Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Born in Poland in 1924 and raised in Vienna, Austria, Reb Zalman spent three years as a teenager running from the Nazis across Europe before landing in New York, where he entered the Lubavitch Yeshiva. He was ordained in 1947, and became one of the first Chabad outreach emissaries. He later received a doctorate in Hebrew Letters and taught in Canada and the U.S. He also studied with transpersonal psychologists and did LSD for the first time in 1962 after meeting Timothy Leary. His friends included Thomas Merton, the Dalai Lama, and Ken Wilber. He was also a friend of Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, who made him a sheikh in the Inayati Order, and he was likewise initiated by Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak of the Halveti-Jerrahi Order. He opened the rabbinate to women, was active in interreligious dialogue, and founded the Spiritual Eldering movement and ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal. His many books include A Heart Afire: Stories and Teachings of the Early Hasidic Masters and From Age-Ing to Sage-Ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older. In 1995, Schachter-Shalomi moved to Boulder, Colorado, with his wife, Eve Ilsen, to take the World Wisdom Chair at Naropa University, where he taught until 2004. He died in 2014.
