Fire, Water, and Oil: Lost Jewish Rituals

Over the course of 3500 years, certain rituals and holidays have come and gone, though in the spirit of the ever-dying,

[Igulim v'yashar - water in forms circular and linear]

ever-resurrected people, few holidays go away forever. Here are a couple I think of in light of Sukkot:

The Festival of Wood offering: A holiday mentioned in the Temple Scroll of the Dead Sea Scrolls, evidently inspired by the mundane task of gathering firewood for the altar sacrifices in the Temple, turning it into a sacred occasion. Observed on a solar calendar and evidently performed several times a year it is a holiday unattested to in surviving Jewish tradition and may have been simply part of an idealized, rather than actual, calendar featured in that secterian text. There is some Biblical basis for it once having existed, though (Neh, 10:34-40). The largely defunct annual Rabbinic observance of Tu B'av may be a cognate or competing version of the Qumran custom.

Simchat Beit Hashoeva, or Water Libation or Water Drawing Ceremony: When the Temple stood, one of the rituals of the holiday of Sukkot would be the Water Libation ritual. This theurgic ceremony entailed gathering a jug of water from the Pool of Siloam (an underground spring) and taking it up to the Temple, where it would be poured over the altar in a mimetic act of rainfall. As the drawn water was poured out, this incantation was recited: “Let your waters flow, I hear the voice of two friends [the drawn water calling to its source], as it is said, ‘Abyss calls to abyss in the roar of the channels’” (Tan. 25b). The purpose of the ritual was to draw the underground waters of the abyss toward the surface of the earth, to trigger the fructifying mingling of tellurian (subterranean/circular/feminine) and heavenly (rain/linear/masculine) waters that would allow growth in the coming season (T. Ta'anit 1:4; Ta’anit 10b; PdRE 23).

While the ritual in its ancient form is no longer viable without an altar, today some communities hang onto the party aspect of the ritual and it is an occasion for a concert, dancing, or a community program.

Festival of the First Oil: Another holiday unknown to the normative Jewish calendar but mentioned in the Temple Scroll. It may have its basis in the Biblical list of priestly privileges, however (Num. 18:12-13; Neh, 10:34-40). It is not known whether the holiday was actually ever observed outside the circle of the Dead Sea Scrolls community.

Zal g'mor - To learn more consult the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050

Hymns to the Divine Warrior, the Hebrew God of Battle

[The Egyptian army drowning, from 1740 illustrated book, found at the British Museum website]

It's interesting to consider how much social context shapes religious rhetoric and the language we use to describe the divine. Take Christianity. In the West it is the religion most associated with pacifism. Indeed, there is considerable rhetoric of forgiveness, turning the other cheek, universal government, and universal love in the Gospels. But few people realize how this rhetoric of universality is grounded in the Gospel writers' lifestyle under the Pax Romana. The hegemony of Rome from the Atlantic to the Euphrates created an unparalleled sense of security and shared identity for the people of the ancient world, a sense of participating in a universal order few people of earlier or later times would know. In a world where war was generally confined to the borderlands of empire, it was much easier to think and talk about life lived without the necessity of violence and war.

By comparison the Hebrew Bible was composed in more unstable times. Israel was a small ethnic group surrounded by aggressive tribal and imperial neighbors. War was a constant anxiety and violence a frequent reality. By necessity, the Israelites were themselves a capable warrior culture, with many tales of great war chieftains (Abraham, Joshua, Ehud, Gideon, Samson, Saul, David, etc.). Yet for the very same reasons, Israelite writings are permeated with dreams of enduring peace, a peace which in their experience would require a massive reordering of the way things were, a divine transcending of the reality they knew.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the God of Israel is sometimes envisioned as a champion who will fight on Israel's behalf, delivering His people from the hands of oppressor nations.

And so it is that we find a literary genre, the poetic hymn to the "Divine Warrior," which appears in different forms in different periods of Israel's history. Derived from Canaanite and Mesopotamian mythic stories of gods like Baal and Marduk, the Divine Warrior poem stereotypically consists of a series of conventional elements:

1) The threat (cosmic, national, or personal)

2) The battle

3) God victorious

4) The divine procession (to Jerusalem, across the desert)

5) Salvation (in this world, not usually in the Christian sense) for the followers

6) The advent of universal peace.[1]

There are many variations on these six conventions. Like any other restrictive form of poetry - iambic pentameter, or hyku - the artistry lies in the twist the writer can put on the conventions: reordering them, inverting them, compressing or expanding a theme against the other. sometimes a writer will not include one or two of these elements as part of his message.

