Bulls - Ki Tissa - Mythic Torah

Bulls.

They get a bit of a bad rap these days, known mainly for being an exclamation that something is not true, or for the name of some kind of sports team (I'm not a native in this country but I'm trying).

But back in the day Bulls were the height of prestige - symbols of wealth, strength and most importantly masculine virility.

Small wonder then that many gods of the ancient world were closely associated with calves and bulls. In Mesopotamian myth, there was Gugalanna, the Great Bull of Heaven slain by the hero Gilgamesh. While in the Ugarit (an area close to ancient Israel), the chief god El was worshiped as the Bull-El, and Baal, the storm god, was also associated with this masculine image.

In our Bible too we can see relics of this bull worship - Jacob is called 'bechor shor', firstborn of the ox in Deut 33:17, or Hosea 8, which reads as a critique of this worship of bulls.

But the most striking polemic against bull worship is in this week's parasha of Ki Tisa. Moses has gone up the mountain to receive the two tablets but the people get nervous, and turn to Aaron to make them a substitute:

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:

From the Deep - Leviathan in Jewish Tradition - Genesis 1

Arthur Rackam, 'Leviathan'

21] And God created the great taninim, and every living creature that creepeth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after its kind, and every winged fowl after its kind; and God saw that it was good. 

כא  וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֶת-הַתַּנִּינִם הַגְּדֹלִים; וְאֵת כָּל-נֶפֶשׁ הַחַיָּה הָרֹמֶשֶׂת אֲשֶׁר שָׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם לְמִינֵהֶם, וְאֵת כָּל-עוֹף כָּנָף לְמִינֵהוּ, וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים, כִּי-טוֹב.  


Welcome to the first blogpost of "From the Deep" a series of short thoughts and reflections on Leviathan in Jewish tradition, starting from the Bible and then spreading forward (and even backward) in history.

We begin, as all things do, with Genesis 1, in which God creates the world through speech over the course of 7 days.