Is it true that a virgin is the Shekinah?

Is it true, as Avraham Yitzchak Green claims in his new book, that the female image of the Shekinah in Jewish Kabbalah is a response to the Christian worship of the Virgin Mary? On the dangers of a method that relies on the approximation of time and place

Yehuda Liebes
The Shekinah, Miriam the Virgin and the Song of Songs: Reflections on a Kabbalistic Symbol in its Christian Context, by Avraham Yitzchak (Arthur) Green, translated from English by David Lubish, edited by Elhanan Reiner and Gideon Efrat, series of canvases, published by Arena Hess, 71, XNUMX pages

This book deals with a big secret from a furnace
The Song of Songs, drawing by Shraga Weil. The great virtue of the Shekinah in the Zohar book is not virginity
of the religion of Israel - the origin of the Shekinah, the consort of the Holy One, blessed be He. Since the beginning of the study of Kabbalah, researchers have debated the meaning of what seems to them to be a great mystery: how did this figure, who is all female Eros, arrive at the image of the divinity of the Kabbalists in the Middle Ages; What suddenly happened to the God of Israel, the one and only one who is enough for him alone? Now comes Prof. Avraham Yitzchak (Arthur) Green, one of the greatest scholars of Judaism in the United States, and offers a simple solution to this, which he articulates on the first page: "The unambiguous female image of the Shekinah in the Kabbalah of the thirteenth century is a Jewish response to the revival of the cult of Mary in the Western Church in the century 12 and adapting the image at the center of this ritual to a Jewish framework.

The correspondence in time and place is the main evidence for this thesis, which has already been voiced in the past (as indicated here on p. 32): since the Shekinah rose to prominence in a nearby region and in a period adjacent to the rise of Miriam worship, this is evidence that this worship influenced the figure of the Shekinah. But in my opinion such evidence should not be brought except as an addition to a convincing conceptual and textual study. Excessive reliance on time and place has a methodological flaw that may lead to wrong conclusions.

I learned about the dangers of this method in the past from a similar type: the assumption of an Arab and Islamic influence on the Zohar, which is also acceptable from the point of view of the time and place, and is not confirmed in fact. Since, even after much effort, I could find in the Zohar only a few Arabisms and faint echoes of the presence of Islam, my Zohar studies served as a target for a severe attack by those who found this finding did not satisfy their political-ideological views, even though the attacker did not bring examples, and was content with examples instead. A future historian will also make a similar mistake if he claims that in the 21st century there was a deep Arab influence on the people of the Hebrew University, since at that time Jerusalem was a Jewish-Arab city. The path of the spirit is not so simple, and it does not follow precisely the same paths as the historian expects from it, and the searcher for the "required" comparisons is sometimes similar to the one looking for the penny under the lamp. And truly more than the image of the Virgin Miriam, I had the opportunity to shine in the image of Helen of Troy, distant in time and place, and about the echoes of her image that have settled in the Jewish myth I intend to write (with God's help).

Green also brings parallels between the descriptions of the Shekinah in the beginning of Kabbalah and the descriptions of the Virgin Mary in contemporary Christian literature. These Kabbalahs are both interesting and instructive, and it is possible to learn something from them about the general spiritual background for the growth of Kabbalah, and perhaps they are also able to illuminate certain nuances in the description of the Shekinah, but they do not provide proof of the general thesis about the origin of the Shekinah from the virgin. These are not really textual parallels, as Green writes himself, who admits that he has no evidence that Jews read the Christian writings he cites (p. 43). These are general parallels between two female figures who are on the border between the divine and the human, and as such may serve as mediators. Another general similarity is related to the degree of grace and mercy that both shower on their proteges (although Shekinah also has a demonic and harsh side, which is often emphasized in her image), or to the torments that both suffer, this one as the Mater dolorosa and the other as the goddess in her exile, torments that are very different in nature and circumstances, the purpose of which is explained in the sources textuals that long precede the appearance of Kabbalah.

