Tree of Souls Read online

  The fact that there are ten things in God’s mind is significant. Why the number ten? Primarily because of the Ten Commandments. Just as men must keep the Ten Commandments in mind at all times, so too does God keep these ten things foremost in His mind. These are, in effect, God’s Ten Commandments. Later the number ten also became attached to the Ten Lost Tribes, as well as the ten sefirot. An overview of each of these ten categories follows.

  1. Myths of God

  Judaism is primarily a religion based on the covenant between God and the people of Israel. According to the Torah, God established this covenant beginning with Abraham, and renewed it with Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses. In the Jewish view, this covenant was formalized in the handing down of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and, ever since, the Jewish people have turned to the Torah to guide their lives.

  Naturally, there has been a powerful impulse in Judaism to better understand the nature of the God who created the world and established a covenant with the Jewish people. Among early Jewish mystics, this led to a series of visionary accounts, known as the Hekhalot texts,11 that describe journeys of some famous rabbis into Paradise for the explicit purpose of attaining greater knowledge of God. These journeys are very dangerous, as there are said to be guards at every one of the seven levels of heaven, and the guard at the sixth gate will not hesitate to cut off the head of one who does not know the secret name that serves as a password to these celestial realms.

  Thus every aspect of God was open to mythic speculation: God’s size and appearance; what God does during the day and at night; what God’s voice was like to those who heard it at Mount Sinai; what God’s relationship is like with His Bride; how God prays; how God grieved over the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem—despite the fact that He permitted that destruction to take place. Nor is God’s relationship with Israel as onesided as one might expect: there is even a talmudic myth about the rabbis rejecting God’s interpretation of the Law in favor of their own, after which God is said to have laughed and exclaimed, “My children have overruled Me!”12 This kind of interaction between God and His people, Israel, makes it clear that, as Yehuda Liebes puts it, “the God of Israel is a mythic god, and as such maintains relationships of love and hate with His creatures.”13

  In some of these myths God not only suffers like his people, but sometimes shows remarkable tenderness. One myth describes God as sitting in a circle with many baby spirits that are about to be born.14 Another says that in the messianic era God will seat each person between His knees, and embrace him and kiss him and bring him to life in the World to Come.15 Still another describes a nurturing God who raises the male children of the Israelites after they were abandoned because of Pharaoh’s decree against newborn boys. After they were grown, they returned to their families. When they were asked who took care of them, they said, “A handsome young man took care of all our needs.” And when the Israelites came to the Red Sea, those children were there, and when they saw God at the sea, they said to their parents, “That is the one who took care of us when we were in Egypt.”16

  Even though the second commandment clearly states that You shall not make for yourself … any likeness of what is in the heavens above (Exod. 20:4), rabbinic literature is full of anthropomorphic imagery of God, of God’s hands, God’s eyes and ears, God walking, sitting, and speaking. These images are often accompanied by a disclaimer, kivyakhol, “as if it were possible.”17 However, this disclaimer does not eliminate the distinct impression that God can be described in human terms. As Henry Slonimsky puts it: “Nowhere indeed has a God been rendered so utterly human, been taken so closely to man’s bosom and, in the embrace, so thoroughly changed into an elder brother, a slightly older father, as here in the Midrash. The anthropomorphic tendency here achieves its climax. God has not merely become a man, he has become a Jew, an elderly, bearded Jew.”18 Or, as Midrash Tehillim on Psalm 118:5 states: “He is your father, your brother, your kinsman.”

  The rabbinic commentators had to contend with the often contradictory descriptions of God’s appearance. For example, God is said to have appeared as an old man at Mount Sinai, while He is described as a mighty warrior at the Red Sea. In commenting on the second commandment, I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage (Exod. 20:2),19 Rashi engages this issue by quoting God as saying, “Since I change in My appearance to the people, do not say that there are two divine beings, for it is I alone who brought you out of Egypt and it is I who was at the Red Sea.”

