2011 photo courtesy of Exsodus
To be a person of Torah, to be enlightened, is to live from the inside. To be an insider, to feel ”” oh my God ”” I have a place. It’s important that I exist. I am called uniquely to do something in the world that nobody else in the world is capable of doing except myself. The experience of my irreplacability is the beginning of my joy. The experience of my replacability is the beginning of my depression. Life is about finding out, disclosing, revealing that I am an insider.
Now the reason this is important is not only because it makes me feel fully alive in the world, not only how I manifest my unique gorgeousness, but because if I don’t experience myself as an insider, my ethics, goodness, and integrity collapses.
The human being actually can’t live without the experience of being an insider. If I don’t feel that I am on the inside ”” and to be holy is to be on the inside, to be a lover is to feel from the inside. If I don’t experience my authentic experience as an insider, I try to steal that status. I draw a circle and put other people outside that circle to give myself the experience of being on the inside.
That’s an experience nobody can steal from me. Nobody can slander it away from me. It’s the essence of who I am, glimmering in the face of God. That’s myself, fully comfortable, fully alive, fully powerful, in the universe. When I don’t access it, I begin to put other people on the outside.
The Erotic & The Holy
Dr. Marc Gafni