Daily Wisdom Series

Whether the relationship is that of a servant to his master or a lover and his beloved or a relationship between partners or even friends, they are all “relating” to God.

The most powerful form of God in the second person is almost certainly the prayer experience. It is told that when Hassidic master Levi Yitzchak of Beridchev used to pray he would begin the standard liturgical form of blessing. “Baruch Ata Adonai,” “Blessed are you God,” and then break out of the mold of blessing crying out in sheer joy,  ” YOU… YOU”¦ YOU”¦ YOU!” He would lose himself in these words repeatedly shouting in ecstasy, “YOU… YOU”¦ YOU!!!” This is the rapture of God in the second person.

For Levi Yitzchak the blessing is a kind of Buddhist pointing out instruction. It points however not to sunyata or emptiness but to God in the second person. Nachman of Bratzlav taught the spiritual practice of Hitbodedut.  In one form this meant walking alone in the forest “talking to God as you would to your friend.”

In God in the second person we meet God and bow. In God in the second person we meet God and partner. In God in the second person we meet God and love. The key however is the encounter. It is the encounter with God in history and in the lived reality of every human being that is the essence of the God in the second person experience.

Dr. Marc Gafni
The Dance of Tears
(in press)

Sacred hermeneutic is ultimately an erotic act according to the mystics in which the God in the interpreter meets the God and the text and realizes that they are one.

It is this erotic merger with the divine in the act of interpreting sacred text which has been the central realization of my own personal path to the divine.  In this meeting between infinite and finite, the meetings blurs into a merger, a unio-mystica, achieved  through the meditative ecstatic intellectual act of sacred study. Thus when we engage text we meet both third person descriptions of reality, a second person encounter with the Noten Hatorah, the torah given in the eternal now by the eternal divine thou, as well as the merger of the mystic with the word of God in which the voice of God speaks through the mystics Torah in the realization that “I am God.”

The Dance of Tears (in press)
Dr. Marc Gafni

R. Kook, twentieth century philosopher mystic, teaches that every generation is part of the unfolding revelation of divinity.  Each generation, picking up from where the last one left off, moves closer to understanding the full depth and divinity of sacred rites and passages. In this sense the “covenant between me and the children of Israel”  is not only between God and the people – but “between”  the children of Israel”. and their children ….and their children – a covenant between generations. Israel means for me, borrowing a reading from my teacher Mordechai Lainer of Izbica, based on a close and creative reading of the original Hebrew, Yashar El; the direct apprehension of the divine.

The community of Israel are those who receive tradition reverentially and yet seek their own unmediated experience of divinity as the lodestone of their spiritual and ethical journey.  In this covenant each generation promises its forbearers to continue the journey of unfolding divinity though the prism of our questing souls.

Dr. Marc Gafni
The Dance of Tears (forthcoming 2013)

From Ken Wilber’s “A Spirituality That Transforms”:

Even though you and I might deeply believe that the most important function we can perform is to offer auhentic transformative spirituality, the fact is, much of what we have to do, in our capacity to bring decent spirituality into the world, is actually to offer more benign and helpful modes of translation. In other words, even if we ourselves are practicing, or offering, authentic transformative spirituality, nonetheless much of what we must first do is provide most people with a more adequate way to translate their condition. We must start with helpful translations, before we can effectively offer authentic transformations.

The reason is that if translation is too quickly, or too abruptly, or too ineptly taken away from an individual (or culture), the result, once again, is not breakthrough but breakdown, not relapse but collapse.

To read the whole article, see KenWilber.com.

God is called in biblical myth “Shadai,” translated by the wisdom masters as, “He who said to his world, ”˜Dai’ – enough.” Two meanings well up from the word. The first is that the creative process was stopped when God said enough. Divinity turned to humanity and said, “I have done enough. You – each one of you – be my partners in completing the work of creation.”  Have you ever created something, conceived of a project and then handed over responsibility for it to another. You have to really trust that person to “entrust” to them Your creation. The phrase “Raba Emunatecha” – from the Hebrew liturgy, literally means “Your trust is great.”  I read it to mean that God’s trust IN US is great. God entrusts creation into our hands.

