Hillula: Partying with the Righteous Dead

All Jews consider visiting the graves of deceased relatives a meritorious act. But outside of Hasidic circles, American Jews have no experience with the custom of making a pilgrimage to visit the tombs of Jewish saints and folkheros. Among the Jews of North Africa and Asia, however, the veneration of the righteous dead is widespread and widely observed.

Called variously a ziyara (Arabic: "visitation"), aliyah ha-regel (Hebrew: "pilgrimage") or hillula (Aramaic: "party" or even euphemistically "wedding"), thousands will make a journey, sometimes alone, but more often in organized caravans, to the gravesides of venerated scholars, rabbis, and faith healers.

Largely (but not entirely) unknown in Biblical and Talmudic times, the custom arose in the Middle Ages, coinciding with the rise of saint veneration in Christian and Muslim societies.

There are appointed "holidays" (a yom hillula) for some figures, the most famous in Israel being the Lag b'Omer (33rd Day of the Omer Count) hilula to the Safed grave of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the Talmudic Sage, mystic, and purported author of the mystical tract, Sefer Zohar. Others include Choni ha-M'aggel, the Talmudic rainmaker buried in Hatzor, the medieval healer Meir Baal ha-Nes in Tiberius, and Baba Sali (a modern folk hero) in Neivot. [See this Youtube clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWqWIFEox0c]

These events are lively social gatherings, freely mixing religious, commerical, and party atmospherics, with food, drinking, bonfires, marketing, worship, dancing, and Bar mitzvah celebrations. They also are the focal points for a widespread belief in miracles. Like Lourdes, these sites will attract pious petitioners seeking spiritual intervention for health, fertility, marital problems, and the like. Offering are made - sacred books, bottles of olive oil and liquor, candles (often tossed, or hurled en mass, into a huge brazier) - in hopes of soliciting a divine response.

Zal g'mor - To learn more consult the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050

Marot ha-Tzovot: Reflections of Male and Female, Lens of Prophecy

[Woman gazes at mirror art by Israeli artist Daniel Rozin, found at http://nymag.com/images/2/daily/entertainment/07/09/06_artcandy_lg.jpg]

Mirrors have occupied an interesting place in human thought. More than just a means of seeing the self, they are often an archetype for a portal between mortal and immortal realms, or ironically, a means to see "beyond" the self ("Mirror, mirror on the wall, whose the fairest of them all?" is followed by the power to see unseen and distant things).

Given that the Tabernacle and Temple were the places of divine vision and encounter, places to "see the face of the Eternal (Deut. 16:16; Ps. 11)," it is surprising that more early interpreters of the Torah didn't make symbolic hay out of Exodus 38:8, an explicit reference to mirrors associated with the sanctuary of God:

He made the laver of copper and its stands of copper, from the mirrors of the women who worked at the opening of the Tent of Meeting.

The laver of copper/bronze used in the Mishkan came from these mirrors, making them "integral" to the cosmic scheme embodied in the Sanctuary and its objects. But in what way?

In a small number of Rabbinic interpretations, these mirrors were not symbols of divine vision, but emblems of female sexuality and the Sages explored its appropriateness both in the sanctuary as the locus of God's holiness and in the larger divine plan. In Numbers Rabbah, Moses selects them specifically because the Israelite women did not use them for "immorality" (i.e., used them to make themselves look more sexually appealing) (IX:14). RaSHI playfully tweeks this rather puritan Midrash by making Moses' prudishness a foil for a more positive view of sexuality:

