To Fall in Love | Rabbi Shefa Gold

I had a student who was moving into a new place and was about to put up a Mezuzah on her doorpost. I asked her, “What would you like to remember as you leave and return home, as you walk through that doorway? Whatever that is, you could write that message and put it in your Mezuzah. After all this is Jewish Renewal.” She closed her eyes and got very still. When she opened them, I saw a look of absolute clarity on her face as she exclaimed, “Fall in love!”

Love at the Center App icon I was so moved by her answer. Imagine being reminded to fall in love each time you passed through the door to your home! It could only mean falling in love with God, with Reality itself. To fall in love is to be lifted up into a higher dimension. To behold the world through the eyes of love would mean seeing beauty everywhere. Being in love would require me to forgive every insult, embrace all contradiction, and keep my heart open no matter what. It is a state to which I aspire, and yet this utter openness that reaps such joy, requires us to become completely vulnerable. That vulnerability also comes with great risk. With risk comes the responsibility to be keenly aware and free of delusion and to not mistake the part for the whole.

When I was living in Jerusalem during my rabbinical training, I struggled to find a place to daven (pray) that felt authentic and nurturing for me. I decided to hold my own services in my little apartment. There was only room for ten people (a minyan) and everyone had to come on time so I could buzz them in to my apartment. It was a chanting service. I would set the intention at the beginning, and we would sit on the floor in a circle, close our eyes and sing a series of sacred phrases, punctuated by deep silence. Most of the people who came were rabbinical students or Israeli women who couldn’t find their place or voice in the traditional synagogues. It was strictly an invitation only gathering, and over the year that I was in Jerusalem, the word spread and people who heard about it asked to be invited.

At one of the first services, we all went so high with the chanting and so deep with the silence. At the end of the service, we held hands around the circle, everyone opened their eyes in complete wonder, and then a very strange thing happened. As the week unfolded, I kept hearing from the participants, and it turns out that almost everyone there fell in love with whoever was sitting across from them (except for one woman who complained to me that she felt she had been molested at the service when we held hands at the end). As the week went by, I kept hearing about the disastrous affairs, the confusions, the disappointments. At first, I was stunned and then I was exceedingly sobered.

I realized that our chanting had unlocked a great and potentially dangerous power, and that I needed to learn how to use that power responsibly. I tried to understand and learn from what had happened. The love that we had unlocked through our prayer was indeed a force that required our meticulous and expansive awareness. That energy that we raised required careful attention so that it could be refined and channeled. Falling in love without having a discreet object for that love can be a challenge. It can feel overwhelming or uncomfortable and so we look for someplace to put it, or project it outward. Or we look for ways to dissipate that energy through food, laughter or sex. Yes, sometimes, it feels so juicy, so similar to sexual arousal that we just get confused by it. Being in love can seem like a kind of madness. We are connecting up to the most powerful force there is. If we can surrender to that force it will transform us. And if we don’t surrender? The ego steps in to use the energy for its own purposes.

I understood why so many spiritual leaders get tangled up in inappropriate and often harmful sexual affairs with their students. When we raise the energy in prayer, we are conjuring fire. In order to mitigate the danger, the energy that we raise must be refined and channeled with clear and holy intention. Then, the possibilities for healing and connection are endless. When we bring generosity and self-less dedication to practice, the fire of our love can be a transforming force. It can break down our defenses and connect us to the cosmos.

When we can walk through the door and remember to “fall in love”, we will be humbled by how much we don’t yet know of the Beloved, how much Reality is still revealing its depth and magnitude, moment by moment. And yet our loving curiosity will lift us up so high that “falling” can become soaring. And soaring can take us into the truth of our infinite nature.