Indeed, it goes without saying that beside the parallels there are also many differences between the Shekinah and the Virgin, and we will now expand on one of them. The great virtue of the Shekinah in the Zohar is not virginity, but rather the pairing with her husband. When pairing is good for the world, and lack of pairing is exile and the source of all evil. This is a matter of principle in the Zoharic worldview, which elevates sexual contact to the highest degree of sanctity and first-class religious worship, above everything known from the other sources of Judaism. Green also recognizes the gap between the Zohar ideal and the Christian one, and he beautifully describes the bodily sexual symbolism, which is very virginal, typical of Zohar literature. But even this is related to the influence of the Christian virgin, because in his opinion it is she who also opened the way to sexual eroticism, which is contrary to nature, and made possible the "return of the repressed" (pp. 42-41). It is difficult to argue with such psychological acrobatics, which claims to put the 13th century Kabbalists on the sexologist's couch, and reveals a Christian influence even in what goes against the spirit of that religion.

Green explains this transformation by claiming that the Jews "do not have a tradition that glorifies virginity" (p. 60). This is a somewhat surprising explanation coming from the mouth of someone who believes that the whole idea of ​​the female Shekinah came to Judaism not from an internal tradition but from the influence of the worship of the Virgin in Christianity; Why exactly at this point will the problem of lack of tradition arise? In addition to this, even in Judaism one can find sources that acknowledge the value of sexual celibacy to a certain extent, and those who are influenced by Christianity can develop in this direction and not necessarily its opposite, which is the entire negation of Christian morality, since the Zohar is not satisfied with "not glorifying virginity", but rather condemns it and glorifies the opposite of her. Green is indeed correct in raising the question of why precisely in the days of the Zohar the sexual ideal reached its highest point, but the answer to this question will not be found in the influence of the opposite Christian ideal, the ideal of virginity (in my opinion, the Zohar sexuality must be understood, at least in part, as a branch of the process most characteristic of this literature: Intensification of the mythical elements in the words of the Sages).

The contrast with Christianity is even more pronounced on the other side of the glamorous sexual morality. On the side of sanctifying marriage, the Zohar strongly denies celibacy, and describes it in demonic descriptions, as an attribute of the devil ("stra achra"). Celibacy is connected here to the field of sexual promiscuity, which the Zohar condemns with the same force as it mandates the proper pairing, and is mainly linked to the sin of voiding semen, which in the Zohar becomes the most difficult of all sins. Sometimes it seems that the demonization of celibacy is also aimed at the Christian monks or the popes, such as in the parts of "Haidarot", where the Zohar describes the kings of Edom who reigned and died "before the king of the children of Israel" (according to Genesis Lu, La-Lat). These ancient kings symbolize the world of chaos that preceded the world of correction or redemption, and the defect that led to their failure and death was, according to the Zohar, precisely the defect of celibacy.

Miriam or Knesset Israel

The parallels that Green brings between the descriptions of the Shekinah and the Christian theory of the virgin become even more evident in light of the common substrate on which they grew: both these and these interpret one basic text, the scroll of the Song of Songs. Green emphasizes this very much in his book, a large part of which is devoted to an interesting review of the Jewish and Christian interpretation of the Song of Songs, but from this review I learned more about the parallel lines of the two types of interpretation than about the influence of one on the other, and I do not see how the conclusion comes from this that the Kabbalistic interpretation needs To Mary, the mother of Jesus, to mediate between her and the ancient Jewish tradition, which identifies the woman in the scroll with the Knesset of Israel.

