posted by Gafni assistant; Revealing the Hidden For many years the cherubic mystery tradition was not taught publicly and often not at all in the Hebrew wisdom traditions. This was not accidental. Hebrew tantra is an inseparable part of the whole Heb ...
Archive for the ‘Blog – Spiritually Incorrect’ Category
The Orthodox Esoteric Understanding of Sex and Holiness: Marc Gafni
When sex becomes virtually the only arena in which we experience erotic fulfillment then the Shechina is in exile. The exile of the Shechina is the exile of the erotic into the sexual. The redemption of the Shechina is therefore the re-expansion of e ...
Sex is our teacher: Marc Gafni
We know that eros is very different than sex. Yet beyond eros, we also know that sexual symbolism was central in the Jerusalem Temple. The most striking of these symbols were the sexually entwined cherubs perched atop the ark of the covenant in the H ...
Summation Stage One: Marc Gafni
posted by Gafni assistant Total Good! We have completed the first stage on our journey. Before we continue, lets retrace our steps to make sure that we’re on firm ground. We are unraveling the temple mysteries. The Temple is the seat of eros. We ha ...
“Where you let him in” Marc Gafni
Erotic experience-in the sense that we have understood Eros, Eros =Holy= Shekinah= Zohar= Inside= Presence= Yearning= Wholeness .. are available to us in every facet of our lives. We just have to make a decision to live high. The Master of Kotzk once ...
A Story about Laughter and the Spiritual Practice of Sacred Study: Marc Gafni
Courting the Sacred When I sit down to prepare a teaching the process goes something like this. First is the attraction. I generally only teach that to which I am attracted. There has to be an almost unquenchable longing to explore the subject. Secon ...
Textualization of Eros: Part Three: Marc Gafni
The Torah is like a beautiful woman, who is hidden in a secluded chamber of her palace and who has a secret lover, unknown to all others. For love of her he keeps passing the gate of her house, looking this way and that in search of her. She knows th ...
The Textualization of Eros: Part Three: Marc Gafni
The Eroticization of Text: In a tour de force the process of study is described in the Zohar much in the way the 12th century troubadours a hundred years before described their flirtation with their loves. In the romantic ideal of courtly love, thoug ...
Textualization of Eros: Part Two: Marc Gafni
on the first day of Simchat Torah according to the count of the Land of Israel When the Temple was destroyed the masters knew that the holy writ of biblical myth needed to be expanded and deepened. The temple, which was the archetypal object of eroti ...
The Spiritual Practice of Study: The Textualization of Eros:Part Three
On the first day after Simchat Torah: by the counting of the land of Israel The Textualization of Eros When the Temple was destroyed the masters knew that the holy writ of biblical myth needed to be expanded and deepened. The temple, which was the ar ...
The Spiritual Practice of Study: Part Two: Marc Gafni
posted by Gafni assistant: We are used to thinking of intellectual pursuit as a pretty dry kind of affair. And even if it excites us it is clear that the mind is the primary faculty engaged in the pursuit of intellectual depth. Well, as you might exp ...
The Spiritual Practice of Torah Study: Marc Gafni
posted by Gafni assistant. More then any other spiritual art, study has been my life long spiritual practice. The Study of Torah. The study of Reality. Study is not the accumulation of information. It is rather – the suspension of ego and small ...
The Arousal to Prayer: Marc Gafni: Part One
The Baal Shem Tov, 18th century founder of the Hebrew mystical movement called Hassidism, writes that the ecstatic swaying motion which is characteristic of Hebrew prayer is the swaying and rocking of the couple in lovemaking. Rabbi Isaac Luria write ...
Love Travels With Us: Marc Gafni
It is in the move through the sexual to the erotic that we achieve the ultimate goal of the spirit: higher union with the Shechina, erotic fulfillment in every arena of living. As Rilke aptly wrote of the ability of love to travel with us” “Belie ...
We need to De-Centralize the Sexual: Marc Gafni
I have received some mail – from I am sure lovely – but superficial readers who think that the blogs from the last couple of months somehow violate the Orthodox relationship to sexuality. Precisely the opposite is true. The piece below &# ...