Tree of Souls Read online

  TREE OF SOULS

  BY HOWARD SCHWARTZ

  Poetry

  Vessels

  Gathering the Sparks

  Sleepwalking Beneath the Stars

  Signs of the Lost Tribe

  Fiction

  A Blessing Over Ashes

  Midrashim

  The Captive Soul of the Messiah

  Rooms of the Soul

  Adam’s Soul

  The Four Who Entered Paradise

  Editor

  Imperial Messages: One Hundred Modern Parables

  Voices Within the Ark: The Modern Jewish Poets

  Gates to the New City: A Treasury of Modern Jewish Tales

  The Dream Assembly: Tales of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

  Elijah’s Violin & Other Jewish Fairy Tales

  Miriam’s Tambourine: Jewish Tales from Around the World

  Lilith’s Cave: Jewish Tales of the Supernatural

  Gabriel’s Palace: Jewish Mystical Tales

  Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism

  Essays

  Reimagining the Bible: The Storytelling of the Rabbis

  Children’s Books

  The Diamond Tree

  The Sabbath Lion

  Next Year in Jerusalem

  The Wonder Child

  A Coat for the Moon

  Ask the Bones

  A Journey to Paradise

  The Day the Rabbi Disappeared

  Invisible Kingdoms

  Before You Were Born

  TREE OF SOULS

  THE MYTHOLOGY OF JUDAISM

  HOWARD SCHWARTZ

  Illustrated by

  Caren Loebel-Fried

  Foreword by

  Elliot K. Ginsburg

  Oxford New York

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  Copyright © 2004 by Howard Schwartz

  Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

  198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016

  www.oup.com

  Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

  electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,

  without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

  Foreword © 2004 by Elliot K. Ginsburg

  All Rights Reserved

  Illustrations © 2004 Caren Loebel-Fried

  All Rights Reserved

  The diagram of The Ten Sefirot on page 529 is by Tsila Schwartz

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Schwartz, Howard, 1945–

  Tree of souls : the mythology of Judaism / Howard Schwartz.

  p. cm.

  Retellings of nearly 700 Jewish myths.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN-10: 0–19–508679–1

  ISBN-13: 978-0-19-508679-9

  1. Legends, Jewish.

  2. Jewish mythology.

  I. Title.

  BM530.S472 2004

  296.1—dc22 2003022934

  Acknowledgments:

  Some of these myths and commentaries have previously been published in Parabola, The Forward, the Learn Torah With series, Lilith Magazine, Natural Bridge, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

  Most of the quotations from the Bible are reprinted from the Tanakh: A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text © 1985, The Jewish Publication Society with the permission of the publisher, The Jewish Publication Society.

  The following parables of Franz Kafka were newly translated by Henry Shapiro: “Before the Law,” “Leopards in the Temple,” “Paradise,” “The Building of the Temple,” and “The Coming of the Messiah.” Translations © 2004 Henry Shapiro. All Rights Reserved.

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  For my son, Nati Zohar

  Rabbi Yose taught: “God has a tree of flowering souls in Paradise. This tree is surrounded by the four winds of the world. From the branches of this tree sprout forth all souls, for they grow upon this tree, as is written: ‘I am a cypress tree in bloom; your fruit issues forth from Me.’ (Hos.14:9). And from the roots of this tree sprout the souls of all the righteous ones whose names are inscribed there. From this we learn that all souls are the fruit of the Holy One, blessed be He.”