  At the opposite end of the spectrum is the kabbalistic portrayal of God as Ein Sof, the Infinite One, from whom emanated the ten stages of divine manifestation known as the ten sefirot. Each of these sefirot bears one of God’s primary attributes, and together they form the realm of God’s manifestation in this world. Here, in contrast to a highly personified view of God, is one that is entirely impersonal, although the sefirot do represent attributes that are identified with human qualities, such as understanding, wisdom, judgment, and lovingkindness.20 While one kabbalistic school identifies the true God as Ein Sof, which is beyond the realm of the sefirot, another school asserts that the divine essence of God can be found in the ten sefirot, for they are identical with the Godhead, and should be viewed as stages in the hidden life of God.21 The theory of the sefirot was not without its enemies. One of these, Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet Parfat, known as Ribash, writing in the fourteenth century, quotes one critic as saying contemptuously about the kabbalists, “The idolaters believe in the Trinity and the kabbalists believe in a tenfold God!”22

  In the myths discussed so far, God has been portrayed as a masculine divinity. This is how most people view God. Yet no discussion of Jewish myths about God would be complete without a discussion of the myths about the Bride of God. This divine figure is known as the Shekhinah. Perhaps no Jewish myth undergoes as radical a transformation as does that of the Shekhinah. There is a complete cycle of Shekhinah myths to be found, which begins with God’s creation of the Shekhinah, and portrays the sacred couplings of the divine pair as well as their confrontations and separations. In this view, the Shekhinah chose to go into exile with Her children, the children of Israel, at the time of the destruction of the Temple. When will Her exile come to an end? When the Temple, the Shekhinah’s home in this world, is rebuilt at the time of the coming of the Messiah. There is even a rather staggering myth in the Zohar that suggests that the evil Lilith has supplanted God’s true Bride in the divine realm.23 These myths also reveal the existence of two Shekhinahs, one who makes Her home in heaven and one who has descended to earth. This cycle makes it clear that the kinds of interactions expected of a divine couple, like those found in Greek and Canaanite mythology—and to some extent in the Gnostic mythology of the early centuries of the Christian era—are found as well in the kabbalistic myths of God and His Bride.24 However, unique to Jewish myths—to kabbalistic myths in particular—is the implication that the two mythic beings, God and His Bride, are really two aspects of the same divine being, of a God who contains everything, including male and female qualities. Indeed, this is stated directly by the Rabbi Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl: “Only the Shekhinah and God together form a unity, for one without the other cannot be called a whole.”25

  In its earliest usage in the Talmud, “Shekhinah” refers to God’s Divine Presence, thus the immanence or indwelling of God in this world. This personification was linked, in particular, to the sense of holiness experienced on the Sabbath. At this time no attempt was made to suggest that the Shekhinah was in any way independent of God, or to imply that the term referred to a feminine aspect of the Deity. Instead, the term implied the nearness of God, as in this homily of Rabbi Akiba: “When a man and wife are worthy, the Shekhinah dwells in their midst; if they are unworthy, fire consumes them.”26

  Yet some rabbinic myths set the stage for the ultimate transformation of the Shekhinah into an independent being. At first this usage of the term Shekhinah was intended to affirm that God remain
ed true to the children of Israel and accompanied them wherever they went. In time, however, the term Shekhinah came to be identified with the feminine aspect of God and came to acquire mythic independence. Myths that emerge in kabbalistic and hasidic literature portray the Shekhinah as the Bride of God and the Sabbath Queen, personifying Her as an independent mythic figure. Indeed, there are several other identities linked to the Shekhinah, who is sometimes also portrayed as a princess, a bride, an old woman in mourning, a dove, a lily, a rose, a hind, a jewel, a well, the earth, and the moon.27 These multiple facets of the Shekhinah suggest that as a mythic figure, the Shekhinah has absorbed a wide range of feminine roles. There is a series of myths about the Shekhinah found in the Zohar, forming a cycle.28 Some of these myths are undeniably erotic in describing the lovemaking of God and the Shekhinah. Part of this cycle also includes the greatest conflict between God and His Bride, over God’s permitting the Temple in Jerusalem, the home of the Shekhinah, to be destroyed. This results in the Shekhinah separating from God and going into exile with Her children, the children of Israel. It is here that the Shekhinah achieves mythic independence, for it is evident that the confrontation takes place between two mythic figures. After this, the presence of the Shekhinah is fully injected into the tradition. It prepares the way for a series of visions and encounters with the Shekhinah that are associated, in particular, with the Kotel ha-Ma’aravi, the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, also known as the Wailing Wall.