Bible readers are most familiar with this type of hymn in the "Song of the Sea" (Exodus 15), Moses' victory song after crossing the Sea of Reeds and seeing the overwhelming of the pursuing Egyptians:

Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD : "I will sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea.
2 The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him.
3 The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name.
4 Pharaoh's chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh's officers are drowned in the Red Sea….
9 "The enemy boasted, 'I will pursue, I will overtake them. I will divide the spoils; I will gorge myself on them. I will draw my sword and my hand will destroy them.'
10 But you blew with your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters.
11 "Who among the gods is like you, O LORD ? Who is like you— majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?....
13 "In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling….
17 You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance— the place, O LORD, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, your hands established.
18 The LORD will reign for ever and ever."

Other examples of the hymn form appear in Josh. 10-11; Ps. 48, 74; Isa. 51: 9-11, 59:15-20, 63-64; Zech. 9.

This is a remarkably flexible and enduring poetic genre. It is used in the Hebrew Scriptures early and late in the Biblical period to address all kinds of conflict: cosmic or national, military or religious, external or internal, struggles literal and metaphoric.

1. See Cross, Frank, "The Divine Warrior in Israel's Early Cult," in Biblical Motifs and Hanson, Paul, The Dawn of Apocalyptic.

Zal g'mor - To learn more consult the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050

Shedim of London: The British Invasion (of Jewish Demons)

So I visited my website this morning and found it overrun with hits from England.

[Image of a devil tweeking the noses of English Jews (a scene from a mystery play?) in the Exchequer Roll]

These were easily quadruple the total number of hits I normally have by midday and they keep coming. And most of them are going to the same entry: Jewish Demonology: Demon Origins

I can only guess that last night there was a show - a movie, on BBC perhaps - that referenced Judaism and demonology. If anyone knows what triggered this enthusiasm, please let me know. Unseen forces are at work.

Zal g'mor - To learn more consult the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050

The Girdles of Job: Power Cords

[A modern belt of power]

I recently came across one legend that did not make it into the EJMMM, the legend of the "girdles of Job," three belts or cords of divine craftsmanship.

Mentioned in the Greek language Testament of Job, these girdles were given to Job by God (Job 38:3), curing him of all his ailments and granting him knowledge of future events (why Job needed three is not explained). At his death, Job gave the sashs to his three daughters by Dinah [1], his second wife: Yemima, Ketziah and Keren-Happuch. The belts are described as "three-stringed girdles about the appearance of which no man can speak; For they were not earthly work, but celestial sparks of light flashed through them like the rays of the sun" [2]

Job assured them the garments would act as amulets, protecting them from external dangers and transforming their hearts. When the daughters secured the golden girdles across their chests (over their hearts?), the women knew the language of angels and sang praises in celestial tongues. So girded, they were also relieved of all worldly fears (Testament of Job, Chapters 46-53).

Zal g'mor - To learn more consult the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050

1. According to the Sages, Job's first wife, Uzit, died and he married Jacob's daughter, herself a bit of a schlemazel
2. The Testament of Job, M. R. James, trans., Cambridge University Press, 1897.

Jewish Alchemy: Transformation and Kabbalah

[Alchemists using a bain Marie, the oven invented by Jewish alchemist Maria Hebraea]

The Hermetic tradition, one part theosophy, one part astrology, and one part experimental science, was first expounded in writings attributed to the Egyptian Hermes Trimagistium. Emerging in late antiquity, alchemy was a profoundly spiritual pursuit, a quest to uncover the potential for transformation of the natural order through the study of transformation in certain iconic natural substances – metals. Some alchemists even envisioned their ritualistic chemistry as a kind of sacrificial rite.[1]

Alchemy has been associated with Jews since antiquity. Moses is credited with being the teacher of Hermes himself, but this may also represent a conflation of Moses with the figure of Moses of Alexandra, an Egyptian-Jewish alchemist of antiquity. Some traditions credit the Patriarchs with transmitting alchemical knowledge (along with the philosopher’s stone) that was learned from Adam. Bezalel, the builder of the Mishkan, is said to have been an alchemist (Exodus 31:1-5). Late traditions associate David and Solomon with the Hermetic arts, based on the Biblical account of how David gave Solomon stones, assumed by later readers to be philosopher’s stones (I Chron. 22:14). One ancient alchemist even interpreted the sacrifices made in Solomon’s Temple as kind of nascent alchemical rituals.

