Yada Yada Yada: Marc Gafni

Yada Yada Yada:)

We understand now that Love is a perception modeled by the sexual. To fully ground our point in Biblical myth, we just need to summon up the evocative English phrase “carnal knowledge.” It is an idiom which is rooted in the translation of the Biblical word “Yada.” Yada, in Hebrew, means “perception” and “knowledge.” Yet it is used in biblical myth first to describe sexual knowing — carnal knowledge; “Man Knew Hava his wife”— and only later to describe love.

Man Knew Eve is wife. You shall know {love} God with all your heart
This is because sex is the first level of seeing. It models the perception of loving. It is often the most potent realm in which we access perception. Thus, sexual seeing can guide us to a much deeper form of perception.

One year when I was teaching on Yada as the Biblical root of the term ‘carnal knowledge’one of my students comes over to me at the end of class, almost bubbling over with eagerness. ‘I have a surprise for the class. Can we get a video for the next week, I have a tape I have to show everyone.’ I have never been one to turn down in-class videos, even when Im the teacher.

So come the next class she comes in with her ‘surprise.’ Puts in the tape. Comes up Seinfeld. It is an episode entitled no less than “The Yada Yada”. Sure enough, for those of you who aren’t fully versed in Seinfeldisms, Jerry and company — in a very biblical manner – adopt the term ‘yada yada’ as a code for ‘carnal knowledge.’ Here’s a quote just to give you a sense,

“Yeah. I met this lawyer, we went out to dinner, I had the lobster bisque, we went back to my place, yada yada yada, I never heard from him again.”
“But you yada yada’d over the best part.”
“No, I mentioned the bisque.”

– George, Elaine, and Jerry, in “The Yada Yada”

marc gafni
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