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Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Meshullam Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (28 August 1924 – 3 July 2014), commonly called "Reb Zalman" (full Hebrew name: Meshullam Zalman Hiyya ben Chaya Gittel veShlomo HaCohen),[1] was one of the founders of the Jewish Renewal movement and an innovator in ecumenical dialogue.[2][3] Born in Poland, Shachter-Shalomi was raised an Orthodox Jew in a variety of countries as his family repeatedly moved to evade increasing antisemitism in 1930s Europe. While awaiting a visa to the United States in an internment camp in Vichy France, Shachter-Shalomi met Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, the later seventh Chabad rebbe. Becoming a Chabad rabbi in 1947, Shacheter-Shalomi took a deep interest in the spiritual practices of other faiths and immersed himself in the counter-culture of the 1960s. Eventually expelled from Chabad, he founded his own organisation, B'Nai Or (later P'Nai Or) and his attempts to innovate in Jewish prayer pioneered what became the chavurah and Jewish Renewal movements. Employed as an academic in his later years, Schacter-Shalomi continued to work in interfaith dialogue and spreading hasidut, and in the 1990s was part of a group of four rabbis who travelled to Dharamsala, India, to advise the Dalai Lama on how to retain religious traditions in exile and prevent assimilation. A prolific author, Schacter-Shalomi published dozens of books on many topics including hasidut, ecstatic prayer, contemplative spirituality, environmental consciousness, and spiritual direction. Schacter-Shalomi died in 2014 and is buried in Boulder, Colorado. He was married four times and had eleven children. Early lifeBorn Meshullam Zalman Schachter in 1924 to Shlomo and Hayyah Gittel Schachter in Żółkiew, Poland (now Ukraine),[4][5] Schachter spent his early years in Vienna, Austria. His father was a liberal Belzer hasid and had Zalman educated at both a Zionist high school and an Orthodox yeshiva.[6] After the Anschluss, Schacter-Shalomi's family moved to Antwerp, Belgium, where he trained briefly as a diamond-cutter. After the Nazi conquest of The Netherlands, the Schacter family sought visas to the United States, and travelled to Marseilles, but found themselves on the wrong side of the border of Nazi-occupied France. Schachter was interned in a detention camp under the Vichy French, where he met Menachem Mendel Shneersohn, later to become the seventh Lubavitcher rebbe. The Schacter family eventually escaped the Nazi advance by obtaining visas to the United States in 1941, via North Africa and the Caribbean. On arriving in New York, Schacter contacted the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, using his meeting with Menachem Mendel Schneersohn as a pretext. Schneersohn provided his family with employment and sent Schacter to Tomchei Temimim, the Chabad yeshiva. He was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi in 1947 within the Chabad Lubavitch community, and served Chabad congregations in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Career and workChabad rabbiIn 1948, along with Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, Schachter was sent out to speak on college campuses by the now Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson as one of the first schluchim.[7] In 1958, Schachter privately published what may have been the first English book on Jewish meditation. It was later reprinted in The Jewish Catalog, and was read by a generation of Jews as well as some Christian contemplatives.[6] Schachter left the Lubavitcher movement after experimenting with "the sacramental value of lysergic acid" from 1962.[8][9] With the subsequent rise of the hippie movement in the 1960s, and exposure to Christian mysticism, he moved away from the Chabad lifestyle.[9] Hillel director and ecumenical workFrom 1956 to 1975, Reb Zalman was based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, though he travelled extensively. In Winnipeg, he worked as the Hillel director and head of Judaic Studies at the University of Manitoba.[10] These positions allowed him to share his ideas and experiential techniques of spirituality with many Jewish and non-Jewish students, leaving lasting memories.[11] While pursuing a course of study at Boston University (including a class taught by Howard Thurman), he experienced an intellectual and spiritual shift. In 1968, on sabbatical from the religion department of the University of Manitoba, he joined a group of other Jews in founding a havurah (small cooperative congregation) in Somerville, Massachusetts, called Havurat Shalom.