By far the most important and influential historical Jewish alchemist of ancient times is Maria Hebraea (Miriam the Jewess). She introduced the Bain Marie, a water-bath oven method still used in chemistry to this day. Medieval alchemists, both Jewish and gentile, frequently claimed occult knowledge of Kabbalah. The Zohar of Moses Shem Tov de Leon and the writings of Abraham Abulafia show a familiarity with alchemy. Directions for the making of gold appear in several Kabbalistic works and Jewish scholars debated whether such transformations were actually possible.

Because Kabbalah was so widely applied by Christian alchemists to their work, by the dawn of the modern era alchemy and Jews were uniquely linked, though this appears to be more perception than reality. So ingrained was this perception that, in order to give their ideas more gravitas, a number of treatises on alchemy were evidently published by non-Jews using Jewish pseudonyms.

Actual Jewish practitioners include Jacob Aranicus (French, 13th Cent), Isaac and John Isaac Hollander (Dutch, 15th Cent.), Modecai Modena (Italian, 16th Cent.) and Samuel de Falk (English, 18th Cent.). Even Baruch Spinoza expressed an interest in it. Oddly, however, only a few Hebrew language alchemical texts have survived to the present.

[This entry excerpted from The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism. To learn more, the EJMMM is available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050 ]

1. Janowitz, Icons of Power, pp. 109-122; also see Patai, The Jewish Alchemists.

Taharah IV: Clothed in Righteousness

["Behold the couch of Solomon. Sixty mighty men surround it, of the mighty men of Israel" A taharah table]

This is the fourth entry in our study of the liturgy for the ritual of body purification:

Having undergone ablution [1] the body is ready to be dressed (ha-l'bashah) in burial shrouds. The tradition as it currently stands is to use tachrichim, a white three-piece bio-degradable outfit of pants, blouse, and head covering [2] followed with a winding sheet (sovev). The Tachrichim are meant to resemble the garments of the priesthood. In fact, some of the items are known by the same terms as the priest's outfit - mitznefet (miter), michnasayim (breeches), and kittel (robe). This continues the motif of earlier liturgy that death is in essence an elevation to a higher status, that the deceased is being readied to enter the mikdash ha-maalah, the "Temple on High." Again, mimicking the dream-vision of Zechariah 3, the Chevra Kadisha serves as the angelic entourage attending to the newly elevated "priest."

As the corpse is being so dressed, the following liturgy is recited:

I will greatly rejoice, my soul shall be joyful in my God, for
God has clothed me with the garments of salvation; God
has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a
bridegroom puts on priestly glory and as the bride adorns
herself with jewels (Isaiah 61:10).
And I said, “Let them set a pure headdress upon his head,”
and they set the pure headdress upon his head, and they
clothed him with garments, and the angel of Adonai stood by
(Zechariah 3:5).
For as the earth brings forth her growth, and as the garden
causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so
Adonai will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth
before all the nations
(Isaiah 61:11).
And Adonai will guide you continually and satisfy your soul
in time of drought, and make strong your bones, and you shall be
like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters
never fail (Isaiah 58:11).

The uplifting, upbeat images catalogued here are quite striking, even discordant - the deceased is compared to a bride/groom on the wedding day (with the implication of God being the complimentary partner); to the High Priest undergoing coronation; to a seed [about to be 'sown' in the earth!] that will spring forth in new life; and to a garden with a perpetual spring, which, what ever the fate of the individual growths, collectively will never wither or dry up. The Chevra Kadisha simultaneously defies and embraces, and verbally redefines death with tropes of joy, empowerment, fertility, purity, and eternal life.

It is an exquisite act of dialectic interplay between reality and hope. Through speaking this liturgy before the speechless corpse and the valley of the shadow of death is inverted into a high place of hope. Performing magic with words, the Jews of the holy fellowship construct hope from the stuff of tragedy, sending both the death and the living on to renewed life.

[1] Many douse the body in water while it is on the taharah table, others actually use a mikveh, submerging the body in a built-in ritual pool. There is controversy over which is preferable - having handled a few bodies, I find bringing the water to the dead somewhat more dignified.

[2] For those families who insist on the western custom of burying their loved one in fine street clothing, a kittel sometimes will be put over the suit/dress.

Taharah III: The Hope of Israel

[Jugs dedicated to a Chevra Kadisha. Note the image of men carrying a burial litter. Found at www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/nikolsburg/w16.jpg]

The term "taharah" is used to refer to the entire ritual of preparing a corpse for burial, but it more specifically refers to the one stage of the ritual in which the body undergoes ablution. Having already physically cleansed the body, we now symbolically cleanse the spirit. This is achieved by either the body's total immersion in a body of "living water" (a moving natural body of water or a man-made ritual pool), or by continuously dousing the body in a minimum of 24 quarts of water (usually by means of buckets). This is the center-piece of the preparation, the culminating moment.

