Marc Gafni – RECLAIMING EROS BEYOND THE SEXUAL

Marc Gafni
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Just as the Eskimo has an ample supply of words to describe different types of snow, a society infused with love would likewise have a menagerie of terms for different types of love. We should wonder over the paucity in the English language for our ‘terms of endearment’. Our best move in the English language is to turn towards the term Plato introduced in the Symposium: Eros. For Plato eros is love plus. It is precisely the kind of fully charged life experience which is evoked by the Hebrew term Shekhina.
But over time the term Eros has been so narrowed and limited that it has lost most of its original intention. Usually when we hear the word erotic it evokes only the sexual. And although the sexual is a part of eros, it is only a limited part. The type of full Eros we will be describing in this book is way and beyond the merely sexual.
Together we will work to reclaim this original meaning of eros, a meaning infused by its Hebrew counterpart Shechina. May the claiming of our erotic birthright in these pages in-form a richer and deeper life for ourselves, our loved ones and our communities.