From the mirrors [marot] – The Israelite women had in their possession mirrors that they would look in when they put on their jewelry. Even these mirrors they did not withhold from the donations to the Tabernacle, and Moses was disgusted with them because the mirrors were made for the evil inclination. God said to [Moses], "Accept the mirrors, for they are more precious to Me than anything else, since with the mirrors the women brought many hosts of children into being." When their husbands were oppressed with slave labor, the women would go and bring them food and drinks, and feed them. They would bring the mirrors with them and each one of the women would look at herself in the mirror with her husband and entice him with worlds, saying "I am more beautiful than you." From this they would make their husbands desirous and have sex, and the women became pregnant there (in the fields), as it says: "Under the apple tree I roused you" (Song of Songs 8:5). And this is why [it calls them] "marot tzovot" which can be read as "mirrors of multitudes." (Tanhuma Pikudei 9 has a similar account)

Kabbalah, by contrast, focuses on the word-play of the word marah between "mirror" and "vision." Thus Marot ha-Tzovot can be read as "visions/mirrors of the Hosts [of heaven]," reminiscent of another esoteric teaching, the "nine shining speculum," or levels of prophetic vision (Num. 11:6-8; T.B. Yebamot 49b). Thus these "mirrors" associated with the place of Divine Presence (the lowest of the sefirot which is the "speculum that does not shine") are apertures for gazing upon degrees of divine light, as Joseph Gikatilla (13th Cent) wrote:

Know that Moses our teacher was greater than all the other prophets, and Moses never used the phrase "YHVH TZVAOT" for his level cleaved to YHVH [alone] and he did not have to look into "mirrors of TZoVOT" (the hosts or legions of women). Thus it is written that Moses our teacher, PBUH, looked into the luminous mirror (Num. 12:8). The other prophets see through an opaque, unfinished mirror "...I make myself know to him in a vision [Marea] (Hosea 12:11)" [which] is the essence of Marot Tzovot...this is also the essence of the mirrors of Tzovot that were arrayed around the doorway of the Tent of Meeting. [1]

In later sources, the tenth sephirah, Malchut/Shekhinah, is even dubbed the Marot ha-Tzovot. By the late 13th Century there is a book devoted entirely to the Kabbalistic symbolism of these "mirrors" [2] Which is not to say that the sexual association of the marot made by the Rabbis is lost - Kabbalah takes as a premise that God's creation is shot through and sustained at all levels by erotic energy. Elsewhere Gikatilla links the mirrors of Exodus 38:8 to the lower sefirot of Hod (female) and Netzach (male), which are most closely tied to prophecy.

Zal g'mor - To learn more consult the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050


1. Weinstein, Avi, trans., Gates of Light, Harper Collins, 1994, p. 119

2. Matt, Dan, "David ben Yehudah HeHasid and His Book of Mirrors," HUCA Annual, 1980.

Kiss of Disclosure, Kiss of Death

The kiss as a spiritual act has a long history in Judaism. It is closely linked with the handling and learning of Torah. Jews often kiss a Torah scroll when it is brought into the congregation. People will kiss a chumash or siddur that has been dropped.

Students would kiss the hand of their master after a learning session, symbolically acknowledging the hand that “fed” them spiritual sustenance (PdRE 2; Zohar III:147a). Masters would kiss disciples on the head as a kind of initiation ritual (T. Chag. 2:2). In the Zohar, in particular, masters would kiss students, often on the eyes, when they had demonstrated an insight or high attainment of wisdom.[1]

In the highest heaven, the angels who serve before the Throne of Glory kiss God during the afternoon worship (Hechalot Rabbati). A special category of kiss is the “kiss of God” (Meitah be-nesikah in Hebrew or mise binishike in Yiddish). This refers to death directly at the hands of God (or the Shekhinah):

930 kinds of death were created in the world...The most difficult is plague, the easiest of all is a kiss. Plague is like burr being pulled through a wool fleece or like stalks in your throat. A kiss is as gentle as drawing a hair out of milk (T. B. Ber. 8a)

The concept arises from the death of Moses, where it is said he died al pi Adonai, "at God's command", but literally "by God's mouth" (Deut. 34). This easiest of all deaths circumvents the dreaded Angel of Death. According to the Sages, only six people have died this way: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Miriam, Aaron, and Moses (B.B. 17a; S of S R. 1:2; Tanh., Va-Etchanan). In later Jewish mystical writings, a number of kabbalistic masters die in ecstasy via the “kiss” (Zohar III: 144b; Sha’ar ha-Gilgulim 39). Jewish mysticism also equated the “kiss” with devekut, mystical fusion with God (Zohar II: 53a).

