Tanya and the wick of the candle

Tanya and the wick of the candle the Kriat shema and the KLIPOT





The Tanya , a Chassidic work by the Alter Rebbe, refers allegorically to the wick, the vivifying soul giving life.This wick is consumed through the study of Torah,the eternal law, and the practice of the 613 mitzvahs or good deeds associated with Torah. The garments of thought speech and action become burned in the light of the Shechinah through Torah and Mitzvot which a Jew studies and performs.Torah study alone does not suffice but must consist of the practice of good deeds or mitzvahs.The light of Shechinah is drawn down into the wick ,the vivifying soul,through the action required by the mitzvot.Th vivifying soul is consumed in the light of the Shechinah which shines on one's head. That is the process of purification and perfection of the individual Jew,becoming god like in this world.Drawing close to the sages arriving at Sichnin. Note this account of the sages arrival.The smell of the soul's garments and the descent of the evil forces or klipot during the sleep at night. They are not disloged from the 248 limbs except by the mitzvah of the reciting of the Kriat Shema at its correct time.

Yet, in order to draw down the light of the Shechinah so that it will shine upon
the divine soul of the Jew, more than oil is necessary; one must also have a
wick. Oil is transformed into light through the medium of a wick. It is the
wick, which itself is burned, which keeps the fire from being
extinguished.
In spiritual terms the wick refers to the
vivifying soul which provides the person with physical life. This wick is burned through Torah and mitzvot. Just as the
physical wick burns and is annihilated by the fire, so do the garments of
thought, speech and action of the vivifying soul become burned in the light of
the Shechinah through the Torah and mitzvot which a Jew studies and performs

It is for this reason that the oil must also consist of “good deeds,” mitzvot, which have their source in G‑d’s wisdom; Torah alone (even though it is itself wisdom) does not suffice. For only through the action required by the mitzvot will the light of the Shechinah be drawn down into the wick — the vivifying soul. This is accomplished when the vivifying soul is burned thoroughly in the light of the Shechinah which shines on one’s head.

And this is what the Yenuka in Zohar, quoted in ch. 35, meant when he said that “the Supernal light that is kindled on his (the Jew’s) head, namely, the Shechinah, requires oil,”
פירוש: להתלבש בחכמה, הנקראת שמן משחת קדש, כמו שכתוב בזהר
that is, to be clothed in wisdom, which is called “the oil of the holy anointing” — and “holy” signifies Chochmah, or wisdom, as is explained in the Zohar,

THE YENUKA THE GENIUS CHILD

http://dwellingplacebelow.blogspot.com/2008/07/zohar-parshat-balak-yenuka-genius-child.html

A Lesson in the Importance of Reciting the Shema.
[The Yenuka – literally young child, was the son of Rabbi Hamnuna. He was an especially clever child. While being a genius in understanding the esoteric parts of Torah and much more, he was also a very unique soul. One thing he was able to do was to be able to know about people from the way they smelled. This section of the Zohar, known simply as “Yenuka” discusses a number of secrets that the Yenuka revealed concerning various matters. In our section below, the Yenuka speaks about the importance of reciting the Shema in its correct time. While one may recite the Kriat Shema at any time of day, there is a Mitzvah to read it once in the morning and once in the evening. In each case, there are hours that are allocated to saying it in order to fulfil the Mitzvah – in its correct time! The Yenuka points out that whether one fulfils this Mitzvah correctly or not, one actually makes a change to ones soul that can be detected by the sense of smell!]
Rabbi Yitzchak and Rabbi Yehuda were walking along the road. They arrived at that place called the Village of Sichnin. This is where Rav Hamnuna lived. They were hosted for the meal by his wife since Rav Hamnuna had already died – as we will learn later. She had a young son, and every day he would learn in the Beit Sefer [school]. On that day he left the school and came home, for the spirit of G-d notified him that important guests would be coming to his home. He saw these sages. His mother said to him, go on and draw close to those great men, and gain [from them] and receive a blessing from them!

