In this evening talk:
Judaism was intentionally established as a religion on the ruins of the ancient Hebraic spiritual culture. This ancient culture was very different from what we know today as “Judaism” and was not a religion. The spiritual and social challenges of our generation ask for deeper answers than any religion can give. It is time to remember deep into our spiritual roots, dig down, and come up with ancient-new inspiration for new humanity. Come to be inspired!

Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi, the founder of Neviah – the new Hebraic Academy of Universal Spirit in
Tel Aviv (www.neviah.co.il) will be visiting NYC with his wife Dawn Cherie.offering lectures,a weekend workshop and readings.

Neviah is an exciting new school of thought that was established lately in Israel, by Israeli

scholars and teachers who seek for a new, yet ancient and authentic
voice that can meet the needs and challenges of our generation.
Neviah is offering such topics and intensive study in Hebraic
Shamanism, Neo-Kabbalah, Sacred Love and Sexuality, Spiritual Activism (Tikkun Olam), a
path for Ceremonial Leaders and Sacred Art.

This pioneering project that is looking for partners with a heart of vision

Ohad Ezrahi, an ex-Ultra Orthodox Kabbalist was recognized by R. Zalman Schakter Shalomi and
ordained by him in 1999. For more than a decade he is one of the leading
voices in the spiritual movement in Israel. Together with his wife Dawn Ohad
had developed the teachings of KabaLove © – the school of Love in Kabbala. (
www.kabalove.org). He is teaching and leading workshops internationally, in
cooperation with Zen Masters, such as Roshi Bernie Glassman, Shamans and
spiritual teachers around the world .His work reaches people of all faiths, as it
is the secrets of Love and fundamental Freedom that are standing in the roots
of it.

Come meet Ohad and Dawn for an evening of teachings, sacred singing and sharing

sponsored by Romemu Community.
for details contact Romemu Community at http://romemu.org/
for readings and personal consultations you may contact Dawn at (716) 491-4970

How can Hebraic Spirituality meet the universal
challenges of the 21st century?

Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi, the founder of Neviah – the new Hebraic Academy of Universal Spirit
in Tel Aviv (www.neviah.co.il) will be visiting LA for some days, as a guest of The Circle of
Kabalot Shabbat & Holy Days.

In this evening talk:
Judaism was intentionally established as a religion on the ruins of the ancient Hebraic
spiritual culture. This ancient culture was very different from what we know today
as “Judaism” and was not a religion. The spiritual and social challenges of our generation ask
for deeper answers than any religion can give. It is time to remember deep into our spiritual
roots, dig down, and come up with ancient-new inspiration for new humanity. Come to be
inspired!

Neviah is an exciting new school of thought that was established lately in Israel, by Israeli

scholars and teachers who seek for a new, yet ancient and authentic
voice that can meet the needs and challenges of our generation.
Neviah is offering such topics and intensive study in Hebraic
Shamanism, Neo-Kabbalah, Sacred Love and Sexuality, Spiritual Activism (Tikkun Olam), a
path for Ceremonial Leaders and Sacred Art.

This pioneering project that is looking for partners with a heart of vision

Come meet Ohad and Dawn for an evening of teachings, sacred singing and sharing

Ohad Ezrahi, an ex-Ultra Orthodox Kabbalist was recognized by R. Zalman Schakter Shalomi and
ordained by him in 1999. For more than a decade he is one of the leading
voices in the spiritual movement in Israel. Together with his wife Dawn Ohad
had developed the teachings of KabaLove © – the school of Love in Kabbala. (
www.kabalove.org). He is teaching and leading workshops internationally, in
cooperation with Zen Masters, such as Roshi Bernie Glassman, Shamans and
spiritual teachers around the world .His work reaches people of all faiths, as it
is the secrets of Love and fundamental Freedom that are standing in the roots
of it.

When: 2/15th/12. 7:00pm-9:00pm. Suggested donation: $15.

Were: Sherman Oaks, Calif

RSVP to: Gilla Nissan at: gilla29@msn.com

Private Sessions: Rabbi Ohad will be available for some private session of his Kabbala Cards reading.

Please contact Gilla for scheduling and price.

Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi designs a special Bar Mitzvah for his son.

Translated and adapted from the Hebrew by DeAnna L’am

The kidnapping

On Thursday my son Yehoo went to school and entered his classroom for a math lesson. A strong knock on the door disturbed the class as soon as it started. The man who entered, announced that he had to detain Yehoo Ezrahi.

It was only then that my dear son perceived the man to be no other than Yaron Goshen, who works as a theatre actor and a medical clown, as well as being the court jester in our community.

Yaron read out loud the detention order form, which declared that Yehoo is hereby taken for a Coming Of Age journey full of challenges.

The Coming Of Age Test

Since Yehoo grew up in the desert, surrounded by nature for most of his life, it made no sense to send him for a rite of passage in nature.

For him, the jungle is the urban environment, with which he is unfamiliar, and where he may truly feel lost. This is why the adventure was planned to start at the twilight zone of the central bus station in south Tel Aviv.

Helping Others

But first, Yehoo had to use his skills for the good of others. Being a musician, Yehoo’s first task was to accompany Avi, a medical clown and musician, who works for the Sa’arei Tzadek hospital in Jerusalem.

Avi equipped Yehoo with a red nose, a clown’s hat and a guitar, and the two took off for a mission in the children ward. They soon came upon a little child, terrified by the thought of an IV being stuck in him. Avi and Yehoo immediately started playing with him. They made him laugh so hard, that he didn’t even notice when the nurse stuck the IV in his arm.

Making Coffee

The next station was designed to teach my son one of the unique skills of the common Israeli Male: making “black coffee” on a camp stove at the side of the road. The coffee made, Yehoo dared tasting it for the first time in his life, when “suddenly” two horses appeared. One had a man on its back, the other was saddled and available. The rider, a skilled riding instructor, invited Yehoo to mount the horse. It turned out he had to learn how to ride…

A friend once told me that his Sufi teacher claimed horseback riding to be a very important spiritual skill. One has to know how to control an external beast, in order to understand how to control the internal one: gently, with love, and with clear authority. An important lesson for a coming of age boy…

Furthermore, I knew Yehoo had an ancient aversion to riding, stemming from an unsuccessful ride on a camel’s back in Sinai. After an hour of riding Jerusalem’s mountains, Yehoo got so excited he decided to seriously learn horseback riding.

The Key

The adventurous day continued with an intuitive painting lesson. After the painting lesson was done, and Yehoo was on his way, he was approached by a man in a wheelchair, asking for help. It turned out that for some unknown reason his wheelchair was chained to a lamp-post, and that Yehoo held the key to the lock.

Indeed, one of the people he met earlier in the day handed him a key without any explanation. Yehoo understood immediately that the key would serve him later on his adventure. After releasing the handicapped person from his chains, Yehoo had to help by guiding him through south Tel Aviv streets to a certain address.

A Shaman, The Sea And Sand

The assignments followed each other until the lad found himself alone on a train going north. All of a sudden, as if by accident, there was Eden, one of the youths of our community, who was “by chance” going north on the same train. Eden handed Yehoo another key and a Hebrew-French dictionary.

A woman, speaking only French, waited for Yehoo at the train station. She took him to the seashore at dusk, and sent him walking north on the beach. After walking for a while in the dark, accompanied by the sound of the crashing waves, Yehoo met another person: my friend, the Hebrew Shaman, Shmuel Shaul, who did some inner work with Yehoo which was related to his body, its healing points, and the letters of his name in Hebrew.

Yehoo was then given a choice between a night dip in the sea, and a “burial” in the sand. He preferred being planted in the ground, and so he was. Shmuel laid him down ceremonially, and covered his body with Mother Earth’s sand. He gave him meditating guidelines and left.

Yaron had trouble finding a kid covered in sand on a dark night at the beach, but after about a half an hour, in which my dear son hummed to himself some of his favorite Metal bands tunes, believing he was to sleep on the beach till dawn, Yaron showed up.

Since Yehue chose to be buried and not dunk in the water with Shmuel, he received a night dip in the dark sea with Yaron.

Peace, Love and The Torah

The following day, Yehue was guided by Dorit Bat Shalom, his eyes covered, through a journey of the senses. Strange and unexpected meetings ensued, such as the one with Bedouin friends at the Shibli village, for whom Yehue had to make… black coffee… He then received a blessing for a life of a Peace and Love Warrior from our sister, the Bedouin peace activist Aa’ida.

On the Shabbat, a large community of family and friends gathered to listen to Yehoo’s Torah reading. We were blessed with a real Torah scroll to read from. As is our way, we conducted a Shabbat morning prayer with music and song, compiled of Yehoo’s musical choices.

It was important for Yehoo to deliver a personal interpretive speech about the Torah. To be an adult, he explained, means that one has an opinion. Thus, he understood, one has to show the community that he has something to say as an adult. And he did…

The following day Yehoo said to his Mom: “even when I’m really old, and really senile, I will not forget this ceremony and how much love I felt during it.”

———

This article was translated and published by EOL

If you want our help in creating a uniqe ritual or ceremony – please be in touch with Dawn – sisterdawn3@gmail.com

Kohenet Training program

for more info – click here

Making the efforts to survive in hard times Judaism had created itself over hundreds of years as a insular and “safe” religion, by disconnecting its followers from those three aspects of the Divine (Nature, Femininity & all Nations).  Most of the Jewish Law (Halacha) and many components of Jewish Spirituality (Kabbala) were developed and written as part of this long lived survival effort.

Those three cut-offs had grown and become, with the centuries, into the three chronic illnesses of contemporary Judaism: fear and racism towards the nations, repression of the feminine and alienation from nature.

The Hebraic Path is a path of healing. It is a Neo-Ancient path:  It’s rooted deeply in the indigenous roots of Pre-Rabbinical Judaism. From the rabbinical period it’s embracing and collecting the gifts of divine wisdom (clean from the rubbish of fear, racism and repression) and aiming towards a future of enlightened humanity living in peace on a green healthy planet.

Understanding that a neo-indigenous spiritual path does not require fixed dogma nor does it need a rigid religious authority – we take the passion of the heart from tradition and the freedom of thought from science; including biblical studies that show the variety of theological sources edited into the Torah.

The Hebraic Path we renew is a way of life, and being such it has many levels and layers that can allow every human being to find his or her part in it: children and adults, men and women, lay people, clergies, activists, seekers of enlightenment and lovers of God.

As Rabbi Nachman of BresLove used to say: “Just give me your hearts and I will lead you in a new path, a path that was taken by our ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and yet – it is a new path”

The Hebraic Path Vrs Old Way Judaism

Ohad Ezrahi / April, 2010

Translated by Yair Ohr

Men and women alike need to know how to respect her and how to give her a place within themselves: Lilith—the awesome, untamed, feminine sexual energy. If we do not give her place, she will strike us harshly: she will destroy our intimate relations and poison us from the inside. But if we learn how to give her place and to work with her using appropriate skills, she will be transformed into blessed energy, to a power that blesses us as women and as men, that blesses our intimate relations with stability and perpetual freshness, with juiciness and with razor-sharp clarity.

