Spiritual, and Other Intimacies

I’ve been reminded this week of words of Reb Zalman, (a’h), from 2004. On day 3 of his course “Inner Space” and after an exercise in which he had asked participants to pair up under a tallis to share meaningful root metaphors for God, he gave the following caution:

It is clear to me from the vibe that happened here in this space now – some of you were laughing; some of you were crying; it was a deep place for you to be at – and somehow you can’t help but fall in love with the person with whom you do that kind of sharing. (General nervous laughter) And I just want to say that I want to help you with this thing.

Because, it’s important to recognize that the person with whom you have had spiritual intimacy you don’t need to have genital intimacy with. (More general laughter)

It turns out that in the times of the sixties/seventies, people were so eager in their looking for intimacy that they were ready to offer genital intimacy so that they could get the spiritual intimacy. That created all kinds of karmic problems.

But when you say:

הריני מקבל עלי מצות ואהבת לרעך כמוך / hareni mikabel alay mitzvat v’ahavta l’rayeacha kamocha / I accept upon myself loving my neighbor as myself

this is where I’m trying to get you with the work we’ve been doing.

And the important thing has to be the discrimination not to con-fuse it, not to fuse it together with other levels. All of us are starving for spiritual intimacy today. If I were to say where we are most anemic today, it is in this area of spiritual intimacy.

Reb Zalman (Transcribed from the 4 DVD Set “The Space Within”, Spirit of the Desert Production (c) 2007, disk 3)

One Response to “Spiritual, and Other Intimacies”

  1. M'nikkAH Says:

    with a little help from his friends, Reb Zalman remains an inspirational force in our lives; and a wise counselor, from top to bottom. Pay heed.

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