To yearn is to be aflame: Marc Gafni

marc gafni
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For the Hebrew mystic, unlike his Buddhist or Greek cousins, desire and longing are sacred. Eros is the yearning force of being. I yearn therefore I am. To be cut off from the eros of yearning is to be left in the cold of non-existence. To yearn is to be aflame.

This longing is built into the very fabric of human existence. In both the Hebrew story of the creation of humankind as well as in Plato’s myth told in the Symposium, all human beings were initially both male and female. “Male and female he created them,” reads the biblical myth story.

Then they were separated from each other. And now they yearn to reunite with each other.
According to the biblical myth recorded in the Zohar, this was the grand design of creation.

First, human beings needed to realize that they are essentially interconnected. No human being stands alone. None are essentially alienated, lonely or separate. Then they must be separated from each other. At this point the longing for reunion begins. That yearning will be the driving force in human growth and spiritual unfolding. The difference between Plato and the biblical wisdom is that in the latter it is a longing which can essentially be fulfilled. Full-fill-ment is a genuine option and not an impossible mirage situated over the next hill by a punishing and cruel universe.

Yearning is the essential formula of the universe.

marc gafni
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