Category Archives: Mythology

On Potters and Potlings (or On turning forward with one’s head turned backwards)

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A few weeks ago I was asked on the (Star) Trek Jews list what the Jewish concept of t’shuva means… here is what I wrote for someone who might know very little about Jewish thought and philosophy. I think I would have liked it to have more quotes from sources, TaNaKh, Talmud, and other scholars, and in that way not only be a decent explanation but also more of a model of the kind of scholarship I would prefer to read and follow up on as a beginner. I’m looking for feedback on how to be a better communicator of these concepts, as I understand them.

Literally t’shuva means turning, as in re-turning to a forest path after one accidentally loses sight of it, covered in leaves.

T’shuva is something of a cosmically significant concept within Jewish thought. Cosmically, because the concept of t’shuva is used to answer BIG problems. Classically, t’shuva is a response to the problem of how the world remains despite the presence of evil. Said differently, t’shuva helps explain how we can keep our sanity despite the presence of so much suffering caused by intentional wickedness and callous disregard.

For example, imagine a potter creating a pot at a potter’s wheel. What if the form of the pot began to deviate from the vision of the potter. Well, the potter could just as easily smush the pot and start over again.

Now imagine that the pot is imbued with magical powers. Not only can it hold water, but it can ask for water and pour its own water into other pots — even make new pots! New creatures can grow from the water inside the pot too and also be imbued with some of its power. Now what if the some of these creatures come to abuse their power by withholding water from their fellow creatures, or by sullying it, or by mythologizing that they themselves are the source of and reason for all water being. Well, then the potter can still crush the pot and start over again.

Alternately, there could be some sort of safeguard that can protect this pot and its emergent potlings from being so easily destroyed. The answer is t’shuva — a kind of a safeguard for all relationships, protecting creations from their creators, children from their parents, or lovers from indiscretions. Transgressing beyond healthy boundaries invites danger — t’shuva is a way of returning back to the place of safety by healing relationships. Faith in the fact of t’shuva’s existence as woven into the fabric of creation becomes both a guarantee that relationships can be healed and a sign that our relationships are founded on an understanding of loving-kindness (ḥesed in Hebrew) rather than the simply the manifestation of “rules” (or in Hebrew, din).

We can try to lead our lives with consideration for others, expressing our empathy beyond ourselves, beyond our kin and ken, even beyond this world into imaginary realms, but when we fail — when we hurt — all is not lost. The dream of my ancestors was a fragile world balanced on the head of a pin, its continued existence depending on our intentions and actions to suffuse the world with loving-kindness. Without t’shuva the world descends into unmitigated anger, despair, and doom.

Given the history of the Jewish people, perhaps it’s already apparent why this concept could be so important in Jewish teachings… both in the mystical and non-mystical school of Judaism, which assumes the world is continually sustained by a Creative Consciousness but also greatly in need of a tikkun or repair/healing. In the non-mystical schools, t’shuva might only describe an ethical responsibility one has in their relationships to be conscious of their transgressions and humble in submitting their ego in a process of repentance towards aggrieved or possibly aggrieved parties, to heal them. In the mystical schools, t’shuva helps to explain how the world can continue to exist despite an apparent fracture between the transcendent unknowable aspect of creation, and the manifest revealed aspect. The consequence of this fracture is itself reflected in the difficulty we experience in always respecting the beauty of creation and our fellow creatures in our actions. (The meaning of each of our lives is thus in the potential for us to take part in this cosmic healing, by being living, compassionate, aware, and creative bridges between these two aspects.)

Practically then, T’shuva becomes an everyday awareness practice: to be conscious of when a relationship might be transgressed or a fellow creature injured callously or by negligence. As a community, Jews are enjoined to do an intense group t’shuva on Yom Kippur, and in traditional Jewish practice begin preparing for that day more than a month in advance by apologizing to their friends, neighbors and through soul searching. As a mythic ritual, Yom Kippur plays out the concept of t’shuva helping to preserve the world despite the vast lack of awareness which radiates suffering across the myriad relationships that take place between all of its manifest creatures.

Any number of classic Ḥasidic texts can provide additional insight although I’m partial to Raphael Patai’s Hebrew Goddess for a more historical account of the evolving narrative of broken relationships in Jewish cosmology. For those already familiar with t’shuva, I would specifically recommend Philip K. Dick’s novel, The Galactic Pot Healer.

“We must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.” — “Kang for President” (The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror VII)

Let the mountains sing together with joy!