Even in the eyes of medieval Kabbalists, the female figure of the Song of Songs is the Knesset of Israel, and it is difficult to understand what the Mother of God would do here, a figure foreign and strange to the tradition of Israel and to the simplicity of the Scriptures, when even among Christians "Mary's place as a wife in the Song of Songs is quite complex and not without difficulties", as which Green himself writes (p. 13). The identification of the wife with the ancient Knesset of Israel is more and even more natural (the letters of the Sages and the fathers of the church reveal a hidden debate between the identification of the wife with the Knesset of Israel and her identification with the Christian Church, which is less complicated than the identification with the virgin). Already in the scriptures David makes his wife the capital of the Kingdom of Israel And Yehuda ("My wife is beautiful as she is, fair as Jerusalem", Song of Songs XNUMX:XNUMX), and the prophets of Israel interpreted these songs about God and his people even before that the songs came together in their scroll, and created the "Sheer of Songs" (important biblical scholars such as Yair Zakovitz have already insisted on this). Giving priority to the Christians, who did not read the scroll in its original language, is suspect, and this indeed appears in the conclusion at the end of the book; that is where Green speaks About the debt that the Jews actually owe to the Christians, and complains about the scholars who did not sufficiently recognize this heavy debt.

In this respect, Green's opinion rests. Recently, there have been many studies that share his path, which state, for example, that the Passover Haggadah, in which the story of the exodus from Egypt is indeed the story of the exodus of the people of Israel from the house of slaves and the Passover sacrifice means the slaughter of a lamb from the flock, is nothing but a response to the Christian allegorical interpretation, which distanced itself from the scriptures, their meaning and language, And according to him there is no exodus from Egypt but the redemption of the soul through Jesus, God.

It therefore seems that the solution offered by Green to the problem of the appearance of the Shekinah as a female figure is more difficult than the problem itself. One should prefer the solution of Gresham Shalom, a great Kabbalah scholar, whose words on this matter are quoted and discussed here in detail on page 28, according to which this figure was born when the Kabbalists identified the Shekinah and the Knesset of Israel. This identification allowed them to attribute to the Shekinah, to that lower divine aspect (which already had some feminine meaning, because it was considered a receptacle for that which is above it), the entire theory of the Knesset of Israel, which was always depicted as the wife of God.

Allegory and myth

This explanation of Shalom might have been accepted more easily, had not his birth father sabotaged him. Shalom himself continued to see the appearance of the Shekinah as a female figure in the early days of Kabbalah as a great eruption in the heart of Judaism, which revolutionarily changed the traditional image of the Knesset of Israel. Green, who notes this here with agreement, concludes from this that the problem still exists and needs a solution, and such is found in his opinion under the influence of the figure of the Virgin.

But in my opinion, the descriptions of the break with the tradition of the beginning of Kabbalah (whose name actually means "tradition") are exaggerated. Shalom continues and adheres here to some of the prejudices that characterized the previous study of Judaism, and against which he came out. Before Gresham Shalom's research work, there was a prevailing belief that Judaism by its very nature denies myth, and the unity of God means its perception as a kind of abstract concept (and a sworn celibacy). Shalom rebelled in this by pointing out the Kabbalah myth and its importance in later Judaism, but nevertheless admitted somewhat that in his eyes, Kabbalah was a mythical outbreak in the non-mythical world of "rabbinic Judaism". In his opinion, the Knesset of Israel of the Midrashim is nothing more than a literary, metaphorical or allegorical expression, and the Kabbalah caused a huge revolution when it identified it with the Shekinah, and turned it into a mythical divine figure, the spouse of God Almighty.

But in the last generation, other voices were also heard, which pointed to the myth that also exists in the Midrash of Sages and the traditional image of the Knesset of Israel. This can be found, for example, in the many studies of Moshe Idel, and even in the study of the writer of these lines "The Jewish Myth and its Incarnation" (in the memorial book for Ephraim Gottlieb) In this article I tried to show that Jewish monotheism is fundamentally mythical, even if the nature of this myth changes with the change of periods, literary genres and the directions of thought (even in philosophy, which is waging war against the myth, something of it remains, as long as it remains within the framework of Judaism). In the process, its vitality sometimes weakened, and the Kabbalistic writings actually became less mythical than their midrashic sources (an exception to this rule is the Zohar, which uses the ten The Sefirot are precisely to awaken and revive the spirit of the Talmudic myth, and as a result of this conscious revival a fierce myth of a new kind was born.

