The early Hebrew Tradition and the Tree of Life and Kabbalah were themes for the final Saturday of our first year together. I, Jan, am standing in for Beth in recording this last weekend for our Journal, and what seemed like an easy task when I volunteered is proving challenging. So much happened and both days were so full of rich experiences that is hard to distill them into a tidy summary. I will do my best, and I offer my thanks and blessings to Beth and Sam who have chronicled our journey so beautifully for the rest of the year.
On our journey from Ancient Mesopotamia, through Sumeria and Egypt we have now reached the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age (c. 3000 BCE) and the beginnings of the Hebrew people. This was our first contextual encounter with the Hebrew Bible, and what an exciting encounter it proved to be.
We started the day with the Tree of Life and the way it represents and explains four worlds or four levels of consciousness and two sides, the active and receptive, all beautifully integrated and flowing. The work of Kabbalah is about realising this unification. Through a mystical and meditative narrative from Sam we explored the creation story in Genesis from a Kabbalistic perspective: creation as a continual process, happening in every moment as things move from unmanifest to manifest. Everything out of nothing, called into being by the light of willingness shining on the darkness. We were invited to tend the garden of our soul and to seek for our true divine nature and the pure soul in all beings.
We ended the meditation by chanting together some of the Hebrews names of the Divine in both masculine and feminine form.
EH HEY YEH
YAHWEH ASHERAH
EL HAI SHADDAI
SHEKHINAH
After a short break we turned to the story of creation and the Hebrew Bible.
There has been much academic and theological analysis and debate about the authorship of the Bible and the extent to which the stories of the Old Testament have any basis in historical evidence. The “Documentary Hypothesis” relies on the evidence based within the written text itself, including language and its usage, references and cross-references, and it concludes that the early Bible comprises four different documents – so multiple perspectives on the “history”. In more recent years, archeological finds (artifacts and texts) have added to our understanding and have either refuted or questioned many long help assumptions.
As Sam led us gracefully through this minefield we came to realize that there is profound value in an appreciation of the difference between story and history, and that both in turn have profound value in our exploration of the great Western tradition. If some of the history turns out to be story, does it matter? Stories and myths hold truths which resonate across time and that is why they can still teach, challenge and uplift us, bringing beauty and awareness into our lives. It doesn’t matter how often we immerse ourselves in a story – there is always new treasure to find. And so, if some of the great narratives of the Hebrew Bible have no basis in fact, they are still astonishing and symbolic stories which help us understand that period and the people who lived at that time.
For someone like me who has struggled with the apparently irreconcilable tension between the Bible as the revealed Word of God, and the Bible as a mass of contradictions ruled over by a mercurial and sometimes rather unpleasant Bloke, Sam’s gentle exposition of the contextual issues was a real “aha” moment. Accepting that the Bible we have today holds many strands of sacred tradition, that it weaves together many myths and motifs from many peoples, and that it was written down at a particular time when a particular political agenda was dominant…well, it simply makes sense and it makes it more accessible. In Sam’s words: “So contrary to what many people imagine, the Bible really reflects diversity and invites debate rather than supports orthodoxy”.
With this insight to light our way, we then returned to our quest for the Divine Feminine. There is evidence that She was systematically excluded as a paternalistic theology with its insistence on monotheism came to dominate and the stories and laws were written down. But there are traces of the female forms of the Divine in the Bible and archeological evidence from the time that shows us She was an important part of the mainstream religion until the minority reformers won the day. We considered Asherah (consort of Yahweh), Anath (goddess of love and war) and the Cherubim which included male and female forms. And the Shekhinah.
The Shekhinah, whose name means dwelling and has come to represent the presence of God. The Shekhinah, who argued with God in defense of human beings. The Shekhinah who travelled with Adam and Eve when they left Eden and went into exile with the children of Israel. The Shekhinah, the holy presence of God that hovers as a cloud above the Ark of the Covenant. The Shekhinah – a feminine noun with a deeply feminine sound…………..
This was an extraordinary and deeply moving day and it felt as if the Shekhinah entered into the room and touched us all in different ways.
Weekend 5, Saturday 13th June 2015
Written by Jan
Our altar with 2 versions of the Tree of Life either side and Sam’s menorah in the centre, and of course the hare, our very loyal member of the group.
Our very rich selection of books for the day, including the Hebrew Bible and the Tanakh.
Figurine of the mother-goddess Asherah, consort of El
Our final field trip was to Exeter Synagogue, in preparation for the next stage of our journey through early Hebrew traditions and our first encounter with the Hebrew Bible. Even those of us who thought we knew Exeter well had difficulty finding the building; it is hidden away down a small unprepossessing alley, unassuming and unannounced. Once through the door, however, we had a real sense of entering a sacred and much loved space – a deep well of worship behind the anonymous façade.
During our fascinating 2½ hour visit we were given an idea of the long history of Jews in the West Country, whose roots stretch back to pre-Expulsion times. Indeed, Jews have lived and worshipped in Exeter for over 250 years. The synagogue, which was built in 1763, is the second oldest Ashkenazi synagogue in English speaking countries and is small, beautiful and happily, still used regularly for services. Although neither the synagogue nor the community are big enough to support a full time Rabbi, it is maintained and run by volunteers; one of them, Richard, was our welcoming guide for the day.
