When the holy Israel Baal Shem Tov was five years old, his father became very sick. All the cures did not work, and he approached the hour of his death. He asked for his son Israel to be brought to him. To Israel he spoke these parting words of instr ...
Archive for the ‘Blog-Series: Light from Darkness’ Category
Blog Post Six: Revealing Light from Darkness: Marc Gafni
In the path of higher teshuva one accesses the core shadow energy. This energy – rooted, as it is in one’s most primal and essential self–is far more potent than the more staid and bland energy emanating from the more refined parts of the self. ...
Blog Post Five: Revealing Light from Darkness: Marc Gafni
In biblical language the word for “creation” is yatzar. But yatzar also represents primal, even dark, passions. We reveal our light, our soul, from the shadows. The shattered vessels of our miniature temple, which for Luria was the image of our s ...
Blog Post Five: Revealing Light from Darkness: Marc Gafni
In biblical language the word for “creation” is yatzar. But yatzar also represents primal, even dark, passions. We reveal our light, our soul, from the shadows. The shattered vessels of our miniature temple, which for Luria was the image of our s ...
Blog Post Four: Revealing Light From Darkness: Marc Gafni
Artists create from their own shadows. The kabbalists teach that we are all artists of our own lives, engaged in the ultimate sacred act of self-creation. Nietzsche correctly intuited a core biblical idea when he said, “The artist becomes the work ...
Blog Post Two: Light From Darkness: Marc Gafni
For nearly two thousand years, people ignored, denied, or labeled as evil the darker crevices of their soul. It was considered a deficit that was best left unexplored. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi–the founder of the Chabad Movement, goes one step ...
New Series of Blogs: Light From Darkness: Marc Gafni
Dear Reader, This series of posts was written originally for a book I wrote called Soul Prints back in 2000. This material, along with a few hundred other pages, did not make it into the book. I am now revisiting, rewriting and re-souling this torah ...