More on the antiquity of the Jewish myth about God's consort and on Avraham Yitzchak Green's book - next week
A rose that raises a scent and is chosen more than the rest of the world's flowers

by Yehuda Leibs

More doubts about the thesis regarding the origin of the Jewish Shekinah from the Christian Virgin and about the post-modern tendency to discredit Gershom Shalom. Second and last chapter in the article about the book "The Shekinah, the Virgin Mary and the Song of Songs"
Virgin Mary and Jesus surrounded by flowers, painting by Bruegel Jr
The Shekinah, Miriam the Virgin and the Song of Songs: Reflections on a Kabbalistic Symbol in its Christian Context, by Avraham Yitzchak (Arthur) Green, translated from English by David Lubish, edited by Elhanan Reiner and Gideon Efrat, series of canvases, published by Arena Hess, 71, XNUMX pages

As argued in the first part of this article last week, the myth about God's spouse is anchored in our sources much more than it is common to think. Already in the first religious sources, this figure really exists, and should not be seen as just a form of speech or an expression of religious emotion. The spouse has a part It is important in the image of the jealous biblical God (perhaps one can even find a theoretical formulation for this matter in Genesis 5:2, even if it is very refined, because of the respect) and so also in the literature Sage. The descriptions of the people as a woman, sometimes faithful and sometimes a prostitute, are so consistent, deep and detailed in the Torah and the Prophets, in the Book of Lamentations and in the interpretations of the Song of Songs, that they cannot be merely metaphorical or allegorical.

It is impossible to draw a sharp and smooth line between metaphor, personification and myth (those who are in ancient Greek literature are very aware of this), and the mythical dimension found in the erotic descriptions of Ma'ala should not be eliminated, even if its ontological validity changes in its various literary expressions. The mythic dimension in the image of the Knesset of Israel added strength and heroism when it was merged in the Middle Ages with other ancient myths that are concerned with cosmic female figures (such as the earth, the moon or the wisdom), which already had a certain affinity between her and them, as well as with the Shekinah, the lower divine aspect, and all these took shape For the creation of the rich symbol of the tenth kabbalistic sefira (according to Zohar HA, Mat AA and more, one can perhaps take into account Also a certain Stychic revival of the figure of Asherah, who appears in ancient inscriptions as the consort of the God of Israel and was angrily rejected by the prophets, but it is doubtful whether it is possible to find real continuity from this figure to the Kabbalistic Shekinah).

Green himself previously wrote an excellent book in which he follows the incarnation of an ancient myth from the books of the Sages and the chariot up to Kabbalah, the myth of the crown of God, which in Kabbalah also merged with the image of the Shekinah. One could also expect Green to be more flexible regarding the allegorical status of the Knesset of Israel in the literature of the Sages and its extra-divine status, since he himself, in defending his thesis regarding the origin of the Shekinah from the Virgin, attacks the scholars who deny this on the grounds that the wife in the Song of Songs is interpreted in the Christian writings as referring to the Virgin Allegorically only, and that the virgin in Christianity is not divine. In contrast, Green claims that there is not To adopt such a rigid definition of the term allegory, and one should not draw such a clear boundary between it and the Kabbalistic symbol, and that one should not take too seriously the Christian example regarding the virgin's extra-divine position, and one should also take into account the religious reality in practice.

In this context, I would like to mention that rabbinic Judaism was much less theological and dogmatic than the Christian church, and if in Christianity the boundary between the divine and the human can be taken lightly, not so much in the literature of the Sages.

Zionist research and its enemies

Green is so sure of the correctness of the thesis regarding the origin of the Shekinah from the virgin, that he even takes the time to deal with the question of what caused Gershom Shalom to "ignore" this proven Christian influence on Kabbalah (pp. 33-32). In actually raising the question, I find, apart from self-satisfaction, also a demonization of the figure of Gresham Shalom, that supposedly everything that a future veteran researcher would innovate should have already been put in his bag. This strange reference is not peculiar to Green alone. In recent years, we have received an abundance of studies that analyze Shalom's silence on various issues, and because of this, call him harsh names from the linguistic treasury of the postmodernist "discourse".

