SHEMINI ATZERET - HELLO GESHEM, GOODBYE TAL

by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

No more Tal. No more the prayers for dew.
We pray for the good stuff. Rain.
As farmers, we need the rain to ensure plentiful crops.
As herdsmen, we need good pasture to ensure good wool.

For we are always connected to the ryhthm of seeding and harvesting. Gen 8:22 " ...for seedtime and harvest time, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall never cease from the land."

Rain spells the onset of winter, which means the end of summer.
Spring and fall are luxuries. We're just guaranteed the basic version: summer and winter.


According to The Moody Blues, Timothy Leary had already died, and yet I ran into him at a whole earth conference in the early '90's at some NYC hotel, which one it was I don't remember. My friend had a booth where he was demonstrating the Alexander Technique, and besides there would be an aura photography booth, or so I had heard. I had been wanting a picture of my aura for some time.

Anyway, I ran into Leary in the lobby. He had an unmistakable lanky and goofy way about him, his signature trademark. Plus his nametag said "TIM." I asked him, "Are you Leary?" He said, "Yes, I am Leary. "

I asked him if he had ever heard of my Rabbi, Rabbi Carlebach? (As they were both '60's icons of sorts, I figured it wasn't too far afield to wonder if either was aware of the other).

He replied, "HEARD of Rabbi Carlebach? If I had listened to his music BEFORE I had ever taken drugs, I would never have NEEDED drugs!" And then he disappeared down the hall.

So TaL (Timothy Leary) is now gone, forty years since the famous summer of love. And the heralds and pied pipers of that summer are now largely gone themselves, having created new paradigms of consciousness.

For the truth is that G*d consciousness is the highest consciousness. G*d does indeed want us to get high. But G*d's high is the ultimate high. The breath of the holy. We can tap into it and access it through the power of the niggun, the wordless melody, carrying us into the deepest realms of Shabbos, the realm of the infinite.

And now we prepare for geshem, for rain. Geshem cleanses and refreshes, the living waters, the stuff of the mikvah, renewing all in its path; the water of second chances.

© 2000 - 2007 by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

These words of Torah are written in honor of the memory of my beloved father, Israel J. Melman, obm, Yisrael Yehoshua ben Harav Yaakov Hakohen Melman, z"l.

Sefer Chabibi stands for CHidushei Baruch Binyamin ben Yisrael Yehoshua(a chidush, from the word chadash, means a new, original or fresh perspective).

Dedications are available.

My band, Niggun, is available for all simchas.Contact me privately at niggun@aol.com