  In these kabbalistic and post-kabbalistic texts, it is apparent that, at least from a mythological point of view, the Shekhinah has become an independent entity. Nevertheless, the Shekhinah was regarded at the same time as an extension or aspect of the Divinity, which was, of course, necessary in order to uphold the essential concept of monotheism. True initiates of the kabbalah were not disturbed by these apparent contradictions, but, for others, the danger of viewing the Shekhinah as a separate deity was recognized. That explains why the study of the kabbalistic texts was not permitted until a man had reached his fortieth year.29 Only such a person was felt to be grounded enough not to be overwhelmed by kabbalistic mysteries, while younger, more vulnerable men might well be led astray.

  Nor does the evolution of the myth of the Shekhinah end with the role portrayed in the Zohar in the thirteenth century. The implications of the exile of the Shekhinah were expanded in the sixteenth century by Rabbi Isaac Luria in his myth of the Shattering of the Vessels and the Gathering of the Sparks. And in the nineteenth century Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav told the allegorical tale of “The Lost Princess,” which hints at an identification of the Shekhinah with an internal feminine figure, much like Jung’s concept of the anima.30

  One other subtle identity of the Shekhinah is suggested in the talmudic tradition of every Jew receiving a neshamah yeterah, a second soul, on the Sabbath: “Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: ‘On the eve of the Sabbath the Holy One, blessed be He, gives man an extra soul, and at the close of the Sabbath He withdraws it from him.’”31 This second soul is the internal experience of the Shekhinah. It remains throughout the Sabbath, and is believed to depart after Havdalah, the ritual of separation performed at the end of the Sabbath. This second soul functions as a kind of ibbur, literally “an impregnation,” in which the spirit of a holy figure fuses with the soul of a living person, bringing greater faith and wisdom.32 But in this case it is a divine soul that fuses with the souls of Jews on the Sabbath. It is not difficult to identify this second soul with the presence of the Shekhinah, who is also the Sabbath Queen. Certainly, the arrival and departure of the Sabbath Queen and the arrival and departure of this mysterious second soul are simultaneous. Identifying the second soul with the Shekhinah is a way of acknowledging the sacredness of the Sabbath from both within and without. For Rabbi Yitzhak Eizik Safrin of Komarno, a man could best discover the Shekhinah through his wife. He states in Notzer Hesed that the Shekhinah rests on a man mainly because of his wife, for a man receives spiritual illumination because he has a wife. He describes a man as being positioned between two wives. One, his earthly wife, receives from him, while the Shekhinah bestows blessings on him.

  Out of all of these meanings attributed to the Shekhinah emerge a cycle of myths linked to the Shekhinah. Some of these portray the unity of God and His Bride, while others are about their separation. The key myth, as noted, is that of the exile of the Shekhinah, for at the time the Bride goes into exile, the figure of the Shekhinah becomes largely independent of the Divinity and takes on a separate identity. Still, the question remains: can the Shekhinah be considered a goddess? Does Her independent status award Her equality? The answer is more difficult than it might seem. On the one hand, the nature of the evolution of the Shekhinah from the concept of God’s presence in this world to the Bride of God seems to maintain the Shekhinah’s identity with God strongly enough to raise doubts about Her goddesslike role. But, on the other hand, the role of the Shekhinah that emerges in the kabbalistic era can be viewed as a resurrection of the role of the suppressed goddess Asherah in ancient Jewish tradition.33 Finally, the integral role of the Shekhinah in the system of the ten sefirot, where the Shekhinah is identified with the final sefirah of Malkhut, complicates the matter further. In the end, while the Shekhinah appears to have some of the earmarks of a goddess figure, this role is not as clear-cut as those of goddesses in other mythic traditions. Yes, the Shekhinah is the Bride of God, but, at the same time, the Shekhinah is a feminine aspect of the one God, and these roles exist simultaneously. How can this contradiction be resolved? Perhaps by viewing the mythological tradition within Judaism as a unique development, a kind of monotheistic mythology.34