The Erotic and the Holy
Dr. Marc Gafni

Love implies not only freedom but responsibility – awesome responsibility. Remember Master Menachem Mendel who was asked by his students, “Rebbe (teacher), where is God?”  The master responds, “God is only where you let him in.”

The repair and healing of the world depends on our partnership with God. God steps back and says, “I cannot do it alone. I need you to be my messengers. Even more, I need you to be my eyes and ears and hands.”

When you see someone, and in the process give a person the gift of feeling seen in the world, then you are seeing with God’s eyes. When attention is paid and a person feels heard, then you are God’s ears. When you move to heal after seeing pain and hearing the cries of oppression, then divinity is visible and active in the world. The language of God is man. We are God’s love verbs in the world. Conversely, when you oppress and hurt, when you ignore the cries of the sufferer and turn a blind eye to evil, then you make God blind and deaf.

The Erotic and the Holy
Marc Gafni

By Marc Gafni

Yet, corporations in the end are made up of real people, and real people all have the potential to be lovers.

The following is an excerpt from an acceptance speech made by Howard Schultz, the chairman and chief global strategist of Starbucks.

 “When I was in Israel, I went to Mea Shearim, the ultra-Orthodox area within Jerusalem. Along with a group of businessmen I was with, I had the opportunity to have an audience with Rabbi Finkel, the head of a yeshiva there. I had never heard of him and didn’t know anything about him. We went into his study and waited ten to 15 minutes for him. Finally, the doors opened.

What we did not know was that Rabbi Finkel was severely afflicted with Parkinson’s disease. He sat down at the head of the table, and, naturally, our inclination was to look away. We didn’t want to embarrass him.

We were all looking away, and we heard this big bang on the table: “Gentlemen, look at me, and look at me right now.” Now his speech affliction was worse than his physical shaking. It was really hard to listen to him and watch him. He said, “I have only a few minutes for you because I know you’re all busy American businessmen.” You know, just a little dig there.

Then he asked, “Who can tell me what the lesson of the Holocaust is?” He called on one guy, who didn’t know what to do–it was like being called on in the fifth grade without the answer. And the guy says something benign like, “We will never, ever forget.” And the rabbi completely dismisses him. I felt terrible for the guy until I realized the rabbi was getting ready to call on someone else. All of us were sort of under the table, looking away–you know, please, not me. He did not call me. I was sweating. He called on another guy, who had such a fantastic answer: “We will never, ever again be a victim or bystander.”

The rabbi said, “You guys just don’t get it. Okay, gentlemen, let me tell you the essence of the human spirit. As you know, during the Holocaust, the people were transported in the worst possible, inhumane way by railcar. They thought they were going to a work camp. We all know they were going to a death camp.

“After hours and hours in this inhumane corral with no light, no bathroom, cold, they arrived at the camps. The doors were swung wide open, and they were blinded by the light. Men were separated from women, mothers from daughters, fathers from sons. They went off to the bunkers to sleep.

“As they went into the area to sleep, only one person was given a blanket for every six. The person who received the blanket, when he went to bed, had to decide, ‘Am I going to push the blanket to the five other people who did not get one, or am I going to pull it toward myself to stay warm?'”

And Rabbi Finkel says, “It was during this defining moment that we learned the power of the human spirit, because we pushed the blanket to five others.”

And with that, he stood up and said, “Take your blanket. Take it back to America and push it to five other people.”

As our birthdays roll around, year after year, the accumulation of wealth and power seems more and more vapid and ridiculous. At each birthday, we ask with more urgency, “Did my last year have any lasting significance? Did I push my blanket to five people? Have I made progress in the search for a life that matters?  Did I make a difference? Did I give something of important to the world? Was I a lover?”

