Pestilence: Leprosy vs. Black Goo - Metzorah - 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 Metzorah, the 5th reading of the book of Leviticus, that deals with purity/impurity laws surrounding leprosy in people and houses, as well as menstruation.

The Venom Symbiote, Spider-man 3

There's a common science-fiction trope in which a black, viscous substance infects people and takes over their bodies. X-files, Helix, Prometheus and Spider-man all feature a threatening Black Goo that corrupts and spreads with a reason and purpose we can't really comprehend.

The black oil functions as disease given corporeal form, a physical manifestation of our greatest fears about illness, as human beings get infected and lose control of our bodies. This ichor can't be reasoned with or spoken to, it is a faceless, relentless force that can never be entirely gotten rid of.

Magic: the Gathering has its own example of this trope that is particularly relevant for our Torah portion of Metzorah - the Phyrexian oil. Magic's Phyrexians are an infectious, invasive force that consumes and compleats people, animals, plants and whole worlds and environments. It is a living, intelligent disease that corrupts not only living beings but rocks and planets, and as long as a single drop survives Phyrexia can be reborn.

Metzorah stands in interesting contrast with this trope. Our Torah reading is concerned about illness, and in particular Tzara'at (translated as leprosy but certainly not our modern disease that has the same name) that can infect both people and houses, rendering both impure and requiring various diagnoses and rituals to remove the problem.

And yet we never get a sense that the Tzara'at is a being, or is caused by a being, acting with intention. Where the Black Goo acts as if it has intelligence, one that may be beyond our comprehension, Tzara'at is presented without personality or a sense of purpose - it just happens.

This might strike you as obvious - and indeed it may fit well with our modern sense of disease - but it is not the only way that sickness is presented in the Bible.

Let me introduce you to Resheph, the god/demon of disease.

Magic Leviathans - A Gathering of Sea Monsters

Let's see what we can find in Ula's Temple

To celebrate my 200th blog post here on Mythic Writing, I wanted to do something a little different. As became obvious in my Pekudei installment of Mythic Torah, I am a devoted fan of the collectible card game 'Magic: the Gathering', made by Wizards of the Coast.


Now Magic has a lot of different creatures in the game, from Armadillos to Zombies, but among my favourite, are of course, the Leviathans.

In Magic's 20 year history, there have been 15 different Leviathans printed (as well as Krakens, Serpents, Octopi, Fish, Merfolk and Cephalids), so I thought that I would run down the Biblical roots of these 15 Leviathans, and rank them from least to most Biblical in abilities, art and gameplay. Then I'm going to supply each of them with Biblical verse that would work as new flavour text.

Everyone with me? Then in reverse order:

All images are copyright of Wizards of the Coast

15] Segovian Leviathan - Legends
The only Magic Leviathan with an actual biblical quote falls right at the bottom of the list for one simple reason - it's tiny. At only 3/3, the Segovian Leviathan is the same size as a Hill Giant or Canyon Minotaur, whereas Leviathans should be world-consuming monstrosities, enormous creatures that dominate the board and your opponents.

A lesser sin is the card's depiction of a leviathan as a colourful fish. While later rabbininic sources imagine Leviathan as a fish (how else could it be kosher?) the Bible calls it a nachash, a snake, suggesting a creature far more reptilian.

It's since been stated that Segovia is a tiny plane where everything is miniature in size, explaining why the plane's largest inhabitant, its Leviathan, is only a 3/3, but this creature's diminutive stature is enough to earn the Segovian Leviathan last place on our list.

New Flavour Text:
"Will you play with him like a bird? And bind him for your young girls?"
 -Job 40:29

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:

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?