In the Jewish mythical tradition,  the Midrash and the Kabbalah, relates that Eve was not the first woman to be created. Eve was in fact the second woman, who was created only after the first woman—Lilith—got into an argument with Adam and fled from the Garden of Eden.

Eve and Lilith are of different natures: Eve is the family woman. She is the mother. Her love is to bring children into the world and to raise them, to cook for them and to be a “housewife.” She accepts the social hierarchy in which the male dominates society, and she functions within that system. She allows for the financial, social, sexual and intellectual superiority of the male, supporting the existing social order.

Lilith, on the other hand, rebels against this “superior order.” From the day of her creation, Lilith perceives herself as an independent woman who will not accept the dominating male authority. She is not willing to accept male superiority in any sphere—not in the workplace, social interactions, academia, or sexual relations. She demands freedom for herself, and even if it will cost her heavily, she is willing to pay the price.

NOT JUST A FEMINIST

However, we should not make the mistake of perceiving in Lilith the simplistic image of a feminist woman. While feminism has neutralized women’s femininity in order to make them equal with men (see Femophobia – How Women Have Become Men, by Tovi Browning), Lilith is a specifically feminine energy. Lilith is not afraid of the power of her female eroticism, and does not deny her outbursting  of femininity.

In several places throughout the Kabbalistic texts of the Ari it is stated that each woman possesses both of these aspects: within every woman there is both an Eve and a Lilith. However, our society is built in such a way that its members are generally unable to deal with a woman who expresses both of these aspects.

Our society is structured so that each woman must choose between being an “Eve” or a “Lilith.” By causing this split, our society brings untold suffering upon women and their mates. (The many Kabbalistic sources of Lilith’s spiritual roots, spread throughout the prolific literature of the Ari, are collected and analyzed in my book, Who’s Afraid of Lilith? [Hebrew] Modan 2004.)

Based upon ideas already found in the Zohar, the Ari develops the approach that sees in Lilith a very spiritually sublime aspect of femininity, even higher than that of Eve. The ideal, though, according to the Ari, is the integration of both of these aspects anew, into one single feminine image that can fearlessly be either Eve or Lilith.

So that this may happen, women must go through an inner transformation, befriending anew the power of Lilith within themselves, a power that generally speaking they have long ago suppressed into some forgotten corner in order to survive in a socially acceptable way. But women cannot accomplish this transformation on their own. Both sexes are responsible for the creation of a society and its proper functioning. Men must also go through a transformation in order for Lilith to return to live and breathe comfortably among us.

MEN ARE AFRAID OF LILITH

Men feel threatened by Lilith. She threatens their position of power and their self-confidence. But we must understand the male paradox regarding Lilith: specifically because Lilith does not accept male domination nor suppress her wild sexuality from bursting forth as does Eve, she poses an erotic seduction that is very difficult for men to withstand. Men yearn for a woman like Lilith, a woman who is able to express the fullness of her unbridled passions, who is willing to be a sexual creature, to be active in bed, to be a woman who derives great pleasure from sexuality and is not one bit ashamed of it, who is able to be both gross and refined, both sensual and seductive, a woman who is able to be both transparent and mysterious simultaneously. Men yearn in the depths of their hearts for such a woman, who does not lecture them about morals, who does not have “headaches,” who does not all of a sudden need to prepare a child’s sandwich for school… They yearn for a free and liberated woman who can tear them apart with her unbridled passions while never allowing herself to become taken for granted. Lilith is thus the object of male passion, of sexual fantasy, a never-ending adventure for men. But at the same time, she is also a threat for their orderly world. For this reason, “normal” men are very afraid of such a woman.

The Zohar states that both Adam and Jacob were afraid of Lilith’s power, which is why they perceived her in a negative way. But this was only on account of their own smaller statures compared to her, and not because she actually was like that. And in fact—she is at a very high level. Perhaps even too high.

For this reason, a man usually decides to suppress his passions, to denigrate Lilith and to besmirch “women like that.” He may occasionally falter, and then he seeks her out discretely. He will find her in the prostitute, in the courtesan, in the secret lover, in the dark romance, in the Internet pornography. She will seduce him in dreams and fantasies; she will be his femme fatale. Afterwards, he will lash out at himself (and at her), and endeavor to establish a society “without such disgraceful phenomena.” He will decry her, “Abomination!”

THE PARADOX OF LILITH’S SOUL

The problem with the “Lilith type” is that she too is aware of these social codes. She too grew up in a fearful male society, and though she rebelled against those “ethics,” she still integrated them into herself and assesses herself by their measure. This is the paradox of Lilith herself: on the one hand, she rebels against the society that wants to suppress her, while on the other hand she integrates the standards of that society and judges herself accordingly. Lilith has a negative opinion of herself. She sees herself as a criminal, as a, “bad girl,” as a disgraceful phenomenon.

Even the ancient Midrashic myth tells of Lilith integrating this terrible image of herself, thus transforming into a demon.

RECTIFYING THE DEMON

And this is exactly the point in need of great rectification: Lilith, whose spiritual root is so exalted, has been transformed in our society into a demon, causing great suffering to men and women alike. Many families fall victim to the incitation of the demon Lilith without even being aware of it. Any couple that separates on account of “betrayal” has essentially fallen victim to the seductive teasing of Lilith. Whoever secretly masturbates in front of the computer screen, with passion accompanied by guilt and shame, hoping to not  be discovered, has fallen into Lilith’s trap. Lilith is a very active demon to this very day.

My understanding of a “demon” is any obsessive/compulsive and mindless drive in the human soul that manipulates it as if it were a choiceless creature. The Kabbalah speaks about the addition of the letter Yud to the Shin and Dalet letters of the word SheD (demon), which transform it into the holy name of Shin Dalet Yud—ShaDaY. The letter Yud represents the enlightenment and sanctification of consciousness.

Is it possible to add enlightenment and consciousness to the Lilith energy so that she will cease being an obsessive/compulsive demon and reveal her true strengths within our society and within our intimate relations? I do believe so. It is not easy, it is not simple, and not everyone is ready for it, but it is possible, and even desirable. As I have already pointed out in my book, Who’s Afraid of Lilith, it is quite surprising to find that the Ari pointed to just such a rectification as the goal of the entire Torah on earth!

THE PROCESS OF RECTIFICATION

In order to know how to contain Lilith’s energy, men and women alike need to do some heavy duty spiritual work. Men need to, “connect with the holy spark in Esau,” as it is called in Chassidic thought, and to be willing to live on the edge. Not to insist to walk only on “safe ground.” This is a decision at a very deep level to surrender control, yet to remain fully alert, for Lilith will not let you get by without full alertness. If you try to control—she will rebel. But if you surrender control in a way that turns you into a wet rag, she will immediately chop your head off!

Lilith can become a great spiritual teacher for man, sustaining him in a state of clarity, strength, and uncompromised alertness. She will not allow him to fall asleep on her watch. But she requires a man at a high level. Men of low stature are unable to contain her.

And what do women need to do? They simply need to allow her to come forth from within. To allow the wild woman that exists within them to come out and wrestle with life. She may arise from some soul-basement full of anger. But that’s OK. We would be mistaken to judge Lilith as a sour and angry creature because of that. After thousands of years of her being suppressed, yes—she is quite angry! But this will pass if we show her love. When a woman allows her inner Lilith to come forth, and begins a process of self-reassessment together with a weaning from guilt and self-affliction, she is able to harness the power of her inner Lilith to the light of love. Then, her love only increases. Then, she is able to shower a razor-sharp and uncompromising love that is as refreshing as it is filled with passion.

THE RECTIFIED LILITH AS A BLESSING FOR THE WORLD

A woman who is able to rectify her inner Lilith and integrate it with her Eve becomes a great blessing for the world. She becomes a source of inspiration, of light, and of powerful love. Lilith’s love does not come only in appealing pastel colors. The dark colors of life—black and deep red, for instance—become filled with power and beauty on her account. Men who are able to contain a rectified Lilith are very rare at present. But when such a man appears, he allows for many women to reveal their fullness in his presence, and the circle of rectification continually grows.

The work of rectifying Lilith is an integral part of the processes we lead in “The Garden—A School for Love and Kabbalah.” These processes allow singles and couples to live their love lives in full, without fear or shame, secrecy or suppression. In our opinion, this is a necessary healing for mankind, in which the percentages of betrayals and divorces are so high that one must be blind not to see that something in our “normal” family model of Adam and Eve—of a child, a lawn, and a dog—is simply not working.

for our new workshop working with the Lilith energy - see here

Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi is a co-founder along with his wife Dawn of The Garden – the School of Love in Kabbalah. www.kabalove.org

Or: The secret of “IBUR”

Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi

Translated by Tamar Azulai. (2002)

_________________________________________

The Hebrew calendar is based on the lunar cycle. It differs from the Moslem calendar, however, as it is not based on the moon alone, but rather periodically regulates between the lunar and solar years[1]. Due to the fact that the Moslem calendar does not take the solar cycle into account, the Moslem month of Ramadan falls in a different season each year. The annual seasons however, are determined according to the Earth’s orbit around the sun, without regard for the Islam calendar! This would have been the case with the Jewish calendar too, had the ancient sages not ensured that the Jewish holidays would fall during the same season each year.

The sages drew from this concept from the verse ‘Observe the month of Aviv (i.e. spring), and keep the Passover for your God; for in the month of Aviv your God brought you forth out of Egypt’ (Deuteronomy, chapter 16, 1). Here we see that the festival of Passover must always fall during the spring month (i.e. Aviv), despite the fact that we count the months of the year according to lunar waxing and waning. Accordingly, the Sages devised the Hebrew calendar, as we know it today. (During the period of the Second Temple there were alternative calendars, the most notorious of which was found in The Book of Jubilees (Sefer HaYovim), which arranges the Hebrew dates in a different manner). The Hebrew calendar therefore takes both the sun and the moon into account. We count the months according to the new moon, while ensuring that the month of Aviv (which we call today Nissan) – the spring month – will always fall during the spring season. This is achieved by ‘impregnating’ the year every few years: by adding an extra month and thereby pushing Nissan back to the spring, which is determined according to the relative positions of the Earth and the Sun. This ‘impregnation’ is termed a leap year *.

This year, 5463 of the Hebrew calendar is a leap year – it is a pregnant year. The month of Adar 1 symbolizes the fetus and the year symbolizes the mother. But who is the father that has impregnated her? (Maybe it is inappropriate to ask such a question?!)

The use of the term ‘impregnated’ illustrates that, according to ancient Jewish thought, the year was perceived as a feminine entity – not only the year, but the month too. The leap (or impregnated) month appears frequently in the Hebrew calendar. The leap month has thirty days, rather than twenty-nine. During the leap month, the start of the new month is celebrated twice – the thirtieth day of the ending month and the first day of the new month. In ancient times, the months of the year were not commemorated according to a predetermined calendar but rather on the basis of ‘moon sightings’. Whoever saw the new moon would climb on his donkey, even on the Sabbath (!) and ride to the high court. There, he would be festively received, even if a hundred such moon seers had already arrived before him. His account would only be accepted after in-depth inquiry and investigation.

