Tree of Souls

by Howard Schwartz

  88B. Shabbat 63a; Avot de-Rabbi Natan 35; Kohelet Rabbah 1; B. Yoma 39b; Pesikta de Rav Kahana 15:7; Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 35; Midrash Tehillim 91:7; Yalkut ha-Makhiri to Psalms 91:27; Menorat ha-Maor 100; Nachmanides, Perush Ramban al ha-Torah on Genesis 28:17; Kaftor ve-Ferah 6. See Midrash Yerushalem: A Metaphysical History of Jerusalem by Daniel Sperber, pp. 92-94.

  89Zohar 1:155b.

  90B. Ta’anit 10a.

  91See “The Foundation Stone,” p. 96.

  92The word translated as “punishment” is actually avoni, “my sin.” If read literally, Cain is saying that his sin is too great to bear, meaning that he recognizes the extent of his sin. While the biblical account of Cain describes his exile, Genesis Rabbah 22:13 and Leviticus Rabbah 10:5 report that Cain repented and his repentance was accepted by God. Adam was so surprised to learn this that he slapped his head and cried out, “If I had only known the power of repentance.”

  93This biblical recounting does not include the Babylonian exile that took place after the first Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BCE, nor again when the second Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E., nor the exile that took place after the expulsion from Spain in 1492, nor the destruction and wandering of the Jews of Europe in the Second World War, as well as hundreds of other examples. Exile, it seems, has been the fate of the Jewish people.

  94See “The Ten Lost Tribes,” p. 473 and “The River Sambatyon,” p. 475.

  95See “Exile and Redemption in Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century: Contending Conceptions” by Shalom Rosenberg, pp. 399-430. There is also evidence that the idea of a nonpunishment purpose of exile arose even earlier than the sixteenth century. Rosenberg cites precedents on pp. 407-410. These include the view that the purpose of the exile was to gain proselytes.

  96See “The Shattering of the Vessels and the Gathering of the Sparks,” p. 122.

  97See “Myths of the Holy Land,” pp. 401-429.

  98See “Myths of the Messiah,” p. 483-523.

  99In Mishneh Torah Hilkhot Melakhim 11 Maimonides offers a naturalistic alternative to the supernatural view of these requirements: “King Messiah will arise and restore the kingdom of David to its former glory. He will rebuild the Temple and gather all the exiles of Israel. All ancient laws will be reinstituted in his days; sacrifices will again be offered; the Sabbatical and Jubilee years will again be observed according to the commandments set forth in the Law.” Note that Maimonides specifically excludes the raising of the dead. On the other hand, he includes the reinstitution of all the ancient laws, including those no longer in use, such as those pertaining to the Temple, for once the Temple is rebuilt, the laws concerning sacrifices will be renewed. This perspective of the role of the Messiah reflects the view of a third century talmudic sage, Samuel, found in B. Pesahim 68a, that there is no difference between historical time and messianic time except that the Jewish people will no longer be politically oppressed.

  100Zohar 1:22a-b, 2:175a, 3:69a. See “The Exile of the Shekhinah,” p. 75, and the accompanying note.

  101There is a somewhat obscure tradition about a third Messiah, known as the Priest Messiah. This tradition grows out of the biblical phrase, Kohen ha-Mashiah, priest Messiah, which refers to the anointed priest. But the rabbis later took it to mean that there is a third Messiah who comes before the other two Messiahs. Some traditions identify this priest Messiah with Elijah, since Elijah’s role includes being harbinger of the messianic age.

  102For a good article on the two Messiahs, see “The Messiah of Ephraim and the Premature Exodus of the Tribe of Ephraim” by J. Heinemann.

  103See Ezekiel 38-39. In apocalyptic Jewish literature, the war of Gog and Magog becomes identified as a war against God that will bring great calamities on Israel. It will be the final war, which will presage the advent of the Messiah.

  104See “The Messiah Petitions God,” p. 517.

  105Zohar 2:8a-9a. See “The Palace of the Messiah,” p. 488.

  106Pesikta Rabbati 36:1-2; Rashi on B. Sanhedrin 98b; Midrashei Geulah 307-308; Tzidkat ha-Tzaddik 153 by Rabbi Tzadok ha-Kohen of Lublin; Likutei Moharan 1:118. See “The Suffering Messiah,” p. 489.

  107Israel Folktale Archives 6928, collected in Israel by Uri Resler from his uncle from Rumania. See “The Captive Messiah,” p. 498.