He drew close towards them. Before he arrived, he retreated backwards. He said to his mother, I do not want to draw close to them, because today they did not read the Kriat Shema [the Reading of the Shema] in its correct time! And so it was taught to me, that anybody who does not read Kriat Shema in its [correct] time, he is to be put into excommunication the entire day, because he did away with the 248 רמ"ח words in the Kriat Shema, it is turned around upon him 248 – רמ"ח into חר"ם excommunication – G-d forbid. [The Shema consists of 248 words. When one takes the Hebrew letters corresponding to the numerical value of 248, it can be read as either רמ"ח which refers to the 248 words, or when one switches the letters around – becomes חר"ם – excommunication. The Yenuka was pointing out that because the rabbis – for whatever the reason could be, had not yet recited the Kriat Shema which contains 248 words which protect one, they were now deserving of excommunication. Due to his holiness, and his desire to fulfil the law of every single letter of Torah correctly, he took it upon himself to stay away from them – as if they already were in excommunication.]

They, Rabbi Yitzchak and Rabbi Yehuda, heard these words [that the Yenuka had said to his mother,] and were amazed! They lifted their hands and blessed him. They said, “Certainly it is so, that we didn’t read the Kriat Shema in it’s time today. Today we were busy with the needs of a groom and bride who did not have for themselves their needs, [they didn’t have the necessary money to pay for a wedding.] And they were delaying to get married, and there wasn’t any other person that would occupy themselves with them. And we occupied ourselves with them. And therefore we didn’t read the Kriat Shema in its correct time! And one who is occupied with a Mitzvah, is exempt from a Mitzvah.” (As explained in Tractate Sukka 26a)
They said to him – they asked the child, “My son, how did you know that we didn’t read the Kriat Shema in it’s time?” He said to them, “By the smell of your garments I knew when I approached you.” They were amazed about this! And this means to say that through the smell of the garments of their soul which is made up of Mitzvot. And now there was lacking to them a portion of the garment of the Mitzvah of Kriat Shema.
An alternative explanation: When a person sleeps and his soul leaves his body, there enters into his 248 limbs 248 limbs of the Klipot, husks [evil forces.] And afterwards when a person awakens from his sleep, then even if he occupies himself in Torah and Mitzvot, the husk does not depart from the 248 limbs until he reads the Kriat Shema which has in it 248 words. Since there is a Segula [charm] in the Kriat Shema that every word that he reads empties out the impurity from one of his 248 limbs. And these Tannaim [as the Rabbis of that era were called], even though they occupied themselves in Mitzvot and were exempt from the reading of the Shema, but still that husk had not left their limbs. Therefore the Yenuka smelled the smell of the Klipah which is the garment of their soul.

.

Baum Group

http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/staticpages/323.html

The Nazi propaganda exhibit was set afire by the Baum group,the antri Bolshevik exhibit and 500 Jews in Berlin were arrested in repraisal. Hlla Hirsch belonged to hte Baum group. Two hundred fifty were shot and the rest sent to Sachsenhausen.Hirsch and her immediate group of 12 were tried on December 9,1942,and 9 were sentenced to death and Hirsch to just three years due to extenuating circumstances. Herbert and Marianne Baum led the group founded in 1937 consisting of young Jewish communists and fervent left wing Zionists.The Baum group produced and distributed anti Nazi pamphlets and :

• arranged educational events for isolated Jewish youth in Berlin






• offered moral support and camaraderie.






• they committed a daring act an attempt to burn down an anti-Bolshevik propaganda exhibit called Das Sowjetparadies (The Soviet Paradise). (QUOTE)






• Note the film made of this historical happening andf discussed in a previous post. Flammen- 1942 Berlin In 1942 had in Berlin, the German capital, a group of anti-fascists the National Socialist exhibition of hate "Das Sowjetparadies" (the soviet-paradise) set into fire. The resistance group consisted primarily of young Jewish Communists.Their head was Herbert Baum a forced laborer in the Siemens Company. He was murdered during the preliminary investigation, and 21 members were condemned to death. Survivors remember their murdered friends and comrades.(QUOTE)




• Most members of the two groups were sentenced to death and beheaded. Herbert Baum died in his cell according to the Gestapo but the group maintained he was murdered.Two other women sentenced to death were reprieved.




