To be a Lover is to Give what is Hard for You to Give: Marc Gafni
This is for you babe….
To be a lover does not mean to grandstand and show people how kind and caring you are.
“I love helpless stray cats and send food to the poor.”
Although those are clearly two beautiful things to do.
The Deep Dharma Torah is like this:
Everyone has a particular and special gift that is theirs alone to give.
We all have that unique gift that is ours alone to give.
No one else but us can give it but us.
And it is always hard – very very very hard – for us to give that gift.
It is that gift which requires a giving up of ego, a giving up being right, a giving up of
posturing, it requires a true and genuine and honest humility – it is when we give that gift that
we become lovers – it is when we give that gift that we become – decent human beings – it is
when we give that gift that we become truly alive for the very first time.
This is the true gift that comes from your Soul Print…your Unique Self.
You have that gift to give. On my knees – with all my heart and soul, I beg you to give it.
I have that gift to to give. On my knees, with all my heart and soul, I promise to give it.
with tons of love
marc gafni
Small Deeds of Great Love
The paradigmatic Biblical myth tale of love and giving is the story of Abraham who sits, sick, at the entrance to his tent, in the heat of the day. He is greatly saddened for there are no guests to grace his house on that day.
Tradition tells the story of God who, having compassion for Abraham’s suffering in his sickness, makes the day especially hot so as not to disturb Abraham with guests. Yet Abraham has a deep need to give. He gets sadder and perhaps sicker because there is no one to serve. Until — lo and behold — in the distance, he spies three men.
The Biblical myth narrative describes in great detail how Abraham rushes to greet them, and hurries with great alacrity to wash their feet, prepare them food and lodging. In reward for his hospitality, tradition records that Abraham merited many wondrous divine gifts.
One contemporary mystical teacher, Chaim Shmuelivitz, Dean of the greatest Talmudic academy in Jerusalem, asks a simple but highly provocative question, “Big Deal!? So Abraham was generous in his hospitality. So am I. So are many other people. What was so special about Abraham that his hospitality earned for him such abundant divine reward?”
Responding to his own question, Shmuelivitz writes, “There are no great deeds of giving; there are only small deeds with great love.” When Abraham served his guests, he was doing it from a place of unending and pure love. All of the infinite love in the universe was contracted into his every small deed of hospitality. When the infinite and the finite merge in a small point of goodness all of the worlds are raised higher. A smile. A good word. Abraham is the master of “small deeds with great love.”
This is why only Abraham, of all the Biblical myth heroes, is called by the text a “ lover .” For to be a lover is to be a giver.