  Ha-Nefesh ha-Hakhamah

  Moses ben Shem Tov de Leon

  CONTENTS

  Abbreviations

  Transliteration Key

  Preface

  Foreword by Elliot K. Ginsburg

  Introduction

  I. The Mythical Strata of Judaism

  II. The Categories of Jewish Mythology

  III. Mythic Parallels

  IV. Myth and Ritual in Judaism

  V. The Light of the First Day

  VI. The Continuing Evolution of Jewish Mythology

  Book One Myths of God

  God’s Throne of Glory

  1. Isaiah’s Vision

  2. Daniel’s Night Vision

  3. God’s Throne of Glory

  4. The Descent of God’s Throne

  5. The Crown of God

  6. God’s Crown of Prayers

  Sefirotic Myths

  7. The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom

  8. The Ten Sefirot

  9. The Twenty-two Letters

  10. The Infinite Being

  11. The Seven Forms of God

  12. The Ten Crowns of God

  God’s Existence

  13. The First Being

  14. The Cause of All Causes

  15. God’s Omnipresence

  16. God Alone

  17. God’s Existence

  18. God’s Gaze

  19. God’s Day

  God’s Mystery

  20. The Hidden God

  21. The Contraction of God

  22. Adam Kadmon

  23. God’s Disguises

  24. Where God Dwells

  25. The Holy Spirit

  God’s Attributes

  26. The Breath of God

  27. The Mind of God

  28. The Eyes of God

  29. The Face of God

  30. The Size of God

  31. The Three Keys

  32. The Arms of God

  33. God’s Hands

  34. The Body of God

  35. God’s Back

  The Names of God

  36. The God of the Fathers

  37. The Tetragrammaton

  38. The Lord of Hosts

  39. God’s Robe of Glory

  The Warrior God

  40. The Warrior God

  41. God’s Sword

  God’s Voice and Word

  42. A Still, Small Voice

  43. God’s Voice

  44. God’s Image

  45. The Elders of Israel Behold God

  God Studies the Torah

  46. God Studies the Torah

  47. God Puts on Tallit and Tefillin

  48. God’s Tabernacle

  49. God’s Prayer

  50. God Expounds the Torah

  The Suffering God

  51. The Suffering God

  52. God’s Tears

  53. God Weeps over the Destruction of the Temple

  54. God’s Lament at the Western Wall

  55. God’s Oath

  56. God Considers Ending All Existence

  God Walks in the W
orld

  57. God Walks in the Garden

  58. God’s Lantern

  59. God Descends to Mount Sinai

  60. The Tent of Meeting

  61. The Cottage of Candles

  Early Incarnations of the Shekhinah

  62. The Creation of Wisdom

  63. Mother Zion

  Myths of the Bride of God

  64. The Creation of the Shekhinah

  65. God’s Names for the Shekhinah

  66. The Two Shekhinahs

  67. The Earthly Dwelling of the Shekhinah

  68. The Roaming of the Shekhinah

  69. The Garments of the Shekhinah

  70. The Sacred Bedchamber

  71. The Casting Down of the Shekhinah

  72. The Wandering of the Shekhinah

  73. The Lament of the Shekhinah

  74. The Wailing of the Shekhinah

  75. The Exile of the Shekhinah

  76. Mourning over the Shekhinah

  77. The Suffering of the Shekhinah

  78. Lilith Becomes God’s Bride

  79. Israel and the Shekhinah in Exile

  80. God’s Exile with Israel

  81. The Face of the Shekhinah

  82. The Shekhinah Within

  Visions of the Bride of God

  83. The Shekhinah at the Wall

  84. A Vision at the Wailing Wall

  God Defers to the Earthly Court

  85. God Makes Matches

  86. The Rabbis Overrule God

  87. God Defers to the Earthly Court

  Book Two Myths of Creation

  Before the World Was Created

  88. The First to Exist

  89. Before the World Was Created

  90. Prior Worlds

  91. The Primordial Elements

  92. God Created Everything with Its Knowledge

  93. The Beginning of Time

  94. Seven Things Created before the Creation of the World

  The Creation of the World

  95. The Seven Days of Creation

  96. Ten Things Created on the Eve of the First Sabbath

  97. Five Heavenly Things Sleeping in the Universe

  98. God the Creator

  99. The Rainbow

  100. The Time of Creation

  101. Everything Was Created at Once

  102. How God Begot Being

  103. What Does the Earth Stand On?

  104. Creation Ex Nihilo

  105. The Order of Creation

  The Primordial Light

  106. God’s Garment of Light

  107. The Light of the First Day

  108. The First Cloak

  109. The Tzohar

  110. How Light and Darkness Were Created

  111. Creation by Light

  112. The Light of Prophecy

  The Work of Creation

  113. God’s Shout

  114. The Work of Creation

  115. How the Heavens Were Created

  116. The Earth’s Foundations

  117. Creation by God’s Name

  118. Creation by God’s Beauty

  119. The Palace of Heaven

  120. Creation According to Philo

  The Cosmic Seed

  121. The Cosmic Seed

  122. A Universe of Water

  123. The Three Craftsmen

  124. The Pillars of the World

  125. The Foundation Stone

  126. Creation by Thought

  127. A Single Utterance

  128. The Divided World

  Myths of Origin

  129. The Origin of Chaos

  130. The First Sunset

  131. The Origin of Fire

  132. What Causes Earthquakes?