“… And they would say to him: tell us, how did you see the moon? Was it before the sun or after the sun, to the North or to the South? How high was it and to which direction did it tilt, and how broad was it? Raban Gamliel had the various shapes of the moon on a chart on his wall, which he would show to the people and ask, Did you see one like this, or like that?”

(Mishnah, Rosh-HaShana Tractate, Chapter 2).

And so it may come to pass that there was no witness of the new moon on the first night, if it had been a cloudy night or if the testimonies were too vague, and only on the second night could the moon be clearly seen and the new month commemorated. Thus the previous day would be counted as the thirtieth day of the old month and it would be celebrated, and the following day was proclaimed the first day of the new month: “The head of the courts would decree: Sanctified! And the whole crowd would reply: Sanctified! Sanctified” (Ibid.)

The Hebrew word for ‘month’ itself alludes to its link with the concept of renewal. The Hebrew word for ‘month’ is hodesh, which stems from the root hadash (new). It is therefore not really appropriate to label the solar year (which is divided into twelve parts) a year of twelve ‘Hodashim’ (months) – after all what part of nature is renewed, or begins again when January or February begins? The Hebrew month is dependent, first and foremost, on the birth of the new moon and on its renewal. In fact, the word ‘Hodesh’ in ancient Hebrew was not only used to denote the months of the year, but also the first day of the new moon – what we celebrate today as ‘Rosh-Hodesh’ – the first day of the month. We see this in the conversation that took place between David and Jonathan, when Jonathan said to his beloved David “Tomorrow is the month” (Samuel 1, 20). He was actually saying – tomorrow is the start of a new moon.

The ancient Hebrews lived in tune with nature and for them the state of the moon was real and tangible. The processes of the moon’s waxing and waning were always perceived, consciously and subconsciously, as great symbols of birth, youth, maturity, old age, death and rebirth. Still today, the moon passes through this great cycle each month, reminding us of the process of human life in is entirety.

A Day of Women

There is an ancient Jewish tradition according to which the first day of the new month is considered a special day for women. This can be found already in the Yerushalmi-Talmud (Taánit, Chapter 1) and was even written down as law in the Shulhan Aruh – the Jewish Code of Law (Orach-Chayyim, 417): “Women are accustomed not to do work on this day”. However the origin of such popular practices is not always clear, especially those relating to women… When did women begin to celebrate the beginning of the new month, and for what reason? The men, who

wrote the Midrash (Homiletic Interpretations) and the Halacha (Jewish religious laws) books hundreds of years later could not always answer these questions fully. One of the 7^th century Midrashic texts attempts the following explanation: God gave the first day of the new month to women as their own private festival in Sinai, because they did not take part in the building of the Golden Calf. (Pirkey DeRabbi Eliezer, 43). However, in one of the books written in Ashkenaz during the middle ages (“Or Zarua”), we can already find a different explanation, which seems self evident: Women celebrate the start of the new moon because they too are renewed each month, through their monthly menstrual period:

“As each month a woman renews and immerses herself in water for her husband, wanting to be pleasurable in his eyes, as if she were renewed, like the new moon that we long to see – and so the first day of the new month is a women’s day”.

It seems that since ancient times the women of Israel have habitually celebrated the appearance of the new moon, which was linked to their menstrual cycles. Many rituals were established in ancient Israel, at a time when the tribes were settled in the ancient east, beneath the sun’s light during the day, and the moon’s light at night, around fires, in tents and mud houses – a time when religious experience was not detached from the body, from its feelings, desires and from its fluids. Many traditions developed during these times, and many of them have since disappeared, but certain have remained with us until today and at times they may appear a little strange within the context of a Judaism characterized by books, schools, suits, fluorescent lights and cholnt of Shabbos Koidesh…

Women gather at the house of the ‘Man of God’

One of the more interesting indications of the fact that women celebrated the new month by meeting, sometimes without their husbands, can be seen in the book of Kings. The book presents the story of ‘a great woman’ who loved to host the prophet Elisha in her home, each time he passed by. When Elisha came to know that she was childless, he blessed her with child and a year later she bore a son. The boy grew up, but one day, while in the fields with his father, he had a headache. He returned home to his mother, fainted, and died. The woman mounted her donkey and went swiftly to Elisha who resided on Mount Carmel, without saying a word to her husband. When she passed through the field, her husband, who knew nothing about the death of his son, wondered why she was going to see the prophet on this day – it was neither the first day of a new month, nor the Sabbath: “And he said: Why do you go to him today? It is not the new moon nor is it the Sabbath?! And she said: Goodbye!” From this we can gather that on the first day of the new month and on the Sabbath it would have been taken for granted by her husband that she goes by herself to the prophet. Elsewhere in the bible we learn of the ecstatic influence that prevailed around the ‘Man of God’ (of which I have written in a previous article about king Saul who would undress and prophesize in the nude beside Samuel). What these women did there, we do not know. What were the customs and rituals of the women of the ancient tribes of Israel, we can only guess. Maybe this is part of the Midrashic study called for today – to complete the puzzle where pieces are missing. What did these women do together? And why did they do whatever they did in the company of a ‘Man of God’? Was the ‘Man of God’ actively involved in the women’s ceremonies or did they simply take place in the vicinity of his dwelling-place, with his inspiration but without his active participation? Was it really a gathering of women only, or did men gather as well at such sacred sites on the Hodesh day, and even if so – did men and women celebrate together or separately, and what was happening in each of those circles? There are many questions that remain to be answered…

It should be noted that the women would not only gather at the ‘Man of God’ on the first day of the new month, but on Sabbath days too – “it is not a new month and not the Sabbath” the man says to his wife as she rides off to the prophet. It seems that on a Sabbath, her action would have been understood, as the Sabbath was a day of gathering that included women too: “It shall happen, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before me, says God” (Isaiah, chapter 66, 23).

Is there therefore a connection between the Sabbath and a woman’s menstrual cycle? As we have seen that there is a connection between the waxing and waning of the moon and a woman’s monthly period.

Seven day cycles

It is thought that the seven-day weekly cycle, which separates the Sabbath from the rest of the week, has no foundation in the natural world. The month is visual through the waxing of the moon, the year is perceived through the seasons and we obviously count the days from sunrise and sunset. But from where did the ancient Hebrews derive the method of counting a seven-day week? Is there a certain celestial body that functions according to a weekly cycle?

Actually, no. There is no such celestial body, but there is certainly an earthly body of this sort – the women’s body, which is receptive to seven-day cycles, as will be explained later.

Many of the world’s respected academics see great significance in the fact that the Sabbath is not connected to nature: The God of Israel, who “sanctifies the day of Sabbath”, proclaims the sanctity of the seventh day as He himself is neither a Nature-Deity, nor is He a part of the natural world, rather He is The Creator of the whole universe. However, I would like to propose a different approach. It is one I have learned from a dear friend of mine, Holly Taya Shere, who, uncertain about the validity of her theory, asked me for my opinion. She proposes perceiving the ancient Sabbath as being linked to the feminine and lunar cycles:

The lunar cycle comprises twenty-eight days and a bit. There are those who claim that women who are exposed to the fluctuations of the moon’s light and do not live under the influence of electric light, tend to menstruate in accordance with the lunar cycle – some at full moon, and others at the dark moon. Furthermore – there are those who claim that hormonal reactions of women living together become synchronized and they begin to menstruate at the same time. And here we have it: twenty-eight days are precisely four weeks (4 x 7 = 28). In other words, if we begin counting on the first day of the month, and we propose that women often began menstruating on this day, seven days later the moon will be half full. According to the Torah, seven days after her first blood, a woman can go to the spring, cleanse herself and unite with her husband in love. Seven days later it is full moon. Most of the important holidays in the Jewish calendar take place at the time of the full moon: Succoth on the fifteenth day of the month of Tishrei, the festival of the fifteenth day of Shvat, Purim on the fifteenth day of the month of Adar, Passover on the fifteenth day of the month of Nissan (according to the Book of Jubilees (Sefer HaYovlot) the festival of Shavuoth also falls on the fifteenth day of the month of Sivan), and the festival of love on the fifteenth day of the month of Av. The ancient Israelites enjoyed commemorating the full moon days. A woman who began menstruating on the first day of the month will ovulate on the full moon. Seven days will then pass and the moon will once again be half full. This marks an important turning point in the women’s body: If by this point the seed has not been taken into her womb, the body will begin to prepare itself for the next menstrual cycle, which will reappear when the moon wanes from the sun’s light[2].

Four Sabbaths and the monthly cycle

We see that during the course of the Hebrew month, which is a lunar month, there are four festive days in the feminine cycle:

1. The beginning of menstruation
2. The ritual bath of purification and the beginning of sexual intercourse
3. Ovulation
4. Conception, or the beginning of the body’s preparation for the next menstrual cycle.

These four events are well represented by the course of the moon (see illustration), especially when we understand the symbolism of the sun and the moon: the woman is analogous to the moon and the man to the sun. The moon is dynamic and changing, yet receptive, while the sun is static yet active. The sun’s illumination of the moon is a great symbol of the union of masculine and feminine in the cosmos – the link between God and his divine presence – the Shechina – in Kabbalistic terms and, in the language of our ancient ancestors, between “YHWH and Asherato” (God and his Goddess, Ashera).

The moon is dark during a woman’s menstruation, a time when women traditionally refrain from sexual relations with their partners. This is the first Sabbath of the month.

When the moon is half full and the sun’s light begins to cover the face of the moon, it is the time to return to lovemaking. This is the second Sabbath[3].

The full moon is a time for great celebration – the great Sabbath. It is the time of ovulation and the peak of feminine fertility, when the male seed can imbue the woman and impregnate her. The moon is full and this is the third Sabbath of the month.

Then comes the fourth Sabbath, which is the Sabbath that indicates the great preparation for the beginning of the next cycle. Pre-menstrual phenomena now prepare the womb for purification, for the waning of the sun’s light, that was until now in unification with the moon.

I have used the term ‘Sabbath’ to portray the significant days of the female cycle, as I believe that this is its origin. On each of these days women would rest from work. It would be a day for introspection, pleasure, and sanctity. An indication of this concept can be seen in the fact that, since ancient times, women would refrain from work on the first day of the new month, without really knowing why.

