RE: Kol Isha - or, the erotic in music

[music <music...>]

Yoel Epstein wrote:

> There is certainly no lack of erotic imagery in the service, for
> example.  Come, my Sabbath Bride.  Also, the physical acts 
> of prayer - binding the arm and head, hugging and kissing the 
> Torah scroll, rocking in the ecstasy of davenning - all have sexual 
> connotations.  Of course, a lot of rationalization goes toward denying 
> this relationship between the ecstasy of prayer and the ecstasy of 
> intercourse, but you don't have to look far beyond the words and the 
> acts to see the obvious.

Hmmm ... I'm not sure it's always denied, or rationalized away.  At
least not in some Hassidic sources.  In YOUR WORD IS FIRE:  THE
HASIDIC MASTERS ON CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER, Arthur Green
and Barry Holtz write:  "The sexual metaphor is often applied to
prayer in early Hasidic literature."  (The Baal Shem Tov, they write,
"is said to have called the daily Amidah 'the true embrace and
coupling.')  They cite this teaching/kavannah from a late-19th century
Polish Hasidic source:


Prayer is union with the Divine Presence.
Just as two people will move their bodies
  back and forth as they begin the act of love,
  so must a person accompany
  the beginning of his prayer
  with the rhythmic swaying of his body.
But as he reaches the heights of union
  with the Presence,
  the movement of his body ceases.


-- Robert Cohen

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