For those of you fasting, hope it is an easy one

 ’Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day; I also and my maidens will fast in like manner; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish.’ (Esther, 4:16)

Today, I fast, and remember this tenacious female hero who asked the whole Jewish people to fast in order to bring her luck in dealing with the man who held the fate of her Tribe in his hands.

After Shabbat, I raise a glass in honor of her bravery.

To Esther! Cheers!

For those unable to attend a Megillah reading.

The Book of Esther and the Enuma Elish

It has often been suggested — and by often, I mean every single Pagan I have ever talked to has mentioned it, and half of the Jews who knew anything about Judaism have said it to me, personally, at least once– that the Book of Ester was actually a veiled myth about Marduk and Ishtar.

Can you blame them?

Purim is widely known to be a Jewish adaptation of a Babylonian drinking holiday. Just listen to the names, too. Mordechai and Esther. They sound like the dames of those two deities.

I decided to do some investigation into this Babylonian drinking holiday, and was lead back to an ancient Babylonian tale about how the hero, Marduk, defeated Tiamat. In it, there are indeed many similarities to the Purim story.

The antagonist, Tiamat, is terrorizing the good gods (or the ones that the reader is supposed to be rooting for). In the third tablet we learn,

17. “All the gods have turned to her,

18. “With those, whom ye created, they go at her side.

19. ”They are banded together, and at the side of Tiamat they advance;

20 . “They are furious, they devise mischief without resting night and day.

21. ”They prepare for battle, fuming and raging;

22. “They have joined their forces and are making war.”

“The gods” here are sort of a faceless multitude.

Likewise, in the Book of Ester, there is a faceless multitude waiting to do evil to the Jews:

“And the letters were sent by posts into all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey.” (Esther, 3:13)

In both, there is also a wine feast that is instrumental in swinging the tide of history over to the side of the “good guys.”

In the Enuma Elish, Tablet 3:

133. They made ready for the feast, at the banquet [they sat];

134. They ate bread, they mixed [sesame-wine].

135. The sweet drink, the mead, confused their [...],

136. They were drunk with drinking, their bodies were filled.

137. They were wholly at ease, their spirit was exalted;

138. Then for Marduk, their avenger, did they decree the fate.

and in the Book of Esther:

“Now it came to pass on the third day, that Esther put on her royal apparel, and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, over against the king’s house: and the king sat upon his royal throne in the royal house, over against the gate of the house.

And it was so, when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, that she obtained favour in his sight: and the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther drew near, and touched the top of the sceptre.

Then said the king unto her, What wilt thou, queen Esther? and what is thy request? it shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom.

And Esther answered, If it seem good unto the king, let the king and Haman come this day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him.”(Esther, 5:1-4)

An aside: Scepter? Do you mean his staff? His power rod? The big long thing he likes to have in his hand? Yeah. It’s tip. She touched it. Oh yes, the Jewish people went there.

The stories also have a very similar ending, too.

From the Enumah Elish (fourth tablet):

27. When the gods, his fathers, beheld (the fulfilment of) his word,

28. They rejoiced, and they did homage (unto him, saying), ” Marduk is king! “

29. They bestowed upon him the sceptre, and the throne, and the ring,

and then,

101. He seized the spear and burst her belly,

102. He severed her inward parts, he pierced (her) heart.

103. He overcame her and cut off her life;

104. He cast down her body and stood upon it.

105. When he had slain Tiamat, the leader,

106. Her might was broken, her host was scattered.

107. And the gods her helpers, who marched by her side,

108. Trembled, and were afraid, and turned back.

109. They took to flight to save their lives;

110. But they were surrounded, so that they could not escape.

111. He took them captive, he broke their weapons;

112. In the net they were caught and in the snare they sat down.

113. The [...] … of the world they filled with cries of grief.

And in the book of Ester:

“8:1 On that day did the king Ahasuerus give the house of Haman the Jews’ enemy unto Esther the queen. And Mordecai came before the king; for Esther had told what he was unto her.