I propose, as suggested by my friend Holly Taya from the depths of her feminine intuition, that it was these women of ancient times who began to count a weekly seven day cycle ­– a cycle that was in tune with their own sexual cycle, as well as with the cycle of the moon’s coupling with the sun. In time, such concepts were integrated into the masculine world, which began to count the seven-day week and established it in the Torah as a given fact. This seven-day cycle, originating from a feminine context by women commemorating rest days according to the lunar and bodily cycles, became disconnected from the lunar cycle as society became more and more male dominated. Thus we have arrived at today’s Torah. Due to the fact that the moon’s cycle is not connected to the daily 24-hour cycle, according to which we count the seven-day week today, one may assume that the feminine way of counting was slightly fluctuating and more flexible. There was obvious need to adjust the weekly count every few weeks, in order to ensure that the Sabbath would fall exactly on the critical points of full and dark moons in the lunar cycle. Just as the wise-men of the courts sat and determined the months and dates hundreds of years later, not through calculation alone, but mainly based on the sightings of the new moon, so we can presume that women would commemorate their Sabbath – not according to a mathematically calculated calendar of seven precise solar days, but rather according to the state of the moon, which they would watch continuously, and feel within their bodily cycle. I also presume that just as we have the leap month and leap year today, they had a kind of ‘leap week’ comprising eight days, which occurred once every few weeks and was meant to synchronize the Sabbath with the moon. I believe this to be the origin of what later became the feminine term ‘the secret of conception’ (Sod Ha’ibur). According to the sages, the ‘secret of conception’ is connected only to the ‘conception’ (or impregnation) of years and months (i.e. the addition of an extra month or day to create a leap year or month), and has no connection to any real process of physical conception and birth[4]. However, when the ‘secret of conception’ was still in the hands of women, who celebrated their Sabbaths with the moon, it was linked to real conception – to the great secrets of menstruation and the days of love, conception and birth.

Allow me to take things a little further and draw a connection between the commandment of ‘Observe the month of spring’, which I mentioned previously, and the well-known commandment ‘Observe the Sabbath day’ (Deuteronomy, 5, 12): Is it possible that the primary sense of preserving the Sabbath was connected to preserving the synchronization between the Sabbath days and the lunar cycle, just as preservation of the month of spring means preserving the connection between the new moon in Nissan and the solar spring season? Is it possible that this is really the original meaning? That only since the idea of the Sabbath was integrated into a male dominated world[5], and the original sense of preserving the Sabbath in accordance with the moon has been forgotten, that more severe structures were developed, which are linked to what we know today as ‘keeping the Sabbath’? (Because the male body does not respond to nature in the same way, and it was far more natural for men to simply count seven days).

The counting of the Omer

In accordance with the abovementioned concepts, there is another tradition that has existed for hundreds of years: The Torah commands us to count seven Sabbaths between Passover and Shavuoth, a process known as ‘The counting of the Omer’. However, rather than saying that we should begin counting the day after Passover, the Torah rather uses a slightly strange wording: ‘You shall count from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Until the day after the seventh Sabbath you shall count fifty days. And you shall offer a new offering to God” (Leviticus, 23, 15-16). There were indeed sects in Israel who interpreted matters on the literal level, and claimed that the counting of the Omer should begin from the day after the Sabbath that fell during the week of Passover. However the Sages adamantly contested this, claiming that although the word Sabbath appears in the text, the meaning is not the Sabbath day, but rather the day of the holiday, the day of Passover itself, and that the words of the Torah have called it Sabbath, in a somewhat confusing way. As Rashi expounds[6]: “From the day after the Sabbath – from the day after the first holiday of Passover”. However according to what we have explained until now, things can be shown in a new light: Passover falls on the full moon of the month of Nissan, and according to our conclusion above, the full moon day is indeed considered and counted in ancient times as the Sabbath. Moreover: this is the origin of the concept of Sabbath! It seems that the verses retained the original meaning of the word Sabbath, and the sages, knowingly or not, fiercely protected the tradition that the full moon day of Passover would be called the Sabbath even if (according to the system of counting that developed later, in patriarchal society) it fell in the middle of the week.

And there we have it – if the seven Sabbaths counted in the Omer are only seven lunar Sabbaths, as explained above, and they begin on the night of the full moon (the night of Passover), then the seventh Sabbath in the series is the one where a woman would celebrate her purity by bathing in a natural bath and would unite with her husband through the act of love. In other words, it seems logical that the festival of Shavuoth is connected to this union of masculine and feminine. And indeed, surprisingly or not, despite the fact that the Torah does not mention this at all, tradition has added this element to the festival of Shavuoth: The festival of ‘first fruits’ became the festival of ‘the giving of the Torah’, and the giving of the Torah is considered representative of the marriage between God and the Assembly of Israel, which is the embodiment of the Shechina. The Kabbalists further added the tradition of bathing at dawn on the day of Shavuoth, in order to be like a bride, who purifies herself before the union with her love:

“And later at the brink of morn, a little before the rising of dawn, when the skies are blackened, then one should bathe…as then [the sfira of] Kingdom (Malhut) is bathed in the supreme ritual bath, which is the secret of the crown of the fiftieth gate and we too are the lady’s bridesmaids, bathing with her, and leading the bride to the bathing house at this time”. (Rabbi Haim Vital, Pri-Eitz-Hayyim, the gate of Hag HaShavuoth, chapter 1)

The Jewish tradition has continued to observe many motifs, fragments derived from the ancient Sabbath, which was the women’s weekly day of rest in the pre-Torah Hebrew society. It may be that these Sabbaths did not originate as a religious commandment, or as a binding tradition, but rather as a happening of women, for women, which took place on the days when their bodies ask for rest, or when the events connected to the ‘secret of conception’ – like the day of the ritual bath, or ovulation, or the beginning of the pre-menstrual symptoms – called for a change in their regular routine, and eventually became sacred, festive and ritualistic. The Hebrew, Israeli and Jewish traditions of many generations have adopted the Sabbath, detached it from the lunar processes and from the ‘secret of conception’, and possibly even laden it with the laws of the Sabbath “like mountains hanging of a single hair” as the sages themselves were saying. However, sufficient traces of scattered information have been preserved, enabling us a peak into the ancient traditions of the Sabbath – the Sabbath of women and the moon. And so, until today Midrashic and Kabbalistic literature has recognized the Sabbath as being a day of feminine quality – “Come bride, come bride”, we call the Sabbath queen, which is vaguely reminiscent of ancient times, where the Sabbath was entirely a celebration of feminine sexuality, by women, together with the cycles of the moon’s renewal.

* Translator’s note: In Hebrew the term used for leap year (me’uberet) also means ‘impregnated’ or ‘imbued’.

[2] See the book of “Sh.La.H” on the Book of Exodus, Portion of Bo, in Torah Or, where these things are alluded to very briefly. They are also briefly mentioned in the book Megaleh Amukot, 39.

[3] According to the Kabbala it is customary to wait and not to bless the moon before the seventh day, despite the fact that Jewish law permits it during the period extending from the appearance of the new moon until the full moon. Rabbi Josef Karo in his book Megid Meisharim writes: “By blessing the moon we unite the lower assembly of Israel (the Kabbalistic emanation (Sphira) of Kingdom) with the higher emanations … and it should not be blessed until seven days have passed, as external forces may invade the assembly of Israel during this time of renewal. So seven days should pass, which is an allusion to the seven days of creation, and by that these forces detach from her. But they still remain in close proximity, and when Israel blesses the moon, these forces will be eradicated. These forces can no longer infiltrate, when the lower assembly of Israel is united with the higher emanations (Sphirot) through the blessing of the moon. And if they would bless the moon before seven days had passed, when the external forces were still around, we would have no strength to eradicate them, and the assembly of Israel would be united with the higher emanations while these forces are still present. Then secular would be mixed with the sacred.”    Rabbi Menachem Azarya of Pano, in his book “10 Articles” (Asarah Ma’amarot) quotes from the early medieval book Tshuvot HaGeónim (Responses of the Learned Ones): “Seven days prior to the sighting of the moon the quality of Compassion (Midat HaRahamim) wages a petty war against Sama’el and his troops. And the hairy one (Sa’ir – an allusion to Esau and literally a male goat) starts to fight with the hairless one (an allusion to “Jacob, the hairless one”) based on envy, for the one who’s as beautiful as the moon (the Shechina). And Michael and Gabriel fight the accusers. And at the end of the seventh day Gabriel overcomes them and Michael, the high priest brings a sacrifice to Shamashael, the great minister who stands by Esau, which is in the image of the Sa’ír (Hairy, but in Hebrew also a male goat) and sacrifices it on the altar of repentance (teshuva) at the beginning of each month. And then desire is reconciled and honor is multiplied and fulfilled and the power of the hairy image perishes in the fire of valor (Gevoura).  However, it returns during the waning stage of the moon, until the designated day, as it is written ‘and the moon’s light will be like the sun’s light’. From this we learn that it is best not to welcome the face of the divine presence through the moon’s blessing until the seventh night of unification, and in anyway not after the sixteenth day”. (Ten Articles (Asara Ma’amarot), The Mother of All Beings, (Em Kol Hai) part 1, 19).        What is still unclear from the above is that the battle between the dark and light forces seems to end on the first day of the month, at the time of the sacrifice of the Sa’ír, when the seven days of battle draw to a close. However, Rabbi Menahem Azarya deduces that we should wait seven days after the beginning of the month to bless the new moon. Nonetheless, the Kabbalistic tradition not to bless the moon before seven days have past becomes much clearer if we compare the lunar cycle to the feminine menstrual cycle. As the moons cycle is the representation of the cycles of the Shechina – the divine feminine aspect, the assembly of Israel, or the emanation of Kingdom (Sphirat Malchut).

[4] It was, as usual, the Kabbalists who could not accept the notion that the secret of conception was not linked to any real processes of conception and birth. They therefore reinstated this sense by linking it to the spiritual world. According to the Kabbalists, the ‘secret of conception’ is strongly linked to the secrets of human conception and the reincarnation of soul. For example, according to Rabbi Yeshaya Horowitz, in his book ‘The Two Tabernacles’ (Shl”ah): “The secret also contains the regularity of months and the ‘impregnation’ of years, the incarnation of souls from generation to generation, and the secret of ‘impregnation’ hinted at by the sages (Ketubbot 112/a) who were sworn not to reveal the secret of conception” (Shl”ah to the book of Exodus, Bo, Torah Or). This is another example of the process I have mentioned in other places, where the Kabbala restores to Judaism some basic mythical ideas and concepts that existed in ancient days, when the tribes of the Hebrews were worshiping YHWH in their tribal ways, before Judaism was formed as a religion.

[5] In the same way as it incorporated many traditions and concepts originating in the feminine world, particularly into the status of Cohen (priesthood) – as shown by my friend Rabbi Natan Margalit in his doctorate Life Containing Texts: The Mishnah’s Discourse of Gender, A Literary/Anthropological Analysis, University of California, Berkeley, 2001, Berkley, California. See also the article “Not By Her Mouth Do We Live: A Literary/Anthropological Reading of Gender in Mishnah Ketubbot, Chapter 1” published in Prooftexts, Vol. 20, no. 1, as well as: “Hair in Tanakh: Symbolism of Gender and Control” Journal of the Association of Graduates in Near Eastern Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, 1993, pp. 39-52.

[6] In his commentary of the Torah, Leviticus 23, 11 based on the studies of Hazal in the Tractate of Mehahot 65/ b.

Importance Of Ceremonies

Something that was so common in the ancient world but is often forgotten in modern times is the knowledge of how to create meaningful ceremonies

I’m not talking about state pomp and ceremony that often includes soldiers and trumpets, but life ceremonies – rituals that individuals experience on a personal level, sometimes in the presence of family and community, sometimes just with a friend, a priest or priestess, or someone that accompanies us on our path. These rituals have deep and transformative significance.

