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

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 terms, of our future partner. One very limited part of that image is formed by our dynamic with our parent figures. We project the composite of all our parent images and they are one dimension of that imago. Thus the psychology of unfinished parental business is one set of hints in the universe to help us identify, recognize, our imago on the face of our future partner.

In Kabbalistic terms, when you are born, you are attached to your partner back to back (achor be achor). “Back to back” means that your are unconsciously linked. You cannot necessarily see them, yet they are there, ever-present, ever-connected. What creates the linkage? An entire web of weaving that connects you to that person, including their similarity to your parent source figures.

Now here is the key. The fact that your lover plays a role in the drama of your parent relationships is exactly the way it is supposed to be. The attraction you naturally feel towards that person is God’s way of pointing him or her out to you. That is one of the ways a loving universe brings people together. This is what the Zohar calls Heichal Ha’ahavah — Palace of Love — and Jung called unus mundus.

Both describe the guiding loves as forces of synchronicity disguised as psychology.

Says the Zohar, “All roads lead to love.”

Let’s say it more clearly — on some level your parents are who they are in order to lead you to your love, in order to create that dynamic which will attract you to your intended love partner. They are the road to love. What’s more, your love partner is who he is in order to help you heal the internal wounds of childhood. It is an infinite feedback loop of love.

This feedback loop is described in the Kabbalah of Luria as a key linchpin in the mystery of love.

to be cont’d

marc gafni
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