Take that light that was said to exist in the place where the Temple would be built in future generations. It suggests some kind of primordial force in the universe, which God drew upon in Creation. God chose to place the earth where He did because of that light. For the same reason, God placed the Holy Land where He did because of that light, and He placed the site of the Temple in Jerusalem at the very source of that light. The myth goes on to say that this holy light continued to emanate even after the Temple was built in that place. Its source was in the Holy of Holies, and it lit up the Temple and shone forth through the windows and filled the Holy Land.
Beneath the surface, questions about the origin of this light seek to know whether anything else existed before God created the world, whether God drew upon such pre-existing elements or created everything out of nothing, whether God had any assistance in Creation, and even the unthinkable question of who created God. These kinds of questions posed the danger of undermining monotheism. As noted, the advice of the Mishnah was to avoid them.
There is no satisfactory account of the creation of light in the book of Genesis, none that specifies whether this light pre-existed or was created at that instant by God. Even great commentators such as Rashi and his grandson, Rabbi Samuel ben Meir, known as Rashbam, agreed that no such full account is given. Perhaps the light pre-existed or perhaps God brought it into being during an earlier creation, one not recounted in Genesis. Neither of these solutions supports the notion of creation ex nihilo, and anything else suggests limits of God’s powers, which, by definition, are limitless.
The most common explanation for what happened to the primordial light is that God hid it for the righteous in the World to Come. But in the thirteenth century the Zohar suggested another explanation: “Whenever the Torah is studied at night, a single ray comes from the hidden light and stretches forth to those who study.”160 Drawing on this clue in the eighteenth century, the Ba’al Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism, proposed that God had hidden the primordial light in the Torah, and for those who immerse themselves in the study of the Torah, a ray of that light would shine forth, and past and future and time and space would open up for a moment, and they would experience the revelation of the hidden light, and see the world as God saw it when God said, “Let there be light.”161 This interpretation is reinforced by midrashim that explain that the original tablets of the Law that Moses received on Mount Sinai were created in the presence of the primordial light. Thus it might be said that this sacred light was imprinted on the pages of the Torah.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, the greatest Jewish storyteller, who also happened to be the great-grandson of the Ba’al Shem Tov, agreed with his great-grandfather’s explanation of where the light was hidden. But he added that it was hidden in the stories of the Torah. Rabbi Nachman truly loved stories and found them full of hidden light: “Every story has something that is concealed. What is concealed is the hidden light. The Book of Genesis says that God created light on the first day, the sun on the fourth. What light existed before the sun? The tradition says this was spiritual light and that God hid it for future use. Where was it hidden? In the stories of the Torah.”162
That might have been the end of the story, but it’s not. Another nineteenth century rabbi, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Riminov, insisted that the primordial light had never been hidden at all, and was still present, but that only the truly righteous could see it. It is invisible to everyone else. On the other hand, in the twentieth century Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel accepted the hiddenness of the primordial light and drew his own conclusions from it: “The primordial light is hidden. Had the Torah demanded perfection, [the world] would have remained a utopia. The laws of the Torah ask of each generation to fulfill what is within its power to fulfill. Some of its laws… do not represent ideals but compromises, realistic attempts to refine the moral condition of ancient man.”163
Thus the Bible begins with a mysterious light, considered distinct from that of the fourth day of Creation, which God brings into the world as a sacred, primordial light. In some versions of the myth God removes the light and saves it for the righteous in the World to Come. In others, God hides it in the Torah, where it is waiting to be found. In still others, it has been here all along, for those who are capable of seeing it.
VI. The Continuing Evolution of Jewish Mythology
The primary myths of Judaism are found in the Hebrew Bible, in the stories of Creation, of the Garden of Eden, the Tower of Babel, the great Flood, the covenant with Abraham, the parting of the Red Sea, the Exodus, and the Giving of the Torah. And these are only the major biblical myths. Because of the looming presence of the Bible in Western culture, these myths are encountered, in literary allusions and in other ways, on almost a daily basis.