In Judaism, as with any spiritual culture, ceremonies represent milestones in a person’s life. First there is the Brit – circumcision of baby boys – and Brita for girls, and then at age 13 a boy’s Barmitzvah and a girl’s Batmitzvah when she is 12. Later comes a wedding and funeral.

Different daily ceremonies symbolize the milestones of time. For practising Jews there are morning, noon and evening prayers, the welcoming of Shabbat and the distinction between Saturday (Shabbat) and the rest of the week.

There are also the Jewish holiday rituals that distinguish holy days from the rest of the year. For example, the sharing and delivering of sweets at Purim, purifying the home before Passover and lighting candles during Hanukah. All these and more are rituals that originally had deep meaning in order to sanctify our lives. And, if done correctly can effect transformation in a person’s life.

Transformation Through Ceremony

the Ceremonial Gate

A ceremony can be a defining moment, a kind of gateway. From the moment a person passes through the gateway of a ritual be it daily or a holy day, they are entering a different space.

A few years ago I had a heartfelt conversation with a Rabbi. He told me about a talk he had with a religious woman. In the conversation he said to her that he and every other religious person actually has the same thoughts and religious desires. Amazed, she asked him “You pray for hours, and go to the temple three times a day, and keep the Sabbath, and all this hasn’t made you any different from me?”
The woman’s words touched the Rabbi’s heart and forced him to search deep within himself – he found himself asking “Do his daily rituals have any real meaning?”

Authentic religious ceremonies can transform a person. When I go through a real ritual, I know something within me has changed, and in a sense I am not the same person I was before.

If nothing has happened, if the ceremony has failed to help me transform, I acknowledge that it didn’t work.

The famous American mythologist Joseph Campbell said, “Religion is really a kind of second womb. It’s designed to bring this complicated thing, which is the human being, into maturity.”

Kabalah ‘Second Pregnancy’

In Kabalah there is a term called the ‘second pregnancy’ whose goal is different from the first one. The first pregnancy is physical, its’ objective is to give birth to the body and soul.

The second pregnancy is meant to give birth to the mind. This means that the person goes into another kind of fetal state, a kind of pregnancy within the religious womb, and when he is born, he is more spiritually mature, with more mental depth and a wider perspective.

Real Sacredness

A good ceremony or ritual works like medicine. Good medicine is effective, and if it is not – than hopefully it won’t do harm.

Empty rituals leave a residue of loneliness. It doesn’t matter how many guests arrive at a ceremony, or how many gifts we receive. The heart wants to touch and be touched.

Real sacredness is a thing that touches you deeply, and invites you to touch and be touched. Sacredness is about getting closer to divinity, to the unity of all things. That is why when we come close to divinity we feel united with ever-widening circles of people.

In the beginning we feel one with those close to us, then with people who are different from us, and finally even with those who see themselves as our enemies.

The more that divine unity is evident in the heart of man, the more he feels at one – not only with people, but also with nature.

When we touch holiness it affects us deeply, and reveals to us that we are not separate beings, but part of a great fabric of wonderful and divine mystery.

Until we feel this in our hearts, we may feel alienated from the world, but the more we feel divinity the more we feel connected and intimate with everything because sacredness is intimacy.

Good ceremony reminds us of what the heart knows deep inside. This is something every child knows and adults sometimes forget - the wonderful and mysterious unity of existence.

A good ceremony encourages the heart to remove defensive barriers and allow love to enter, to be touched by the mystery that carries us to a new place, that is, to the holy landscape beyond the gate of ceremony.

A class by Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi (Israel, 2006)

(This class was given in Tel Aviv, as a part of the series of lectures about Main Characters in Jewish Mysticism. It was transcribed by Michal Gilo, and translated by Reb J.)

Our class today is devoted to two figures that were active during the period of the Hasmoneans: the first is Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach, and the second is Choni haMaagal. We’ll first orient ourselves to that specific time in history before going in depth into these figures and their stories.

In the previous lessons we spoke about Alexander the Great having conquered the entire Middle East, from Persia all the way to Egypt. But he died young at age 31 and his vast empire was divided among his heirs: the Antigonid Empire based in Greece; the Seleucid Empire based in Mesopotamia and Persia, and the Ptolemaic Kingdom based in Egypt and Palestine. We also spoke about the interesting ideas of Shimon haTzaddik regarding beauty and holiness, and how according to legend, he met Alexander the Great.

And we also spoke about the rebellion of the Hasmoneans, who routed the Greeks and established an independent kingdom. A monarchy was thus restored to Israel, but it was not that of a scion of the House of David, but rather, Shimon the Hasmonean, who was the high priest, was crowned king. This turn of events was a thorn in the eyes of the Jewish sages, who believed in the division of power. It is not ideal, according to the Torah, for a high priest to also serve as king. A high priest must serve as a high priest, and a king must rule as a king.  But the Hasmonean kings were not interested in sharing power, many of them also holding positions of priestly power. Nevertheless, one of them—Yochanan Hurkenus, or Yochanan the High Priest—was considered a holy man and even a prophet. The Talmud attributes to him the holy spirit, and Josephus Flavius attributes to him prophecy.

Eventually, the throne reached the hands of Yanai. Besides being king, Yanai was also a high priest, following the Hasmonean tradition. But the sages had not made peace with this phenomenon. The special problem for Yanai, though, was that during his reign, the leading sage was none other than his own brother-in-law, Shimon ben Shetach, his wife Shlomtzion’s younger brother. This means that at that time, heading the rabbinical high court was a great sage who held opinions unacceptable to the priesthood and the ruling family. Eventually, King Yanai got sick of these rabbinical sages, and as irritated kings are wont to do to those who oppose them, he ordered to have them all slaughtered. Whoever could, such as the sage Rabbi Yehoshua ben Prachyah, fled to Egpyt. Meanwhile, though, Queen Shlomtzion hid her younger brother until the king’s “crisis” passed, at which time he decided to reconcile with the rabbinical sages, whom the masses generally supported.

But what happens when an entire generation of sages disappears from the world and only one is left? What happens is—and it is important to pay attention to this point—that the one surviving is the one who transmits the tradition. At that time, the Oral Torah was still that—oral, and not formally written down. So since most of the sages were murdered, Shimon ben Shetach became one of the major transmitters through whom the tradition of the Oral Torah was passed down all the way to us.

Now, Shimon ben Shetach was a very interesting figure, and a far from simple one. He was not the only survivor, but among the few. Throughout the history of the transmission of the Oral Torah, there have been a few key figures through whom the majority of the tradition was passed down. One of them was Shimon ben Shetach, who as said, was a complex character.

The story of our focus today, though, is his relationship to women, and to the feminine principle in general. Shimon ben Shetach was know to be the one who hanged eighty witches—this was the single case of witch-hunting in Jewish history.

Let us try and understand what this says about his relationship to women in general and to witches in specific, and what it says about his relationship to the world of magic and mysticism in general. Is there any connection, and if so, what?

Some credit

Let us preface our discussion by giving some “credit” to Shimon ben Shetach. Before we judge him negatively for hanging the witches, I would like to show a complete picture of his character. One of the unique innovations of Shimon ben Shetach is the ketubah—the marriage contract—as it is formulated till this day. He was the one who instituted that the financial obligation of a husband to his wife takes precedence over all his other financial obligations. If a husband has no money, the courts can sell his house, and “even the shirt on his back” to meet those obligations. This was Shimon ben Shetach’s ordination, and till this very day it influences peoples’ lives in a very practical way. From this perspective, if we would ask what his attitude to women was, we would say that he certainly cared for them and for their welfare.

Besides the ketubah, Shimon ben Shetach also made another very important institution: the halakhic law that circumstantial evidence is not accepted in Jewish courts.

Today, civil courts do not follow this practice, but the Talmud quotes Shimon ben Shetach as saying: “I once saw someone running with a knife after another person and they both entered into a house. I ran after them and saw that one of them was just killed and the other was standing with the knife in his hand. I said to him, ‘There are only I and you here, so it is probable that you have killed him and not I, but I will not judge you in court, for in order to be judged in court there must be two witnesses. Therefore, may God judge you.”

The Talmud then concludes, “A snake came along and bit him, and he died.”

It was Shimon ben Shetach himself who instituted this practice of not accepting circumstantial evidence. The purpose was to prevent an innocent person being put to death. Only two witnesses can testify in court. As we will later see, this did not help him to prevent an innocent person being put to death, and in fact caused him great personal harm.

Another institution of Shimon ben Shetach was the law of obligatory education. All the way back then, the first century before the Common Era, Shimon ben Shetach initiated a practice that every Jewish community meticulously keeps till this day: children must begin their educational training by the age of six, whether with a private teacher or in a school. This institution of his took hold already during his time and has been typical of Jewish communities throughout history. Each community established an educational system that was provided for free for those who could not afford it, such as orphans. It was the community’s responsibility to see to it that all children would receive an education, no matter whether they came from wealthy or poor families, or were orphans.

Judging the king

Here is another story about Shimon ben Shetach’s character: One of King Yanai’s slaves had murdered someone. Shimon ben Shetach said to the sages, “Get hold of him and we’ll pass judgment on him.” But Jewish law is that when a slave has committed a crime, his master must also come before the courts. So they sent a messenger to the king asking him to bring his slave into court. When Yanai sent along the slave by himself, Shimon sent another message to him saying, “You must come too!” The king arrived at court and sat down. Shimon then said to him, “King Yanai! Stand up while we testify against you. Not before us are you standing, but before the One Who created the world.” Now remember, King Yanai was Shimon’s brother-in-law who had murdered all the sages, yet Shimon was undaunted and not afraid of him. But the king says, “I will do not as you say, but as your colleagues say,” implying that Shimon always opposed him.

The Talmud then relates, “The king looked to his right, and they all hid their faces towards the ground. He looked to his left, and they too hid their faces towards the ground.” The sages feared the king’s anger. So Simon ben Shetach says to them, “You are making calculations. May the Master of Calculations exact punishment from you.” In other words, he was telling them, “If you are moved to action by your personal interests, you are incapable of being faithful to the truth.” The Talmud concludes that the angel Gabriel came and struck them down to the ground and they died. Henceforth, “a king neither judges nor is judged” became the practice in the rabbinical courts.

This was Shimon ben Shetach. He was undaunted by anything and was as straight as a ruler. But apropos, we see that miracles happened in his honor, such as the snake biting the man whom Shimon had said should be judged by heaven, and the angel Gavriel coming to put to death the sages who were not being faithful to their positions in court.

Returning the Arab’s stone

Yet another story the Talmud tells about Shimon ben Shetach is that he earned a living from working in textiles. Rather than support himself from the rabbinate, he insisted on working for his own sustenance and not taking a penny from the communal coffers. His students, though, seeing how much time and effort he was putting in to make his business rounds on foot, insisted on purchasing for him a donkey. On their way bringing it to him, they found a precious stone in the donkey’s sack. They came and told their master excitedly: “Rebbe! God has given you a gift! You’ll never have to work again!” But Shimon said: “Does the owner of the donkey know that there was a precious stone there?” “Obviously not,” his students answered. “If so, go and return the stone to its owner.” When the students returned it, the owner, who was by the way an Arab, said, “Blessed be the God of Shimon ben Shetach!”