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According to one ancient Jewish tradition, the custom of not eating meat on Shavuot celebrates the vow God made with Noaḥ and his children on Mt. Ararat. Although the vow was witnessed by Noaḥ on Ararat, because Noaḥ’s descendants continued to eat the flesh of an animal with its blood, a suitable partner to the vow wasn’t discovered until Avraham. The covenant with Avraham wasn’t realized until the acceptance of the Torah by Avraham’s descendants, Bnei Yisroel, at Mt. Sinai.

So what was the vow to Noaḥ? In the context of the story of the Flood, the vow was to never again destroy the world with a great flood. But what sort of world existed such that this sort of intervention could even be imagined? According to Biblical myth, the Deluge washed away a world where such primary needs as eating and loving had degenerated into eating other animals and rape. In this mythic view, nature was not created as carnivorous. Rather, the existence of predatory behavior is an undesired outcome of divine/angelic desire in the world. The root of this transgressive divine desire was a mistaken worship of angels/stars rather than their creator.

The story of the Exodus is a retelling of this myth. The exodus from Egypt to Sinai parallels the passage of Noaḥ’s ark to Ararat; the Flood parallels the drowning of the army of Pharoah in the Sea of Reeds. The oppression of the Mitzriim and their influence on the Israelites in the story of the Exodus parallel the actions of the Giants and the “Men of Renown” in their coruption of the generation of the Flood.

Played out in the Jewish calendar and in ritual re-enactment, the passage of time from Pesaḥ to Shavuot, from escape to revelation, is thus a journey from the depths of bondage to the epiphanies of freedom — not just for a people but for all of creation. But what is the context for this sense of freedom? The minhag of not eating flesh on Shavuot represents an Edenic hope for a world of compassion as envisioned in Isaiah 11:6-9:

/11:6 And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. /11:7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. /11:8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the basilisk’s den. /11:9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of YHVH, as the waters cover the sea.

Having such a hope manifest in the traditions and identity of an entire people is certainly a useful strategy for preserving this vision. The failure of the Israelites in the sin of the Golden Calf, thus provide a rationale for God offering to Moshe a very Noaḥian bargain: with the vow unfulfilled, why not destroy the world with fire and start over with Moshe as the seed of a new humankind. Moshe, thankfully, rejects this possibility, does a t’shuva for the people and brings about the possibility of a greater cosmic tikkun for the world with Israel’s observance of the Torah providing a particular example of universal righteousness.

The source for this idea of Shavuot being a holiday remembering God’s vow to Noaḥ realized at Sinai comes from the Book of Jubilees, a work composed in the second century BCE, and which records a number of the biblical legends surrounding the events before and after the Deluge which are alluded to in the early chapters of Genesis. The tragic story of the introduction of this predatory nature is recorded in a series of related legends concerning the antediluvian age. Jubilees is the earliest source connecting the holiday of Shavuot to the giving of the Torah at Sinai, a link which is not made explicit anywhere in the TaNaKh. Here are a few of the relevant verses from Jubilees:

Jubilees Chapter 5:1-2
/5:1 And when the children of men began to multiply on the surface of the earth and daughters were born to them that the angels of YHVH saw in a certain year of that jubilee that they were good to look at. And they took wives for themselves from all of those whom they chose. And they bore children for them; and they were the giants. /5:2 And injustice increased upon the earth, and all flesh corrupted its way; man and cattle and beasts and birds and everything which walks on the earth. And they all corrupted their way and their ordinances, and they began to eat one another. And injustice grew upon the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of all mankind was thus continually evil.

Jubilees Chapter 6:1-2, 6-7, 13-22
/6:1 And on the first of the third month, he went out of the ark, and he built an altar on that mountain. /6:2 And he made atonement for the land. And he took the kid of a goat, and he made atonement with its blood for all the sins of the land because everything which was on it had been blotted out except those who were in the ark with Noaḥ-¦.

/6:6 And behold, I have given you all of the beasts and everything which flies and everything which moves upon the earth and in the water, the fish and everything, for food like the green herbs. /6:7 And I have given you everything so that you might eat. But flesh which is (filled) with life, (that is) with blood, you shall not eat-because the life of all flesh is in the blood lest your blood be sought for your lives-¦.