• the sole survivor was Richard Holzer, who managed to flee to Hungary, where he was recruited into the Jewish forced-labor companies on the eastern front. (QUOTE). He was captured by the Soviets and provwed his identity and returned to Germany after the war.




• The majority of the women members were between ages 10 and 13.Most were friends and lovers of male members of the group.They sought community support and solidarity, friendship and love.Many ame from disbanded Jewish or other youth movements after the Kristallnacht pogrom of Nov 1938.Jewish youth movements were contacted by Baum since '34 for the main pool of resources.




• In the middle of 34 Baum performed "the Trojan Horse Tactic" infiltrating toher groups to draw members for his own group.




• The Brussells Congress of the German Communist party, note their party rationale and present using of Jewish youth groups to provide camouflage.They expelled Jewish members from the Communist underground cells as their protection. This served as a context of the Jewish youth groups as recruiting pools. The first group organized around the end of 1938 when Jewish youth groups were outlawed. Many of the Jewish youth movements left Germany but for those who did not leave,the Baum group became a city of refuge.
  
  
  

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/baum-gruppe-jewish-women#bibliography

1942: The "Final Solution"

pg.
323


A
poster advertises the anti-Bolshevik Nazi propaganda exhibit that was displayed
in the Berlin Lust-garten. The exhibit, entitled The Soviet Paradise, was
designed to demonstrate the superiority of Nazism over communism. The Nazi
propaganda machine worked tirelessly throughout the war years to bolster the
regime's military campaigns. The exhibit was particularly repugnant to the Baum
Group since most of its members belonged to Communist and other left-wing
organizations. Photo: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz / United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
Hella
Hirsch belonged to the Baum Group. On May 18, 1942, Hirsch and other members of
the group set fire to an anti-Bolshevik exhibit on display in Berlin. The
Gestapo arrested 500 Berlin Jews in reprisal for the attack, shooting 250 of
them and sending the rest to the Sachsenhausen, Germany, concentration camp.
Hirsch and the others in her immediate group, 12 altogether, were tried on
December 9, 1942. Nine were given death sentences. Hirsch was sentenced to just
three years in prison due to "extenuating circumstances." Photo: Bildarchiv
Preussischer Kulturbesitz / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo
Archive
Baum Gruppe
Named after its leaders, Herbert and Marianne Baum,
the Baum Gruppe (Baum Group) was diverse in its membership but unified in its
opposition to the Nazis. Founded in 1937 and composed mainly of young Jewish
Communists, the group also included fervent, left-wing Zionists. Most of the
members were in their early 20s.
The Baum Group produced and distributed
anti-Nazi pamphlets, arranged educational events for the increasingly isolated
Jewish youth of Berlin, and offered moral support and camaraderie. In May 1942
members engaged in a daring anti-Nazi act, an attempt to burn down an
anti-Bolshevik propaganda exhibit called Das Sowjetparadies (The Soviet
Paradise).
Herbert, Marianne, and about 25 other members of the group were
caught, tortured, and either killed or sent to concentration camps. Five hundred
Berlin Jews not associated with the group also were arrested in reprisal and
sent to camps or killed.

