Eros and Holiness: The Great Dancer: Marc Gafni

marc gafni
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side bar personal note before body of post: I am not a great dancer:) Grew up in Yeshiva, Orthodox Jewish School where dancing was kind of primitive even if wild and ecstatic. But the ability to trust the movement of the body in dance is something that is new to me. Recently I went dancing in Salt Lake City, with three friends. First time in my life. What a beautiful spiritual practice is dance. Total Gorgeous.

The Great Dancer

The truly great dancer is a great lover who flows with the fullness of being. She trusts the universe. She knows she will always fall right so she allows herself to fall into the erotic rhythm of life. To do so she must first empty herself to receive the flow. The word ‘dance’ in the original Hebrew is Mechol. It has two virtually opposite meanings. Mechol is etymologically identical with the word Challul which means empty. From here springs the Hebrew word Mechila —forgiveness. Forgiveness comes from the ability to empty myself to receive the fullness of wonder, complexity and imperfection of another. Mechol however also means Chalah-fullness — used in the biblical myth text to describe the erotic fullness of a pregnant woman.5

Mechol =Dance. Dance, then, is the movement between emptiness and fullness.
Modern day America is choreographed very differently. “Fulfillment at all costs” is our subconscious mantra – marketed to us in a million packages. To fill the emptiness. In any way at any price. We are desperate. We can hardly distinguish between our desires we are so pained by our emptiness. The natural result is that we fill our selves with much which is not true to ourselves. We seek fulfillment — full-fill-ment — in all the wrong places.

marc gafni
posted on marcgafni.com
please share comments at info@marcgafni.com