  133. The Roots of Everything

  Myths of the Sacred Waters

  134. The Great Sea

  135. The Fiery Waves

  136. The Upper Waters and the Lower Waters

  137. The Spirit of the Firmament

  Rebellions against God

  138. The Rebellion of the Waters

  139. The Rebellion of Rahab

  140. The Prince of Darkness

  141. The Fall of Lucifer

  142. Satan Cast from Heaven

  143. Satan’s Bargain with God

  Myths of the Sun and Moon

  144. The Quarrel of the Sun and the Moon

  145. The Sun Stood Still

  146. A Garment for the Moon

  Creation by Angels

  147. The Creation of Angels

  148. Creation by Angels

  149. Anafiel, the Creator of the Beginning

  150. The Creator of the World

  151. The First Created Being

  152. The Angel Who Created the World

  The Wheel of Creation

  153. The Wheel of Creation

  154. The Cosmic Tree

  155. The Shattering of the Vessels and the Gathering of the Sparks

  156. Creation by Broken Vessels

  The Creation of Man

  157. The Heavenly Man

  158. Adam the Angel

  159. Adam the Golem

  160. Adam the Giant

  161. Adam the Last and First

  162. Adam’s Body of Light

  163. The Enthronement of Adam

  164. Adam’s Body Formed by an Angel

  165. God Consults the Angels about the Creation of Adam

  166. The Creation of Man

  167. Creation from a Mold

  168. Wisdom Created Man

  169. Adam’s Choice

  170. Adam’s Breath

  171. The First Twelve Hours of Adam’s Life

  172. Adam Brings Down Fire from Heaven

  173. Adam the Hermaphrodite

  174. Samael and Lilith

  175. God and the Spirits of the Unborn

  Adam and Eve

  176. Adam and the Spirits

  177. The First Eve

  178. What Happened to the First Eve?

  179. The Creation of Woman

  180. The First Wedding

  Mythological Creatures

  181. Adne Sadeh

  182. The Sea Monster Leviathan

  183. Behemoth

  184. The Ziz

  185. The Re’em

  186. The Phoenix

  187. The Lion of the Forest Ilai

  188. The Ram Sacrificed at Mount Moriah

  The Unfinished Creation

  189. God the Potter

  190. The Unfinished Creation

  Book Three Myths of Heaven

  The Translation of Enoch

  191. Enoch Walked with God

  192. Enoch’s Vision of God

  193. The Metamorphosis and Enthronement of Enoch

  The Treasury of Souls

  194. The River of Fire

  195. The Living Creatures

  196. The Council of Souls

  197. Adam’s Soul

  198. The Creation of Souls

  199. Tree of Souls

  200. The Treasury of Souls

  201. The Path of the Soul in the Garden of Eden

  202. The Field of Souls

  203. The Transmigration of Souls

  204. How to Grasp a Soul

  Heavenly Journeys

  205. Adam Is Taken into Paradise

  206. Isaac’s Ascent

  207. The Ascent of Elijah

  208. The Four Who Entered Paradise

  209. A Vision of Metatron

  210. Rabbi Ishmael’s Ascent

  211. The Entrance of the Sixth Heavenly Palace

  212. Before the Law

  213. A Journey to the Stars

  214. A Jewish Icarus

  The Divine Chariot

  215. Ezekiel’s Vision

  216. Mysteries of the Chariot

  The Seven Heavens

  217. The Seven Heavens

  218. The Eighth Heaven

  219. The Pargod

  220. The Map of Time and Space

  221. The Place of
the Stars

  222. The Rainbow of the Shekhinah

  223. The Music of the Spheres

  224. The Treasury of Merits

  225. The Wings of Heaven

  The Palaces of Heaven

  226. The Palaces of Heaven

  227. Women in Paradise

  The Landmarks of Heaven

  228. The Tent of the Sun

  229. The Tent of Heaven

  230. The Crystal Palace

  231. The Celestial Academy

  232. Where Heaven and Earth Meet

  The Ministering Angels

  233. The Primordial Metatron

  234. The Angel Metatron

  235. The Angel Sandalphon

  236. Michael, the Patron Angel

  237. Elijah the Angel

  238. The Keeper of the Book of Records

  239. The Angel Gallizur

  240. The Angel of Conception

  241. The Angel of the Covenant

  242. How Rabbi Ishmael Was Conceived

  243. The Angel of Friendship

  244. Guardian Angels

  245. The Might of the Angels

  246. The Angel of Losses

  247. The Angel Tzadkiel

  248. The Angel of Rain

  249. God Changes the Roles of the Angels

  The Angel of Death

  250. The Creation of the Angel of Death

  251. Rabbi Joshua ben Levi and the Angel of Death

  252. Rabbi Loew and the Angel of Death

  The Gates of Heaven

  253. The Heavenly Court

  254. The Windows of Heaven

  255. The Ba’al Shem Tov Ascends on High

  Book Four Myths of Hell

  The Unfinished Corner of Creation

  256. The Unfinished Corner of Creation

  257. The Darkness that Existed before Creation

  258. The Banishment of Dumah

  259. God’s Prison

  260. Adam and the Demons

  Lilith Rises from the Deep

  261. Adam and Lilith

  262. Lilith Rises from the Deep

  263. A Spell to Banish Lilith

  264. The Woman in the Forest

  265. The Cellar

  266. Lilith, the Queen of Zemargad

  267. The Two Liliths

  268. Lilith’s Children

  269. The Night Demoness