  108See “The Messiah at the Gates of Rome,” p. 492.

  109See “The Chains of the Messiah,” p. 492.

  110About half of all Lubavitch Hasidim are said to share the belief that their deceased Rebbe will be resurrected and fulfill the role of the Messiah, although traditional messianic doctrine holds that all of the righteous dead will be resurrected at the same time. This, then, appears to be an example of a new myth of individual resurrection developing among these Hasidim. David Berger has written a highly critical book about this evolving belief, The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference.

  111Two other key questions may also be intuited here: First, why was the world created? The answer most often given is so that the universe and everything in it could praise God. Second, why was man created? In a well-known midrash, a group of angels questions God’s intention to create man, asking, “What is man that You have been mindful of him?” (Ps. 8:5). In reply, God stretched out His little finger and consumed them with fire. The same thing happened with a second group of angels. The third group of angels agreed it was a wonderful idea. See B. Sanhedrin 38b.

  112Mishneh Torah 1:1-12.

  113See note 38 for more information on Gnosticism.

  114See Gershom Scholem’s Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition.

  115See the entry on monolatry by S. David Sperling in The Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Mircea Eliade and Charles Adams III, 6:3-7. Biblical evidence that the people insisted on worshipping other gods is found in 2 Kings 17:7-23 and Jeremiah 25:3-11.

  116There is another instance of monolatry in the ancient Near East. The Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaton inaugurated a solar monolatry in the fourteenth century BCE, in which the royal family worshipped Aton, the disk of the sun, to the exclusion of all of the other Egyptian gods.

  117This verse is part of the famous prayer, Mi-Kemokhah (“Who is like you?”), which is recited as part of the second blessing after the Shema. The ba-elim are generally understood to be the gods of the idol worshippers.

  118Umberto Cassuto, Biblical and Oriential Studies 2:80. The great scholar Umberto Cassuto, who wrote about biblical religion, had the theory that there were two Judaisms, the Judaism presented by the priestly editors of the Bible, where pagan elements were forbidden, and the actual way the religion was practiced by the people. In this folk religion, many motifs found in Babylonian and Canaanite mythology found their way into Judaism.

  119Of course, the rabbinic texts themselves claim that these traditions are part of the Oral Torah, handed down by God to Moses at Mount Sinai, and are therefore considerably ancient.

  120Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, pp. 178. See p. 106 for a discussion of the Babylonian myth of Marduk and Tiamat.

  121The Shekhinah, originally simply the “divine presence,” evolved into the feminine “aspect” of the one (primarily male) God. In medieval kabbalah, the Shekhinah is identified with the sefirah known as Malkhut, counterbalancing the higher, masculine sefirot. In Jewish myth the Shekhinah is often identified as God’s Bride, and in this respect functions like divine spouses in other religious systems. To the extent that the Shekhinah seems to take on a kind of independent existence, Her role may be considered as parallel to that of goddesses in polytheistic religions.

  122Exodus Rabbah 5:14; B. Sanhedrin 95b; Y. Sota 88; Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Beshalla 8:2;Yalkut Shemuel Remez 160; Yalkut Torah Remez 231; Midrash Tehillim 18:15, 18:17.

  123One possible source for this sun worship is the solar worship of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaton in the fourteenth century BCE. See note 16, p. xxxiii. See The Early History of God by Mark S. Smith, chapter 4, “Yahweh and the Sun,
” pp. 115-124.

  124Graves, Greek Myths 13c, 13.1.

  125See “The Exile of the Shekhinah, p. 57.

  126See “The Suffering God,” p. 36, “God’s Tears,” p. 37, ““God Weeps Over the Destruction of the Temple,” p. 38, and “God’s Lament at the Western Wall,” p. 39.

  127pp. 211-32

  128See “Joshua As Oedipus,” p. 393, and “A Jewish Icarus,” p. 181.

  129For the myth of Pandora, see Graves, Greek Myths 39j.

  130Originally a jar, later described as a box. See Graves, Greek Myths 39j.

  131Epic of Gilgamesh, tablet 11. Lambert and Millard, 1969.

  132In Genesis 7:14-16, God, speaking as an architect, instructs Noah on how to construct the ark: “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make it an ark with compartments, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make an opening for daylight in the ark, and terminate it within a cubit of the top. Put the entrance to the ark in its side; make it with bottom, second, and third decks.”

