At the beginning of this month I blogged about the terse, baffling Kabbalistic text called Sifra di-Tzeniuta, "The Book of Concealment." It's found in the second volume of the Zohar, written in Aramaic like the rest of the Zohar, yet orders of magnitude more cryptic and therefore, perhaps, more … [Read more...]
Sifra di-Tzeniuta – “The Book of Concealment”
"The Book of Concealment. The book that weighs in the balance. For until there was the balance, they did not look at one another face to face, and the Ancient Kings died and their ornaments could not be found and the earth ceased to be." That's how I understand the opening words of the short, … [Read more...]
Sabbatai Zevi, the “Holy Serpent,” and the Passover Plate
This is a post for Passover, the Jewish holiday celebrating the Exodus from Egypt, which starts tonight. It's on a subject, though, that at first sight doesn't seem to have much to do with the festival. Snakes. Snakes, not as a zoological but as a psychological reality. Snakes, not for what … [Read more...]
“Mystery of the Great Dragon” – Zohar, Kabbalah, and Evil
"Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers ..." --Ezekiel 29:3 Ezekiel's Hebrew word for "dragon" is tannim. It's the same word that, in its more common spelling tannin, is used in Genesis 1:21, "And God created great whales." … [Read more...]
God in His Mother’s Womb – Journal of an Eibeschuetz Translator
I intended to blog about UFOs this week. I really did. But my mind and spirit have been where they've dwelt for the past several weeks: in the eerie Kabbalistic world of Jonathan Eibeschuetz, the 18th-century rabbi, alleged pornographer, and in fact designer of a new faith that was to redeem all … [Read more...]