So the picture we have of Shimon ben Shetach until here is: “Let the law carve a hole through the mountain.” This approach was characteristic of him. At the same time, he was an honest person, did not show preference to anyone, nor could he be bought with money. From his perspective, justice was the most important thing. He did not even give special treatment for the royal family, and neither was he lenient with himself. He served God altruistically and was as straight as a ruler, and I am not using that last phrase lightly. If we try to characterize types of people empowered by the energy of yosher/straightness, as opposed to people empowered by the energy of igulim/circles, Shimon ben Shetach stands out as a typical example of yosher.

Straight and Circular – Igulim ve’Yosher

The kabbalah of the Ari speaks about two types of spiritual lights/energies that bring our reality into existence: straight light and circular light. They are two spiritual entities that are completely different. In the kabbalah, we consider the straight light as a masculine function, whereas the circular light is considered a feminine quality. Hence, for example, linear thinking is masculine. Of course, both men and women possess both straight and circular light, for in each of us are both masculine and feminine energies, but straightness is a distinctive masculine energy, whereas circularity is a distinctive feminine energy.

Simon ben Shetach was typically masculine—sharp, for better or worse. Linear thinking of the yosher type is a categorical type of thinking. When a yosher person thinks about justice, he does not take this ethical principle lightly. He does not look to find compromises, to be lenient, to round corners, to understand the accused or simply to bridge a gap between litigants—these are more feminine and “round” qualities. His thinking is categorical. Clearly, such thinking—rational, linear—dose not allow for any magical phenomena.

Magic

Magic does not fit into a linear perception of the world. On the contrary: When do we call something “magic”? When you expect a certain chain of cause and effect to happen, and something entirely unexpected takes place, without any evident cause having brought it about. For instance, when Rabbi Eliezer, several generations later, taught Rabbi Akiva to fill a field with squash with some specific words and then to cause them to disappear—this was magic. Magic is specifically something that contradicts our linear thinking. Since it is not rational, it unravels the threads of our thought patterns that seduce us into thinking that the world is ruled by logic. Every time something non-rational happens, we call it a miracle, a wonder, or magic.

True magicians do not know themselves how they produce their magic, but they feel obligated to believe in wonders, to live in wonder, and to believe in the “magic” that exists in the world. A true magician only knows that if he makes a certain potion according to a certain formula, the result will be something “magical.” So he believes in the power of magic, in the power of wonder, in the wondrous nature of existence, but he also knows that he must fully concentrate on and be completely present to what he is doing, for the process demands the best of his spiritual powers.

The prophets whom we have spoken about—Elijah and Elisha, for example—what characterized them? Elijah had a spiritual role to play within the strata of the royal government of the Kingdom of Israel. He rebuked the king—he rebuked Ahab and Jezebel and maneuvered their downfall, then arranging at the end of his life to have Yehu crowned in their stead. The very role of a scriptural prophet is to rebuke the masses, though he also rebukes the rulers. But besides this, he is also a miracle worker. Most of the stories connected with Elijah and Elisha are miracle stories.

The split of the prophet role

What happened, though, during the period about which we are talking was that the role of the scriptural prophet became split into two: During the period of the prophets, the prophet held two roles: on the one hand, a man of ethics and justice who rebukes the people and the king, and on the other hand, a wonder worker who heals and brings rain. But during the period under our discussion, these two roles were split between two different types of people: the man of God, on the one hand, the miracle worker, and on the other hand, the man of justice and ethics who rebukes. Shimon ben Shetach was a man of uprightness, justice and rebuke, while the miracle worker of his time was Choni haMaagal.

The following story appears in several places, both in the Mishnah and in the Talmud. I read it from the Talmud, since the text there goes into more detail.

Choni and the circle

“The rabbis taught: The month of Adar once passed and rain had not come.” Spring had officially arrived and there had been no rain during the winter. It was a drought year. In ancient times, this meant that people would die of hunger and thirst. The wells were empty and there was nothing to drink or anything with which to water the fields. “[Choni haMaagal] drew a circle in the ground and stood in it.” A circle —remember the circular energy we spoke about above? And Choni’s very name was haMaagal, from the Hebrew root of igul, a circle. In any event, Choni was following in the footsteps of the prophet Habakkuk, who also drew a circle around himself and refused to leave it until God answered him, as our sages comment on Habakkuk’s saying, “I will remain on this station of mine and will stand in this bastion.” Our sages say that this was an ancient tradition. When you want to beg for something urgently, you say to God, “I will not leave this circle until You fulfill my request,” and of course, you must be willing to keep your side of the bargain…

So Choni said to God, “God! I am not moving from here until you have mercy on Your children.” Choni swears that he will not move, and someone like Choni will keep his word. He is willing to die in the circle if rain does not come. He has undertaken an unconditional obligation. He says to God: “Your children have approached me, for I am like a member of Your household.” Being that the case, they are all relying on him.

The Talmud continues: “It began to drizzle. [Choni's] students said, ‘We have seen You, but may we not die!’” This is an interesting phrase. The verse says elsewhere, “Man shall not see Me and live,” for finite Man cannot maintain his selfhood in the conscious presence of the Infinite. So, as they beheld Choni interacting with God in such an intimate way, they were experiencing themselves the presence of God, and they therefore say, “May we not die!” But they also tell him that this drizzle is as if God is saying: “OK, I’ll give you these two and a half drops of rain just so that you are able to leave your circle.” Choni responds by saying to God: “This is NOT what I asked for! I want rain to fill the wells, pits and caverns!” Rain began to come down in torrents, the Talmud tells, until each and every drop was big enough to fill buckets. “We have seen You, but don’t let us die!” his students call out. It seemed as if the rains were coming to destroy the world”. So again Choni says to God: “This is NOT what I asked for! I want rain of goodwill, blessing and bounty.” And the Talmud concludes, “The rain began to fall as needed.”

Choni haMaagal was working with God to achieve something in proper proportion, and he demands exactness. He is also audacious, what in Chassidic texts is referred to as holy chutzpah. He demands of God that the rains be exactly as needed, not more than enough and not too little. But the Talmud continues to tell us that the rain fell in such quantities that the people had to walk up to the Temple Mount, since the lower areas were all flooded. So the people came and said to Choni: “Rebbe! Just as you prayed for rain to come, pray now for it to stop.”

“I have a tradition,” he answered them, “that one does not pray to halt an abundance of bounty.” But he advises them to bring an ox as a thanksgiving offering. When they brought it into the Temple, Choni lays his two hands upon it, as was the sacrificial procedure to rest one’s weight on the animal, thereby transferring one’s karma to it. He says, “God! Your people Israel whom You took out of Egypt can bear neither too much good or too much suffering. May it be Your will that the rains stop and that there be plenty in the world.” And the Talmud concludes that the rains immediately stopped and the sun came out.

This was Choni and his magical practices. So let’s try now and get a picture of his character. We see that he possessed this holy chutzpah, and that he was very close to God—”a member of His household.” He was also very popular with the people as a miracle worker. Certainly, after this incident in which he literally saved the people from starvation, his popularity must have skyrocketed. But just then, Shimon ben Shetach sends him a message: “If you were not Choni, I would put you into excommunication,” in other words, if Choni was not who he was. Why? Because he acted with chutzpah towards God. From Shimon’s perspective, one does not argue with God. But Choni had a “circular” nature, rather than a straight one like Shimon’s, so he does not accept the drought and he argues with God.

Censorising the holy magician

But even more importantly: Choni is a magician. He is able to cause wonders. He is a holy magician who was involved in practical magic. Since this story reaches us via the Talmud, we must take into consideration the likelihood that it was censored. This is not a story that reaches us via the channels of the mystics, but specifically via the channel of the classical rabbinical literature. Therefore, though the Talmud cites this story, there is a high probability that certain magical details were omitted due to censoring. The Talmud attenuates the importance of the magical aspect of this story. The only thing we know about Choni’s practices is that he made a circle around himself and swore that he would not leave it. So he also uses oaths. In short, we see that he has specific techniques. And the Talmud adds that these practices were ancient, since the times of the prophets.

But Shimon ben Shetach does not approve of this way of action. From his point of view, if you pray and rain doesn’t come, just accept it. But Choni follows the ways of the prophets of old and succeeds in bringing rain. He opens the gates of heaven because he possesses the keys of rain. Elsewhere, the Talmud states that the prophet Elijah also possessed the keys of rain.

Shimon also says to Choni, “But what can I do that you are like a son kvetching before his father.” That is, as if Choni were a spoiled child saying to God, “Wash me with warm water. No! That’s too hot! Add some cold water. No! That’s too cold! Add some hot water.” In parent-child relations there are no rules of justice. The very relationship is beyond any rules. Such behavior is acceptable from a child as part of his charm, and that is legitimate. So Shimon tells Choni that he is like such a child to God, nudging to be pampered with candies and sweets.

And who was it that declared himself a son of God just two generations later? Jesus! And the Christian Church makes a big fuss over him. But Jesus was part of certain school of spiritual thought, a link in the tradition of the “early chassidim” who were able to cause miracles and saw themselves as the sons of God, albeit not exclusively. Choni actually meant, “We are all Your children, but I am especially close to You.”

But Shimon says that despite Choni’s being like a son to God and having a special relationship with Him, nevertheless, “I would put you into excommunication,” because the practice of magic and arguing with God is not according to my liking, even when it is for the people’s benefit, and even when it is successful.

This insight that the double role of the prophet became split during the period we are discussing I would like to cite in the name of Professor Ephraim Elimelekh Orbach.

During this period under our discussion, there was an entire school of spiritual practice called, “the early chassidim,” who were not masters in the rabbinical law. The Talmud relates several miracles stories about him, but not one single law in his name. Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, mentioned later in that Talmudic passage about Choni haMaagal, was also part of that school. The school of these early chassidim was involved in magic and wonder working, and in attaining a bonding of the soul with God, what in the chassidut of the Baal Shem Tov was called, deveykut. Attaining this deveykut/bonding with God is what interested the schools of the early and the later chassidim. Such a relationship opened the door to miracles, since it meant that the linear and banal world that we see is not all there is. Wonders can take place at any time and place. A flower—the “flower” of the Shekhinah/Divine presence—can suddenly open. Existence is rich, because God, the Omnipresent, is not “Out There,” but here! The close relationship with Him is like that of a son with his father—informal.

On the other hand, there was another school of thought—that of the rabbinical sages—based upon the halakhic law. While the first school of thought belonged to the “circular” way of thinking, this latter school of thought belonged to the linear/straight way of thinking, of masculine ethics and meticulousness—a “Let the law carve a hole in the mountain” mentality. The people of this school were straight and good, but their thinking was very linear.