  133Graves, Greek Myths 38c.

  134Hesiod, Theogony.

  135See “Adam Brings Down Fire From Heaven,” p. 137. Also, there is a strong echo of the Prometheus myth in the mythic elaborations of Genesis 6, which describe angels known as the Sons of God who descended to earth and revealed heavenly secrets to humans, especially to women. See pp. 454-460 for a discussion of these myths.

  136See “The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men,” p. 454, and the subsequent related myths.

  137See “Elijah the Angel,” p. 197.

  138See “How Rabbi Ishmael was Conceived,” p. 201.

  139See “God Begat Isaac,” p. 336.

  140Targum Pseudo-Yonathan on Genesis 22:19; Genesis Rabbah 56; 3 Enoch 45:3; Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 31; Hadar Zekenim 10b in Beit ha-Midrash edited by A. Jellinek, V:157; Perush Rabbi Saadiah Gaon leSefer Yetzirah, p. 125. See “Isaac’s Ascent,” p. 171. The Last Trial by Shalom Spiegel discusses the many variants of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac.

  141Koran 37:102ff.

  142See “The Sources of Moslem Traditions Concerning Jerusalem” by J. W. Hirschberg.

  143Walter F. Otto, Die Gestalt und das Sein; Abhandlungen über den Mythos und seine Bedeutung für die Menschheit (Düsseldorf-Köln: 1955), pp. 73-78.

  144In the Middle Ages, when no Jew would call into question the divine origin of the Torah, the test of faith was whether one believed that the waters of the Red Sea had truly parted. Anyone who doubted this was open to possession by evil spirits, known as dybbuks, which then required exorcism. See, for example, “The Widow of Safed,” p. 228.

  145This also hints that some of the rituals and laws contained in the Torah were already observed by the Israelites before the Torah was given at Mount Sinai. This seems to suggest that the Torah was not an entirely new revelation, but incorporated elements of existing traditions.

  146There are 39 categories of work that may not be done on the Sabbath, based on biblical references as to how the Tabernacle was built. See B. Shabbat 73a-75b.

  147This belief may derive from an early story about Rabbi Akiba rescuing a man’s soul from punishment in Gehenna by teaching the man’s son to recite the Kaddish. There are a great many versions of this tale. See The Kaddish: Its History and Significance by David Telsner, pp. 68-78.

  147Tanna de-vei Eliyahu Zuta 17. Today, in most non-Orthodox congregations, women also participate in saying the kaddish.

  148Lauterbach, Jacob Z. “Tashlik—A Study in Jewish Ceremonies,” Hebrew Union College Annual 11(1936) 207-340. Lauterbach notes that the ceremony “in the special form which is the main is identical with the one in which it is now still observed” dates to the fourteenth century, but that “the ceremony itself” is much older, dating from Hellenistic times.

  149Pesikta de Rav Kahana 23.

  150See “Sounding the Shofar,” p. 296.

  151See “The Light of the First Day,” p. 83, for the many sources of this myth.

  152The Christian commentator, Ephraem, concluded that the sun, moon and stars were created from the light of the first day. Ephraem, in Genesim Commentarii 9:2. Philo also identifies the primordial light, which he describes as invisible and perceptible only by mind, as the source of starlight. Philo, De Opificio Mundi 31 and 55.

  153The kinds of permutations presented here are of a mythic nature. While this represents one perspective, the myth of the or ha-ganuz (hidden light) also can be identified as one of the sefirotic myths. From this perspective, the primordial light is identified with the sefirah of Hesed, the first to emerge from Binah. See Zohar 1:20a; 2:137a, and 2:166b. For other examples of sefirotic myths, see “The Seven Forms of God,” p. 53 and “The Ten Crowns of God,” p. 9.

  154Rabbi Eleazer of Worms (1165-1230) describes a Hanukkah ritual, which he attributes to the early rabbis, in which 36 candles would be lit to correspond to the 36 hours the primordial light shone.

  155Genesis Rabbah 3:6.

  156Sefer ha-Bahir (Kaplan) 147.

  157See “The Tzohar,” p. 85 and the accompanying sources and commentary.

  158Zohar 2:148b-149a.

  159Mishnah Hagigah 2:1. This section of the Mishnah also sets out strict rules for the study of the mystical texts: Not to expound on the Mysteries of Creation before two others, and not to expound on the Mysteries of the Chariot (Ezek. 1) before one.

