{"id":328,"date":"2017-11-14T01:53:42","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T01:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress_bw2\/5-1-liliths-origins-according-to-the-zohar\/"},"modified":"2017-12-29T16:14:16","modified_gmt":"2017-12-29T16:14:16","slug":"5-1-liliths-origins-according-to-the-zohar","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/the-case-for-lilith\/lilith-in-the-zohar\/5-1-liliths-origins-according-to-the-zohar\/","title":{"rendered":"5.1) Lilith’s Origins According to the Zohar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps the most important discussion on Lilith\u2019s origins in the Zohar comes in Zohar 1:19b (Beresheet: Passages 98-101).\u00a0 Those passages are listed below.\u00a0 They explain that Lilith\u2019s body was created just like Adam\u2019s from the dust of earth.\u00a0 However, her body came to host the defective animating spark of life that was Samael\u2019s, whereas Adam\u2019s body came to host the animating spark of Jehovah\u2019s perfect light.\u00a0 The passages also link Lilith to curses and the death of children.<\/p>\n

The passages begin by discussing how when God created lights in expanse of the heavens on creation day 4, this was an event of cursing that resulted in defective light entering creation.\u00a0 The Zohar explains this notion by pointing out that Genesis uses a defective spelling of me\u2019orot<\/em>, which means \u201clights.\u201d\u00a0 A missing a letter vahv<\/em> (w<\/span>) in me\u2019orot<\/em> lets it to be understood as me\u2019erat<\/em>, which means \u201cto curse.\u201d\u00a0 Therefore, the created lights are thought to hold a cursing nature.\u00a0 The Zohar teaches that this cursing light is the defective light of Samael.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
Zohar 1:19b (Beresheet: Passages 98-101)<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a098 And Elohim said let there be me\u2019orot (lights) in the expanse of heaven (Ge 1:14).\u00a0 Me\u2019orot is spelled deficiently as me\u2019erat (meaning to curse), thus diphtheria was created for children.\u00a0 After the radiance of primordial light was treasured away, a shell was created for the kernel (of light).\u00a0 That shell expanded, generating another shell.\u00a0 Emerging, she ascended and descended, arriving at the small faces.\u00a0 She desired to cling to them, be portrayed in them, and never depart.\u00a0 The bless Holy One separated her form there, bringing her down below when he created Adam, so that this would be perfected in this world.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a099 As soon as she saw Eve cleaving to the side of Adam, beauty above, as soon as she saw the complete image, she flew away, desiring as before to cleave to the small faces.\u00a0 Those guardians of the gates on high did not allow her.\u00a0 The blessed Holy One rebuked her and cast her to the bottom of the sea.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0100 She dwelled there until Adam and his wife sinned.\u00a0 Then the blessed Holy One plucked her form there, and she rules over all those children \u2013 small faces of humanity \u2013 who deserve to be punished for the sins of their fathers.\u00a0 She flies off, roaming through the world.\u00a0 Approaching the earthly Garden of Eden, she sees cherubs guarding the gates of the Garden, and she dwells there by that flaming sword (Ge 3:24), for she emerged from the side of that flame.\u00a0<\/div>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0101 As the flame revolves she flees and roams the world, finding children who deserved to be punished.\u00a0 She toys with them and kills them.\u00a0 This happens in the waning of the moon, whose light diminishes; this is me\u2019orot (lights) deficient.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

After noting how Samael\u2019s defective light entered creation on day 4, the passages go on to describe its ramification on the creation of Lilith and Adam on day 6.\u00a0 It notes that on day 6 God created a shell, or klipah, to house Jehovah\u2019s primordial pure light.\u00a0 This shell was Adam\u2019s body.\u00a0 This interpretation is sure, because Zohar 1:20a states that the klipah refers to the body and the radiant spark within refers to its spirit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
Zohar 1:20a (Beresheet: Passage 109)<\/strong><\/div>\n

In this image, the human being exists in this world with an inner part and an outer klipah, which corresponds to a spirit and a body.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

After Adam\u2019s klipah, or body, was created, passage 98 notes that Adam\u2019s shell expanded and Lilith\u2019s shell emerged from it. \u00a0Lilith\u2019s shell did not house God\u2019s pure light.\u00a0 This is why her creation is mentioned in context of the defective light which entered creation.\u00a0 Zohar 1:19b (Beresheet A, verse 393) is quite clear that Lilith\u2019s shell contained the defective light.\u00a0 It says, \u201cLet there be lights (me’orot<\/em>), everything derives from it. \u00a0It also includes the creation of Lilit<\/em> in the world.\u201d\u00a0 How Lilith came to be animated with defective light is also explained in Safra Det’zniuta (Passage 38).\u00a0 It states that both evil and good creatures were made on creation days 5 and 6 because the defective light of Samael intermixed with the perfect light of Jehovah (\u201cthe light of one spread into the other\u201d).\u00a0 Even passage 101 above establishes this link between Lilith and the defective light.\u00a0 It states her power to slay children increases when the moon\u2019s light wanes and is defective.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The Creation of Lilith<\/strong><\/div>\n