/6:13 And you, command the children of Israel not to eat any blood so that their names and seed might be before YHVH your God always. And there is no limit of days for this law because it is forever. They shall keep it for their generations so that they might make supplication on your behalf with blood before the altar on every day. /6:14 And at the hour of daybreak and evening they will seek atonement on their own behalf continually before YHVH so that they might guard it and not be rooted out. /6:15 And he gave a sign to Noaḥ and his children that there should not again be a flood upon the earth. /6:16 He set his [rain]bow in the clouds for a sign of the covenant which is forever, that the water of the Flood should therefore not be upon the earth to destroy it all of the days of the earth. /6:17 Therefore, it is ordained and written in the heavenly tablets that they should observe the feast of Shevuot in this month, once per year, in order to renew the covenant in all (respects), year by year. /6:18 And all of this feast was celebrated in heaven from the day of creation until the days of Noaḥ, twenty-six jubilees and five weeks of years. And Noaḥ and his children kept it for seven jubilees and one week of years until the day of the death of Noaḥ. And from the day of the death of Noaḥ, his sons corrupted it until the days of Abraham, and they ate blood. /6:19 But Abraham alone kept it. And Isaac and Jacob and his sons kept it until your days, but in your days the children of Israel forgot it until you renewed it for them on this mountain. /6:20 And you, command the children of Israel so that they might keep this feast in all of their generations as a commandment to them. One day per year in this month they shall celebrate the feast, /6:21 for it is the feast of Shevuot [oaths] and it is the feast of the first fruits. This feast is twofold and of two natures. Just as it is written and engraved concerning it, observe it. /6:22 This is because I have written it in the book of the first law, which I wrote for you, so that you might observe it in each of its appointed times, one day per year. And I have told you its sacrificial offering so that the children of Israel might remember them and observe them in their generations in this month one day each year.

(Translation O.S. Wintermute in J. Charlesworth’s Pseudepigrapha)

From Jubilees one can more easily see the the parallel between the two stories: the treatment and degradation of the descendants of Yaakov under the Mitzriim in Exodus and the decadence and corruption of the Children of Enosh under the B’nai Elohim in Genesis. The midrashim describing the moral decay of the Hebrew slaves of Egypt and their desperate need for rehabilitation provide even more linkage between the two stories. Given that Moshe and Noaḥ are also related characters, both drawn from the water and preserved in arks, the connection and import of the biblical aggadah as it might inform the story of the Exodus seems quite significant.

A good number of later sources in extra-canonical works: pseudepigrapaha and midrash provide additional details (Sefer Ḥanoch/1 Enoch, the Clementine Homilies, the Adambuch, the Midrash of Shemḥazai and Azael, Sefer Rabbi Ishmael/3 Enoch, Sefer haYashar), but only the Book of Jubilees connects these events specifically to the holiday of Shavuot. Inspired by Raphael Patai and Robert Grave’s Hebrew Myths, I’ve combined details from all of these sources in the following reconstruction of the legend. (Those familiar with Greek mythology will find some pretty wonderful parallels with the story of Merope.) Sources for this story are included in this sourcesheet, The End of Predatory Nature (pdf). (I prepared the sourcesheet to accompany a 20 minute presentation at Yeshivat Hadar entitled “The End of Predatory Nature and the Rectification of Divine Desire.”) It need not be said but what follows is mytho-history, not history. The two should never ever be confused.

On the sixth day of creation, God gave all the herbs of the world to Adam and the other animals to eat. No creatures until the generation of Enosh ate meat at all. (Male descendants of Enosh are to this day called in Hebrew, Anashim (men), and females, Nashim (women).) Enosh, the grandson of Adam and the son of Shet (Seth), was born outside of the garden of Eden. God’s divine presence (shekhina) was strikingly obvious and manifest in the Garden, and Adam’s children pined for such closeness. Enosh’s generation was the first to begin worshiping angelic forces instead of the blessed Holy One, inventing images of these beings, cultivating precious stones in their cults, and inviting the angels through their passion to descend from their perch in the celestial heavens to Earth.

Meanwhile, the angels, being the bnai elohim and firstborn of creation, never understood why Adam and his descendants inherited the earth. Witnessing God’s grief at the decadent worship of the angelic powers, Shemḥazai, the chief of the angels, testified against humans, and made the following request: “‘Master of the world, give us leave, let us dwell with the creatures, and you will see how we shall sanctify your name.” God gave Shemḥazai and his fellow angel, Aza’el, leave to descend but also noted, “It is evident and clear before Me that if you dwelt on earth the yetzer hara (evil inclination) would rule you, and you would behave even worse than children of Adam.”

At this time, despite his great popularity as a tzaddik (righteous guru), Ḥanoch, Adam’s great-grandson, became increasingly reclusive, eventually only appearing once a year, and thereafter, not at all. Climbing a great mountain, he ultimately ascended to heaven where he was transformed into the angel Metatron. All who tried to follow him were crushed by great blocks of ice. As God’s heavenly recorder, the following events were witnessed by Metatron/Ḥanoch.

As soon as Shemḥazai came to earth he came upon Istahar, and overcome with desire demanded the unwed girl to give herself to him. Cleverly, she consented but only under the condition that he first teach her to pronounce the shem hameforash (tetragrammaton). Upon pronouncing it she was at once transported away from Shemḥazai and his uncontrolled passion, and brought up into the celestial heavens and transformed into one of the stars in the Pleiades.