8:2 And the king took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it unto Mordecai. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman.”

and then,

“8:17 And in every province, and in every city, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a good day. And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them.”

and then, just in case the Hebrew Mythos left it unclear as to who, exactly, is wearing the pants:

“And the king said unto Esther the queen, The Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan the palace, and the ten sons of Haman; what have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces? now what is thy petition? and it shall be granted thee: or what is thy request further? and it shall be done.

Then said Esther, If it please the king, let it be granted to the Jews which are in Shushan to do to morrow also according unto this day’s decree, and let Haman’s ten sons be hanged upon the gallows.” (Esther, 9:12-13)

Do not. Mess. With Jewish. Women. Ever.

So, I think I’ve successfully proven that these two are roughly the same myth. Because the Enuma Elish is huge and fragmentary, let me give you a plot synopsis. For those interested, of course, the text can be found here:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/stc/stc07.htm

Once upon a time, the world was ruled by Mother Earth. For some reason, a few of the male deities decided that this was not good. A wine feast was set, and during it, while all the gods were drunk, Marduk was appointed King, and charged to go and slay Tiamat and all the gods who supported her. Marduk slew Tiamat, and fear of Marduk fell upon her supporters. Marduk was merciful with them, and punished them, but didn’t slay them. Everybody does what Marduk says forever and ever.

I want you to notice who is conspicuously absent from the myth. WHERE IS ISHTAR? This myth sucks! It’s about a bunch of male deities raining domination on the Earth Mother. What the fuck?

Actually, I think even in ancient times, this must have been a pretty typical reaction for a Jew. I’ll explain why by telling you what happens in the Book of Esther. If the Book of Esther was a covert version of the Enuma Elish, then let me give you a plot synopsis, reconstructed as a Babylonian Myth.

(You can find it online here: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Bible/Esther.html)

Once upon a time, the world was ruled by a careless and foolish male deity (let’s call him Apsu) who simply did whatever the evil gods around him told him to do. He most especially listened to Kingu, and Kingu essentially ruled everything.

Apsu had a consort, but Kingu told him to get rid of her, so he did. Then, Apsu was sad. He held a beauty contest and commanded that all of the goddesses come before him that he might choose who was the most beautiful, then force her to marry him.

Ishtar thought about it for thirty seconds, then said, “I’ve got this covered.”

Because she is Ishtar, she obviously was the sexiest, and soon she was made Queen of Heaven. Meanwhile, Marduk just kind of hung around outside not doing much.

Irritated with Marduk’s unwillingness to bow down to any other god, Kingu decreed that all the gods ruled by Apsu should destroy the Annunaki, thus sticking it to Marduk. Little did Kingu know that the King’s new bride was a princess of the Anunaki, and would not sit quietly while this occurred.

Ishtar, who had not been summoned by Apsu, went to him, and touched his penis. Apsu declared that she could consequently have whatever she wanted. She said that she was having a wine feast, and that Kingu should attend.

At the wine feast, Ishtar announced that she was one of the Anunaki, and that Kingu was trying to kill her. Apsu was furious. Kingu threw himself on Ishtar’s mercy, but Ishtar has no mercy, because she is Ishtar. Apsu ordered his guards to take the Queen’s enemy and have him executed, instantly.

Apsu then gave the rule of the Kingdom to Ishtar, who in turn, appointed Marduk in Kingu’s place.

The Goddess of Love and War used all the forces of the King to reign fiery blood and terror upon her enemies, and when Apsu asked what else she wanted, she declared that she wanted MORE bloodshed. Everyone either joined the Anunaki out of sheer terror, or died a horrible, bloody death.

Everyone lived happily ever after.

Read: Achoshverosh in place of Apsu, Esther in place of Ishtar, Mordechai in place of Marduk, and Haman in place of Kingu, and that is the story of Purim. Mother Earth is not slain, Ishtar is Queen, Marduk gets a position in the court. Male and female deities participate equally.

Babylonian mythology, fix’d.

But wait, there is more.

If you read the Book of Ester, someone, or maybe something, is conspicuously absent. Hashem is not mentioned in this story. Hashem’s consort, however, is.