  160Zohar 2:148b-149a.

  161Degel Mahaneh Ephraim, Bereshit 3c.

  162Likutei Moharan 1:234.

  163God in Search of Man by Abraham Joshua Heschel, p. 270.

  164Laya Firestone Seghi suggests that the Tree of Knowledge is a pair to the Tree of Life because the Tree of Knowledge represents polarity and the Tree of Life represents unity. Rabbi Ezra ben Shlomo of Gerona reached the same conclusion in Sod Etz ha-Da’at in the thirteenth century.

  165See Theodor H. Gaster’s Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament, p. 33, which updates Frazer’s Folklore in the Old Testament. For further discussion of the oral roots of biblical myths, see The Legends of Genesis: The Biblical Saga & History by Hermann Gunkel and Oral Word and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature by Susan Niditch. For an example of a myth making use of the identification of the Tree of Knowledge as the Tree of Death, see “Abraham’s Tree,” p. 404.

  166As proof that God intended Adam to be immortal, Genesis Rabbah 21:5 states that “Adam was not meant to experience death.” In Avodat ha-Kodesh 27, Rabbi Meir ibn Gabbai states that “God intended for Adam to live forever.” According to one interpretation, God created Adam intending that he would be one of the eternal beings. Just as Elijah was taken into heaven alive, so was Adam intended to have eternal life. However, when he tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, Adam lost his right to immortality, and that is why God placed the Cherubim at the gate of the Garden of Eden with the flaming sword, to guard the way to the Tree of Life. (Gen. 3:24). Note, however, that there is an alternate interpretation of the statement that “Adam was not meant to experience death.” According to this reading, Adam never died and still exists. This would place Adam in the category of the great figures who never died. This includes Enoch, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, King David, and Elijah. See “Abraham Never Died” p. 348 and “Jacob Never Died,” p. 370.

  167According to Gershom Scholem, the earliest rabbinic identification of the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Death is found in Midrash Konen. Zohar 1:35b and 1:37b also directly link the two trees. Zohar 1:35b states that “It is a Tree of Death, for if anyone takes from it he will die, for he takes the elixir of death.” Zohar 1:37b describes the Tree of Knowledge as “the tree which has a connection to death.” See Zohar 3:11a for a myth about how the Tree of Death rules at night. See “Abraham’s Tree,” p. 404.

  168This kind of mythic evolution in Judaism seems to confirm Carl Jung’s theory of myth being drawn from the collective unconscious. See Jung’s The Arch
etypes and the Collective Unconscious and Steven F. Walker, Jung and the Jungians on Myth: An Introduction. Theorists of Myth, vol. 4.

  169Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 46.

  170Divrei Shlomo by Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzhak ha-Levi. Venice: 1596, 68b. This commentary is a restatement of the talmudic principle that “There is no earlier or later in the Torah” (B. Pes. 6b)

  171See “Past and Present in Midrashic Literature” by Marc Bregman in Hebrew Annual Review, vol. 2, 1978, pp. 45-59.

  172This might be an appropriate time for someone to study the use of the Lilith myth by Jewish feminists in the 1960s, in order to create a rebellious model. It might be viewed as an intentional reworking of a negative feminine myth into a positive one. What is interesting is that for many modern Jewish women, Lilith is viewed as a positive figure, despite her long history as a succubus as well as a child-strangling witch. They have chosen to select some positive features, of sexual and personal independence, and suppress the negative ones. This leaves Lilith with a lot of baggage. For a contemporary collection of writings about Lilith, see Which Lilith? Feminist Writers ReCreate the World’s First Woman, edited by Enid Dame, Lilly Rivlin, and Henry Wenkart.

  173See “The Death of Cain,” p. 451.

  BOOK ONE

  MYTHS OF GOD

  “If all the heavens were parchment, if all the trees were pens, if all the seas were ink, and if every creature were a scribe, they would not suffice to expound the greatness of God.”

  Rabbi Meir ben Yitzhak Nehorai

  Akdamut piyyut

  1. ISAIAH’S VISION

  In the year that King Uzziah died, I beheld my Lord seated on a high and lofty throne; and the skirts of His robe filled the Temple. Seraphs stood in attendance on Him. Each of them had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his legs, and with two he would fly. And one would call to the other, “Holy, holy, holy! The Lord of Hosts! His presence fills all the earth!”