This is so because "living water," water that has flowed down from heaven, is, in effect, a heavenly substance. Jews regard bodies of water to be a kind of celestial embassy on earth, a nexus point between us and Eden. By immersing, we in effect place ourselves at the very doorstep of the World-to-Come, we are prepared to encounter divine things. Since the dead can do nothing from themselves, we perform this liminal ritual on their behalf.

While the ablution is performed, we read a lectionary of verses affirming that God is the mikveh (the purifying waters) that cleanses the spirits of all flesh in the end:

Said Rabbi Akiva, “You are fortunate, Israel. Before Whom do you purify yourselves, and Who purifies you? Your Father in heaven, as it is said: ‘And I will pour pure water upon you, and you shall be purified’ (Ezekiel 36:25), and it says: ‘The mikveh [ritual bath, also a word play on 'hope'] of Israel is God’ (Jeremiah 17:13). Just as a mikveh purifies the defiled, so does the Holy Blessed One purify Israel” (Mishnah Yoma 8:9). A fountain for gardens, a well of living waters, flowing from Lebanon (Song of Songs 4:15) . And I will pour pure water upon you, and you shall be purified from all of your impurities; and from all of your abominations I shall purify you (Ezekiel 36:25).

This ablution, once again, is a mimetic performance. We are acting out physically what we believe to be happening spiritually. It is God, not the Chevra Kadisha, that purifies soul, but we purify the body as a ritualized assertion of faith that God will receive this deceased Jew.

Most of the verses selected are straight-forward prooftexts of this belief. The somewhat oblique verse from Song of Songs, "A fountain of gardens...," refers to the female lover of the poem, who is a understood to be a literary figure for the people Israel. The reference to her as "living waters" affirms that life is still present in death, that just as water moves from one state to another, there will be an enduring aspect of the person who has died. The deceased is now ready to enter and participate in the garden of eternity.

Zal g'mor - To learn more consult the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050

Taharah II: In My Flesh I See God

[Illustration by David the Artist, found on Flickr]

Continuing our discussion of the rich symbolic blending of liturgy and action that is the ceremony of taharah, of preparing a body for burial, we come now to the ritual washing. The body undergoes two cycles of cleansing. First, the body is gently washed, starting at the head and working down the limbs. Only then is the actual taharah, a whole body ablution, performed.

Like the removal of clothing, the washing is done while passages of Scripture are recited. In the case of the cleansing, it is Song of Songs 5:11-16, widely known as the Rosho ketem paz from the opening words:

His head is like the most pure gold [ketem paz].

His hair is curly – black like a raven.
His eyes are like doves by streams of water,
washed in milk, mounted like jewels.
His cheeks are like garden beds full of balsam trees yielding perfume.
His lips are like lilies dripping with drops of myrrh.
His arms are like rods of gold set with chrysolite.
His abdomen is like polished ivory inlaid with sapphires.
His legs are like pillars of marble set on bases of pure gold.
His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as its cedars.
His mouth is very sweet;
he is totally desirable.
This is my beloved!
This is my companion, O maidens of Jerusalem!

The juxtaposition of text and context could hardly be greater. It is little short of mind boggling; reciting the lively, lusty, hyperbolic description of the male lover in Song of Songs while one washes the limp, grey, lifeless limbs of the corpse. It seems yet another example of exquisite, some might say tasteless, Jewish irony.

Yet this paean to beauty thrown in the face of obvious physical desolation is precisely the point. The human, made in the divine image, is to be celebrated. Even if these limbs no longer course with life, what a miracle that they once did. The liturgy forces us to look past the dead flesh to meditate on the sublime nature of the human body. It also suggests that the most splendid aspect of this person endures in a way that may not be obvious, even with the close examination of his corpse.

But there is more. Any Jew conversant with the siddur knows that this passage from Song of Songs has long been treated as an allegorical description of God, the lover of Israel. In the Shabbat service there is Shir ha-Kavod, the Song of Glory, which uses the imagery of ketem paz to praise the God of Israel. The Midrash and Kabbalah frequently cite these words when describing God's attributes.

So reciting these words over the body implies we are looking at, and caring for, something divine. In the divine image, for sure, but something more; God is present in the flesh, even in the decaying flesh, of every person. As the body is readied for burial, the implication is this: God is present in this moment, which is obvious in its tragedy, but may also be hiding something of surpassing beautiful just below the skin.

Addendum: In many traditional chevra kadisha, ketem paz will be recited over both men and women. In more contemporary circles, the woman's washing will be performed to the description of the female lover, Song of Songs chapter 4.

Zal g'mor - to learn more, consult the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050