Indeed, this demonization, more than an attempt to increase the image of Shalom, came to discredit him. For this purpose, some even use the most difficult accusation they have in their arsenal: Zionism. Zionism, the revival movement of the Jewish people, is also demonized, and becomes in this "discourse" a kind of narrow-minded ideology, which came to disrupt objective study and enslave the Jewish sciences to its needs. Something of this is also found in Green's words, according to whom Gresham Shalom "worked hard to ignore" the parallels to the Kabbalah in Christianity and Islam, in order to give the Kabbalah an authentic Jewish uniqueness. Lully did this "Judaism was depicted as a minority culture in both societies, subject to cultural shaping by the forces of the majority. It could not be a 'national' culture".

It seems that more than Green reveals here the ideological bias in Shalom's teaching, he reveals his own tendency, even if later he himself is a little frightened by this conclusion, which logically arises from the fact that he sees himself following the same path that Shalom avoided, as well as from the general thesis of his book , in which even the Knesset of Israel becomes a proselytizer that came from outside. A few lines later, Green speaks in a different tone, and acknowledges that the Kabbalists responded not only to "external stimulation" but also to "an internal need", and that they also drew from their "enormous knowledge of Israeli literature".

I do not know why Green omits here the source on which the Kabbalists themselves explicitly rely: acceptance of an ancient tradition, as well as the revelations from above attributed in the sources to some of their leaders. In any case, even in this wording there is no real contradiction or cancellation of his other words, and it even seems that the subjection of Judaism "to cultural shaping by the forces of the majority" corresponds to the direction taken by Green as an American spiritual leader, who, according to my impression, seeks to promote the status of Judaism but as one of the subcurrents that diversify the culture the general in the United States (I was once present at Beit Green at a Shabbat Havdalah ceremony, and I remember how he offensively omitted the Havdalah sign between Israel to the nations).

It is true that Zionist research also proceeds from a basic premise: the recognition that a Jewish people and a Jewish culture and a Jewish religion do exist in reality, which should be presented in all dimensions of their lives and in their enormous diversity, but without giving up the principle of internal unity. It is also true that this basic premise does not arise on its own from the facts, and for it you need flesh and blood researchers, who remain subjects even when they are committed to objectivity. But I think that the textual data cooperates more willingly with the Zionist premise than with the post-Zionist ideology, which is even more aware of itself as an ideology, and much more manipulative.

Zionist research is far from ignoring foreign influences on Israeli culture. He is far from returning the study to internal speculation only, and to be satisfied with questions like "what is difficult for Rashi". mentally, and it is impossible to know her without them.

This was also the way of Gresham Shalom, whose silences above were not and were not created, and the claim about his ignoring Christianity is also not true. Shalom's studies are full of comparisons to the general culture, and from them comes a great knowledge of the sources of Christianity, and even the classical source languages. My objection to Green's thesis is also not an objection to the study of Christian influences on Judaism. On the contrary, I also contributed to this work, and I showed, for example, how the first Jewish-Christians left their mark on the Eighteenth Prayer, and introduced a change in it that could be interpreted as a hint to the name of Jesus, and how in the Middle Ages Jesus entered the prayer arrangement as one of the angels in charge of the sound of the shofar.

The subject before us, Christian influences on the Zohar, is also not foreign to me, and in the article I wrote about it Green finds "a landmark in research" (p. 46. I would like to thank my friend Art Green for this comment). In this research, I even touched on the question of the Virgin (it is perhaps necessary to slightly correct Green's comment on my research: "He did not touch on the question of the worship of Mary"), and I showed that it is necessary for a Zoharic messiah to speak of the sealed sign that is better explained according to a Christian sermon, which found in this sign an allusion to the sealed womb of the virgin

But I adopted a different style, and I made sure to note in this context only clear parallels, when it seems to me that the connection between the Christian and Jewish texts is philologically established, and in all of these I found nothing but a garnet addition and enrichment to the Kabbalistic thought, when the roots of the fundamental myths are actually found in the ancient sources of Judaism, even if these were read by the Kabbalists in new combinations and with new eyes. The primary mythical elements (mythologomena), those that establish and shape the foundations of religion, its basic views, the moral theory and the sacred work, cannot be considered an import from outside, as long as we find internal roots for them, and as long as we do not bring solid and clear proofs of an external source. This is certainly the case with the Knesset of Israel, the main symbol that expresses the Jewish national consciousness.