In terms of mythic evolution, it is important to remember that even these biblical myths were themselves based on earlier oral versions. Here the transition from the oral tradition to a written one was influenced by the priestly editors of the books of the Torah. What were these long lost prebiblical myths like? They may well have been considerably different than the written versions we are familiar with.
Sir James Frazer speculated that the original oral myth about the Garden of Eden was not about a Tree of Knowledge and a Tree of Life, as found in Genesis, because they are not a polar pair.164 Myths repeatedly seek out polarities whenever possible—day and night, sun and moon, heaven and earth. It would be unlikely that the original myth had two trees that were not polar, as is the case with the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Rather, Frazer suggests, the two trees were likely the Tree of Life and the Tree of Death.165 According to his theory, God gave Adam and Eve a divine test to determine if mankind would be mortal or immortal. God wanted them to be immortal,166 so He gave them a big hint: “Don’t eat from the Tree of Death!” Of course, human nature being what it is, that is exactly what they did, thus becoming mortal. If the fruit that Adam and Eve had first tasted had been from the Tree of Life, they would have lived forever, but having eaten from the Tree of Death, they could no longer be permitted access to the Tree of Life. That is why God stationed east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the Tree of Life (Gen. 3:24). If Frazer is correct—and his theory has the ring of truth—it suggests that the original purpose of the myth, to provide the origin of death, was replaced by a shift to ethical issues, seeing the events of the Fall primarily as a sin against God. This would indicate that this biblical myth was considerably changed from its oral version when the text of Genesis was edited.167
After they were written down, the biblical myths, especially the myths of the Torah, were themselves reimagined and embellished in every generation by a process of creative plenitude, whereby themes and motifs were further elaborated.168 It might seem that Jewish mythology is drawn exclusively from these biblical sources, but that is not the case. One of the most remarkable aspects of the mythology of Judaism is that it continued to evolve long after most mythologies had taken their final form. In most cultures the development of myth occurs during an early period, long before it is written down. However, once committed to writing, the mythical narrative generally remains fixed. But Jewish tradition has not followed this pattern. That is because Judaism recognizes both a written and an oral tradition. The Written Torah consists of the Five Books of Moses and is recorded in the scroll of the Torah. The Oral Law is the oral commentary linked to it. As one midrash puts it, God gave the Torah to Moses during the day and explained it to him at night.169 And whenever a question arises as to the authority of a statement out of the Oral Law, it is ultimately attributed to the explanations of the Law that Moses received at Mount Sinai: “This is Torah from Moses at Sinai.”
The primary themes announced in the earliest Jewish texts became the focus of later texts that strove to be true to the original myth while adding their own imprint. As a result it is also possible to trace the evolution of seminal Jewish myths from the earliest period not onl
y to the Hasidic era of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but even to the present, where myths have been among the kinds of oral tales collected by Jewish ethnologists in Eastern Europe and in Israel. No other world mythology has been documented so thoroughly while undergoing such an extensive evolution.
The varied periods of Jewish religion are characterized by their own predominant myths. Yet there is a continuity among them that is reflected in the rabbinic axiom that “there is no earlier or later in the Torah.” Commenting on this statement, Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzhak ha-Levi adds: “That is to say, every part of it is both first and last like a sphere… and where it ends, there it begins, for behold it is like a circle or a sphere.”170 This principle is certainly reflected in the midrashic method of drawing on one episode in the Bible, such as the childhood of Moses, to fill in a narrative gap in another, such as the missing childhood of Abraham. This results in a distinctly myth-making process, which contributes in no small part to the ongoing mythic evolution.171
There are two factors, in particular, that enable mythic elaboration in Judaism. One is the existence of the Oral Law, and the other is what might be called “the midrashic method.” The Oral Law contains a great many details and explanations about the Written Torah, as well as alternate versions of biblical narratives. The midrashic method searches for hints and explanations of the biblical text to resolve apparent contradictions and complete unfinished narratives. To accomplish this, it uses many techniques, such as examining the roots of words, drawing on earlier or later portions of the text (the chapters before and after are always considered relevant), or using the purest kind of invention to resolve a knotty problem. Of course this invention is attributed to the Oral Torah, and therefore is regarded as legitimate.
