Hebrew Tantra and Hindu Tantra: Marc Gafni

So our return to Hebrew tantra is a return to a fountain from which all these great wisdoms sprang. There are, however, two enormous differences between Hebrew and Hindu tantra in their classical sources. In much of Hindu tantra it is the avoidance of sexual release which allows the adept to re-channel the sexual energy inward and upward instead of outward. In Hebrew tantra, it is the natural flow of sexual expression including release, which models the lover’s path in all arenas of living.

Second, in Hindu tantra the sense of the sources is that the partner is almost a sacred object. She is a symbol of the feminine principle but in her being the symbol she is fully depersonalized — a kind of nameless yogini who is a necessary aid in the spiritual tantric journey of the male adept.

In Hebrew tantra the partner is both a Shechina incarnation and fully personalized at the same time. The sexual, existential fulfillment and pleasure of one’s partner is the primary ethical and erotic obligation of the Hebrew adept. The spiritual tantric journey is only sacred within that highly personalized intimate context.

Moreover, in the Hebrew tantric path the partners must share a committed relationship beyond the sexual. Naturally then there is no danger of splitting sex from eros in all facets of life. In the Hindu tantric model there was no committed relationship between the man and woman. For the Hebrew mystic this all is the exile of the Shechina. Classic Hindu tantra (not its Western offshoots) limited eros to the realm of spiritualized sex, effectively divorcing it from all other facets of living. Sex became a limited spiritual activity which did not spill over into day to day partnership and commitment of the rest of life.

marc gafni
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