Seeing what they desired and no longer naive, Shemḥazai and Azael simply took what they wished. The children born from their conquests became powerful and mighty in their own way. Powerful yet lacking empathy for the Children of Adam they transgressed all boundaries. Their appetites were unquenchable. Satisfying their wonts became increasingly difficult, and then impossible, and God rained manna down from heaven to feed them and thus safeguard creation, but to no avail. In outrageous quantities they began consuming animals until desiring more they turned on their human subjects and began devouring them. With such titanic exploitation of resources, and so much food all gobbled up, hunger and desperation and conflict appeared. Neighbor devoured neighbor, and animals each other. The world became a frenzy of uncontrolled predatory nature, and Azael was ready to teach men the formerly unnecessary knowledge of warfare and weaponry, and women, the formerly unnecessary knowledge of using colors to manipulate their beauty. Other angels, inspired by this descended and taught other once useless things: the use of plants in medicine, and the reading of omens.

The stench of all this blood and turmoil of suffering grieved God tremendously who determined to wipe the slate fresh, and start anew. Shemḥazai’s gigantic sons, Ḥiyya and Ḥeeva, learned about their impending doom in nightmares that evening. In one dream, a stone table inscribed over with letters was erased by an angel bearing a chisel; only four letters remained. In another dream, an entire forest was felled except for one tree with four branches. Upon waking they came to their father to explain their dream. Shemḥazai inquired above and learned that the world would soon be destroyed. He began to worry for his two sons. What would they eat with the world all destroyed wondered Shemḥazai? Ḥeeva and Ḥiyya accepted their fate upon learning their names would be preserved in the future groanings of men, heaving stones and pulling longs oars on ships.

The nefilim (fallen ones) came to Ḥanoch requesting him to intercede on their behalf and compose a confessional prayer. Shemḥazai, repentant in his t’shuva suspended himself upside down like meat in the heavens as the constellation Orion. Azael, unrepentant, continues to reside on earth, albeit hidden deep in the heart of humankind, in the abyss of existential suffering and unfathomable desires of men and women. Just as Istahar had done, the shem hameforash was pronounced once a year in the Temple on Yom Kippur at the moment the Azazel goat was sent away. A lottery was made between two goats: one offered to God as a sin offering in the Temple, and the other launched off Mount Tzor and dashed on its rocks. Imprisoned under great blocks of stone Azael waits, the sins of humankind piled up on it until the end of this Age.

Upon exiting the Ark, Noaḥ made an offering to God, and God vowed never again to so destroy the world, instituting the holiday of Shevuot to celebrate this vow, and revealing the rainbow as the sign of this promise and as a revelation of the shekhina on Earth. The vow also served as a concession to the yetzer hara in humankind, permitting them to exercise their predatory nature but within strict limits, never to drink the blood of other creatures out of respect for the life force flowing through it, and never to eat the flesh of an animal still alive (ever min hachai). The culmination of this vow would be celebrated when a people might exist trustworthy to follow its command, and so we celebrate Shavuot as both the holiday of this vow and the revelation of the Torah that records this vow. Those who refuse to eat flesh and are mindful of predatory nature, honor the vision of a world filled with the radiant light of the shekhina, a sukkah of peace and loving compassion over the entire world and its creatures.

In these days of massive eco-destruction, over-consumption, hunger, and wont, Shavuot is a time to be reminded of a vision of this revolutionary compassionate worldview. As human beings, we can control our predatory nature. So my plea is that anyone reading this feels somewhat inspired to act in kindness and consideration towards all creatures and help bring about civil and open societies committed to compassion. Choosing not to eat animals processed by factories into processed meats is one single choice one that can greatly lower one’s environmental footprint, save thousands of fellow creatures from ruthless exploitation, and preserve ecosystems from anthropogenic change. For the sake of the world, go vegetarian this Shavuot, and stay vegetarian for the next fifty Shavuots. Let’s do our best to increase joy in this world rather than add to its suffering.

Image of reflection nebulosity near Merope in the Pleiades (Hubble Space Telescope)

Metaphors Liberate Us

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In an age when the possibility of living in the land of Israel is no longer an abstract yearning, at a time when Jerusalem is rebuilt (with a soon to be active light rail system!), and after nearly 2000 years without the physical presence of a Temple nor the daily ministrations of priesthood and caste devoted to the Temple cult — metaphors must continue to liberate us. The power of metaphor was recognized by the Tannaim, the rabbinic sages who saw the redaction of the Mishna after the Temple was destroyed and after the Bar Kochba rebellion was crushed. It was understood by the Amoraim who followed them in their thriving diaspora yeshivot, and it was even plain to the Geonim and Rishonim that followed them. But in an age where certain zealots and their allies sense they might be able to grasp and physically realize Messianic visions, we must declare that the legacy of ritualized metaphor in our rabbinic heritage liberated us, and this is what I celebrate on Ḥanukah.

