Archive for the ‘Blog-Series: Falling in Love’ Category

Falling in Love: Part Forty Two: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 18th, 2009 by Marc Gafni No Comments

When we meet our soul mate we think we meet for the first time. The Kabbalah teaches that this is almost never the case. The great existential idea of the soul’s reincarnation is that we are not strangers to each other. Especially not to the person ...

Falling in Love: Part Forty One: For all Those Looking to Call in the One: A Story of Reincarnation and Soul Mates: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 17th, 2009 by Marc Gafni No Comments

Dedicated to Katherine and her holy work: The Scholar and the Onion Sellers Daughter One day the Baal Shem Tov, as he was wont to do, stopped for a visit in a small village market. He came upon an old woman. With one hand she begged from the crowd, w ...

Falling in Love: Part Forty: The Divided Self: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 16th, 2009 by Marc Gafni No Comments

Palga Gufa – The Divided Soul It is said that the students asked Israel Master of the Name, “When you pass on, will you ascend to heaven in flaming fire?” “No,” Israel answered sadly. “I had thought I would, but now that my holy wife ...

Falling in Love: Part Thirty Nine: Called From the Future: Soul Roots: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 15th, 2009 by Marc Gafni 1 Comment

Called from the Future — Soul Roots Childhood and parental dynamics only form a very small part of the image of your intended. This brings us to the second great fallacy of much of contemporary psychology, which is the near dogmatic assumption that ...

Falling in Love: Part Thirty Eight: From Back to Back to Face to Face: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 14th, 2009 by Marc Gafni No Comments

From Back to Back to Face to Face Let’s pull it together! We are born back to back, says Luria. This refers to the state before you become conscious. The goal is to leave your father and mother — that is, to become conscious of your father and mo ...

Falling in Love: Part: Thirty Seven: Luria and the Stages of Loving: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 13th, 2009 by Marc Gafni 1 Comment

Back To Back — The Palace of Love Now let’s apply what we have talked about so far, to how we understand falling in love and the love choices it moves us to make. Lurianic mysticism teaches that we have a roshem, an image or imago in Jungian term ...

Falling in Love: Part Thirty Six: Recovering Your Lost Self: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 12th, 2009 by Marc Gafni 1 Comment

In the Sorrow With all of our focus on consciousness, we do not mean to say that the only life worth living is one that is totally healed. Indeed, no one is ever fully healed or fully conscious. Letting go of the need for full healing or full conscio ...

Falling in Love: Part Thirty Five: Recovering Your Lost Self: Part Three Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 11th, 2009 by Marc Gafni No Comments

cont’d from yesterday… Or it could happen in just the opposite way: you could marry someone cold through whom you hope to fix the relation to your father. “If I can warm him up,” your unconscious mind tells you, “then I will heal th ...

Falling in Love: Part Thirty Four: part two in Recovering Your Lost Self: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 10th, 2009 by Marc Gafni 1 Comment

cont’d from yesterday – how do we recover the self we lost… Recognize the Archetype Second, we will look to recover our lost self through the archetype of our parent. When you meet a person who is similar to your father or your moth ...

Falling in Love: Part Thirty Three: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 9th, 2009 by Marc Gafni 1 Comment

picking up from yesterday… So let’s start with prerequisite for intimacy number one: Leaving your father and mother. No parent is perfect. No parent can fully meet all of their children’s needs. Children though are formed in the cauldrons o ...

Falling in Love: Part Thirty Two: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 8th, 2009 by Marc Gafni 2 Comments

cont’d from yesterday… The word in the Biblical myth text for intimate is devekut, cleaving, which is also the Hebrew word for glue. Devekut is Intimate Communion. For the Kabbalists the word devekut is virtually synonymous with love. Wha ...

Falling in Love: Part Thirty Two: Throw Mommy and Daddy out of Bed: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 7th, 2009 by Marc Gafni 1 Comment

posted by Gafni assistant Conscious and Unconscious loving The most powerful Biblical myth image on choosing a partner is undoubtedly: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother — be intimate with his lover and they shall be one flesh ...

Falling in Love: Part Thirty One: There is nothing as whole as a broken heart: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 6th, 2009 by Marc Gafni 1 Comment

In honor of KD To See the Imperfect Soul For me, this story that I shared yesterday from the tradition of the Baal Shem, incomplete and strange as it is, nevertheless captures at least one critical dimension of loving. The universe joins us with whom ...

I love your Broken Heart and My Love can Heal it: Falling in Love: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 5th, 2009 by Marc Gafni No Comments

A true story about the famous Kabbalist, Hayim of Sanz. A Room With a Mirror Hayim always stayed up studying into the depths of night. After everyone left the study hall he would sit at the window learning, all the while singing gentle harmonies. It ...

Falling in love: Part Thirty: Marc Gafni

Posted on: March 1st, 2009 by Marc Gafni 1 Comment

Running and Returning This movement — what the mystics called “running and returning” — is the core dance of the sexual. Here again, the sexual models the erotic. The cherubs hold each other. The passionately intertwined cherubs, symbols of t ...