Original Sources for Parts Five, Six and Seven: Eros and Holiness: Marc Gafni

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For an explanation about the nature of these notes and the nature of creating new spiritual thought in general particularly from ancient and sacred sources, see please Eros and Holiness: Post Ten:

1 This idea, which was extensively developed in Kabbalistic and Midrashic sources, is held by the Talmud and Midrash to have its origin in the Torah. In Isaiah 63:9 it is written :”In all their sufferings He was lo [not] afflicted. The Hebrew word lo is read with a vav meaning Him, rather than with an aleph, which would mean “is not”. The verse can therefore be read as “In all their sufferings, He, too, suffers”. Others derive this principle from the verse from Psalm 91:15: “I am with him in suffering”. See TB tractate Sotah 31a, and Ta’anit 16a, where two sages use these two verses as a basis for this idea. See also Midrash Rabba Bereshit 2:5, or Midrash Tanhuma Beshalah 28. For a more extensive treatment of the human obligation to participate in the pain of the Shehina, see Meir Eyal’s article on this subject (have any idea where this is? Should I have n search?)

2 The sense of human participation in the loss of erotic union of divinity, is beautifully expressed in the Zohar, vol. 3, p. 213b. “What is meant by “remembering Zion”? (This may be compared) to a man who had a beautiful and precious palace that marauders came and burned. Who is in pain? Is it not the master of the palace? Simalarly, the Shehina is in exile. Is not this the pain of the tzaddiq? (tzaddiq refers to the sfira of yesod)…When we remember Zion, we remember His pain over His union (with the Shehina, which has been lost).”

3 In the Zohar, the “code name” for the Shehina is “Knesset Yisrael”, the congregation or gathering of Israel — Shehina is the group soul — see also Ethics of the Fathers chap. 3 mishna 6.

4 This core idea is the subject of much of the present work, and will be developed and elaborated upon in its course. At this point I would note that I am not claiming that Shehina is always used in this manner. I am rather making a more limited claim that Shechina is sometimes used in Zoharic texts as a virtual synonym for the Greek idea of eros. For a more extensive treatment of this subject, see Y. Liebes’ classical article “Zohar and Eros”.

5 When Shehina is not with her Lover, she is called “desolate” or “dry”, void of growth, incapable of intimate sexual contact in which the feminine waters are aroused. This is an oft-repeated idea in the Zohar, and especially in Tiqunei Zohar. See, for example, Zohar vol. 1, p. 23b, or Tiqunei Zohar 58a, and 73b. In this state, her garments are those of the qlipot, (see footnote 99).

6 Another of the seemingly endless unfoldings of this Hebrew root is hillul — desecration. The connection between these two states that I suggest in this chapter is in fact a recurring theme in Tiqunei Zohar, where the term hilul Shabbat, desecration of the Sabbath, is interpreted as “desecrating her emptiness” (hilul, desecration, and halal, emptiness). The Sabbath is of course the Shehina, whom we have identified as Eros. See, for example, the comment on the biblical verse “Keep (protect) My Sabbaths” (Lev. 19:3): “Concerning whoever introduces a foreign presence in her emptiness, (making her into) public property, or as wine that was used for forbidden libations, or even as a prostitute, it is written (Numbers 19:13): “He has defiled the Sanctuary of the Lord, that soul shall be cut off from its people” (Tiqunei Zohar, p. 77b-78a). See also Tiqunei Zohar 24b.

7 Isaiah 54:1 and 66:8.8

8 This echoes the Lurrianic idea of the “empty void” which was the first move of the Infinite preceding creation. This Void was created as a result of a “withdrawal” of all-encompassing Divinity into Itself, creating a space void of infinity, where the creation of finity could unfold.

9 Leonard Cohen, in his album “Various Positions”.

10 In the beginning of the Idra Rabba, one of the core sections of the Zohar, Rabbi Shimon asks the assembly: “How long are we to sit in the existence of one pillar?” (Zohar, vol. 3, p. 127b). There are many different interpretations as to the meaning of “one pillar”. One of them, based on various sources, identifies “pillar” as a phallic symbol, hence an expression of the Kabbalistic sefira of yesod, the seat of the sexual organs (see Y. Liebes, “The Messiah of the Zohar”, for a detailed discussion of this and other interpretations, along with relevant sourcing). If this is in fact the case, then we can understand R. Shimon’s cry as a call against Eros being limited to Yesod, the sexual. A careful reading of the Idras and the Sifra deTzniyuta sections of the Zohar indicates that for the Zohar, the meaning of creation in tikkun is Erotic Union. R. Shimon is therefore declaring that we should not view Erotic Union as being limited to sex.

11 “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, the word of God: I have placed My Torah within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be for them a God, and they will be for me as a people. And no longer will a man say to his comrade and to his brother, Know God, for they will all know Me, from the small to the great, this is the word of God. For I will forgive their sin and I will no longer remember their iniquity” (Jeremiah 31:64-65).

12 Zohar vol. 1, p. 116b.

13 A conflation of two verses: Song of Songs 2:5 and 3:1. I am following Me’or Ainayim, who also combines these two verses. See following footnote.

14 Me’or Ainayim, in the Anthology of Quotes (Liqutim).

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