Imagine a Judaism in which no ḥanukiah is lit, and only the light of the menorah illuminates a central Temple’s Holy Sanctuary. Imagine a time when the performance of thrice daily service to God was focused only on the Temple offerings. Imagine when it would be absurd to think of the study of Temple offerings as a surrogate for an offering itself. Imagine when our vision of the Temple was of stone rather than comprised of some sort of fantastic light emanating directly from the Heavens. The Temple that we have in our imagination and ritual has been democratized, the result of beautiful and enlightened metaphor.

The Hasmoneans might be turning in their ossuaries, but our rabbis of yor were content with the knowledge that the Temple service would forevermore be non-localized, abstracted, and preserved in the heartfelt spiritual practices of its survivors. Ḥanukah can be seen as the first precedent for this abstraction of the Temple Service. Here we have the during the rededication of the Temple on Hanukah, a memorial for the important Sukkot fertility rituals and ritual offerings not provided. As Beith Shammai teaches in Masekhet Shabbat 21b, the Ḥanukiah is lit on the first night with eight lights, and on the second night with seven and so forth… in memory of the bull offerings that decreased day by day over the eight days of Sukkot. In other words, the ritual of lighting each day is performed as a surrogate offering in memory of the bull sacrifices not offered earlier those years when the Syrian Greeks controlled the Beit Mikdash.

The relationship between Sukkot and Ḥanukah is explained in II Maccabees chapter 10 verses 5-8. Here is the translation from the original Greek as found in the The New Oxford Annotated Apocrypha (Augmented Third Edition):

It happened that on the same day on which the sanctuary had been profaned by the foreigners, the purification of the sanctuary took place, that is, on the twenty-fifth day of the same month, which was Kislev. They celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing, in the manner of the Festival of Booths [Sukkot], remembering how not long before, during the Festival of Booths, they had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals. Therefore, carrying ivy-wreathed wands and beautiful branches and also fronds of palm [lulavim], they offered hyms of thanksgiving to him who had given success to the purifying of his own holy place. They decreed by public edict, ratified by vote, that the whole nation of the Jews should observe these days each year.

The thirteen lost bull offerings of Sukkot might be remembered as 13 breaches in the Temple by the “Greek kings” in Mishna Middot 2:3.

…the lattice-work fence was ten tefaḥim high. And there were thirteen breaches where the kings of Greece breached. They went and repaired them again, and decreed thirteen prostrations according to [the breaches].

The number 13 here is very odd since there were only seven entrances to the Temple grounds where physical breaches were likely to occur (see Mishna Middot 1:4-5, and Talmud Yerushalmi Shekalim 17a/25b). I think it’s important to consider that any numbers used in an architectural context with the Temple also have a profound cosmological importance.

The memory of Sukkot permeates the laws of Ḥanukah and the juxtaposition of each eight day holiday’s mitzvot is significant. At the end of the dry season, the mitzvah of sukkot requires the erection of a temporary dwelling and stresses the importance of keeping an open sukkah open to the visit of guests. During the rainy season, the mitzvah of Ḥanukah requiring the ḥanukiah lit in a Bayit, a house (i.e., a permanent dwelling) and at the time that gleaners pass through the souq so they can see and perhaps beckoned by the beautiful light. It makes sense that the mitzvah of Ḥanukah cannot be performed in a temporary dwelling when the season is already too inhospitable to allow for it. The relationship between the holidays is clearly alluded to in the choice of measure for the maximum height by which a ḥanukiah can be lit — it is the maximum height a sukkah can be built.

These mysterious associative references are more easily understood if we accept that the symbols of the sukkah dwelling and the light of the ḥanukiah are equivalent to each other. Both represent the peace that will spread out over the entire earth, and perhaps all other worlds too, in a messianic age. In the language of Rashi, it is the light preserved for the righteous. In the language of the medieval piyyutim it is the sukkah of peace, each sukkah a mishkan, a tabernacle, the sḥaḥ (impermanent roof) of the sukkah likened to the luminous skin of the mysterious Leviathan, the cosmic creature that itself represents the primordial light from before creation. (Notably, the ḥanukiah is lit opposite from the mezuzah in its intended location: an open entrance. The ḥanukiah cannot be confused with the mezuzah, the prophylactic memory of the ward against the mashḥit, the mask of God wearing the hood of the executioner, slaughterer of the firstborn one terrible night in Egypt.)

