8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A non- Jewish approach based on Jewish sources, November 30, 2004
This review is from: The Mystery of Love (Hardcover)
In this work Rabbi Marc Gafni speaks as a kind of guru to mankind who bases his teaching on an original reading of Jewish sacred literature. His focus is in reading of Hasidic and Kabbalistic sources. Gafni tries to connect these sources with the teachings of other religious faiths, mainly of Buddhism. Thus his work has a New Age flavor and in a sense works in both the direction of opening traditional Jews to other religious traditions, and helping non- Jews and assimilated Jews more deeply appreciate the depth and importance of the Jewish religious tradition. In this regard it is important to note that Gafni has been a central figure, in efforts to reach out to the secular public in Israel. And in this regard he has both been the moderator of a television program focusing on Jewish spirituality, and has created his own retreat center in the Galilee region of Israel.
All this is commendable, but the actual nature of Gafni's text, and the values he teaches in it raise certain questions for the traditional observant Jew. Gafni's focus is on the individual, and the individual's path to a higher spiritual life. This approach avoids incorporating much which is central to the whole Jewish tradition in spiritual life. Gafni does not talk about Halachah, or Mitzvot, and never uses the concept of `obligation'. Communal values are not at the heart of is enterprise. This immediately casts a certain shadow over the work. This shadow deepens when in the course of the reading there is no mention made whatsoever to specific connection or loyalty to the land of Israel, to the people of Israel, to the G-d of Israel.
Now it can be argued that it is precisely this narrow Jewish particularistic approach that Gafni is seeking to overcome. He is speaking as a man to mankind, and as it were individual Jewish spiritual teacher to individuals of all faiths and kinds. Therefore, the kind of communal and particularistic obligation which he omits is perfectly logical and the context. The question however is then one of whether Gafni is really teaching Judaism or in fact teaching is his own particular brand of the faith, Gafni-ism which however inspiring and instructive does not seem a genuine possibility for those with traditional Jewish religious commitment.
Gafni elaborates his own theory of the special spiritual connection that the individual must have with God, and life. Gafni calls this key relationship, an erotic one. He says it has four components, and models the relationship on that which was held to be the fundamental experience in Jewish Temple worship, the relation of the cherubs. For Gafni this erotic relationship( which he says is not encompassed by, but is `modeled ` by the sexual relationship) is the key to the mystery of love.
In the one passage of the book where he talks about the four faces of the erotic together he does so in relating them to sexual experience. The four faces of the erotic are "Being on the inside", Intense yearning, fullness of presence, the interconnectivity of being." In the key passage he writes, All these qualities are essential to great sex." Being on the inside" means not on the inside of your sexual partner, for that is limited to the masculine sexual experience. Rather it is about being on the inside of the experience itself.. Yearning is the essence of the sexual. So much so, that it is often thought by poets and psychologists to be more pleasurable and intense than the fulfillment itself. Interconnectivity is nowhere more clearly manifested than in the sexual drive. We are born with an urge to merge. Finally, it is in the sexual where -in its ideal expression-we are most fully present to each other. Every gesture, fragrance, sigh and whisper ripples through us as we listen deeply to the erotic instructions that well up from the depth of our soul's body."
The claim that the " sex models the erotic" would be more persuasive had he more richly dealt into other realms of experience. But somehow the `model ` the ` sexual experience' gets a great deal of space here, almost as if what we are hearing is that we can make all life a ` peak experience'.
In one sense it is possible to understand and sympathize with what Rabbi Gafni is trying to do. He is trying to awaken the bored, and the tired of which there are plenty in traditional religions, including the Jewish religion. He is trying to shake up the complacent and the dead inside and waken them to a sense of life `s exciting possibilities. He is trying to move us away from the profane to an experience of life in which the meeting with God, and the participation in the sacred, is central.
All this is admirable. So too are many of the individual passages, and small essays which constitute the work. So too are many of the ideas in which Rabbi Gafni urges us to become creators of our own story, and participants in the Divine story. All this is admirable were it presented as one kind of remedy, or one kind of mood and motion in life. It does not however make much sense as a theory of the all- and- all in regard to living in this world, meeting our obligations in it, overcoming the practical difficulties of life, confronting the many negative experiences and people we must face.
The book has many wonderful passages, beautiful and deep insights. It is highly recommended on these terms, and also highly recommended as the work of an interesting and original Jewish thinker. It is not however what it tries to be, the new formula for the holy life which somehow replaces the `old'.Gafni-ism will have to wait a while for those of us for whom Judaism is the center of life.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally - something NEW about love!, April 20, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: The Mystery of Love (Hardcover)
Finally - a book that says something NEW about Love! WARNING - This is not your typical tinsel 12 step plan to finding a dream date. This is a deep, inspiring, inSPIRITing quest into the realm of eros. And the 'realm' of eros is no longer just the realm of the sexual...It is every realm of your existence...work, parenting, future planning. The quality of my interactions with the people I love and the people I have a hard time loving...all have been transformed. This book is sure to change your world!!!
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