“Thus said Hashem: ‘I recall for you the lovingkindness of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me into the wilderness, into an unsown land.’ ” (Jeremiah 2:2)

In this, Hashem makes clear the identity of Hashem’s spouse. Who was it that followed Hashem into the wilderness?

“And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 16:1)

It is the Jewish people, the consort of Hashem, that is very much in evidence during this story. Is it any wonder, then, that where the Babylonians write about gods, our corresponding myth talks about us?

Look, too, at our Tauroctony myth. Where the “sacred cow” is slain by Hermes in the Greek Mythology (Homeric Hymn #4) and the Roman Tauroctony involves a god named Mithras, who is the corresponding figure in Hebrew mythology?

“And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.” (Exodus 32:19-20)

We, the Jewish people, are the gods of our own mythology, and on Purim, we are commanded by the customs of our people to, “make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions of food one to another, and gifts to the poor.” (Esther, 9:22)

Go, my friends: feast and drink like gods! Do not, however, forget those less fortunate than yourselves, for a good deity is thoughtful of those who are in need, or who are less powerful than themselves.

According to Shas…

In medieval France and Germany, women did wear tefillin. Rabbenu Tam, Rashi’s grandson, ruled that a woman doing any mitzvah that she is not obligated to, including tefillin, must make the appropriate blessing.

Celebrate!

“Celebrate your heritage, not because you belong to the Torah, but because the Torah belongs to you.”

The New Moon: A Time for God to Atone

I want to open my discussion about Rosh Chodesh with a passage from Tractate Chullin 60b.

Rabbi Shim’on ben Pazi pitted one against another: “God made the two big lights” (Genesis 1:16a) and “the big light… and the small light” (Genesis 1:16b)!

The moon said before the Blessed Holiness: “Ruler of the World! Is it possible for two kings to wear the same crown?”

He said to her: “Go and make yourself smaller!”

She said before Him: “Ruler of the World! Because I said something reasonable before You, I am to make myself smaller!?”

He said to her: “Go and rule by day and by night.”

She said to him: “What importance does that have? What use is a lamp in daylight?”

He said to her: “Go, and the Jewish people will reckon days and years by you.”

She said to Him: “It is impossible for them not to reckon seasons by Day also, since it is written, ‘And they will be for signs and for set times and for days and years’!” (Genesis 1:14)

“Go, and holy people will be named after you: Small Jacob [see Amos 7:2], Small Shmuel [a sage of the Talmud], Small David [see I Samuel 17:14].”

Seeing that she had not been appeased, the Holy One, Blessed Be He said [to the Jewish people]: “Bring an atonement sacrifice for Me, because I made the moon smaller.”

That is to say, bring a sacrifice to atone for God’s sin.

Rashi expounds, in his commentary on Megillah 22b, that Rosh Chodesh is a woman’s holiday, given to the Jewish woman as a gift for refusing to participate in creating the Golden Calf, but there may be other reasons why women are supposed to celebrate this holiday more than men.

וְהָיָה אוֹר-הַלְּבָנָה, כְּאוֹר הַחַמָּה

“And the light of moon will be like the light of the sun.” (Isaiah 30:26)

There is no doubting that the ancient world was sexist. It was sexist in absolutely every faith at that time. Yet, even so, Judaism was already discussing what to do to aide the plight of women. In a time when women could simply be discarded, the Rabbis instituted the ketubah, which guaranteed either martial rights, or a year’s living wage. Recognizing the hardship certain mitzvot imposed on women before birth control was invented, the Rabbis gave her exemptions. It was progressive for 2000 years ago, but even at that time, it was essentially recognized that the solution wasn’t perfect.

Many Chassidic Jews believe that women gaining equal rights with men is the fulfillment of this verse from Isaiah, a promise from our Deity to correct the mistakes of early human history.

During the New Moon, Elokim comes to us, as women, to atone for His sins against us.