To better understand the kind of transformations that take place in Jewish mythology, let us consider a few examples. Perhaps the most striking transformation is that of the concept of the Shekhinah, as discussed earlier. From around the fifth century to the twelfth or thirteenth century, the concept changed from being a synonym for God and God’s presence in the world to denoting the Bride of God, a figure with many of the qualities of a goddess.
Extensive mythic transformations are also associated with the figure of Lilith. In the early medieval Alphabet of Ben Sira Lilith is identified as Adam’s first wife, who resisted having sex in the missionary position, abandoned Adam and the Garden of Eden, and took up residence at the Red Sea, where she took for lovers all the male demons who made their home there. But by the Middle Ages the focus on Lilith in Jewish folklore was on her role as the Queen of Demons, while, at the same time, Lilith took on the role of the dark feminine in kabbalah, the feminine aspect of the Sitra Ahra, the Other Side, the polar opposite of the Shekhinah. It is interesting to note that the transformations of Lilith seem to have continued in our own time, in which Lilith has been portrayed as a role model by some Jewish feminists.
The kinds of changes in the Lilith myth that have taken place since the 1960s, which have transformed Lilith from being regarded as an evil demoness, succubus, and child-destroying witch into a model of sexual and personal independence, raise the important question of what role Jewish mythology plays for modern, non-Orthodox Jews. The changes cut two ways. On the one hand, the belief in these myths as an expression of literal truth has largely vanished, along with the belief that contemporary rabbis can draw upon God’s powers to ascend to Paradise or confront forces of evil. On the other hand, certain myths, in particular those about Lilith, the Shekhinah, and the golem (a humanoid created through kabbalistic sorcery), have taken on great popularity, and have shown distinct signs of new life. The attraction of Lilith for Jewish feminists derives from her independence from Adam, especially her sexual independence. She serves as a compelling figure of female rebellion in a patriarchal tradition.172 At the same time, the existence of the traditions about the Shekhinah is regarded by many modern Jewish women as an indication that there is a place for the feminine in Judaism, beginning with the very concept of God, and new prayers and customs have been created to emphasize this development. Thus, even if these myths are not accepted as absolute truths, they have generated widespread interest in Jewish and non-Jewish circles. Of course, the kinds of changes in the perception of these myths indicate that the evolution of Jewish mythology has continued into our own time. The very fact of this continued evolution speaks volumes about the vitality of Jewish myth.
The examples of the changing roles of the Shekhinah and of Lilith indicate that Jewish myths can develop in unexpected directions. But sometimes what happens is that a fragmentary myth takes on a life of its own. This is what happened with Enoch, who receives a brief mention in the genealogical listing between Adam and Noah, where it is said that Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, for God took him (Gen. 21:24). This brief passage about Enoch, which was understood to mean that Enoch was taken alive into paradise, became the basis of the extensive Enoch myth first found in 1 Enoch (second century BCE through first century CE), where Enoch ascends on high. The myth was expanded in 2 Enoch (first century) and 3 Enoch (fifth through sixth century), the latter describing how Enoch was transformed into the fiery angel Metatron.
Perhaps the most common kind of mythic evolution involves narrative development, especially completing unfinished narratives. For example, the biblical story of Cain is missing an ending. Cain was the first murderer, and the rabbis wanted to see in his death an example of divine justice. But the last we hear of Cain in Genesis, he has founded a city. Nothing is said of his death. But in the midrashic texts several versions of Cain’s death are to be found. In one Cain is transformed into the Angel of Death. In another, Cain’s stone house collapses on him during an earthquake, thus causing him to be stoned to death, an appropriate punishment, as death by stoning was the punishment for capital crimes. In a third version Cain was killed by Lamech and Tubal-Cain, his descendants. Thus, just as Cain murdered a relative, he was killed by relatives, making this version another example of divine justice.173
Drawing on this extensive oral tradition, which reached back a thousand years, the rabbis proceeded to reimagine the Bible, and in the process substantially developed its mythic elements. Clues were sought and found in biblical verses, and these were also used to resolve problems in the biblical text. Using these methods, details about the lives of the patriarchs and matriarchs accrued, as well as details of realms such as heaven and hell, and these details were themselves subject to further embellishment.
