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

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

Cry Out To The Lord: The Spiritual Power of Weeping in Judaism

Weeping, biologists now tell us, is a useful mechanism for keeping our body in balance (The Mystery of Tears, William Frey). Jewish tradition has always weeping a great tool for maintaining spiritual equalibrium. As the Yiddish proverb goes, "Tears are to the soul what soap is to the body." There are branches of Jewish thought that take the idea of tears cleansing the soul quite seriously (Talmud A.V. 17a). In the Zohar we are told,

“If a person grieves and sheds tears for the death of Aaron’s two sons, God declares, ‘Your sin has left and your iniquity has been atoned for’ [Isaiah 6:7]”

and

"...all those that are pained from those righteous who have died, or who sheds tears for them, God proclaims over him, 'Your sins are remove, your iniquities atoned for.'" (Zohar 3:57b).

The significance of weeping is in Zohar is complex and wide-ranging, often being the necessary precursor to revealing a divine secret, a marker that the revealor is spiritual cognisant of the awesome nature of what he is about to do (Fishbane, Eitan. “Tears of Disclosure: The Role of Weeping in Zoharic Narrative,” The Journal of Jewish
Thought and Philosophy, Volume 11, No. 1) and appears in many phases of Jewish mystical tradition.

Thus, weeping can induce visions (II Enoch; Zohar 1:4a, 3:166b; Sefer ha-Hezyonot). It has the power to draw the Shekhinah to one who cries in worship (Reshit Chochmah). Hasidic figures like the Kotzker Rebbe and the Seer of Lublin encouraged weeping as a spiritual discipline (Idel, M., Kabbalah New Perspectives). The tears of the righteous have the power of Torah; in some cases, they even turn into words of Torah when they fall ("Sealing the Book with Tears," Nechemia Polen).

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