It’s hard to imagine how significant the holiday of Sukkot was to our ancestors when so few of us are farmers, aware and conscious of the natural vivifying seasonal water cycle and how our food resources and economy depend on a good rainy season. Those offerings were important then, and the loss of the Temple and its rituals ensuring rain represented a catastrophic danger. One can imagine how important a surrogate holiday fixed at the time of the Temple’s restoration, critically at the time of the Brumalia following the Saturnalia on the Winter Solstice, Kislev 25. (Ḥanukah retains the celebratory atmosphere of the Simḥat Beit Hashoeva, the Water Drawing Festival, the most joyous day of the entire year as discussed just after the statement above regarding the breached made by the “Greek Kings” in Middot 2:5.  The day was reconstituted after the destruction of the Temple as the holiday of Simḥat Torah, the celebration of the renewal of the annual Torah reading cycle.)

Metaphors liberate us. Sukkot offerings become light offerings. Temple offerings become daily prayers. I’ve just returned from my morning prayers during Shaḥarit, and the entire service is coded to represent the lost Temple Service and its lost Temple Cult. Even though I am not a Cohen, I am standing in for daily service performed by the Kohanim and I am time bound to it. The rabbis also taught that even though I cannot bring a sacrificial offering I can study the offerings brought and in this way the service can be sustained.

But post-Temple metaphors don’t stop there. For most of the history of rabbinic Judaism, the dominant vision of the restored temple in the messianic age was a temple of fire descending from heaven. A celestial Temple remains even when an earthly temple is destroyed. Here again is the echo of the primordial light reserved for the righteous until the end of days. What a danger that some would give up on this vision for a reconstituted Temple Cult and the loss of 2000 years of spiritual democracy.

Considering how Ḥanukah found renewed popularity 150 years ago as the celebration of ethnic national aspirations in Zionism, and seeing how religious nationalist zealots today pine for the construction of a physical third Temple (and implicit destruction of the beautiful shrine that currently preserves that sacred space), it’s time to celebrate, and take pride in our imagination — in our vision of a non-physical Temple rather than any physical, mortar and brick Temple, the aspiration of contemporary zealots.

We are liberated by our metaphors, our abstractions. We have innovated beyond the need to slaughter animals in our spiritual practice, nor to rely on a dedicated caste to preserve it. Just as our third temple is made of enlightening fire, burning brilliantly in hearts illuminating like warm homes in the middle of winter, we might also see that our people’s identity is composed of values and sensibilities, rather than nationalist dreams rooted in hard earth. Realizing civil and open societies that ensure those rights which foster our peace, plurality, and vibrant creative spirits is the realizing of a messianic age. Let us find freedom in our abstractions and communicate them with our wit and language and actions rather than build old bulwarks in mud and stone.

The Sanctuary by Edwin Forbes, 1876

Reality and Hallucination: Towards a Talmudic Ontology of Consensus (by way of demons)

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In his 1978 essay, “How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later“, Philip K. Dick wrote, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” This ontology is challenged by a syndrome recently brought to my attention in a recent post on boingboing.net, “Hallucinations brought on by eye disease,” wherein David Pescovitz writes,

In recent days, both the Daily Mail and Wired.com looked at Charles Bonnet Syndrome [CBS], a disease characterized by bizarre and vivid visual hallucinations. Interestingly, people who suffer from CBS aren’t mentally ill but have visual impairments such as macular degeneration. Even weirder is that the hallucinations often involve characters or things that are much smaller in size than reality.

Read the whole post and follow the link to this article at the Daily Mail on Charles Bonnet Syndrome, and this interview at Wired with neurologist Oliver Sachs. Together, they provide an insight for understanding a particularly fascinating method given in the Talmud for seeing Mazikin (lit. harmful spirits, ie. demons). Mazikin are a class of sheydim (animistic spirits) that pervaded the natural world in the Rabbinic Jewish worldview of late antiquity. From תלמוד בבלי ברכות ו׃א (Talmud Bavli Tractate Berakhot, 6a):