 The Erotic and the Holy
Marc Gafni

A sacred conversation between the fourth century Babylonian Wisdom masters:

“It is written that God withdraws his presence from the world to dwell in the empty space between the Cherubs in the Temple. But how could this be? Is it not also written that all of heaven, indeed all the space in the cosmos, is not enough to contain divinity? “Ah,” says Master Jose. “It is to be likened to lovers. When they quarrel even a palatial home is not enough for their needs, but when they love, they can make their bed even on the edge of a sword.”

The mystery of creation, of existence itself, is Tzimtzum.

Tzimtzum, meaning “withdrawal.” God creates the world by withdrawing to make space for the world. What is the motivating force of Tzimtzum? Both of our images give the same answer. The motivating force of tzimtzum is love. 

Love is the force in the cosmos that allows God to step back and allow room for us. As with God, so with us. We are Homo Imago Dei who participate in the divine image – divine miniatures. In order for us to create a world, a relationship, we need to step back and create an empty space in which there is room for other, in which there is a place for the relationship to unfold. “Let us be close friends and there will be room.” If I love you, I need to know how to step back and make space for you.  Tzimtzum is God saying, “You can choose – even if you choose against me.” This is the gift of love.

Marc Gafni
The Erotic and the Holy

This spiritual law of the universe plays itself out in many hidden ways which you need to recognize if you truly want to return to love. I want to outline for you areas where, in order to become a lover, you need to give up control. Just as the Hebrew mystics portrayed the God lover as stepping back in order to make space for world, so do we need to step back to create space for our love to flow. First, if we love ourselves, we have to give up our need to be perfect. If you don’t love yourself then you expect perfect self control. If you do love yourself, then you have to allow room for imperfection and failure. Emerson was right when he wrote, “There is a crack in everything that God has made.”

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in. ”” Leonard Cohen

For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.
””W. B. Yeats, “Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop”

Marc Gafni
The Erotic and the Holy

The pseudo-victim has genuine options which she refuses to action; she refuses to turn fate into destiny and cries more than it hurts. Another kind of pseudo-victim also may have some level of real hurt but more often than not the hurt is more imagined than real and being a victim is a freely chosen role which has many hidden benefits which the pseudo-victim seeks to exploit. The hidden victims of pseudo-victims therefore are real victims.

The underlying dogma of the Culture of Victimization is the location of human evil outside the human being. This belief significantly undermines the God field. The premise is simply that since human beings are naturally good, all evil must be the result of some external force which warps natural human goodness. The argument between the very many streams of thought who affirm this position is merely about which cause, external to the person, actually is the major factor in causing evil. For Marxists, it is the capitalist structure of economies and societies; for the staunch Republican it might be big government or television violence or liberals. For liberals it might be the old church or handguns or patriarchy.

Marc Gafni, The Dance of Tears

Today’s Daily Wisdom:

The ultimate revelation of tears of transformation is the revelation of nonduality. For the kabbalist, it is within the power of tears to create divinity…

To read the full passage from “The Dance of Tears,” see MarcGafni.com.

Today’s Daily Wisdom by Marc Gafni:

There is a tale that educators love about the girl who paints a purple tree. The teacher, who has drawn a tree on the board and asked the children to copy it, is disapproving. “You didn’t copy my tree.”

“I know,” says the girl. “I drew my tree.”

Read more… (from Your Unique Self)

By Marc Gafni

To move towards a politics of love you do not need to found a new political party or national social movement. You need just a small group of people with a shared vision who are willing to stand together.

As anthropologist Margaret Meade said so succinctly,

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Your political spiritual lovers should be chosen the same way you choose your spouse: shared visions and values.

Philosopher Maimonides, taking his cue from Aristotle, teaches that there are the three kinds of friendship communities. First, there are the pragmatic friends that help each other through life. Whether in carpool or the office or to round out a doubles game in tennis, these friends makes our lives more practically feasible.