Zal g'mor - To learn more consult the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050


1. Arthur Green, “Introducing The Pritzker Edition Zohar,” at 2004 Conference of the
Central Conference of American Rabbis, Toronto.

Divine Tears: The Zohar on Weeping

[Found at http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Pbqs7mCGdtM/STVvR_qBVTI/]

I made an earlier entry on weeping as a spiritual practice in Jewish tradition. I also alluded to the idea that God weeps. In the Zohar, the distinction between divine and mortal tears blurs in fascinating and beautiful ways. Here we have a passage which suggests that heartfelt tears are actually a manifestation of the Divine Presence (Shekhinah):

The great Rabbi Hiyya went to the masters of Mishna to learn from them.
He went to R. Shimon ben Yohai and he saw a curtain was blocking the entrance to the house. R. Hiyya was astonished and said: I will hear something from his mouth from here. He heard R. Shimon saying, “Hurry my beloved, swift as a gazelle or a young stag, to the hill of spices…”
(SoS 8:14)
R, Hiyya heard this and said: Exalted ones are engaged in the house and I am sitting outside! He wept.
R. Shimon heard this and said: the Shekhinah is surely outside! [The Midrash repeatedly describes the Shekhinah as weeping out of love for exiled Israel. Here Hiyya's tears at being "exiled" from the scholars is taken by Rabbi Shimon to be a sign the Divine Presence is nearby] Who will go out? [See Isa. 6.1-10 - there are several moments that echo the summons of Isaiah] His son R. Elazar said: If I am burned, I shall not really be burned, for the Shekhinah is outside of us. Let the Shekhinah come inside and there will be a complete flame. [Bring the Shekhinah "in", uniting it with the Word, i.e., fulfilling the verse under discussion, a mimetic act of ending the estrangement of Israel from its God]
He then heard a voice that said: The pillars have not yet been supported, and the gated have not been completed. R. Elazar did not go out.
R. Hiyya sat down. He wept and groaned. He opened and said: “Set out my beloved swift as a gazelle or a young stag, to the hill of spices…” (SoS 2:17) [He offers a complimentary verse to Rabbi Shimon's, echoing his longing to unite the separated lovers - God and Israel - and signifying that he is spiritually fit to enter into the company of the enlightened circle of mystics]
The gates of the curtain opened but R. Hiyya did not go inside. R. Shimon lifted his eyes
and said: Learn from this that permission has been given to the one who is outside while we are inside. R. Shimon arose and fire went from his place to the place of R. Hiyya [The fire of Torah uniting with the water (tears) of Divine Presence, reconciling the duality ]….Once he entered inside he lowered his eyes and did not left up his head. R. Shimon said to R. Elazar his son: Arise and pass your hand over his mouth [Look again at Isa. 6.1-6]…R. Hiyya then opened his mouth and said: My eye has seen what I have not seen before, something I’ve never contemplated has been shown to me. It is good to die in the good glowing fire of gold! [to experience unio mystica, or as the Hasids put it, bittul ha-nefesh] (Zohar 2:14a)

Notice that Shimon never repudiates his earlier claim that it was the Shekhinah outside weeping - Rabbi Hiyya's tears transfigured him into something divine! In fact, elsewhere in Zohar, enlightened individuals are also called "Shekhinah."

Zal g'mor - To learn more consult the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050

Sheol, Gehinnom, Gehenna: Hell in Judaism

Many times on this site I have mentioned that Judaism does not teach a doctrine of eternal damnation. Since the topic of the dead came up in my last entry and I have inquiries about this, let's look at the sources. First, in most of the Hebrew Bible there is only sheol ("the grave"), the destination of all souls, regardless of their moral state.