So what was united in the prophets became split into two personalities in later times. With the spiritual downslide of the generations, these two directions—the wondrous and the practical—became split into two separate schools of thought. The cause of this development within the Jewish people was the difference between the First Temple and the Second Temple—prophecy existed during the First, but disappeared during the Second. This is how the rabbinical sages saw it. The Babylonian exile created a different paradigm of Judaism—the era of Scriptures was over. A period in history had come to a close, at least as far as mainstream Judaism was concerned.

But the early chassidim did not see things that way. However, since the rabbinical sages did, and they were the ones who shaped normative Judaism for the coming generations, this marginalized the chassidim.

In order to illustrate this, I now cite the conclusion of the Talmudic story of Choni haMaagal, who slept for seventy years.

Immediately after the story of the rain, the Talmud relates that Choni was always bothered by a verse in Psalms, “When God returns the exiles of Zion, we will be like dreamers.” The simple meaning of this is that when the people returned from Babylon, the entire exile seemed like a dream. Now, the Babylonian exile was seventy years, as known, so Choni asked himself, “What does this mean? Can someone sleep for seventy years?” One day, Choni was walking along and he passed someone planting a carob tree. In answer to Choni’s questioning him why he is planting a tree that takes seventy years to bear edible fruit, the man answers that he is planting it for his descendants, just as his forebears planted for him. Choni then has a bite to eat, lies down underneath the carob tree and falls asleep. And he sleeps for seventy years. Upon awakening, Choni sees someone eating from that carob tree that he had seen planted seventy years earlier. Choni asks, ‘”Are you the one who planted it. “No,” he answers. “I am his grandson.” Realizing that he has slept for seventy years, Choni proceeds into town to ask after his son, but is told that he has already died, but that his grandson is still alive. Telling them that he himself is Choni, they do not believe him. So Choni makes his way to the beit midrash [study hall], where people are in heated discussion on a Talmudic subject. Then he hears them say, “Ay! When Choni was still alive, he would enter the beit midrash and the matter would become clear as day.” “I am Choni!” he says, but no one believed him, and may have even ridiculed him. Frustrated, Choni goes out and begs mercy of God to take his life.

What is the Talmud trying to tell us here? It seems that the Talmud is trying to say with this story, “Choni! Your time has passed! Have you not noticed that there was a Babylonian exile? You are just like a person who slept through the seventy years of exile and upon awakening thinks that nothing has happened, that nothing has changed. Do you think that you can continue to live as if in biblical times? Don’t you realize that the world has changed!” Choni continues to beg, “Recognize me! I am still here!” But the Talmud tells him, “You are going around making miracles as if you were a prophet before the exile. But we have undergone a paradigm shift, and your time has passed.”

This is why the Talmud brings this story of Choni’s sleeping for seventy years immediately after the story of his bringing rain, and Shimon ben Shetach’s dissatisfaction about Choni’s ways. This was the critique of the rabbinical sages who compiled the Talmud—a critique against the Choni “circular” personality. History had changed, the rabbis argued. We are not living any longer during the times of the prophets!

To the sages’ credit, though, they did not omit the story altogether. They preserved differing opinions within their own tradition. All types of stories can be found in the rabbinical tradition, even stories of ways and ideas that differed from the ways and ideas of the sages.

Now we turn to the story of Shimon ben Shetach’s great witch hunting, a sad story however we look at it.

A certain tax collector, a ruthless person who collected taxes for the government and reported evaders to them, had died. That very same day, a great rabbi had also died in the same town, and the entire townspeople gathered to give him his last honor. Thus, going in the same direction were the funeral processions of the great rabbi accompanied by all the townspeople and that of the tax collector accompanied by his family. As they both reach the cemetery outside of town, a band of marauders attacks. All present from both processions flee for their lives, leaving behind both bodies. One student of the deceased rabbi, though, hides in the field, not wanting to abandon his beloved teacher. Eventually, everyone returns, each group to bury its dead. But for some reason, the two bodies are exchanged, and the townspeople take the body of the tax collector to bury in great honor. The student who had never left and was aware of the mistake cries out, “No! You’re making a mistake!” But no one pays him any attention, and the great rabbi is buried in the plot of the tax collector.

The student is extremely upset. What had his great teacher done to receive such a disgrace, and what had the tax collector done to receive such honor? That night, his teacher appears to him in a dream and tells him, “Don’t worry. Come and I will show you the honor I have been given in Gan Eden and the punishment that the tax collector is suffering in hell.” He shows his student how the hinge of the door of hell is swinging on the tax collector’s ear. The rabbi then explains to his student: I once heard a Torah student being dishonored and I did not protest. Therefore, I was punished. The tax collector, though, once prepared a meal for the governor, and when the governor did not come, he distributed the food to the poor. For this, he was rewarded.”

“How long will the tax collector suffer this punishment?” the student asks. “Until Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach dies and takes his place,” the sage answers. The student was shocked to hear this, but the rabbi explains, “Because there are Jewish witches in Ashkelon and Rabbi Shimon is doing nothing to stop them!”

This is how the story appears in the Babylonian Talmud, according to Rashi. However, an earlier source and version of this story appears in the Palestinian Talmud. There is a slight difference in that version. There, the issue held against Rabbi Shimon, according to the sage who appeared in a dream to his student, was that he had promised to uproot witches but had not done so. “When I will be appointed head of the court, I will put anyone involved in witchcraft to death!” Rabbi Shimon is quoted as saying. Yet, despite being appointed, he had not made good on his promise (it seems that even then, elected public officials did not keep their promises…).

Anyway, this student went and told Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach about the dream. What did Rabbi Shimon do? He immediately gathers eighty young and strong men on that rainy day, hands each one a large jug with a garment stuffed inside each one of them, and instructs them to keep the jugs upside down over their heads, to keep the clothes dry. Allotting one young man for each witch, he instructs them, “When you enter, each one of you must lift one of the witches off the ground. This will render them impotent.” So we see that when a witch is not touching the ground, she is unable to do any witchcraft. This is a very interesting concept that we will speak about shortly.

Rabbi Shimon leads the young men to the witches’ cave in Ashkelon, leaves them outside and enters alone. “Who are you?” they ask him. “I am a witch, like you, and I have come to exchange secrets,” he answers. “How did you get here on such a rainy day?” they ask. “I walked between the raindrops,” he replies, implying that he did this with magical powers. “Let us show each other what we can do,” he says.  So one of them utters a magic word and some bread immediately appears, a second utters another word and a different type of food spontaneously appears, and a third one utters yet a different word and wine appears. “So now,” they ask him, “what can you do?” “I have a special type of magic,” he says. “If I whistle twice, a young man will immediately appear for each one of you to give you a good time.” “Yes! Yes! Please bring them!” they all say enthusiastically. Rabbi Shimon had prearranged with the young men that with the first whistle they remove the dry garment from the jug and change into it, and with the second whistle they enter. Shimon whistles to them, they change into their dry clothes, and presto, like magic!—as least as far as the witches see—eighty young and virile men are after them. Each young man then sweeps one of the witches off her feet and carries her away to be hanged.

But there is a short and tragic continuation to the story. The families of the witches were very upset. Two of them came to court and testified falsely against Rabbi Shimon’s son, bringing the death penalty upon him. As he was being brought out to be stoned to death, he says, “If I have sinned, may my death atone for me, but if I have not sinned, may the responsibility be on the neck of the witnesses.” The witnesses hear this, and shuddering, begin to have regrets. They tell the judges that they had testified falsely out of anger towards Rabbi Shimon for putting their relatives to death. But Jewish law does not allow witnesses to retract their testimony, and the young man is put to death.

So Rabbi Shimon does not get off lightly from this story. He who had instituted to rely solely on two witnesses as the test of absolute truth, rather than even blatant circumstantial evidence, is forced to accept the testimony of two false witnesses who had fabricated their story so well as to pass the rabbi’s interrogations, and to allow his own son to be put to death.

There is great depth in this story. Shimon wants things to be as clear as day, rather than leaving them to the clouds of doubt. Therefore, he rules to pass judgment only upon the testimony of two witnesses. He is afraid of mistakenly incriminating an innocent man with circumstantial evidence, so he relies only on the interrogation of witnesses. But in the end, his own son is put to death following the guidelines that he felt were impeccable—two witnesses, two false witnesses who had come to avenge Shimon’s putting their relatives to death. In effect, it was the feminine principle that avenged itself from Rabbi Shimon—from him and his linear thinking which he so zealously followed. The circular people avenged themselves from the man of straight lines.

But let us return to the main point. Why does the Talmud make a point of stating that these were female witches? Because witchcraft is a classic example of the feminine principle, of something connected with women. In fact, the Talmud states elsewhere, “Most women are witches,” and, “One who takes many wives just increases witchcraft [in his home].” And this despite the fact that Scriptures and the Talmud are filled with stories of male witches, such as the magicians of Egypt and Babylon. Throughout Scriptures there is only mention of two female witches—Saul’s necromancer who brought up Samuel, and Queen Jezebel.

But on the other hand, the Biblical verse instructing to put witches to death speaks about the witch in the feminine. Why is this? The Talmud explains as said, because most women are witches. This is masculine thinking. The feminine world is a mystery to men, incomprehensible. What do women talk to each other about so much? What is the secret of feminine charm? Why do they drive men crazy so often? There is surely some witchcraft involved here…

One of the Jewish grammaticians of the Middle Ages, though—Rabbi Yonah ibn Janach—offers another explanation for the feminine form of the word witch in the verse. He says: the word in its feminine form is the proper noun for witchcraft and magic. He cites other Hebrew nouns like this that are gender neutral even though the words themselves are in the feminine form. In fact, elsewhere in Scriptures we find an explicit verse stating that the prohibition to practice magic and witchcraft relates equally to men and women. It is the Talmud, though, that states that generally speaking, most of those who practice witchcraft are women.

The truth is, as I said earlier, it is men who think that this is what women do. When men are involved in magic, that’s OK, but when women do things that men do not understand—that’s witchcraft and frightening. Everything women do together in their own company is perceived by men as a mystery. Birth and death are connected with the feminine principle, and is perceived as frightening. A woman is mysterious in a man’s eyes. This is the source of misogyny, the hatred of women arising from the fear of them. Every man originally emerges from a woman, but slowly and over time comes to identify himself as something different, while a woman grows to identify herself with her mother.

In all myths, in all dreams, in the depths of human psychology, mystery is connected with the feminine. Or in other words, woman symbolizes mystery. The soul is seen as feminine. All the five levels of the soul in the kabbalah are feminine words—nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, yechidah.

The feminine perception of reality is “circular.” A circle is cyclic, and this perception is connected with nature. Woman is “naturally” connected with the nature of reality much more than man. The monthly menstrual cycle parallels the cyclic orbit of the moon. In modern times, when artificial light illuminates our nights, women do not experience this connection. But when people lived closer to nature, underneath the light of the moon, they directly experienced the connection between their own cycles and that of the moon. In those days, women generally began menstruating with the new moon and began their ovulation with the full moon. Those who deviated from this were the exceptions. And the Festivals were dependent upon the cycle of the moon to set the months of the Jewish calendar. In fact, the moon itself is seen in Jewish tradition as being a feminine entity.