For women, it is a propitious time to approach our God. However, according to Kabalistic tradition, in accordance with  the teachings of the Zohar, it is dangerous for men to approach the Presence of God during this time. The Moon (Shekhina) takes on the aspect of Judgment toward them. The part of God that is female is angry with men for the degradation of womankind which happened in years past, and which continues to happen. She is angry that we aren’t paid fairly for our work, She is angry that we are objectified, She is angry that we are denied equal power for our equal potential. Is it any surprise that they should avoid Her? The part of God that is male approaches women in the spirit of contrition, He is sorry for all of those things.

I’d like to take this a step further and talk about others whom history has wronged, and who have been marginalized in Judaism: the LGBT community. It is time for a repair between the notion that God created these people exactly as they are, and the notion that God will not accept them as such. It is a time for all who have been diminished –as the moon was diminished– by history to entreat Hashem for equality in Judaism and globally.

It is a time to honor our Deity’s ability to recognize His own faults, and to bring grievances. It is a time for forgiveness.

Bereshit Bara Elokim

“Bereshit Bara Elokim”

The usual translation is, “In the beginning of God’s creating” (Genesis 1:1)

In the very first volume of the Zohar, toward the very beginning of that volume, we discuss the very first line of the Torah. In that, the very first utterance of our mythos, we learn who our deity truly is.

Kabalist Daniel Matt gives us the following, rather brilliant translation, based on the teachings of the Zohar: “In the beginning, _______ created Elokim.”

Maybe you’ve heard this drash before. There’s no novelty here, not insofar as the Jewish tradition is concerned. So, I’m going to take it a step further.

What are words? What are names? Why are certain things totally unutterable?

Once we have expressed something, we have used language. Language is one of the surest signs that culture is beginning to take place. Elokim isn’t just a name for God, it is a Hebrew name for God.

How does the Torah come into being? First, and foremost, the Ineffable created our cultural manifestation of deity, the first of two main characters in the narrative of the Hebrew mythos. Yes, you read that right. The Zohar, and one of the world’s most famous living Kabalists, up and admitted it. We know that the God-with-names that we worship is a hand-puppet, a thing created by the true and nameless Creator… whom we also worship. So now there are two gods in Judaism?

Not exactly. We can think of the Creator as the pure spiritual essence of God, able to create only spiritual things. Elokim is the Nashama of God, able to speak to the Universe directly, but only in the base code of the universe. “Let there be light!” says Elokim in the first creation, and there is light. But we don’t see Elokim addressing humans other than in the sense of talking to their biological nature, “be fruitful and multiply” and defining humans as a biological species destined to use the environment intensively. (Genesis 1:28)

It is not until we get to YHVH that we have something manifest enough to speak to humans as human speak to one another. YHVH is the personality of our particular manifestation… I’d almost use the word “incarnation.”

Even better, we can think of the unutterable, nameless part of God as the part we don’t experience, and the other parts of God as the ones that we, as Jews, do. More on that later.

Hold onto your hat, it gets weirder.

Kabalists will tell you that Torah is the blue-print for the world. The Orthodox Jews have the understanding that “Torah” is more than just what is printed in the five books. It is also the tradition of the laws created by the generations of Sages, and even the teachings of more modern rabbis like Maimonides and Rashi.

While Christians parade around with their signs saying that it is evil not to do exactly what the Bible says, Jews who are Torah observant are busy not doing exactly what Bible says. We don’t practice Levitical marriage, anymore, for example. Why?

“Lo b’shamayim hi” — She is not in Heaven (Deuteronomy 30:12)

Every child in Hebrew school knows that God gave the Hebrew people the Torah. Maybe you’ve even heard the midrash that God offered it to every other nation, that every other nation said no. God gave us, and only us, the Torah.

No, really, seriously, God gave us the Torah. Like, in the way you give someone an apple. Lo b’shomayim hi! It’s not up there in heaven anymore because we have it! God can’t change the Torah because God no longer has it. Can we? Oh, yes. Yes, we can.

‘Decide according to the majority’ (Exodus 23:2).

This principle is the origin of Talmudic law. When the Great Sanhedrin stood, truly major laws could be over-turned for the good of the nation. When it didn’t stand, we had less power, but even so, the law did change. We still make rulings. But surely, the Jewish tradition must consider the words of God to pre-empt the words of the Sages.

