THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR POSTING THIS. it's actually from shortly after i was Privileged (and i guess made responsible:) to have been in his living room while he was working out the Bahir this interview mentions he had recently published :) BTW, I LOVE YOUR LOGO. Would u b so kind as to share w/ me the illustrator's contact info? Thanking you in advance/Berakhot
@Chaim Mendel don't have a clue what i was thinking when, 2 yrs ago, i apparently wrote i felt "responsible" for the memory. have tried myself to find tapes of his living room classes from a regular attendee i thought might well have taped them, but she apparently didn't. ALL I CAN REALLY REPORT IS THAT HIS EXPLANATION OF THE VERY VERY VERY DIFFICULT TEXT OF THE BAHIR (he was then working out) WAS STUNNINGLY LUCID... see if you can find Dr. Brenda Lukeman, another regular, who might have taped... or at least might well be able add much more detail. she was amongst those (qua psychologist/psychotherapist (and veteran Zen meditator)) who went with Reb Arye into yechidus with the (Lubavitcher) Rebbe, z"l, to advocate for the Rebbe's saying something public and approving of meditation, which he did.... this said, i'm not a big fan of Reb Arye's WRITING, which i've found universally "B level," because they don't do THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TORAH CAN DO, WHICH IS BRING THE READER NOT INFORMATION, BUT THE LIGHT OF THE DIVINE PRESENCE ITSELF! BERAKHOT
@Chaim Mendel Happy for our Conversation at the Top of the World :) let me start w/ a bit of autobio: i was in the TT in Kfar Chabad when the Rebbe sent R'Mendl Futterfas to (it seems super-clear to me AND TRAGIC) - as he personally could, AS A PERSONAL PRACTITIONER OF HISBON'NUS B'ARIKHUS AND TEFILAH B'ARIKHUS (read jnana and bhakti yogas) - TURN THE CULTURE OF THE YESHIVA FROM MEDITATIVE-PRAYER CENTERED (as it still was, under the Leadership of R'ShlomoChaim Kesselman, who'd passed on a few years before i landed :( ) TO OUTREACH CENTERED... i think it is simply factually true that the Rebbe DID NOT COME FROM THE LUBAVITCH side of the Family, where the WHOLE PURPOSE of the founding an inhouse yeshivah HAD BEEN TO CREATE A HOTHOUSE FOR HISBON'NUS IN PRACTICE, but the side of the Family for which the limmid of Hasidus b'iyun was their thing... of course, it was always a small minority really Practicing Hisbon'nus, but the vibe of the entire Kfar was QUITE EXALTED. Took me until a decade or so ago to realize (and now Gnow lol:) that while awakening of Awe and Love, so one's whole Practice becomes Revelation of One and Onliness, was part of the Hasidic Meditative approach, the REAL METHOD WAS AND IS BY AND THROUGH "ATOMIZATION" - DVEIKUS THROUGH DVEIKUS TO THE SIMULTANEOUSLY SEEN-AND-SUNG OSIOS! RE: the relative wealth and poverty of the world's flavors of Divine Ice Cream, lol, the kick is that all of them are broad spectrums enough THAT ALL OF THEM HAVE FULL SPECTRUMS, so it just depends on what you by accident or Providence have the good of bad fortune or Blessing to COME UPON LOL. i remember someone's feature in the NYTimes magazine going on about her emergence from her black and white world of 7th Day Adventism (or, maybe it was the J. Witnesses) into the full color, open-inquiry world of Catholicism! lol... of course, millions of Catholics have fled it as a world of restriction!... so, i encourage you to hold your judgments about the Tradition you came out of, because it's just a small subset of Its Panorama! that said, i'm alway Glad when anyone finds any Way Home (and hold that as, for individuals, the Ikkar. Then, of course, there's the Task of Best Helping Universal Enlightenment happening asap... :) L"Hayyim, young bro
PS - of course, besides "Atomization" in Tefilah and Torah - both through Atomization and through Limmud, which, because etz hayyim he, will empower Dveikus 24/7, the Program is, Dveikus 24/7, not settle for either once a week Enlightenment through Shabbos, or even just in Ritual.... Atomization, i can Testify, btw is much more time efficient, but quickly brings one (even in just Ikkar Tefilah - Birkhot Shema, Shema, and Amidah - into, for starters, the territory of 2 hour Zen sits - "Zazen IS (ALREADY) Enlightenment," which i had the good fortune to hear the first American Zen Master, Philip Roshi Kapleau, answer was, in his opinion necessary daily to move a practice forward, beyond the hour daily that can keep one going, (and a far cry from the 20 min sessions now normally prescribed for the Mad-for-Mindfulness)!.
Is the interviewer Jewish? In the minute between 13-14 he continuously draws a parallel between the Jewish Kabbalistic tradition and the "other traditions". There is no connection and needs not be one, in fact it is very problematic from a Torah standpoint to equate them. I suppose Rabbi Kaplan did not correct him because he did not wish to be confrontational, but the parallel is incorrect.
