The Wounds of Love: A two year journey of pain, love and liberation: Marc Gafni
marc gafni
published on marcgafni.com
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What I Have Done During the Past Two Years
When a tragedy takes place, we seek to understand it. It is in understanding that we find some measure of comfort and safety. If we understand what happened, we can potentially avoid the tragedy next time around. If we understand the tragedy, we can extract meaning from the chaos, and depth and direction from what seems at first glance to be senseless carnage. We humans are condemned to the glory and pathos of meaning.
Some two years ago a terrible tragedy took place in my life. A movement of teaching and spirit, which I had initiated in Israel, suddenly ended. The cause of the ending: complaints of sexual harassment, which were publicized in the Israeli media and the blogosphere.
I first heard of the complaints when I stepped off an international flight into what can only be described as a cruelly orchestrated ambush. Thinking I was going to be picked up at the airport by my girlfriend, whom I loved and intended to marry, I was confronted instead by the report that complaints of sexual harassment had been filed by two people whom I knew well, and by a third person I had known some ten year earlier.
I had no doubt that the complaints were false. And maybe they were never filed at all. I do know know and may never know what really happened or who said or did what. It has been blurred through the distorting prisms of press, egoic posturing, and fear.
What is true? I had not sexually harassed anyone. I had not made any false promises of marriage or anything similar. I had not used my authority as an employer to explicitly, or in any implicit way, engage anyone sexually or gain sexual favors. It took months for me to discover, with the help of several friends who had been present, what had actually happened. Only slowly did I begin to understand who had initiated the process, who had encouraged it, and what persons came together to create the volatile combination that in one fell swoop ended almost a decade of virtually non-stop investment of heart love and life energy―effort of the kind necessary to create the movement.
On that night and the weeks following, all was a blur of pain and tears. In a desire to stop the madness, I wrote a letter taking the responsibility for any and all sickness that had appeared in the system that I created upon myself.
In the twenty-four months following, I engaged in three activities. First, a grief so intense and a pain so sharp that I will not attempt to describe it here overwhelmed me.
Second, I looked carefully into the all-important question of Why. Why did this happen? What was it in me that allowed it to occur? How were my relationships flawed? I placed particular emphasis on finding out my own part in the contribution system that led to these events.
Because of the l issues involved, I could have no direct contact with the parties themselves. So the weight of my process was an internal one. Part of this process was in formal settings, and part was in private spiritual practice with spiritual friends and teachers.
Third, together with a group of friends and supporters, I gathered a team of professionals to bring together the necessary material to establish that the complaints reported in the media were categorically false. This process required almost 18 months of time and was fully successful. Now that this material is available, I prefer never to deploy it but rather to engage from a place of open heart in a healing process with the parties involved. Or as is sadly more likely to simply move on with my life and silently support everyone else in moving on with their lives.
Unless absolutely necessary, I cannot see how reopening these issues would serve. If there is no choice, I will engage it, however, if we can avoid it and simply get on with constructive living and service, that seems immensely preferable for all concerned.
These three processes have now ended.
My energy and strength have slowly returned, thank God.
I am now beginning a fourth process:
To put on paper the teachings which have burned their way into my heart in the long days and longer nights of these past two years.
The intensity of the pain took me to places I never dreamed possible.
Let me state clearly at the outset that none of the teachings will mention specific people either directly or indirectly.
Rather the teachings are about the broader and deeper issues that have emerged and clarified for me.
Perspectives
One of the key areas that became clear to me was that in any drama there are at least several different perspectives from which the events can be viewed.
In Hebrew wisdom, we are fond of saying ‘Shivim Panim LeTorah.’ In my translation, which I will not elaborate on here, that means something like ‘Seventy Faces of Enlightenment.’ This means that if one can look at the same story in seventy different ways, fully inhabiting seventy different perspectives on the story, then one has moved an important step towards enlightened consciousness. The pivoting point that moves us from ego-centered personal consciousness to divine-centered enlightened consciousness is the ability to move with maximal fluidity between perspectives.
The deep definition of idolatry in Hebrew wisdom is being locked in one particular value or view.
In this story one can take many different perspectives. Holding all of the perspectives together begins to shed light on what happened. It begins to allow the full grace of the story to emerge in all of its meaning and magnificence. Becoming locked in only one perspective, on the other hand, darkens vision and usually leads to profoundly distorted and unethical actions in the world.
In one of the books that I am currently preparing, I try to retell the story in ten different ways, each time from a radically different perspective. Each time the reader senses that he or she has grasped the story, the perspective shifts again. At the entrance to the Garden of Eden there is, according to tradition, a revolving sword of fire. The sword, which draws sharp distinctions and establishes right and wrong, is the archetype of the firmly entrenched perspective. In order for one to be able to enter the Garden, the sword of fire needs to be continually revolving: in short, constantly shifting perspectives are the entry ticket to the Edenic consciousness of enlightenment.
In truth, this story is really just like every other significant and complex life story.
By understanding the twenty-one possible perspectives, one may potentially obtain the twenty-one keys to enlightenment.
You will notice that different systems and different people tend to focus on different perspectives, each one giving priority to a different view. A more enlightened view would be to hold all the perspectives together and to let a nuanced and compassionate view emerge from the integration.
What is critical to note at the outset, however, is that not all perspectives are equal. There is clearly a hierarchy of perspectives. In some situations, for example, seventy five percent or more of the story is best explained from the injustice perspective. However, if one adopts only that perspective, one remains a victim. It is only in developing the other perspectives, through which one may have more power and influence, that one can begin to move from being a victim to a responsible player.
While I will not list the perspectives here, I do discuss them briefly in my Dialogue with Dr. Cindy Golen and Sally Kempton, which is found in the Dialogues section of this site.
Apologies That We All Might Owe Each Other
Guided by a group of four spiritual friends who are all significant teachers in their own right, I have written letters of apology where appropriate and possible to anyone I feel I might have hurt in the course of my life.
If I have not written you and you feel I should have, please contact me and we can discuss the matter.
Anyone who feels that they might owe me such an apology is welcome to write me as well. There are some people with whom I would have liked to be in contact, however, once complaints were filed I was proscribed from making any contact with them.
Guided by the best spiritual, psychological, and legal advice available, I have decided that it is time to move on.
I have treated the events of the last two years as a death.
I have engaged in full life review.
I have engaged in a significant and serious process of internal reflection.
I have lived in the pain and the regret daily.
As well as in the joy, the gratitude, and the grace.
My heart is open once again.
I have made a commitment to more conventional boundaries.
I have also made a commitment to transparency where appropriate about my personal life.
Torah is flowing in my soul. Texts and chants burst from my being.
I am filled with great love and desire to help people, to share the torah of liberation and grace with whoever wants to learn.
I am filled with a burning desire to work with a group of friends in developing a new movement of social activism and political engagement, which will address three major issues. I will share in this regard at the appropriate time.
I have pages and libraries of books welling up in me pleading to be put on the page.
And Torah to share that dances in my heart.
marc gafni