תניא אבא בנימין אומר אלמלי נתנה רשות לעין לראות אין כל בריה יכולה לעמוד מפני המזיקין אמר אביי אינהו נפישי מינן וקיימי עלן כי כסלא לאוגיא אמר רב הונא כל חד וחד מינן אלפא משמאליה ורבבתא מימיניה אמר רבא האי דוחקא דהוי בכלה מנייהו הוי הני ברכי דשלהי מנייהו הני מאני דרבנן דבלו מחופיא דידהו הני כרעי דמנקפן מנייהו האי מאן דבעי למידע להו לייתי קיטמא נהילא ונהדר אפורייה ובצפרא חזי כי כרעי דתרנגולא האי מאן דבעי למחזינהו ליתי שלייתא דשונרתא אוכמתא בת אוכמתא בוכרתא בת בוכרתא ולקליה בנורא ולשחקיה ולימלי עיניה מניה וחזי להו ולשדייה בגובתא דפרזלא ולחתמי’ בגושפנקא דפרזלא דילמא גנבי מניה ולחתום פומיה כי היכי דלא ליתזק רב ביבי בר אביי עבד הכי חזא ואתזק בעו רבנן רחמי עליה ואתסי

It has been taught:

Abba Benjamin says, If the eye had the power to see them, no creature could endure the Mazikin.

Abaye says: They are more numerous than we are and they surround us like the ridge round a field.

R. Huna says: Every one among us has a thousand on his left hand and ten thousand on his right. [Psalm 91:7]

Raba says: The crushing in the Kallah lectures comes from them.  Fatigue in the knees comes from them. The wearing out of the clothes of the scholars is due to their rubbing against them. The bruising of the feet comes from them. If one wants to discover them,  let him take sifted ashes and sprinkle around his bed, and in the morning he will see something like the footprints of a rooster. If one wishes to see them, let him take the placenta of a black she-cat [that is] the offspring of a black she-cat [that is] the first-born of a first-born, let him roast it [the placenta] in fire and grind it to powder, and then let him put some into his eye, and he will see them. Let him also pour it into an iron tube and seal it with an iron signet that they [the demons] should not steal it from him. Let him also close his mouth, lest he come to harm.

R. Bibi b. Abaye did so,  saw them and came to harm. The scholars, however, prayed for him and he recovered.

Could Raba’s magic recipe for perceiving demons by placing ash in one’s eye create a condition like Charles Bonnet Syndrome? Could Rav Huna’s 10:1 ratio of ubiquitous albeit invisible demons indicate a left-brained dominance when perceiving/hallucinating these creatures? Curious minds wish to know the answer to these arcane questions. Rav Huna’s midrashic reading of Psalms 91:7 in particular might suggest that these creatures are small and recalls the peculiar reduced stature of the persons in David Stannard’s hallucination.

So it came as a surprise to the 73-year-old when he looked up from his television one evening to discover he was sharing his living room with two RAF pilots and a schoolboy. ‘The pilots were standing next to the TV, watching it as if they were in the wings of a theatre,’ he says. ‘The little boy was in a grey, Fifties-style school uniform. He just stood there in the hearth looking puzzled. He was 18 inches high at most.’

Just in case anyone is worried, according to Jewish lore the likelihood of perceiving sheydim and “being brought to harm” is substantially reduced if one avoids ruins, wetlands, and other lonely places — and travels in groups of three or more. According to the following argument inברכות מג ב (Tractate Berakhot 43b):

רב זוטרא בר טוביה אמר רב אבוקה כשנים וירח כשלשה איבעיא להו אבוקה כשנים בהדי דידיה או דילמא אבוקה כשנים לבר מדידיה ת”ש וירח כשלשה אי אמרת בשלמא בהדי דידיה שפיר אלא אי אמרת לבר מדידיה ארבעה למה לי והאמר מר לאחד נראה ומזיק לשנים נראה ואינו מזיק לשלשה אינו נראה כל עיקר אלא לאו שמע מינה אבוקה כשנים בהדי דידיה שמע מינה

R. Zutra b. Tobiah further said in the name of Rab: [To avoid danger while traveling in darkness] a torch is as good as two [companions] and moonlight is as good as three. The question was asked: Is the torch as good as two [people] including the carrier [of the torch], or as good as two besides the carrier? [The first argument would require one to travel in darkness with at least one torch and one companion. The second argument would allow one to travel alone so long as they carried a lit torch with them. -- aharon]

Come and hear: ‘Moonlight is as good as three [traveling companions]‘.

If now you argue, ‘including the carrier,’ [then] there is no difficulty. [The torch carrier will need an additional companion.] But if you say, ‘besides the carrier’ [then there is a problem with your argument]. Why would I need four, seeing that a Master has said: “To one [person] a Mazik may show itself and harm them; to two it may show itself, but without harming them; to three it will not even show itself“? [With the 'besides the carrier' argument, four would equal the traveler plus the additional three virtual companions provided by the moonlight. Meanwhile only three are actually needed per the Master's teaching concerning demons. --aharon]

We must therefore conclude that a torch is equivalent to two [persons] including the carrier; and this may be taken as proved.

