Wicked Witchcraft - Kedoshim - Mythic Torah

Welcome back to Mythic Torah, my regular article investigating monsters, heroes and gods in the weekly Torah reading. This week's reading is Kedoshim, the 7th reading of the book of Leviticus, that demands that the Israelites be holy, for God too is holy.

 

Those fingers in my hair
That sly come-hither stare
That strips my conscience bare
It's witchcraft
And I've got no defense for it
The heat is too intense for it
What good would common sense for it do?
'cause it's witchcraft, wicked witchcraft
And although I know it's strictly taboo
When you arouse the need in me
My heart says "Yes, indeed" in me
"Proceed with what you're leadin' me to"
It's such an ancient pitch
But one I wouldn't switch
'cause there's no nicer witch than you
-Frank Sinatra, Witchcraft

Sinatra's 1957 hit 'Witchcraft' encapsulates both the attraction and the revulsion that human culture has felt towards witches over the millennia - the magic strops away his conscience, removing any free will to resist the witch's seduction, yet at the same time his heart says "yes indeed", and he states that there is no "nicer witch".

This week's parasha of Kedoshim calls on the people of Israel to be holy, for God is holy, and contains ethical imperatives and sexual prohibitions. But spread throughout the parasha are 3 verses about magic: Lev 19:31, Lev 20:6, and 20:27 all contain prohibitions against what we might call witchcraft, or more accurately spiritualism or consulting with the spirits of the dead:

Eros, Creation and Holiness - Tazriah - Mythic Torah

Welcome back to Mythic Torah, my regular article investigating monsters, heroes and gods in the weekly Torah reading. This week's reading is Tazriah, the 4th reading of the book of Leviticus, that deals with purity/impurity laws surrounding birth and leprosy.

If you had to write a creation myth, what would be your basic image? How would the world come into being?

When Tolkien answered this question, writing the Ainulindalë that begins his most mythic work of fiction, the Silmarillion, he had the world created out of music and song. Illuvatar, the chief of the Ainur, the gods of Middle Earth, has all the ainur join in a song before presenting them with the work of their artistry:

"But when they were come into the Void, Ilúvatar said to them: ‘Behold your Music!’ And he showed to them a vision, giving to them sight where before was only hearing; and they saw a new World made visible before them, and it was globed amid the Void, and it was sustained therein, but was not of it. And as they looked and wondered this World began to unfold its history, and it seemed to them that it lived and grew. And when the Ainur had gazed for a while and were silent, Ilúvatar said again: ‘Behold your Music! This is your minstrelsy; and each of you shall find contained herein, amid the design that I set before you, all those things which it may seem that he himself devised or added."
-The Silmarillion

Tolkien's vision of creation through singing is a powerful statement of creation through art, and art as creation. It is an abstract kind of creating, that arises from the mind and soul before being expressed through vocal chords and sounds.

But almost all mythologies of the ancient near east went in very different directions, choosing instead one (or both) of two basic motifs - sex and combat.

I've spoken a fair amount about the combat motif of creation, in which the earth is carved from the carcass of a slain monster such as Tiamat (in Babylonian myth). But with our parasha's interest in the process of procreation, Tazriah seems a good time to look at the other kind of creation.