Woman thus experiences nature within her very own body. Woman is nature, cyclicity, life and death. In men’s consciousness, the womb is the place from where one comes and to where one returns. Male consciousness is involved, consciously and unconsciously, with returning there. And he ultimately returns to the earth, another symbol of femininity.

The grave is itself a sort of womb, in which one is sown like a seed and from which one grows, entering the grave with death and reemerging in reincarnation for another cycle of life. Therefore, the Talmud refers to the womb with the Hebrew word that means a grave. The womb is the source of life, but ultimately also the symbol of its end. This is a cycle. Woman is also connected with the earth, the earth is circular and connected with the kabbalistic sefirah of Malkhut, the Shekhinah, the feminine aspect of the Divine. We can now understand why Shimon ben Shetach said that in order to dominate a woman, one must separate her from the ground.

I don’t know if those women in Ashkelon were really witches, and even if they were, if they were really doing anything harmful to anyone, but one thing is clear: they were a threat to Shimon ben Shetach’s world. For the masculine world, these women who celebrated in a cave in nature, and perhaps may have possessed some magical talents, were a source of fear. Their connection to nature was intimidating for male consciousness. Nature is foreign to male consciousness. Male consciousness feels out of place in the natural world. Therefore, for man, the natural world is something with and in which to do something—to “conquer nature.” Circular—feminine—consciousness, on the other hand, is just to be. To celebrate what is. From this perspective, we are nature. We are the cyclicity of nature. Therefore, religions with masculine consciousness aspire to be freed from the consciousness of life and death. This is quintessential masculine religion.

On the other hand, consciousness of love is quintessentially feminine. Those who worshiped the Great Mother gods did not sit around and meditate in search of freedom from the material world. Rather, their rituals were conducted in the forest, with good food and wine. They were celebrations of life and death. Celebrating cyclicity is feminine worship. But when men created institutional religions, they did so out of a base of fear of being trapped in that very cyclicity of life and death, of being trapped in nature, which for man is one big trap. So man is always asking himself, “Am I trapped or am I free?”

Man seeks to be free in every way. If he is a spiritual person, he will seek freedom by means of meditation. If he is a rational person, he will seek to master nature by means of scientific studies, rather than be mastered by it. Therefore, the basic effort of science during the twentieth century has been a search to establish all of existence on one principle. This is symbolized by the penis—a single pillar upon which the world can stand. The goal of masculine consciousness is to minimize chaos. The natural world is chaotic. Things just happen. Especially for women—it seems that something exciting is always happening to them. The world as such is an embodiment of the Shekhinah—the Great Mother. Things happen in this world that confuse a man, and as a man, one wants to make things simple, so after a woman has finished relating to her husband an entire drama, the husband bluntly says, “OK, darling, this is what you should do…”

To live in the cycle is to experience the drama of life, involvedness with life, a celebration of the emotions. Sometimes I am sad and sometimes I am happy. That’s the way it is, and it’s fun! It’s exciting for the feminine consciousness. But for the man, it is threatening. He always wants to solve problems, to take control of the situation. He feels safe only when things are resolved. But for the woman, the resolution is only a lull from life, for her excitement is to be involved in life’s drama. That is how she experiences that she exists.

Woman is nature. The kabbalah states that in Hebrew, “Nature”—haTeva—is numerically equivalent to Elohim, the feminine Name of God, in contrast to YHVH. Nature itself is perceived as circular in the kabbalah. Therefore, planet earth is round, the cosmos is seen as round, as the stars are round. Some even say that time is circular. Everything in the natural world is circular. In fact, the Talmud states that there is no thing in nature that is square. The only phenomenon in existence that is linear is consciousness. There is nothing in the objective world that is straight. Shimon ben Shetach represents linear thought, and therefore, for him, the circular is threatening. So he says to Choni, “If you were not Choni, I would put you into excommunication.” (From one of the listeners: If he had been Chanah rather than Choni, Shimon would not have been chonen her—pardoned her.)

What is interesting in Shimon’s world view is that in order to control a woman, one must separate her from the earth. On a deep level, this symbolizes how men seek to control women—by separating them from nature in all ways. How have men accomplished this? Most women you meet today are detached from their own natures. The tampon industry, for instance, is a male statement that women must conduct themselves “normally”—that is, like a man, who does not have a period. And if you must, hide it, so no one sees! That is considered nowadays, “normal.” Society teaches young girls to deny the basic cyclic nature of their femininity, telling them, “Be a man!” Therefore, 99% of the artificial skeletons used to teach the human body in biology classes are masculine in form. To be human is to be a man. There may be specific incidences of females, but men are representative of humanity.

And let’s be honest. If they were to bring in here right now a female skeleton to study it as a human body, we would automatically think with surprise, Why are they bringing in a female skeleton? For man, woman is just an exceptional case of the human species, and is not seen as truly half of what it means to be human.

But man’s job is not to fear the feminine, but to pass through that fear and to learn to know that way of being, as well. Every man fears the Great Mother. The question is only if one is aware of it or not, if one has gone past that fear or not. One must pass through it and come out on the other side. To reach a place where one can celebrate the feminine within, and to understand that one has therewith entered into the Great Mother—the Shekhinah, Who embodies everything: everything that one is, and everything in the environment. Everyone possesses a consciousness that is embodied within the Great Mother, within the material world, within the physical body that is entirely sensual. We are contained within the Shekhinah that gives birth to us into the world, and consumes us as Mother Earth when we die. It happens to everyone. So we fear Her. But our task is not to escape from the world, but to enlighten it. Not to flee from a woman, but to enlighten her and make her happy. Not to flee from the Shekhinah, but to conjugate with Her. Therefore, the witches were happy when Shimon ben Shetach told them that he would bring them eighty young and virile men who would lift them off their feet. That is what a woman wants—a man with charm who knows how to lift her. But to do so, a man must indeed be able to “walk through the raindrops”—not to become soaked by her emotional storms, but to approach her filled with humor. And rather than hanging them—to elevate them!

With permission from the soul of Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach, who has certainly undergone great transformation since then, I would like to say that it seems that he had a psychological problem with the fact that his life was saved by his older sister, Queen Shlomtzion. He owed his life to a woman in a very personal way, over and above being born to woman. In the depths of his personality, he develops a fear of this power of the feminine over life. And when it came to the witches, this fear became an enmity.

But together with this, let us remember that it was Shimon who instituted the ketubah to protect the woman. He did not hate women, but he hated witches.

Now I would like to reveal another layer: We spoke earlier about the educational system that Shimon instituted as obligatory. This was only meant for boys. And the woman that Rabbi Shimon protects is the woman who has bought into the male story, the woman who has legally entered into a contractual relationship with a man, relinquishing to him ownership of her body, relinquishing her sexual freedom to her husband. In vulgar terms, the ketubah says: “I will support you, feed you, take care of you, have intimate relations with you, but you must not have relations with any other man. I can take other women as wives or concubines”—until Rabbeynu Gershom came along—”but if you sleep with any other man, you will be put to death.” And even after Rabbeynu Gershom’s ban on polygamy, any man taking an extra wife is not treated as having committed a major crime. The traditional Jewish marital contract is based upon the husband’s ownership of the wife’s sexuality. This was the woman for whom Rabbi Shimon was concerned. Such a woman is not involved in witchcraft… A woman who has forgone her personal freedom and entered into a deal that has made her a legitimate member of male society. “If you accept these conventions,” the ketubah says, “then we will take care of you, honor you, and mortgage your husband’s possessions for your financial benefit.”

How shall I now end this class on a happy note?

Let’s go back to the stormy and rainy day on which Rabbi Shimon went to visit the witches. A storm represents that the Great Mother is storming now. The weather symbolizes Mother Earth’s current state of being.

If we enter into the minds of these witches, the men’s coming in dry on a stormy day is a wonderful fantasy—a woman’s “wet dream.” That is what they most want: that someone will come to them on a stormy day—a day when they are feeling overcast, weepy and stormy—and be able to remain dry. A woman says to herself about such a man: “He is not running away from me. He has come to meet me where I am. He is not moved by my storms. He is not afraid. He is not hiding. He even invites me to play with him—’I will bring you young and virile men…’”

This is what a woman is always saying without words: “When I am stormy, surprise me with your magic! You be the greater magician than I!” This is what all “witches” really want…

So we conclude now with a blessing for our times, when witches have begun again to celebrate: I wish for all of us that Choni haMaagal and Shimon ben Shetach reunite. If I had to choose between them, I would choose the academy of Choni, but I feel that this split is part of Judaism’s illness—the illness we call, “exile,” an illness from which we must heal. Part of our work today is to reincorporate the circle into the line, and to reestablish conjugation between them.

The time has come to throw an evening for rabbis and witches…

The Hebraic Tribal Way is

• -      Living with the Divine Living Spirit, and not by any set religious dogma.
• -      Drawing upon wisdom and inspiration from ALL the sources of Israel – including Kabala, Magic, Mysticism and Rabbinical Judaism, sources of secular philosophy and paths that were defined in the past as “heresy” or “blasphemy”. The Hebraic Tribal Way is inspired also from ancient Canaanite findings and from our foremothers who were inclusively worshiping the Queen of Heavens.
• -      Renewing rituals and meaningful ceremonies, but not fixing them as dogma. It’s always renewing and responding to the Divine Spirit “live on air”…
• -      Creative. The Hebraic Tribal Way sees art – dance and singing, painting and photography, computer graphics and environmental technology, theater and sacred architecture as unique flowers that flourish in the human soul. These forms are lovingly offered with awe to the Divine – to the One that through us creates reflections to Her wonderful world. The Hebraic Tribal Way sees art not only as Esthetics but as a potential for inner transformation.
• -      Passionate. The Hebraic Tribal Way believes that passion, attraction and Eros spring from a holy source, and that the flames of Love are divine flames “Shalhevet-Yah“. Therefore it does not repress them but to the contrary – praises, sanctifies and rejuvenates in their flow for is a means of celebrating the love of God, Nature and Humanity.
• -      Open to fruitful and meaningful meetings with other religions or spiritual paths, coming from simplicity, with no inferior or superior approach.
• -      Natural and loving nature, therefore ecological – seeking to live rightfully with Mother Earth, respecting the rights of animals to live and die with dignity and joy. The Hebraic Tribal Way aspires to use healthy nutrition for the inner ecology of the individual.
• -      Community oriented. Knowing that it is not good nor is it natural for the human being to live in alienation and separation, but rather to be part of a community or a tribe. Hence, looking to establish communities of all sorts and sizes that support and empower the development of the full potential of each individual – children and grownups.
• -      Peacemaking. Acknowledging the fact that oneness is not sameness – for just as the rainbow, it is made of different shades living side by side in peace, influencing and fertilizing one another – the Hebraic Tribal Way is seeking for ways to transform fear, suspicion and violence to love, trust and playfulness. The Hebraic Tribal Way is aiming to create a culture of peace on a green-blue planet Earth.