Every Detour is the Destination (By Tom Goddard and Marc Gafni)
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What does it mean to be fair?
By Marc Gafni
What does it mean to be fair? In one sense being fair means to be just and good. To be fair is to be honest and have integrity.
Fairness implies appropriate weights and measure. To be fair means to give things the right weight and measure accurately.
When my sons were young the phrase that would indicate that they were the most upset or disturbed was the mixed English and Hebrew idiom, “Zeh Lo Fair.” It’s not fair. When they said that, they were appealing to a universal standard of the good and the just, which has ultimate natural authority.
The word “fair,” however has a second meaning as well. To be fair means to be beautiful.
The Queen asks the Mirror in the famous Snow White legend, Mirror on the Wall, “who is the fairest of them all.” And of course there is My Fair Lady. To be fair then is also a quality of aesthetics.
This reminds us that a lack of fairness is not merely an issue of justice but also an issue of beauty. Goodness and integrity are beautiful. To be unfair is not only a violation of justice, it is to be ugly.
All too often in the spiritual world fairness is seen as a practical obligation and an ethical value. And it is that as well. But it is so much more than that.
When someone — anyone — is treated unfairly, a kind of sordid ugliness is born into the world. It can be papered over with a thousand popular albeit numbing spiritual platitudes. It remains just as ugly.
In a forthcoming book (Radical Kabbalah, 2012), I trace the original texts in Hebrew mysticism that talk of the goddess, especially in the work of one pivotal Hasidic master. From a careful reading of that the entire Eros of the goddess is really about justice. The erotic passion of the goddess in Hassidic teaching is about the radical erotic commitment to fairness.
It is in that sense that some of the minions of the goddess in this world are sometimes called fairies. A fairy is a gentle yet sacred and seductive incarnation of the goddess. The fairy is both fair and fair. Beautiful and just. Any good devotee of Peter Pan and Tinkerbelle knows is that to believe in fairies is to give them life. If we would chant Tinkerbelle’s mantra, “I do believe in fairies I do, I do,” fairies come to life as integrity and beauty are once again united and made manifest in the land.
Protest as Prayer (Part 15): Did he blow out the candles?
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Protest as Prayer (Part 14): Three Truths
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Protest as Prayer (Part 13): There is a Spirit in Man
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Protest as Prayer (Part 12): On Secrets
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Protest as Prayer (Part 11): God’s Language
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Daily Wisdom Post: Inside, Insight
Love is all about insight–in-sight. It is the ability to see in, to the inside of the inside, to the Holy of Holies that is your lover. Eros is being on the inside. Thus, love is an erotic perception of the highest order. Naturally you have to move way beyond sexual seeing. Sex only models eros. To be an erotic lover you have to understand that “what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
When something is far from you, you have to open your eyes really wide to see it. As it gets closer you squint your eyes, when it gets really really close, you close your eyes. Seeing with closed eyes is when we perceive way beyond seeing. The adjective close and the verb close are the same word. Closeness–intimacy–higher vision–all happen when we close our eyes. We move beyond sight and invite the other faculties of perception to guide us. Smell, sound, touch, and taste all become alive in a deeper way when we close our eyes.
The Mystery of Love
Page 114
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
Daily Wisdom Post: Journey to Love
We are on a journey to Love. For as the Zohar writes, ‘All the Paths (Shilin) lead to the Temple of Love.’ Wherever you are, wherever you are standing or kneeling or crouching — the place where you are is on your path to Love.’
The Erotic and the Holy
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
Daily Wisdom Post: Heart Love
In reaching for the awakening of love, we do well to bear in mind the teaching of mystical master Menachem Mendel of Kutz. Writing in eastern Europe in the first half of the nineteenth century he offers an original deeply resonant re-reading of a biblical myth text. “These words which I command you this day should be on your hearts.”
How do words sit on a heart? Do they not either enter in or stay outside? What could it mean to have words sit “on the heart?” Answers the master, ‘When dealing in issues of heart-lev-love — one cannot force the heart’s opening.’ Love is mystery — the word mystery deriving originally from the Hebrew word Seter — meaning secret. The greatest secret, the most wondrous mystery, is the openings and closings of the heart. ‘The best we can hope to do – and that is alot – is to place our words on the heart–and when the heart opens the words fall in.’
The Erotic and the Holy
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
Daily Wisdom Post: The Great Dancer
The truly great dancer – like all lovers- flows with the fullness of being. She trusts the universe. She knows she will always fall right so she allows herself to fall into the erotic rhythm of life. To do so she must first empty herself to receive the flow.
The word ”˜dance’ in the original Hebrew is mehol. It has two virtually opposite meanings. Mehol is etymologically identical with the word hallul which means empty. From here springs the Hebrew word mehila –forgiveness. Forgiveness comes from the ability to empty myself to receive the full wonder, complexity and imperfection of another. Mehol however also means halah – fullness – used in the biblical myth text to describe the erotic fullness of a pregnant woman.
The Erotic and the Holy
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
Daily Wisdom Post: God in the first person
God in the first person is the experience of God flowing through you. God flows through you not by your denial of your unique perspective, or what Carlos Castaneda and many teachers influenced by him referred to as your “personal his-tory” ”” rather, your unique perspective is precisely the place in which you the human being meets and embraces the divine. Thus, God in the first person according to the Hebrew wisdom masters is realized not through generalized meditation which effaces one’s unique perspective, as is usually thought to be the case. Rather, it is accomplished by what Lainer of Izbica calls Berur – literally, clarification or purification. Berur is a mystical technique which can take many forms, including meditation. The core of it, however, is that through Berur you merge with your radically unique perspective. This is your unique face. It is only through the embrace of your unique perspective that you are able to transcend your narrow human perspective to embrace a divine perspective.
Book of Tears
Marc Gafni
Pages 10, 11
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
Protest as Prayer (Part 10): God’s Emotions
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Protest as Prayer (Part 9): “The Shechina which is called I” (Zohar….)
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Protest as Prayer (Part 8): Ten Sefirot
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Protest as Prayer (Part 7): The Second Ayeh Story
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Protest as Prayer (Part 6): The Ayeh Stories
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Protest as Prayer (Part 5): Certainty of Rage
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Daily Wisdom: God seeing God
All lovers are revealers of the Divine in each other. God seeing God.
All love is the love of God.
~ RECANATI, a renaissance mystic
Love is to perceive another person unmasked, in the pristine beauty of their spiritual and emotional nakedness. Love is the pleasure produced by such a perception, when our loving awareness strips the beloved of all outer coatings until she stands fully revealed before the perceiving mind.
Love is a perception of the full divine wonder that is your beloved.
The Mystery of Love
Marc Gafni
Page 112
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org