“My son, be more careful in the observance of the words of the Scribes than in the words of the Torah.” (Eruvin 21b)

Use your good sense. Read what’s in the Pentateuch. Not everything in there is advisable, merciful, or good. Jews don’t say that out loud much, but we all sort of know that if we obeyed the laws of the “Old Testament” as written, the result would be bedlam and evil. Exhibit A: Fundamentalist Christians.

The world, at that time, when the plain words of the Torah were revealed, was bedlam and evil. The Torah was only a reflection of what the world was like at that time. When Kabalists discuss the work of Kabalah as “Tikkun Olam,” literally, “saving the world,” or when we discuss the idea that we are partners with God in creation, we mean that by studying Torah, by making rulings from a place of knowledge and understanding, especially of Kabalah, we are changing the entire world from its very metaphysical foundations.

The other nations didn’t want the Torah. Most people don’t want to see what goes into the soup. They just want to eat the soup, even if it happens to contain a cow anus or two. If they can’t perceive it, it’s all good. Jews said, “yes, show me the ingredient list.”

The inevitable, “HOLY HELL I WAS EATING THAT SHIT??” followed almost immediately.

This is where the analogy breaks down. Plenty of people read and study Torah, but don’t follow it. It isn’t until you are immersed in it, having to follow it every day, that you begin to see its contradictions and problems with any clarity. As an outside observer, you may know that there are problems, just like, as a person who watches the news but isn’t involved in relief efforts knows that the world has problems. Torah observance is a living reductio ad absurdum of the metaphysical world. Imagine being in the ancient world with people living hard lives, made harder by deities that flatten villages with gigantic bulls that they keep upstairs, demanding human sacrifices, throwing lightning bolts at humans like they were spit balls, and lighting humans on fire, just because. Imagine that no one questioned that.

With the revelation at Sinai, we were really impressed. Then, we started following the Torah. Then, really, not so much impressed at all. The world, we realized, really sucked.

We demanded that the recipe be changed. The personality of God, the part that can speak and interact with us, became offended and said “no,” and killed a few of us (reduction of several incidents in Exodus and Deuteronomy). Somehow, though, between Exodus and the story of Jonah, where God was scolding Jonah for not being kind enough to the non-Jews who were committing many sins, God seems to have changed Its tune.

How did this happen?

“Behold I am prepared and ready to perform the commandment to sanctify the moon, for the sake of the unification of the Holy One, Blessed Be He, and His Presence.” (Kiddush Levanah)

Back the fuck up.

Lots of pagans see this as a nod to a God-Goddess dichotomy in Judaism, a hint to our earlier polytheism. That, my friends, would be unexciting by comparison to what you actually just saw. We did not say “Hashem.” We said, “The Holy One Blessed Be He.” Some divinity we cannot name, whose essence defies language? Being unified with “The Presence of God,” (also called Shekhina) or, in short, the part of God we DO experience. Let me gloss this for you in simpler, less liturgical sounding language.

“I am going to do a ritual under the moon to unify the nameless divine with the cultural manifestation we experience.”

Or better, “I am going to change the part of God that we experience to make It more like the part of God we can’t experience, and then glue them back together.”

It is not the Kabalistic way to simply be a consumer of a religious path, reading and accepting a tradition without changing it. Rather, by following the Torah, by learning and by legislating, we use what we recieved to make the metaphysical world the one we want to be living in. The law is evil? We legislate around it! Deity is evil? We use theurgic mind control rituals to change the deity’s personality, with the bedside manner of a professional surgeon.

That is what you need to understand about the Jews. There is a second divinity in the Jewish mythos, one that stands toe to toe and eye to eye with Hashem, and it is the Jew who has received, truly received, the Torah.

As a corollary to this: studying and observing Torah is powerful. We DO NOT want people to go back to the “fundamentals” of the Bible and to follow exactly what is written there. That encourages our deity to behave like the violent, angry, misogynistic lunatic we found in the desert. Seriously, that’s our cultural text, and our cultural god. Quit that shit instantly.