When I wrote (about twenty years ago) the studies about the Jewish connection to Christianity, it seemed to me that the study of Judaism was narrow and closed, and only looked inward (the article about Jesus in the eighteenth prayer did indeed also take a toll in the field of academic advancement), but today it seems that the door has been opened excessively, And with unbearable ease, the Jewish identity is erased by scholars whose historical existence does not fit their political trend (though aside from this phenomenon, the old apologetic closure has not yet passed away). One must therefore strive for the middle way between two evils: a balanced study, which presents the religion of Israel as it develops from its origins, and also its renewal, change and diversification in negotiations with the general culture.

Shoshana between the seas

In such a balance, in my opinion, the correct solution to the question of the origin of the female figure of the Shekinah will also be found. This character came mainly from the literature of the midrash, even if in its development lines of make-up originating from Christianity were added to it. Such lines were borrowed less from the figure of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, and more from the figure of the church, which was described as his wife (Mary and the church essentially remained two separate figures, even if here and there there was some fusion between them, as Green describes on p. 37), as well as the figure of the Holy Spirit.

And perhaps it is possible to find some confirmation of this statement also in the words of Zohar himself, who often shows awareness of the path he is taking. I am referring to one of the Zohar articles that deals with the image of the Shekinah (Zohar 22, Capt 22), which emerges as expected from one of the images of the Song of Songs (2:2): "When she sleeps among the men, so I graze among the girls." In the eyes of the Zohar, as in the eyes of the Sages, the rose represents the Knesset of Israel, the congregation of the congregation of Israel. But the Zohar adds and points out that G-d wanted to make this rose in the pattern of his supreme rose, she is the Shekinah called "Raiti", and precisely because of this he planted it among the houms, which are not are presented here precisely in a negative way, since (translated from Aramaic to Hebrew) "The rose that gives off a scent and is chosen more than the rest of the flowers of the world, is none other than the one that rises among the roses". The corals therefore praise the scent of the rose among them, but of course they are not the source of its essence.

These rings surely symbolize the nations of the world, and especially the Egyptians, among whom Israel became a nation. On its explicit side, this glowing article mainly deals with the political and economic relationship between them and the Israelites, but from the logic of things, it can be concluded that such men are also found around the upper rose (they are the "daughters" in the verse), and they are certainly the ministers of the nations, the angels in charge of the Gentiles, who are related, according to several places In the Zohar, also with the gods of the peoples and their religions (see Zohar HA Ki, 12; Reku 12), and it is possible that the connection between them and the rose is also spiritual-cultural. The Hochuim owe a great duty to them, as long as the Hochuim was planted among them, "they (the Hochuim) put up branches and leaves, and ruled the world", but "at the time when God asked for the Hochuim to take it out from among them (in the Exodus, And according to the Song of Songs 6, b) then the fishes dried up and were thrown away and consumed and were not counted as anything."

Later in the same article, which deals with the mythical meaning of Israel's history and its revelations, the Shekinah is depicted as the merciful mother of the people, who suffers with them in their suffering, and also as a minister and guardian who protects the people both from the wrath of his father, the Almighty, and from the wrath of the Gentiles. She is also referred to here as "Ima Kadisha" " (= the Holy Mother), and the wisher will find here the image of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Nevertheless, the main source This description is surely in the traditional form of the Knesset of Israel, as it is described for example in the Talmud, which states regarding every person from Israel, that "there is no father but the Almighty and no mother but the Knesset of Israel" (Barachot, La 2b).