[Bookplate by Ephraim Lilien]

It is not until the later books fo the Hebrew canon that we start to hear the idea that there are different destinations in the afterlife. Now if you search non-canonical Jewish sources (apocalyptic literature, for example), the theme of the wicked being fated to eternal suffering in fire and ice appears repeatedly. Indeed, it is from this thread of Jewish thinking from around 100BCE - 100CE that Christianity, and later Islam, derive their doctrines of eternal damnation. But Judaism ultimately rejects this idea as incongruent with a God who both just (infinite punishment for a finite life of sin?) and compassionate. There is also an element of God being conscious of sharing responsiblity for our moral shortcoming. God designed us with this potential to sin built in, so how can the Creator totally fault the creation for acting within specs? (see RaSHI's commentary on Hagigah 15b,* for example, or the famous parable on Cain and Able in Genesis Rabbah 22:9). So what you find in rabbinic texts is the notion of Gehinnom (Gehenna in Yiddish/English), a kind of purgatory in which the soul is purified before it returns to God.

What is Gehinnom?

R. Joshua b. Levi stated: Gehinnom has seven names, and they are: Nether-world (or 'Sheol'), Destruction, Pit (or, 'pit of destruction'), Tumultuous Pit, Miry Clay, Shadow of Death and the Underworld. 'Nether-world', since it is written in Scripture: Out of the belly of the nether-world cried I, and Thou heardest my voice (Jonah 2.3); 'Destruction', for it is written in Scripture: Shall Thy Mercy be declared in the grave? Or thy faithfulness in destruction (Psa 88.12); 'Pit', for it is written in Scripture: For Thou wilt not abandon thy soul to the nether-world; neither wilt Thou suffer Thy godly one to see the pit (Psa 16.10); 'Tumultuous Pit' and 'Miry Clay', for it is written in Scripture: He brought me up also out of the tumultuous pit, out of the miry clay (Psa 40.3); 'Shadow of Death', for it is written in Scripture: Such as sat in darkness and in the shadow of death (Psa 107.10); and the [name of] 'Nether-world' is a tradition.

But are there no more [names]? (to Gehinnom) Is there not in fact that of Gehinnom? — [This means,] a valley that is as deep as the valley of Hinnom and into which all go down for gratuitous acts. Is there not also the name of Hearth, since it is written in Scripture: For a hearth is ordered of old? (Isa 30.33) — That [means] that whosoever is enticed by his evil inclination will fall therein (Erbin 19b)

Is there a duration to the punishment?

Beit Shammai taught: There are three groups – one is destined for eternal life, another consigned to eternal ignominy and eternal abhorrence (these are the thoroughly wicked) while those whose deeds are balanced will go down to Gehinnom, but when they scream they will ascend fro there and are healed…but Beit Hillel taught: [God is] rich in kindness’ (Ex. 34:6) [He is] inclined toward mercy (Tosefta Sanhedrin 13:3)

This argument is reiterated elsewhere in the Talmud over the most wicked people the Rabbis could imagine – the generation that drove God to undo creation:

The generation of the Flood have no share in the World-to-Come (M. Sanh. 10:3)

'The judgment on the generation of the Flood was for twelve months, on Job for twelve months, on the Egyptians for twelve months, on Gog and Magog in the Hereafter for twelve months, and on the wicked in Gehinnom for twelve months. (M. Eduyot 2:10; Gen. Rabbah 28:8)

In the end, Hillel’s opinion prevails (as it always does). The punishing afterlife is temporal; there is no eternal punishment:

Rabbi Akiba said:…The duration of the punishment of the wicked in Gehinnom is twelve months. (Shabbat 33b)

If there are any unredeemable souls, their fate is annihilation and non-being, not eternal torment:

After 12 months, their body is consumed and their soul is burned and the wind scatters them under the soles of the feet of the righteous (Rosh Hashanah 17a)