  Note that the myth of the exile of the Shekhinah is a two-part myth. In the first stage, the Bride of God goes into exile at the time of the destruction of the Temple, while in the second stage, a reunion of God and the Shekhinah takes place.35 This reunion is brought about through the activities of Israel in fulfilling requirements of the mitzvot, the ritual requirements of the Law, and through the conscious application, or kavvanah, of prayers. When this reunification becomes permanent, the exile of the Shekhinah will come to an end, and “the Shekhinah will return to Her husband and have intercourse with Him.”36 This development is linked to the coming of the Messiah, in that one of the consequences of the messianic era is that the Temple in Jerusalem, which was the Shekhinah’s home in this world, will be rebuilt. Since the Shekhinah went into exile because of its destruction, the rebuilding of the Temple will represent the end of Her exile. In this way the myths of the Shekhinah and the Messiah become linked.

  Contributing to the long life of Jewish myths such as that of the Shekhinah are several associated rituals. The most important ritual linked to the myth of the Shekhinah is that known as Kabbalat Shabbat, re-created by Rabbi Isaac Luria in the sixteenth century. Here the worshipers go out into the fields just before sunset on the eve of the Sabbath and welcome the Sabbath Queen. Luria found the basis for this ritual in the Talmud, in Rabbi Haninah’s going out to greet the Sabbath Queen.37 Of course, by the time Luria formalized this ritual, the concept of the Sabbath Queen had evolved into an independent mythic figure, and the ritual itself becomes a kind of goddess worship, but within Judaism.

  Most readers will also be surprised to learn that other divine beings are portrayed in the Jewish pantheon who assist God in ruling the heavens and the earth. The angel Metatron, for example, is not only described as the heavenly scribe, but is also said to rule over the angels and to see to it that God’s decrees are carried out in heaven and on earth. These figures function in a way that is reminiscent of the Gnostic Creator-God (demiurge), who was said to have fashioned the physical universe. But the demiurgic figures in Jewish tradition are chosen by God and remain subservient to Him, as in the case of Metatron, who is identified as the lesser Yahweh. Further, they lack the malignant overtones of the Gnostic demiurge Ialdabaoth, the demonic figure described in the Apocryphon of John. Nevertheless, Metatron and other Jewis
h demiurgic figures do function as divinities and share the duties of ruling the worlds above and below with God.38

  While the primary myths about Metatron are found in the books of Enoch, reference to Metatron is even found in the Talmud,39 where a commentary on the verse where God says to Moses, “Come up to the Lord” (Exod. 24:1), is interpreted to mean that Metatron, not God, called upon Moses: “A heretic said to Rabbi Idith: ‘It is written, Then God said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord.”’ But surely it should have stated, ‘Come up unto Me!’ Rabbi Idith replied, ‘It was Metatron who spoke to Moses, whose name is similar to that of his Master, for it is written, For my Name is in him (Exod. 23:21).’ ‘In that case,’ the heretic retorted, ‘we should worship him!’”

  This is a shocking discussion to be found in the Talmud, the most sacred Jewish text after the Bible, as it demonstrates that a near-divine role was attributed to Metatron even among some of the ancient rabbis. Thus even as Judaism was transformed from its biblical model to the rabbinic model and later to kabbalistic and hasidic models, there were multiple versions of Judaism being practiced, those of the educated elite and those of the people. And even among the elite there were many sects, some emphasizing mystical teachings, such as the Mysteries of Creation and the meaning of Ezekiel’s vision of God’s Chariot,40 others describing heavenly journeys; and still others focused on demiurgic figures like Enoch. In addition, there are also surprising enthronement myths about Adam, Jacob, Moses, King David, and the Messiah, in which each takes on a demiurge-like role.41 That is to say, they are chosen by God to assist in the ruling of the world. Some of these myths, such as those about Jacob, were likely inspired by biblical verses such as Jeremiah 10:16: Not like these is the portion of Jacob; for it is He who formed all things, and Israel is His very own tribe: Lord of Hosts is His name. Although most of these enthronement myths are found in the Pseudepigrapha—the noncanonical teachings of Judaism—some of them, such as those about Metatron and Jacob, can be found in standard rabbinic sources. In any case, the existence of these enthronement myths demonstrates the existence of some Jewish sects whose views show evidence of being dualistic.