Once the Anglo-Jewish historical context had been set, Richard gave us some insights into the form of Jewish services and talked about Jewish prayer and ritual, including the ways that the sacred scriptures are used. The Torah is at the very centre of worship and study, and the beautiful Hebrew scrolls are housed in a tabernacle/ark which is one of the focal points of the synagogue building. They are brought into the body of the synagogue during services with deep reverence and ritual, and then the appropriate reading for that day is given in Hebrew (with worshippers following in a parallel translation Torah if needed).
We left the synagogue and headed to Claire’s home for some lunch and a period of reflection.
We were all moved by the new insights into the Jewish story of rejection, exile and persecution. The Ashkenazi Jews came to the UK from Germany and Eastern Europe, and so the connection with the events leading up to, and during, the holocaust is strong.
At the same time the story of survival, and its roots in strong faith, was also profoundly moving and inspiring. The reverence for the sacred scriptures and the rituals of the Jewish faith (both in and out of the synagogue) seemed to us to create a rhythm of living which goes back to ancient times but creates meaning for people today. This feels particularly relevant as we explore the ancient roots of our own faith tradition and how that exploration and understanding may deepen our connection with the Divine in our own daily lives.
Our heartfelt thanks to Richard and to all members of the Exeter Synagogue community for sharing so willingly with us.
So our journey continues through the deep stream of the Western spiritual tradition, following the beginnings of the Bible and again meeting older and less familiar mythology through the characters of the stories more familiar to our culture today. The characters that lead us now are Jacob and Rachel, and Joseph and Asenath, and through them we hear the story of Isis and Osiris, Nepthys and Seth; Gods and Goddesses from the time and place in which our characters lived, namely Ancient Egypt.
Our explorations are enriched by opening to the mythic mind but also by drawing upon archaeology and ancient his/herstory and this time we had inspiration to draw on from a recent field trip, which for some included a visit to the Ancient Lives, New Discoveries exhibition at the British Museum. Through current scanning technology this exhibition reveals details of the lives of several men and women from ancient Egypt without disturbing their remains. So as well as mythic characters, we were able to meet a few Egyptian ancestors, such as Tamut (first left, below), a high ranking priest’s daughter, who may have been not unlike Asenath, daughter of the priest Poti-phera and married to Joseph, who Jewish tradition suggests is the daughter of Dinah and grand daughter of Leah from the Bible stories (popularised through Anita Diamant’s book ‘The Red Tent’).
The story of Isis and Osiris is one of descent and return, and it follows the annual drought and flood of the River Nile, as depicted above in Helen’s painting. When the tears of Isis, heart-broken from the loss of her beloved Osiris, flow down onto the plains, the river fills and as her tears and the waters diminish, the land is left once again fertile. Tears of pain and grief re-alivening dead ground, love lost transformed into new love and new life. “Lips wet from tears are ripe for kissing”… Joy birthed from pain, the cracked ground healed by the moisture of weeping and sorrow. In the ancient myth Osiris becomes the green faced God of the Underworld, while Isis and their son, Horus, care for the land of Egypt, and ancient hymns to Osiris reveal a deep mythic motif that will later take new form in the Christian story:
“Rise,Osiris! You went away, but now you have returned.
Rise, Osiris! You were asleep, but now you are awake.
Rise, Osiris! You dies, but now you are alive again.”
And the story ends with a celebration!… which was the theme of our Sacred Space workshop the following day.
So what does celebration mean to us? There were some negative associations with the term; memories of overly structured and highly pressured parties with meaningless and boring conversations, finding abundance in food and drink rather than each other. Asking the question what we would like celebration to be about, the common features agreed upon was an intention of presence and awareness, finding abundance in simplicity rather than gluttony, and meeting each other on shared heartfulness rather than over-consumption.
The priestly role can be to bring a gentle focus to this, not overly structuring but simply holding a space that invites intentionality and love. Sam, inhabiting this role within the group, held and encouraged us to celebrate communion together, following the simple and deep four-fold structure at the foundation of traditional church services:
The first stage is to gather together, which is traditionally expressed in prayers, hymns and sharing of peace, but for us was an emergent chorus of sung harmonies, gathering our separate selves into melodic and vibrational union. The next stage is to engage; traditionally with Bible readings but for us contemplative sharing of our own wisdom procured from the day, learning from the truths salvaged “from the splitting open of our lives”. The third stage is the sharing of bread and wine, representing for us the sacred nature of all the Earth’s bounties, and the ceremonial eating and drinking of which brings us into sacred union as one body. However, rather than from priesthood to lay, our sharing was from one person to the next; each receiving from one neighbour and giving to another. Finally, the last stage is to bless each other and to carry what we have created and received back out into the world.
This was a very powerful ceremony, for many bringing fresh meaning to what has been experienced as a stale ritual lacking in meaning. Getting to the core of what it means to celebrate with one another with presence and heartfulness, our expansive and epic weekend ended in our own collaborative celebration of Holy Communion.
