Kabbalunch: "If Holiness, Holiness: If Defilement, Defilement"...

A friend and colleague of mine, Adam Zagoria-Moffet, recently posted an excellent piece on the nature of exorcism in Judaism, that connects nicely with my own take on it in my fantasy novel Radiance. Check it out!

Top 10 Masks

In honour of the festival of Purim, I have written an article for Jewish Eyes on the Arts - Oholiav, giving my top 10 masks of pop-culture (with my own kabbalistic interpretation).

Check it out here!


And there's nothing written after the jump, why would there be?

Calling from the Heights

Based on a teaching of the Netivot Shalom about this week's torah reading, Mishpatim.

On the heights I called to You
Clung to Your presence and found You waiting,
Wrapped myself deep within the You that is I,
That i that is You,
Immersed, Submerged and Subsumed.

But the moment cannot be sustained.

Every height has its depth,
To every hill a ravine deep and treacherous -
And all things fall.

And in the depths I called to you,
From the valley of death I lifted my voice,
But could not hear You, so loud were my cries in my own ears.

Yet there is a torah of the depths as well as the heights,
Teaching for the fall as well as the rise -
Not given on flaming mountains, thundered through the shofar blast,
but in small voices,
Silent words of solace,
whispered by the wind.

And in the deep I found my rest,
I found my Me that speaks with You.

And when I’m ready to begin once more, I know the mountain will still be there,
Calling from the heights.

Radiance - Reflections, Plans and Revisions

Writing Radiance
Almost exactly a year ago, I first put finger to keyboard to begin to write my Kabbalistic Fantasy novel, Radiance. 35 chapters and 50,000 words later, the first draft of Radiance stands complete.

Originally inspired by my Yom Kippur resolution to be more creative, and my discovery of National Novel Writing Month (NoNoWriMo - which I slightly overshot...) it's been quite a journey, and one I've really enjoyed.

Having said that, I've had the basic story of Radiance floating around my head for about five years now, so it's rather strange that it now also exists in fully-formed words, that others have also read. It always feels good once an idea has moved from brain to paper, and yet it feels a little empty too - much of the creative work has been done, leaving the editing, the rewriting, the revising.

Samael vs. Satan

Chapter 28 of Radiance, with its vision of Divine Justice, raises the question of Jewish views of Satan, especially as compared to Samael or Ashmedai. While in my story, Satan is a member of the heavenly court not the Sitra Achra, in the tradition things aren't quite so simple.

So what can we say about Jewish views of Satan, and how do they compare to Samael and other more obviously villainous characters from Jewish mythology?

SaTaN
In Hebrew, words are generally built out of three letter roots that are then conjugated in different ways to produce multiple meanings. The three base letters of Satan are שטן which means to oppose or to be an adversary against.

Now the Bible uses the root of the Satan 4 times in reference to some kind of divine being, in Numbers 22, Zechariah 3, Job 1-2 and 1 Chronicles 21. But to understand these references we should bear in mind that the word is also used for human characters (for example 1 Samuel 29) - because in the human sphere, the word Satan has two distinct but related uses, one is a military opponent, and the other is a more formal court prosecutor.

Its the use of Satan as a formal court prosecutor that really interests me, an aspect that is really played up in Zechariah 3 and Job 1-2, where Satan seems to be a role that angels sometimes play in the divine court, rather than the personal name of a particular creature. 

Radiance - Behind the scenes 3

Hod/Splendour and Netzach/Victory are up, so I thought it was time for a third Behind the Scenes (you can read catchup with the first and the second). Let me know if you have any thoughts or questions about Radiance so far - I really want to hear your feedback. While at the beginning of the project I was 5 weeks ahead of posting, with the tidal wave of work that hit me towards the end of the semester I ended up way behind. I'm now clawing ahead again but this means that there has never been a better time to give me feedback on where the story is going and what you want to see.

Netzach and Hod
These two sefirot are probably the hardest to pin down of any of the ten, and are not much discussed in the Zohar. My general impression of them is that they are like the sefirot above them (Chessed and Gevurah respectively) but more tangible, closer to the physical world. They are also almost always treated together rather than alone. That's why I decided to almost combine these two sefirot into the same section of the novel. While each has its own verses, they only combine to 4 chapters, the same as the other sections.

Radiance - Behind the Scenes 2

Now that Yesod is all online, I thought it was time for another glimpse behind the scenes, giving you some more of the kabbalistic imagery burning in my feverish brain.

As always, if you have any more thoughts or questions, let me know!

The Staff of Moses - The idea that Virgo as the representation of Tiferet should wield the staff of Moses initially came to me as a way of cutting down the number of characters needed to play the lower 7 aspects of the sefirot. Since Yesod is often the power of Tiferet, I reasoned that it could be represented by Tiferet's weapon rather than by a character in its own right. Since yesod is connected deeply with male sexuality, the obvious weapon was a mythological staff or sceptre.

But then, by an extraordinary coincidence, if you believe in such things, I chanced upon a book called 'Sefer Zerubavel' - a 7th century apocalyptic work probably written in Israel - and decided to write about it for my class on medieval messianism. Reading through Zerubavel's vision of the end times, I came across an otherwise nearly unknown character called Hefzibah (my desire is in her), the mother of the Messiah ben David. In Zerubavel, Hefzibah kicks ass, slaying kings with the staff of moses, protecting the last remnants of Israel from Armilus, the Jewish antichrist, allowing them to escape into the wilderness.

Thus the image of a strong female fighter, using the mythical staff of moses, was firmly locked in my mind.

Samael vs. Ashmedai

So while we're between sections of Radiance, I was giving some thought to bigger narrative issues, and in particular the question of the main villain.

You see, when I started I wanted a major villainous figure for Asher to fight in the first chapter. I didn't want to have one of those stories where the villains are incompetent, and send useless minions to kill the hero, leading to escalating threats for the hero to defeat. No! I thought. The sitra achra should send their most powerful ally to get the job done - and who better than Ashmedai, king of the demons?

But then I came to chapter 5 and the reveal of Samael as the anti-Tiferet figure, corresponding to Virgo of the Seven, a raging figure of flames and stone.

But along with the rest of the Sitra Achra (Lillith, Naamah, Ov and the nameless one), as well as other creatures we've met and will meet, like the golem, the watchers and Leviathan, I'm worried that there are simply too many villains. The other problem is that Ashmedai (a demon) and Samael (a satanic angel) seem to have rather similar forms. So what are our options?

Radiance Behind the Scenes

With the first section of Radiance completed, I thought I would take some time to reveal my thinking behind what I wrote, especially with regards to the kabbalistic imagery. If this is of interest, I will write more along similar lines.

And if I don't address a thought or question you have, why not let me know?

Radiance - the title came from my favourite translation of the Zohar, often called the Book of Splendour. I prefer the idea of radiance because at heart, the Zohar is about movement and flow, the dynamism in the relationship between God and the universe, as well as within Himself and within each individual person. Radiance, for me, captures this movement.

The Song of Songs - this erotic love poem is often taken by the Rabbis as the love affair between God and the Jewish people, with the Jewish people cast as the woman's voice. The Kabbalists took this metaphor a step further - each Jewish person forms a tiny portion of Malchut, the lowest feminine manifestation of God. The story of the Song of Songs is the story of the stormy love affair between Kudsha Brich Hu (Tiferet, the Holy Blessed One) and the Shechina (Malchut, the presence of God), but it remains the story of God and the Jewish people.