The Torah is like a beautiful woman, who is hidden in a secluded chamber of her palace and who has a secret lover, unknown to all others. For love of her he keeps passing the gate of her house, looking this way and that in search of her. She knows th ...
Archive for October, 2008
The Textualization of Eros: Part Three: Marc Gafni
The Eroticization of Text: In a tour de force the process of study is described in the Zohar much in the way the 12th century troubadours a hundred years before described their flirtation with their loves. In the romantic ideal of courtly love, thoug ...
Textualization of Eros: Part Two: Marc Gafni
on the first day of Simchat Torah according to the count of the Land of Israel When the Temple was destroyed the masters knew that the holy writ of biblical myth needed to be expanded and deepened. The temple, which was the archetypal object of eroti ...
The Spiritual Practice of Study: The Textualization of Eros:Part Three
On the first day after Simchat Torah: by the counting of the land of Israel The Textualization of Eros When the Temple was destroyed the masters knew that the holy writ of biblical myth needed to be expanded and deepened. The temple, which was the ar ...
The Spiritual Practice of Study: Part Two: Marc Gafni
posted by Gafni assistant: We are used to thinking of intellectual pursuit as a pretty dry kind of affair. And even if it excites us it is clear that the mind is the primary faculty engaged in the pursuit of intellectual depth. Well, as you might exp ...
The Spiritual Practice of Torah Study: Marc Gafni
posted by Gafni assistant. More then any other spiritual art, study has been my life long spiritual practice. The Study of Torah. The study of Reality. Study is not the accumulation of information. It is rather – the suspension of ego and small ...
The Arousal to Prayer: Marc Gafni: Part One
The Baal Shem Tov, 18th century founder of the Hebrew mystical movement called Hassidism, writes that the ecstatic swaying motion which is characteristic of Hebrew prayer is the swaying and rocking of the couple in lovemaking. Rabbi Isaac Luria write ...
Love Travels With Us: Marc Gafni
It is in the move through the sexual to the erotic that we achieve the ultimate goal of the spirit: higher union with the Shechina, erotic fulfillment in every arena of living. As Rilke aptly wrote of the ability of love to travel with us” “Belie ...
We need to De-Centralize the Sexual: Marc Gafni
I have received some mail – from I am sure lovely – but superficial readers who think that the blogs from the last couple of months somehow violate the Orthodox relationship to sexuality. Precisely the opposite is true. The piece below &# ...
Esoteric Reading of the Song of Songs: Part Two: Marc Gafni
That reading however is but the cloak which allows Akiva to hide his truly radical esoteric doctrine. This doctrine is no less than the Secret of the Cherubs – the spring of enlightenment from which we have been sipping this entire chapter. Whe ...
Esoteric Hebrew Tantra: Marc Gafni
posted by dr. gafni assistant Akiva teaches – the song of song is a Mashal. Usually translated as allegory. Usually understood to mean – the song of passion and sensuality is but an allegory for the higher loves – particularly the l ...
On the Inside of the Inside: Marc Gafni
Song of Songs, Holy of Holies Holy= Inside Holy of Holies = on the Inside of the Inside posted by Gafni assistant The Zohar teaches that Akiva used to read the song of songs on the Sabbath and cry. Tears of Ecstasy. I have asked my assistant to post ...
Love or Die: Marc Gafni
Eros we now begin to understand is the primal desire from which the word springs into being. God’s Eros created the world. One of the great questions asked by the realized beings in every tradition is -“Why is there a world”. That the w ...
The Credo of Evolutionary Kabbalah and a Teaching of Abraham Kuk on “Evolutionary Spirituality”
by Marc Gafni Evolutionary Kabbalah means that all of reality is evolving. It means that from a non-dual perspective there is no separation between the divine and all of reality. This means that all levels of reality, from matter to body to mind to s ...
Marc Gafni: The Cry of the Shekina; “Woe to me who has become powerless once again”
When man and woman come together in sacred union, God is a third partner in their union. They participate not only in the potential creation of new life below in the visible world, but also create new life above, in the divine. They not only fulfill ...