In darkness, two people can see a demon but not be harmed. Only without the company of another can one both see and be harmed thereby. However irrational this idea appears on the surface, on deeper reflection I think one can see the logic of it. Rationally, one may interpret the mazikin as outward personifications of ever present danger or as dangerous constructs of one’s own imagination. One can endanger themselves, when stumbling about in darkness alone. When isolated from others, one’s imagination can leave themselves into madness. And in the company of two, one is still vulnerable to the Folie à deux. Only with the reality confirmation (and distraction) of friends can what is real be parsed from what is imaginary. (Perhaps for this same reason, a court of judges in Jewish law must be composed of a minimum of three persons.)

Jewish Demons

Jorge Luis Borges' Jewish Demons as illustrated by the graduate students in the Department of Illustration and Art of the Book at the Vakalo School of Art and Design in Athens, Greece for Borges' The Book of Imaginary Beings.

The image at the top of this post is a painting by Jesse Patrick Martin entitled “Litterbox” and inspired by the defecation of the animals in Borges’ Beastiary. (Used with the artist’s permission. Please visit Jesse’s site for more fantastic work.)

The Collected Calypsos, Sayings, and Songs of Bokonon

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From Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Cat’s Cradle (1963). Found on the internet, and rearranged associatively.

On the Quest for Understanding

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, ‘Why, why, why?’
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land,
Man got to tell himself he understand.

On Life

We do, doodley do, doodley do, doodley do,
What we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must;
Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, muddily do,
Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust.

On God

Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end,
And our God will take things back that He to us did lend.
And if, on that sad day, you want to scold our God,
Why go right ahead and scold Him. He’ll just smile and nod.

On the Roots of Bokononism

I wanted all things
To seem to make sense,
So we all could be happy, yes,
Instead of tense.
And I made up lies
So that they all fit nice,
And I made this sad world
A par-a-dise.

On Love

A lover’s a liar,
To himself he lies.
The truthful are loveless,
Like oysters their eyes!

On Boko-Maru

We will touch our feet, yes,
Yes, for all we’re worth,
And we will love each other, yes,
Yes, like we love our Mother Earth.

The Last Rites of the Bokononist Faith

Performed in the Boko-Maru posture, both parties repeat one after the other:

God made mud,
God got lonesome,
So God said to some of the mud, “Sit up!”,
“See all I’ve made,” said God, “the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars.”
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God!
Nobody but You could have done it, God! I certainly couldn’t have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way that I can feel the least bit important is to think
of all the mud that didn’t even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honour!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait …
To find out for certain what my wampeter was …
And who was in my karass …
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.

On the Members of a Karass

Around and around and around we spin,
With feet of lead and wings of tin …

Bokonon’s 53rd Calypso

Oh, a sleeping drunkard
Up in Central Park,
And a lion-hunter
In the jungle dark,
And a chinese dentist,
And a British queen -
All fit together
In the same machine.
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice -
So many different people
In the same device.

On Granfalloons

If you wish to study a granfalloon,
Just remove the skin of a toy balloon.

Bokonon’s 119th Calypso

“Where’s my good old gang done gone?”
I heard a man say.
I whispered in that sad man’s ear,
“Your gang’s done gone away.”

On Bokonon’s Rebirth

A fish pitched up
By the angry sea,
I gasped on land,
and I became me.

On Growth

Be like a baby,
The Bible say,
So I stay like a baby
To this very day.

Bokonon’s 14th Calypso

When I was young,
I was so gay and mean,
And I drank and chased the girls
Just like St Augustine.
St Augustine,
He got to be a saint.
So if I get to be one also,
Please, mama, don’t you faint.

On the People of San Lorenzo

Oh, a very sorry people, yes,
Did I find here.
Oh, they had no music,
And they had no beer.
And, oh, everywhere
Where they tried to perch
Belonged to Castle Sugar, Incorporated,
Or the Catholic Church.

The San Lorenzan National Anthem (1922, Bokonon)

Oh, ours is a land
Where the living is grand,
And the men are as fearless as sharks;
The women are pure,
And we always are sure
That our children will all toe their marks.
San, San Lo-ren-zo!
What a rich, lucky island are we!
Our enemies quail,
For they know they will fail
Against people so reverent and free.

On Contrast

‘Papa’ Monzano, he’s so very bad,
But without bad ‘Papa’ I would be so sad;
Because without ‘Papa’s’ badness,
Tell me, if you would,
How could wicked old Bokonon
Ever, ever look good?

On the Outlawing of Bokonon

So I said good-bye to government,
And I gave my reason:
That a really good religion
Is a form of treason.

On Torture

In any case, there’s bound to be much crying.
But the oubliette alone will let you think while dying.