[10] In 1974, Schachter hosted a month-long Kabbalah workshop in Berkeley, California; his experimental style and the inclusion of mystical and cross-cultural ideas are credited as the inspiration for the formation of the havurah there that eventually became the Aquarian Minyan congregation.[12] He eventually left the Lubavitch movement altogether and founded his own organization known as B'nai Or, meaning "Sons of Light," a title he took from the Dead Sea Scrolls writings. During this period he was known to his followers as the "B'nai Or Rebbe", and the rainbow prayer shawl he designed for his group was known as the "B'nai Or tallit". Both the havurah experiment and B'nai Or came to be seen as the early stirrings of the Jewish Renewal movement. The congregation later changed its name to the more gender-neutral "P'nai Or" (meaning "Faces of Light"), and it continues under this name. In the 1980s, Schachter added "Shalomi" (based on the Hebrew word shalom, or peace) to his name as a statement of his desire for peace in Israel and around the world.[13] Later years and death Schachter-Shalomi was among the group of rabbis, from a wide range of Jewish denominations, who traveled together to India to meet with the Dalai Lama and discuss diaspora survival for Jews and Tibetan Buddhists with him.[14] Tibetans, exiled from their homeland for more than three generations, face some of the same assimilation challenges experienced by Jewish diaspora. The Dalai Lama was interested in knowing how the Jews had survived with their culture intact. That journey was chronicled in Rodger Kamenetz' 1994 book The Jew in the Lotus. In his later years, Schachter-Shalomi held the World Wisdom Chair at The Naropa Institute;[15] he was Professor Emeritus at both Naropa and Temple University.[14] He also served on the faculty of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Omega, the NICABM, and other institutions. He was co-founder, with Rabbi Arthur Waskow, of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, bringing together P'nai Or and The Shalom Center. He was also the founder of the ALEPH Ordination Programs. The seminary he founded has ordained over 80 rabbis and cantors. Zalman Schachter-Shalomi died of complications from pneumonia in 2014 at the age of 89.[14][16] Schachter-Shalomi was married four times and was the father of 11 children.[14] Themes and innovationsSchachter-Shalomi's work reflects several recurring themes, including:
He was committed to the Gaia hypothesis, to feminism,[17] and to full inclusion of LGBT people within Judaism. His innovations in Jewish worship include chanting prayers in English while retaining the traditional Hebrew structures and melodies, engaging davenners (worshipers) in theological dialogue, leading meditation during services[18] and the introduction of spontaneous movement and dance. Many of these techniques have also found their way into the more mainstream Jewish community. Schachter-Shalomi encouraged diversity among his students and urged them to bring their own talents, vision, views and social justice values to the study and practice of Judaism. Based on the Hasidic writings of Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbitz, he taught that anything, even what others consider sin and heresy, could be God's will. His major academic work, Spiritual Intimacy: A study of Counseling in Hasidism, was the result of his doctoral research into the system of spiritual direction cultivated within Chabad Hasidism.[10] This led to his encouragement of students to study widely in the field of Spiritual Direction (one-on-one counseling) and to innovate contemporary systems to help renew a healthy spirituality in Jewish life. He also pioneered the practice of "spiritual eldering", working with fellow seniors on coming to spiritual terms with aging and becoming mentors for younger adults. Typology of Hasidic rebbesSchachter-Shalomi theorized that the historical Hasidic Rebbes may be viewed as occupying one or several of the following roles or functions in relation to their support of their followers:[19]: 59–71
HonorsSchachter-Shalomi was honored by the New York Open Center in 1997 for his Spiritual Renewal. In 2012 his book Davening: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Prayer won the Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice Award (one of the National Jewish Book Awards).[20] He was also recognized as a shaikh in the Sufi Order of Pir Vilayat Khan in the United States and in the Holy Land.[6] In 2012, the Unitarian Universalist Starr King School for the Ministry awarded Schachter-Shalomi an honorary doctorate of theology, and he gave a popular series of lectures on the "Emerging Cosmology".[3] Bibliography
References
External links
Zalman Schachter-Shalomi at Wikipedia's sister projects
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