In addition, the tradition tells us that souls in Gehenna also get Shabbat and holidays off (thanks to the reader who reminded me of that)

A Medieval dissent (but its still not forever):

The wicked stay in Gehinnom till the resurrection, and then the Messiah, passing through it redeems them. (Emek Hammelech, f. 138, 4)

How to avoid Gehenna:

He who has Torah, good deeds, humility, and fear of heaven will be spared from punishment [in Gehinnom] (Pesikta Rabbati 50:1)

Zal g'mor - To learn more consult the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050

* It's a little obscure, so here's the gist. Hagigah describes God grieving over the execution of a criminal - "My [God's] arm is too heavy for me (Hagigah 15b)" [why is God so distressed?]...for I have created this one who died on account of sin (RaSHI).

Kosher Fodem: Sacred Threads between the Living and Dead

[Candles stacked upon the ohel (gravesite) of a Hasidic master]

People are aware of the use of strings and threads as amulets in Jewish popular culture. Heck, the Kabbalah Centre has made it into an industry. There are a number of sources and explanations for this custom, but today I'll consider just one.

Kosher fodem ("fit string") is an outgrowth of the Ashkenazi pious custom known variously as Kneytlekh Legn ("laying wicks") or Korim Mesn ("measuring graves"). In Poland and other Eastern European communities, pious women would go, en mass, to graveyards and lay thread around the graves of people known for their piety in life. This seemingly morbid practice was actually a spirited and popular women's outing [1]. The string so prepared were thought to "absorb" a measure of the dead soul's merit. Most often, the strings would be cut into wicks, made into candles, and then donated to a synagogue or house of study.

This was a charitable effort to support these sacred institutions, but it was also done, pardon the pun, out of 'enlightened' self-interest. Often the donation would be made to coincide with High Holidays or an illness or trouble in the family, in hopes of receiving divine intercession. The candles could also be reserved for rituals of divination or as a means to protect the household against malevolent forces [2].

No doubt, some of this string was simply attached to places of vulnerablity one wanted to protect - a baby crib or birthing bed, for example. And some just got tied around the wrist.

Zal g'mor - To learn more consult the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050

1. Wex, Born to Kvetch, p. 178.
2. Weissler, "Measuring graves, Laying Wicks," pp. 61-80.

Abbahu: Magic Herbalist, Fiery Preacher

Along with my earlier entries on Jewish shamans of the Talmudic era,

Choni the Circle Drawer: Rainmaker and Rip Van Win...
Chanina Ben Dosa: Jewish Shaman
Akiba: Mystic and Miracle-Worker
Lamed Vavniks: The thirty-six righteous who sustai...
Rav Aha ben Jacob: Dragon Slayer, The Jewish Beowu...
Joshua ben Levi: Esoteric Master, Cosmic Jester

I must add Rabbi Abbahu. This Talmudic Sage (ca. 3rd-4th century) was a man of exceptional physical perfection, rivaling that of Jacob and Adam (B.M. 84a). When he sat and interpreted Torah, supernal fire would flash around him (S of S R. 1:10). He experienced clairvoyant dreams (T.Y., Taanit 1:4, 64b). He once escorted Elijah to Eden, where he gathered healing leaves, wrapping them in his cloak. Afterward he discovered his cloak had such a heavenly scent that he could sell it for a great price (B.M. 114a-b). An avid collector of lore both legal and legendary, he preserved stories of how angels intervened in the lives of biblical figures (PdRE 16, 43). He was given a glimpse of his reward in the Olam ha-Ba (the World to Come) before he died, which appeared to him as thirteen rivers of soothing balm (T.Y., A.Z. 3:1). When he did die, the building pillars in his home town, Caesarea, voiced their mourning (Mo'ed Katan 25b; T.Y. A.Z. 3:1, 42c).

Zal g'mor - To learn more consult the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050