The House of God - Terumah - Mythic Torah

"At last they rode over the downs and took the East Road, and then Merry and Pippin rode on to Buckland and already they were singing again as they went. But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill, as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap. He drew a deep breath. 'Well, I'm back,' he said."
-Return of the King, J R R Tolkien

The epic Lord of the Rings, both the book and the movie, end the same way. After a long and dangerous series of adventures, facing desperate situations and fearsome monsters, we return with Sam Gamgee to his home, to his wife and his daughter. Why does the story end this way? Why end the high fantasy narrative with the domesticity of Sam at home?

A dwelling place is also the focus of this week's Torah reading, parashat Terumah. After the exodus, the drama of the red sea, and the revelation of Sinai, the time has come, God tells Moses, for the people to build a sanctuary for the divine, so that God can dwell among the people:

The Bricks of Heaven - Mishpatim - Mythic Torah

Lucifer published by DC Comics

If you want to read a comic about Lucifer, the fallen angel starred in his own series written by Mike Carey, published by DC comics, from 1999-2006. A spinoff from Neil Gaiman's Sandman, Lucifer followed the story of the devil after he quit his job and left the management of Hell to others.

But if you want to read a comic about God, you're out of luck. With the exception of DC Vertigo's comic Preacher, whose depiction of God is graphic and theologically challenging, the big comic book publishers have chosen to keep God out of there comics.

God clearly exists in the DC universe, for example as seen in Sandman's Season of Mists, but God is never depicted. Both Marvel and DC have chosen to avoid showing God in the flesh, as it were, choosing to have God off the page, if mentioned at all.

While their reasoning may be simply to avoid offending Christians, Muslims or Jews, they are remarkably in-keeping with most of the Bible, that teaches that "you cannot see My face, for no one may see Me and live" (Exodus 33:20).

We may be surprised then to learn that in this week's parasha of Mishpatim, 74 people did just that.

The Storm God of the Torah - Yitro - Mythic Torah

Zeus and Thor by ryomablood.deviantart.com

Thor may have done very well at the box office, with two solo movies together with the Avengers, but he's far from being the first popular storm god.

Across the world, storm gods have been very popular - from Zeus in Greece to Indra in India, the storm gods have brought life giving rain to the people and protected them from rampaging monsters. The world may be full of sea serpents, but it's the storm gods that slay the dragons.

So why is the God of the Bible portrayed as a storm god? And why is the Torah itself given in the midst of a storm?

In this week's parasha of Yitro, the Israelites arrive at Mount Sinai, and God appears over the mountain, ready to speak the ten commandments to the whole nation of Israel.

Monsters vs Humans - Beshalach - Mythic Torah

Bridgman's - Pharaoh's Army Engulfed by the Sea

Have you ever wanted to watch a movie with giant robots smashing huge monsters (and why would you not)?

Then 'Pacific Rim' directed by Guillermo del Toro is the movie for you.

I recently watched this movie on a flight from London to New York, my normal time to catch up with movies now I have a young baby and am flying to the UK once a month, and was impressed by the sheer spectacle of the Jaeger machines crushing monstrous Kaiju.

I've written a lot about Leviathan over the last couple of years, in my series of From the Deep, but this movie really conjures up imagery that is strikingly similar, as robots drop from the sky to smash the monsters rising from the depths of the ocean.

A similar spectacle could have been present in this week's parasha of Beshalach, that tells the story of the Israelites fleeing Egypt and their miraculous crossing of the Sea of Reeds.

New Year, New Column

Happy New Year!

2013 was a great year for Mythic Writing, with several record-breaking months. We crossed the 6000 views mark, and headed straight past 7000 and hit 8000 before the end of the year. We finished the Book of Josiah, explained Why Mythology Matters, Rewrote Radiance and began our investigation of Leviathanin the Bible in From the Deep. Not to mention that my family increased by 50%

So what does 2014 hold for Mythic Writing?

I still have a lot of rewriting to do for Radiance before I'm ready to release the updated version, so please God this will be the year I finish that.

I also intend to continue From the Deep with Rabbinic texts about sea monsters and Leviathan.

But I also want to start something new.

So I present to you my new column - Torah Mythology of the Week, that I hope to post every Thursday, exploring mythological elements of the Torah reading for that week. Can't promise I'll hit every parasha (may get stuck around Leviticus for some time) but we'll see how it goes.

So tune in on Thursday for your first weekly dose of Torah Mythology.

A New Heaven and a New Earth - Mythic Writing's new schedule

With the conclusion of the first run of Leviathan Comics, as well as the end of the Book of Josiah, I've been thinking about my schedule of Monday and Thursday updates.