The second group, more psychological in nature, is empathetic community. It is a place to share your woes, sorrows, triumphs and victories. The third, and by far the highest kind of fellowship, is one based on shared vision and values. This is what philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel calls “a community of concern”.

If you think that you are only a small band of committed students who can’t change the world, know that you are the only ones who can. It is the gift of commitment and love between holy Chevre that can bring healing where there would otherwise be only sickness, and life where there might otherwise be only death.

Dr. Marc Gafni
The Erotic and the Holy

By Marc Gafni

In the mythic teaching of ancient Hebrew mysticism, the calligraphy of your Unique Letter in the cosmic scroll is determined by the particular angle at which you were situated in relationship to the revelation at Mount Sinai. Sinai, in the great Hebrew myth, is a portal through which the Infinite discloses itself in love through the medium of a sacred text.

Based on one’s distinct angle in relationship to the mountain–one’s Unique Perspective–perceptions of the revelation vary. Your perspective forms the Unique Calligraphy of your letter in the Torah, the cosmic scroll. This is an ancient version of the New Integral Enlightenment teaching of true self and perspective–Unique Self.

The significance and intentionality invested by the Uni-verse in your Unique Story is life affirming beyond imagination.

Dr. Marc Gafni
Your Unique Self

Ken Wilber writes in “A Spirituality That Transforms”:

World Spirituality is not only about coping with life, but about transforming it through mystical realization.

I once asked Katigiri Roshi, with whom I had my first breakthrough (hopefully, not a breakdown), how many truly great Ch’an and Zen masters there have historically been. Without hesitating, he said “Maybe one thousand altogether.” I asked another Zen master how many truly enlightened–deeply enlightened–Japanese Zen masters there were alive today, and he said “Not more than a dozen.”

Let us simply assume, for the sake of argument, that those are vaguely accurate answers. Even if we say there were only one billion Chinese over the course of its history (an extremely low estimate), that still means that only one thousand out of one billion had graduated into an authentic, transformative spirituality. Run the numbers… that’s 0.0000001 of the total population.

read more…

On MarcGafni.com, a new quote from Dr. Marc Gafni‘s Your Unique Self :

At the moment of the big bang, the original light of infinite goodness is shattered. It is shattered in the way that the heart of the lover is shattered…

Read more…

In a series of books (e.g., A Sociable God, Up from Eden, and The Eye of Spirit), I have tried to show that religion itself has always performed two very important, but very different, functions. One, it acts as a way of creating meaning for the separate self: it offers myths and stories and tales and narratives and rituals and revivals that, taken together, help the separate self make sense of, and endure, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. This function of religion does not usually or necessarily change the level of consciousness in a person; it does not deliver radical transformation. Nor does it deliver a shattering liberation from the separate self altogether. Rather, it consoles the self, fortifies the self, defends the self, promotes the self. As long as the separate self believes the myths, performs the rituals, mouths the prayers, or embraces the dogma, then the self, it is fervently believed, will be “saved”–either now in the glory of being God-saved or Goddess-favored, or in an after-life that insures eternal wonderment.

But two, religion has also served–in a usually very, very small minority–the function of radical transformation and liberation. This function of religion does not fortify the separate self, but utterly shatters it–not consolation but devastation, not entrenchment but emptiness, not complacency but explosion, not comfort but revolution–in short, not a conventional bolstering of consciousness but a radical transmutation and transformation at the deepest seat of consciousness itself.

There are several different ways that we can state these two important functions of religion. The first function–that of creating meaning for the self–is a type of horizontal movement; the second function–that of transcending the self–is a type of vertical movement (higher or deeper, depending on your metaphor). The first I have named translation; the second, transformation.

from “A Spirituality that Transforms”

In a passage from Your Unique Self, Marc Gafni describes Unique Self realization as “overpowering joy.”

Read more…