Baum Gruppe: Jewish Women
BibliographyDiscuss


Twenty-year-old Baum Gruppe member Edith Fraenkel was arrested and deported, first to Theresienstadt and then to her death at Auschwitz in 1944.
Institution: Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
by Avraham Atzili
On May 18, 1942, two anti-Nazi Communist groups set fire to the anti-Soviet exhibit, Das Sowjetparadies (The Soviet Paradise), which was held in the Lustgarten in Berlin. The larger, leading group of the two, almost entirely Jewish in its composition and led by Herbert Baum, was known as the Baum Gruppe. Damage was minimal and the exhibition was reopened the following day. Nine days later, on May 27, 1942, the Gestapo arrested an unspecified number of Jews and incarcerated them in the internment camp at the Lewetzowstrasse Synagogue. On May 28, one hundred and fifty-four of them were taken to the SS camp in Lichterfelde and shot immediately upon arrival. Ninety-six other Jews were taken out of the evening roll call that same day and also shot. The family members of the Jews who had been shot in Lichterfelde were sent to Theresienstadt in various transports. Two hundred and fifty other Jews from Berlin were deported to Sachsenhausen. Some were shot there and others sent to Auschwitz.
Most of the members of the two resistance groups were quickly captured by the Gestapo and tried and sentenced in Berlin. Except for three of the youngest women, all of them were sentenced to death. The condemned were beheaded in the Berlin-Plötzensee prison. In all, twenty-two members of the group were executed. Herbert Baum died in his cell. According to the Gestapo he committed suicide, but group members and researchers believe he was murdered. Three of the women who did not receive death sentences were sent to Auschwitz, where they perished. Two other women members were sentenced to death but reprieved, each under different circumstances. The Gestapo also arrested supporters and helpers of the group who were not themselves members, sentenced most of them to death and executed them. Of the immediate circle of young men in the group, the sole survivor was Richard Holzer, who managed to flee to Hungary, where he was recruited into the Jewish forced-labor companies on the eastern front. He was captured by the Soviets but managed to prove his identity and returned to Germany after the war.

THE WOMEN OF THE BAUM GRUPPE
A significant characteristic of the Baum group was its youthfulness, which was particularly characteristic of the women members. In 1941, the average age of the members was twenty-two. Alice Hirsch was the youngest at eighteen, followed by Hildegard Löwy, who turned nineteen that same year. Charlotte Päch, aged thirty-two, was nicknamed “Grandma.” Only five members were over twenty-one years of age in 1933, the year Hitler came to power, while the majority were then between the ages of ten and thirteen. Most of the young women in the group were friends or lovers of a man in the group, and some were already married. Two had children. This confirms testimonies about their motivation to join a group and the references to a search for community, support, solidarity, friendship and love. Many of them came to the group from Jewish or other youth movements that had either been disbanded after the pogrom of November 9 and 10, 1938 (“Kristallnacht”) or had dwindled rapidly as a result of emigration. The group comprised almost equal numbers of men and women. The small inner circle around Herbert Baum had fourteen members, seven of them women. Three women and one man were more marginal.
In the wider circle, the Heinz Joachim group, which was more like a sub-group in itself, there were seven members: three women and four men. The entire group was thus balanced so far as gender was concerned. In addition, of the twelve members who took part in the torching of the exhibit, five were women.
The main pool of human resources on which the Baum Gruppe drew was Jewish youth organizations. After Hitler’s rise to power, the leadership of the Communist youth organization instructed Baum to contact Jewish youth movements and organizations and recruit them to resistance. In consequence, Baum joined the Ring-Bund Deutsch-Jüdischer Jugend at the beginning of 1934.
From the middle of 1934, Baum assumed leadership of the Communist youth organization in the southwestern sub-district of Berlin. Even before Hitler’s rise to power, Baum managed to work in several Jewish youth movements. The core of a resistance group under his leadership came from this framework. This was where he met Marianne Cohen, his wife-to-be, and Sala and Martin Kochmann. In contemporary leftist jargon their activity was termed “the Trojan Horse tactic,” the goal of which was to recruit members by infiltrating into other organizations, some of which were close to their world view while others opposed it. Later on, after the “Brussels Congress” of the German Communist Party which took place in Moscow in October, 1935, activity in the Jewish youth organizations had another goal: to provide legal camouflage for Communist activists, since the Jewish and especially the Zionist youth movements remained legal until after the November pogrom. At that same congress, the Communists decided to expel Jewish members from Communist underground cells. This was in order to protect both the Jewish members and the cells themselves. Thus the conditions were created for the Jewish youth organizations to serve as a recruiting pool for the Jewish Communist group which was taking shape.
The first organization of the group seems to have begun around the end of 1938 and beginning of 1939. This was the time when Jewish youth movements were outlawed, though they still managed to get most of their members out of Germany. Under these conditions, the organization became a kind of “city of refuge” for members of Jewish youth movements and organizations who for one reason or another had not left Germany.
There were only a few members in Herbert and Marianne Baum’s immediate circle: Sala and Martin Kochmann, Heinz Birnbaum, Felix Heymann, Alfred Eisenstadter and Gerd and Hanni Meyer. Two non-Jewish women joined them: Irena Walther, who was friendly with one of the members, and Suzanne Wesse, a Frenchwoman who had been married to a Berlin resident and had remained in Berlin after her divorce.