Thus it is possible to witness the actual evolution of Jewish myths. Early myths, primarily those found in the Bible, were embellished in the oral tradition and later recorded in the rabbinic texts. The Talmud, dating from the fifth century, is believed to be the written form of the Oral Torah, and additional oral traditions are recorded in the midrashic texts that followed. These rabbinic myths were themselves transformed in the kabbalistic and hasidic periods. The most fertile periods of development took place between the first and fifth centuries, when the Talmud and most of the texts of the Pseudepigrapha were written, and between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, the primary period of kabbalistic literature. The latter is a remarkably late period in human history for such extensive mythic development. It is then that major myths of the nature of God and of His Bride took form, along with further myths of creation and of the Messiah. But in every case these kabbalistic myths are rooted in earlier sources and undergo a process of evolution until they achieve full expression.
If we search for an overriding pattern in this mythic evolution, we can recognize an early fascination with heavenly journeys, as well as with the mysteries of Creation and the mysteries of God’s Chariot. Beginning in the Middle Ages, the role of the long-suppressed feminine aspect of God emerges as an increasingly dominant theme, especially in the goddesslike role of the Shekhinah and in the fascination and fear engendered by the Lilith myth. In both the earlier and later periods, the longing for the coming of the Messiah remains co
nstant, as does the centrality of the Torah and its teachings. In our own time, when women have sought a greater role in all aspects of Jewish life, they have found role models in the figures of Lilith and the Shekhinah rather than in the traditional role models, the matriarchs. Consistent throughout, however, has been the bond created by the covenant of God and His people, Israel. This is the central myth of Judaism, and it is the key to understanding all the others.
Notes
1This is found in Zohar 3:167a-b, where Jacob’s granddaughter, Serah bat Asher, is described as one of the blessed women who teaches Torah to the souls of righteous women in her own heavenly palace. See “Women in Paradise,” p. 190.
2”Shekhinah,” while not a biblical term, has a biblical basis in the term shokhen (“dwells”), which occurs in many places in the Bible, stating that God “dwells” on earth, as in Psalm 135:21, Blessed is the Lord from Zion, He who dwells in Jerusalem. In the Bible God is variously described as dwelling in the Tabernacle, in the Temple, and among the people of Israel. In rabbinic literature, “Shekhinah” refers to God’s presence, i.e. dwelling, in this world. By the kabbalistic era, this term had evolved to refer to the feminine aspect of God, also identified as God’s Bride.
3There is considerable scholarly controversy over whether Asherah was a goddess in pre-exilic Israel; whether, in fact, Asherah was Yahweh’s divine consort. Much revolves around the interpretation of a number of biblical passages, especially 1 Kings 18:19, where Elijah refers to four hundred prophets of Asherah. Other key passages are 2 Kings 21:7, 2 Kings 23:4, Judges 3:7, and Jeremiah 2:27. Also, Asherah appears as an Israelite phenomenon in the polemics found in Judges 2:13 and 10:6, and 1 Samuel 7:3-4 and 12:10. There are also references in Jeremiah 7:18 and 44:15-28 that refer to the “Queen of Heaven,” a figure some identify with Asherah. So too does the reference to the “asherahs” in Judges 3:7 seem to indicate the presence of the goddess in ancient Israel, with the asherah, a wooden cult object, as her symbol. See The Early History of God by Mark Smith, pp. 125-133. See also “Israel and the Mothers” by Michael Fishbane in The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics, pp. 49-63, and In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth by Tikva Frymer-Kensky, pp. 153-161. Arguing strongly that Asherah was Yahweh’s consort is The Hebrew Goddess, 3rd edition, by Raphael Patai, pp. 34-53.
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