God of Fire and Forge - Pekudei - Mythic Torah

Purphoros, God of the Forge by Eric Deschamps, from Magic: The Gathering

 "Purphoros is the god of the forge, the restless earth, and fire. He rules the raw creative force of heat and energy that fills the souls of sentient beings. His energy emerges as chaos, something to be harnessed and shaped by labor and passion. For this reason, Purphoros is also the god of artisans, of obsession, and of the cycle of creation and destruction."
 -Planeswalker's Guide to Theros

As much time as I spend thinking about Sea Monsters, I probably spend more thinking about Magic: The Gathering, the awesome collectible card game published by Wizards of the Coast. While I love games of all kinds, Magic has the amazing combination of endlessly varied gameplay, the opportunity to experiment and be creative, and unbelievable fantasy art, that it has become my absolute favourite.

The idea behind Magic, and other collectible card games, is that every few months a new set of cards comes out, giving you hundreds of new possibilities for building your decks, and each year the game is set on a different fantasy world.

Now given everything you know about me, you can probably imagine my excitement when I discovered that this year would be set on a world inspired by Greek mythology, a world called Theros. This rich fantasy world has an equally rich pantheon, and one of the major gods is called Purphoros, god of the forge.

As the quote above shows, Purphoros is both the god of fire and destruction, and the god of artisans and artistic creation, the god who creates powerful enchantments and artefacts, and the god of violent rage and consuming fire.

This combination of art and fire marks the end of this week's parasha of Pekudei. We've spend much of the last month reading about the plans and construction of the mishkan, the mobile tabernacle in the wilderness, and after we've read about all these artistic and creative works, God finally manifests in the holy sanctuary:

From the Deep - Playing with Leviathan - Psalm 104

Psalm 104:24-26 

    24] How manifold are your works, O Lord! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. 25] So is this great and wide sea, where there are innumerable creeping things, living things, small and great. 26] There go the ships; and Leviathan that You created to play with.

כד מָה־רַבּוּ מַעֲשֶׂיךָ ׀ ה' כֻּלָּם בְּחָכְמָה עָשִׂיתָ מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ קִנְיָנֶךָ: כה זֶה ׀ הַיָּם גָּדוֹל וּרְחַב יָדָיִם שָׁם רֶמֶשׂ וְאֵין מִסְפָּר חַיּוֹת קְטַנּוֹת עִם־גְּדֹלוֹת: כו שָׁם אֳנִיּוֹת יְהַלֵּכוּן לִוְיָתָן זֶה יָצַרְתָּ לְשַׂחֶק־בּוֹ:

It's been a little while.

My baby daughter is 4 weeks old and doing all the things a 4-week old should do (they mostly involve bodily functions). Meanwhile, with minimum sleep I return to Mythic Writing and my ongoing series 'From the Deep', to delve once more into the mythic layer of the Bible.

Psalm 104 is a praise of the orderliness and greatness of God's creation. It holds a special place in my heart now, not just because of the Leviathan reference, but because we used the first two verses as part of our Simchat Bat ceremony to celebrate the birth of our daughter.

The psalmist praises how God "established the earth on its foundations" (v5), gives drink to every creature (v11) and so on. Psalm 104 is full of the joy of the natural world. In the context of all this splendour, verses 25-26 are another part of the greatness of creation - the marvelous sea with all its creatures, including the Leviathan, created for God to 'play with'.

What does it mean that the sea monster Leviathan, that we have seen as the manifestation of chaos, was created by God to play with?