I briefly considered dropping back to only one post a week, but for the moment at least I really like the double updates - I am a man with a plan.

So from this week going on, this is the new schedule:

Monday - Personal Writings 
Including rewriting Radiance, behind the scenes, poems and other works.

Thursday - Torah Writings
Towards the end of the week I will try to post something torah related, either mythological, parashat hashavuah, Talmud or anything else that catches my eye.

This week I have a follow up to my popular post on Samael and Satan, looking at the figure of Samael in the Garden of Eden according to Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer. Next week I hope to kick off a semi-regular series analysing Biblical texts concerning Leviathan and other sea monsters.

Hope to see you there!

Sleeping Giants - Reflections on Parashat Shelach Lecha

Gigantomachy, war of the giants, is my new favourite word.

Originating from Greek mythology, the idea that in primeval days great battles were fought against Titans and Giants is common to both Classical and Norse myth - but it also occurs in the Biblical tradition.

The Bible has a three-fold tension with giants, recurring at three key moments in the history of Israel - Gen 6 that discusses the Prediluvian Giants (pre-flood and another of my favourite words), Numbers - Deuteronomy, that deals with the giants of the land, and the story of King David and his followers in Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, that show his great warriors slaying the last of these foes.

But there is a key difference between our wars with the giants and those of other mythologies. The Greek Titans were defeated by Zeus, the Frost Giants were constantly fought by Thor and Odin. Yet in our stories, the giants are fought by normal human beings.

Or were they also giants?
 

Parashat Naso - Limmud Dvar Torah (with bonus material!)

I have a dvar torah up on Limmud on One Leg's blog today for parashat Naso - check it out here and then come back for some exclusive extra bonus material.

Finished? Don't worry, I'll wait.

Take two doses of humility - Reflections on Tazria-Metzora

    A patient once went to see the doctor, complaining that she hadn’t been feeling well for several days. The doctor examined her, went away and came back with three large jars of pills.

    "Take the green pill with a big glass of water first thing in the morning,” the doctor said. “Then the blue pill with a big glass of water after lunch. Just before bed, take the red pill with another big glass of water."

    The patient was upset that she had to take so many pills, and nervously she asked “Doctor, what’s my problem?”

    The doctor replied, "You're not drinking enough water."


    In this week’s double parasha we learn about how to deal with the condition known as tzara’at, often translated as leprosy. While we may think of illnesses as needing physical cures, the torah considers such a condition to require a spiritual solution:

Leviathan - the Sea Monster of the Soul

"What are you writing your paper on?"

It doesn't really matter which class we're talking about, but whenever anyone asks me this question they can usually predict the answer before I open my mouth.

"Sea monsters," I say, and the other person nods their head. "Obviously," they respond, because I always write about sea monsters.

Whether it's a Bible class (Job 40-1), Talmud (Baba Batra 73a-75a) or Zohar (Zohar II: 34a-b), when given a free range of topics, my first thought is to find the sea monsters and write about them.

Luckily for me, despite what you may think about the presence of such creatures in modern, normative Judaism, they lurk all over our tradition, in some places hiding beneath the surface of the waves, in others rearing their many heads over the waters.

As you may have guessed, I have a lot to say about sea monsters, Biblical, pre-Biblical and post-Biblical, but today I want to take a leaf out of the book 'Religion and its Monsters' by Timothy Beal (which I recommend as an interesting easy read, though I disagree with many points he makes) and compare Psalm 74 to Psalm 104, for two accounts of the Biblical sea monsters that are drastically opposed to each other. And from these texts, to learn about balance in a person's mind and soul.

Mirror, Mirror - Reflections on Parashat Vayakhel/Pekudei

    “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”

    The image of the evil queen from Snow White, standing before her magic mirror, has become a fundamental part of western culture, from Disney’s classic cartoon to Charlize Theron, in Snow White and the Huntsman, and Julia Roberts, in Mirror Mirror. The evil step mother, obsessed with her own reflection, her own beauty lasting forever, has become a key part of our idea of what mirrors mean.

    We might then be surprised to find mirrors at the heart of the tabernacle, the mishkan, whose construction we read about this week as the conclusion of the book of Exodus.

    Exodus 38:8 tells us about Betzalel making the basin, the kiyor, with which the priests would wash themselves before beginning the service:
   
    8] And he made the basin of bronze, and the base thereof of bronze, of the mirrors of the serving women that did service at the door of the tent of meeting.

    We know that the mishkan was constructed from the offerings of the people, whatever their hearts moved them to give, but why construct the basin out of mirrors? What place do mirrors have in our most sacred places?

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.