The Eros of Yearning: Marc Gafni

marc gafni
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The Yearning Force of Being

The mystical tradition knows to tell of time portals, each capable of accessing different regions of our interior castle.
The mystical masters understood that the Temple of eros was built not in space but in time. The Sabbath — a Temple in time — is patterned in its spiritual blueprint after the Temple in Jerusalem The axis mundi of the Sabbath, its Holy of Holies, takes place near dusk as the Sabbath ebbs away into sunset.

In the tradition this is the time of tears. Not crying of personal sorrow but tears that welled from the yearning force of being. It was at this time that the disciples would gather around the master’s table and sing songs of longing —often well into the night.

This is what Viktor Turner called Liminal Time, the time between the cracks when all the gates are open. Here is one of its tales of eros.
It was near dusk as the Sabbath ebbed away. The disciples were gathered. The master Levi Isaac of Berdichev – holiest teacher – rises to speak. He wants to explain to his disciples not the wonder of creation, or the mystery of the chariot, but merely that God is the inside of the inside, the erotic life force of the universe, and that therefore each one of our lives matters.

He begins his discourse with an elegant teaching from the Talmud demonstrating the reality of God.
“Do you understand?” he queries.
“No,” they answer…heads hanging.
He then takes them on a dance of light, intricately weaving the mysteries of the Zohar which illuminate God’ s presence in the world.
“Do you understand?” he queries
“No,” they answer…heads hanging.
In desperation he begins to tell stories, tales revealing great mysteries.
“Now do you understand?” he queries
“No,” they answer, heads still hanging.
So he becomes quiet and begins to sing a melody of yearning, of longing, of pining.
For a few moments he sings alone, then one and then another joins in, till they became one voice.
Yearning
Pining
Longing
Levi Isaac did not need to ask. Their heads raised. They understood.

marc gafni
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