At this stage, the group’s activity was mainly social and ideological. They went on outings, listened to music, held poetry readings, and participated in other, similar activities. On the ideological side, they concentrated on the study of Marxism, reading the relevant literature and holding discussions. Only in mid-1941, after war broke out between Germany and the Soviet Union, did their activity develop into active resistance to the regime. This took the form of composing, printing and distributing anti-Fascist posters and propaganda material and, finally, the attempt to blow up the anti-Soviet exhibit.
Despite the membership of several “refugees” from Zionist youth movements such as Ha-Bonim and Ha-Shomer ha-Za’ir, the group’s membership in the German Communist Party was clear and absolute, even though there were differences of opinion in the group’s discussions (including one about the need and justification for the torching of the exhibit). But Herbert Baum’s leadership of the group was unassailable. Marianne Baum, his wife, comes across as a woman with important social influence in the group, but she was at the side—and perhaps even in the shadow—of her husband.

Bibliography
Be’er, Mark. Bletter far geshikhte. Warsaw: 1961, 27–64; Eschwege, Helmut. “Resistance of German Jews against the Nazi Regime.” In LBI Yearbook 15 (1970): 168–180; Kwiet, Konrad, and Helmut Eschwege. Selbstbehauptung und Widerstand: Deutsche Juden im Kampf um Existenz und Menschenwürde 1933–1945. Hamburg: 1984, 114–139; Loehken, Wilfried, and Werner Vathke. Juden im Widerstand: Drei Gruppen zwischen Ueberlebenskampf und Politischer Aktion, Berlin 1939–1945. Berlin: 1993, 114–117; Maoz, Eliyahu. Yalkut Moreshet 3: 79–88; Wippermann, Wolfgang. Die Berliner Gruppe Baum und der judischer Widerstand 4–10. Informationszentrum Berlin, Gedank und Bildungstatte Staufenberg Strasse 14, 1000 Berlin 30.

Konrad Weiss DEFA Documentary Films 2

http://www.bln.de/k.weiss/media.htm#Der%20Morgen

The first film is a screenplay based on a story by Maxim Gorki poetically set to the medium of film. It is called The Morning. The pictures were taken in Krasnowidowo a remote village of the Volga river. Gorki led a withdrawn life in the year 1888.The music and pictures create a unique setting to add "understanding to the story". The added letters were written by Gorki to the children and the children back to him. The illustrations are from historical photographs and film documents.
Die Tur (the door) -The students in Guestrow, a town in Mecklenburg, restore a 200 year old baroque door and the film is a documentary about the restoration. The danger the door would be destroyed was due to Communist neglect in the "old" town.

• But the essential is: The DOOR is a symbol. Its restoration is a allegory for a responsible dealing with the heritage of forefathers. (Quote)


• Free association of thoughts on different levels is entertained.


• The GDR, communist Germany, temporarily abandoned the film as the Communists were desirous of eradicating the legacies of the past as they were seen to conflict with the party line. This deprivation of the enrichment of past heritage was often planned or preplanned by them.

erste Liebe (first Love)A Film diary - This film is lyrical and a film of discovery to boys and girls of the 8th class.

• The film-makers went on a discovery journey, longer than one year. It was a discovery journey to the boys and girls of a eighth class. They wanted to know from they: How is that with the love, if you are twelve, thirteen, fourteen? About what do you dream, what would you like? How it is, if you falls in love for the first time? What do the parents think about the first love, what the teachers, what think the others in the class? (Quote)

Flammen- 1942 Berlin In 1942 had in Berlin, the German capital, a group of anti-fascists the National Socialist exhibition of hate "Das Sowjetparadies" (the soviet-paradise) set into fire. The resistance group consisted primarily of young Jewish Communists.Their head was Herbert Baum a forced laborer in the Siemens Company. He was murdered during the preliminary investigation, and 21 members were condemned to death. Survivors remember their murdered friends and comrades.