Passage 98 above notes that when the defective light entered creation, the curse of diphtheria for children was created.\u00a0 This again is in reference to Lilith.\u00a0 The Zohar closely links diphtheria to Lilith.\u00a0 Zohar 2:264b states that Lilith strikes children with this disease, and Zohar 2:267b relates that Lilith and Diphtheria are two distinct but kindred spirits.\u00a0 The Zohar may have selected the disease of Diphtheria as emblematic of Lilith because of its unusual traits.\u00a0 Diphtheria is an upper respiratory illness caused by bacteria.\u00a0 It symptoms include a swollen throat and \u201cbull neck\u201d, and an adherent membrane that grows on the tonsils, pharynx, and\/or nasal cavity. \u00a0This membrane is a leathery, sheath-like skin.\u00a0 Victims die of suffocation when the leathery membrane growths closed their air passages.\u00a0 Diphtheria is very contagious, although in modern times it has been eradicated through widespread vaccination.\u00a0 In the past it was a particularly deadly disease to children, with some outbreaks killing 80% of children under the age of 10 in affected regions.\u00a0 The Zohar may have attributed this disease to Lilith because of its deadliness and eerie characteristics.\u00a0 The sight of a leathery skin growth slowly closing the air passages of its victims must have been quite horrifying.\u00a0 The swelling of the neck and leathery skin growth may have made it appear as a though a terrible physical transformation was overcoming the victim analogous to the horrible swelling and rotting skin of the Sotah during her trial.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Passage 98 above relates that after Lilith was created, she ascended and attempted to mate with the \u201csmall faces.\u201d\u00a0 This is in apparent reference to angels, whom are likened to children in appearance (Zohar 1:228b, 3:60b, 217b).\u00a0 God then separated her from there when Adam\u2019s creation was finished.\u00a0 However, when Lilith saw Eve attached to Adam\u2019s side, she fled from him, attempting to have sex with the angels once more.\u00a0 God then dispatches her to the depths of the sea, and she dwelt there until Adam and his wife sinned.\u00a0 According to passage 100, when Eve sinned in turning aside from Adam, God set free the spirit of Lilith in the world to unleash her curses upon sinners.\u00a0 She rules over all infants who deserve to be punished because of the sins of their fathers.\u00a0 The passage continues that she dwells at the gates of the Garden of Eden by the flaming sword, because she originated from the side of that flame (a flame of judgment).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Passage 101 concludes that Lilith\u2019s slaying of children occurs when the moon\u2018s light diminishes, and this diminishing is tied to the defective light of Lucifer that brought about Lilith\u2019s creation in the opening passage.<\/p>\n

More details surrounding Lilith\u2019s origins may be surmised from Zohar 2 (Vayikra: Passages 316-317).\u00a0 These passages are listed below.\u00a0 They flatly state that Lilith was first with Adam.\u00a0 They also relate that when Adam was created, a thousand spirits attempted to enter his body.\u00a0 However, God rebuked the spirits and prevented it from happening.\u00a0 At that time a cloud descended and scattered the spirits, shortly thereafter Adam was animated by Jehovah\u2019s breath.\u00a0 The rebuked spirits were those of Lucifer and his angels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
Zohar 2 (Vayikra : Passages 316-317)<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Come and see: In a hole by the great, supernal abyss, there is a certain female, a spirit above all spirits. We have explained that its name is Lilit. She was first with Adam. When Adam was created and his body perfected, a thousand spirits came on the body from the left side. This one wanted to enter it and that one wanted to enter it, but they could not. The Holy One, blessed be He, scolded them. Thus, Adam lay down spiritless, green in appearance, with all those spirits around him.<\/div>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0At that time, a cloud descended and pushed aside all the spirits (which surrounded Adam). …<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We know from Zohar 1:19b that Lilith was animated first before Adam.\u00a0 From this we may conclude that although God did prevent the spirits from entering Adam\u2019s body, he did not prevent them from entering Lilith\u2019s.\u00a0 They entered her and animated her after the likeness of Lucifer.\u00a0 Shortly thereafter God\u2019s cloud descended and scattered the spirits, and Adam in turn was animated by Jehovah\u2019s spirit.\u00a0 Combining this with our knowledge of what the Hebrew of Ge 2 literally says, we would conclude the spirits entered Lilith via the mist which broke through from the ground.\u00a0 Indeed, the 17th<\/sup> century Kabbalist, Yalqut Reubeni, teaches in his commentary on the Zohar that Lilith was created from impure sediments (mud) and scum.<\/p>\n

\n
Yalqut Reubeni – Beresheet 34b<\/strong><\/div>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In the beginning the Holy One, blessed be He, created Eve [i.e., the 1st<\/sup> Eve, Lilith], and she was not flesh but the scum of the earth and its impure sediments, and she was a harmful spirit. And the Holy One, blessed be He, took her away from Adam and gave him another in her stead.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps the most important discussion on Lilith\u2019s origins in the Zohar comes in Zohar 1:19b (Beresheet: Passages 98-101).\u00a0 Those passages are listed below.\u00a0 They explain that Lilith\u2019s body was created just like Adam\u2019s from the dust of earth.\u00a0 However, her body came to host the defective animating spark of life that was Samael\u2019s, whereas Adam\u2019s … Continue reading “5.1) Lilith’s Origins According to the Zohar”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":9,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-328","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":973,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/328\/revisions\/973"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}