Your present world is an echo of your past. It is time to move on.”

“Should I convert to Catholicism and become a priest?” I asked sarcastically.

“No. You are a Jew and a rabbi and this is right for you. But now you must take your philosophy beyond the walls of the synagogue.”

“To proselytize? Am I supposed to become a missionary and convert people to Judaism?”

Reb Zalman sighed. “I knew you would not want to hear this,” he said, “but this is what I think you need to do: shift your focus and bring your ideas to a wider audience. There is no need to convert anyone, but there is a need to enlighten people about what Judaism is and what it says. I am telling you to create a Judaism for non-Jews. I am suggesting that you offer a Judaism for people who wish to learn from it as they do from Buddhism or Sufism. I am telling you to create a Judaism for everyone, not just the Jews.”

“And how am I going to do that?” I asked trying, and failing, to keep the fearful and angry edge out of my voice.

“Bring back Reb Yerachmiel.”

Now it was my turn to fall silent. I had no idea that Reb Zalman was familiar with my connection to this nineteenth-century hasidic master. “Reb Yerachmiel is fiction,” I said hoarsely.

Reb Zalman cupped my face in his strong dry hands. He kissed me and whispered close to my ear: “Reb Yerachmiel is not fiction. Reb Yerachmiel is you.”

“I created him,” I replied, “but....”

“But nothing. He is your alter ego. He is the rebbe you aspire to be. If you are not yet ready to embody him yourself, at least give him a voice. People respond to him and his teachings. If the only way for you to access this part of yourself is through Reb Yerachmiel, then do so.”

“You want me to channel this fictional sage?”

“Yes. Let Reb Yerachmiel speak. His Judaism is what so many people hunger for.”

On some level I knew Reb Zalman was right. I do tap the deepest part of me when I speak in Reb Yerachmiel’s voice.

I decided to follow his advice. The book you hold in your hands is the result.

Open Secrets is written as a series of letters to my great–grandfather from Reb Yerachmiel ben Yisrael. I imagined them.

The Judaism of Reb Yerachmiel is the Judaism I have taught for over twenty years. It is the Judaism I practice and the Judaism I have passed on to my son and my students. I ask you to enter into the spirit of these letters, to allow yourself the freedom to engage the teachings of this twenty-first-century rebbe. The truth they contain does not rely on Reb Yerachmiel’s history but on the accuracy of his vision of God and creation. I hope you find them a constant and comforting companion.

 

Rami M. Shapiro
Yamim Noraim 5765
September/October 2004