Der Morgen (The Morning)Adapted from a story by Maxim Gorki
Directed by Konrad WeißScreenplay: Bodo Schulenburg and Konrad
WeißCinematographer: Michael LöscheComposer: Udo ZimmermannSound: Reinhard
Helmecke and Henner GolzEditor: Martina HoffmannScript Editor: Ev
WittmannProducer: Gerhard Radam and Mark Leonowitsch RushanskiDEFA Studio für
Dokumentarfilme, Berlin, 198127 min. - 35 mm - colourFirst broadcast: 11th
October 1981, Fernsehen der DDR
The pictures to this film were taken in
Krasnowidowo, a remote village at Volga river. The Russian writer Maxim Gorki
led there a withdrawn life in the year 1888. It's a village, in which the
farmers today live still almost in such a way as before one hundred years.
In
his narration "Der Morgen" describes Maxim Gorki with poetic strength the
beginning of a new day. The music and the film pictures take up his motives.
Also were added a few letters, written by Maxim Gorki to the children, and
others written from children to him. These texts be illustrated with historical
photographs and film documents.

Die Tür (The door)Documentary about restoration of a baroque door in Güstrow (Mecklenburg)
Screenplay and Direction by Konrad WeißCinematographer: Heiner SylvesterSound: Kurt Hoy and Hansjürgen MittagEditor: Eleonore BurkeProducer: Günter ZaleikeDEFA Studio für Dokumentarfilme, Berlin, 197826 min. - 35 mm - black and whiteFoto: © Konrad Weiß
In summer 1978, six pupils from the secondary school in Guestrow, a town in Mecklenburg, have restored a 200 years old baroque door. There was the danger that the door could be destroyed, like as much was neglected by the communists in the old part of town. The film shows the manifold processing steps, which were necessary for the preservation of the door.
But the essential is: The DOOR is a symbol. Its restoration is a allegory for a responsible dealing with the heritage of forefathers. When he is seeing the film, the spectator has freedom to play with form and thoughts. Free associations of thoughts are possible on many different ways.
The film was temporarily forbidden in the GDR.

erste Liebe (first Love)A Film diary
Directed by Konrad WeißScreenplay: Steffi Schröder and Konrad WeißCinematographer: Michael LöscheComposer: Thomas NatschinskiLyrics: Konrad WeißSong: Marion Sprawe and JessicaSound: Jürgen Abel and Ulrich FenglerScript Editor: Ev WittmannProducer: Rainer BaumertDEFA Studio für Dokumentarfilme, Berlin, 198565 min. - 35 mm - colour
The film-makers went on a discovery journey, longer than one year. It was a discovery journey to the boys and girls of a eighth class. They wanted to know from they: How is that with the love, if you are twelve, thirteen, fourteen? About what do you dream, what would you like? How it is, if you falls in love for the first time? What do the parents think about the first love, what the teachers, what think the others in the class?
In the focal point of the film-diary are standing Claudia and Thomas. She is thirteen and he is seventeen years old. They experience the great luck of the first love. Without shyness they let the film-spectators see a little bit of their happiness.

Flammen (Flames)
Screenplay and Direction by Konrad WeißCinematographer: Wolfgang DietzelEditor: Monika SchäferDiplomfilm. Deutsche Hochschule für Filmkunst (German Academy for Film and Television),Potsdam-Babelsberg, 1967, 197020 min. - 35 mm - black and white
In 1942 had in Berlin, the German capital, a group of anti-fascists the National Socialist exhibition of hate "Das Sowjetparadies" (the soviet-paradise) set into fire. The resistance group consisted predominantly of young Jewish communists. Their head was Herbert Baum, which was a forced labourer in the Siemens company. 21 members of the group became condemned to death. Herbert Baum was murdered during the preliminary investigation.
In this film some survivors of Jewish resistance-fighters report on their courageous operation. They remember their murdered friends' and comrades' in struggle.

Cinematography of the Holocaust