I yearn therefore I am: Marc Gafni

marc gafni
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For me to yearn is to sing. When I was 16 and 17 years old I would wander the streets of Riverdale New York singing songs of yearning from the midnight hour often until nearly dawn.

passionate yearning …

for a world in which no one is left out of the circle,

for a world in which noone cries themselves to sleep in broken desperation night after night,

for a world in which there are not so many millions who have forgotten even how to cry, whose tears have long ago dried up,

for a world in which the powerful cannot deface the weak and the stories of powerless are
told with the same joy and dignity as are the stories of the mighty,

for a world in which everyone felt the warm body of a lover next to them in the morning,

for a world in which dark desperation and furious fear are transformed into dervish dance and fulfilled fantasy,

My intention in all of my teaching was simply to share the inside of my yearing..

When I shared torah in Israel, what i wanted to share most was the texture and text of yearning.

I thought if I could just take my students into the inside of the yearning

which is the inside of the inside

there they would meet God.

And that would be enough.

I was wrong.

Not because yearning is any less then it is.

but because the intense light of yearning requires the ethical depth and authentic moral context of simply goodness. or the vessel of yearning will shatter.

From May 11 2006 until about a year later I lost the ability to yearn. I could not sing. The power of betrayal cut my heart into a thousand shreds.

I thank god

for returning to me

my yearning

for god.

I Yearn Therefore I am

It is said that the Great Maggid would convene his inner circle every night to teach them the sacred texts. All of his greatest students would gather. The Maggid would begin to speak, “And God said…” and Reb Zushya would leap up, overwhelmed with desire. He would yell out, “And God said! God said!” He would spin around and around like a leaf in the wind, and then faint, unconscious for the rest of the teaching. Every night it was the same thing. The other disciples would tease him, “Zushya, you’re missing all the holy teachings!” This teasing went on for days and days until finally the Master said, “Leave him alone; he’s the only one who gets it.”

marc gafni
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