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Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy:
Kabbalah: "Letters from Heaven:"
Spiritual Guidance from the Hebrew Alphabet
The Serpent’s Path
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by Avigayil Landsman |
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I believe that one of the most controversial symbols in world culture is the snake. Often revered, often reviled and feared, the symbol of the snake rarely elicits a neutral response. I will admit that I am a bit frightened by live snakes’ unpredictable and lightening swiftness, yet intrigued by their symbolism.
Snakes get a pretty bad rap in the Jewish tradition. Snake is the instigator for Eve’s crime in the Garden of Eden and therefore is traditionally seen as the impulse to go against God’s will. In a number of my columns I have sought to redeem the role that snake plays in the Torah. What follows are a few examples of my Torah interpretation where snake becomes a symbol for individual spiritual transformation.
One technique I use in Torah interpretation is called gematria. The Hebrew language is so old that the letters also serve as numbers. Aleph equals one, beit equals two and so on. To find the gematria of a word, you add up each letter’s numerical value. The Hebrew word for snake, nachash and the Hebrew word for messiah, meshiach share the same gematria. We are invited to explore the possible connections between two words when they have the same gematria. The word nachash, snake also means diviner. We will see in the examples below how using gematria and alternative meanings of words to interpret Torah shifts the role snake plays.
Quoth the Snake, “Hey man, can you relate?”
In the story of the Garden of Eden, snake convinces Adam and Eve to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge: Da’at. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil brings awareness of cause and effect. What we learn from this is that hidden within the tree of Life is knowledge (Rachel Pollack, The Kabbalah Tree). The Bible says that Adam “knew” his wife, meaning that he had sexual relations with her. We can then discern that da’at is knowledge of relatedness. It isn’t a knowledge as in you know basic mathematics or you know someone because you met them once at a party. Da’at is a knowledge that involves experience. However, without understanding and wisdom, knowledge can be scary. What do you do with it?
The fruit of knowledge is the productivity of our lives since fruit; especially many seeded fruits symbolizes fecundity. Both Adam and Eve and the snake are described as being aroomim. This Hebrew word can mean either naked or clever (cunning), depending what vowel is used. Because the Torah was written without vowels, we can switch aroomim to aromim. We can read that Adam and Eve were cunning and the snake naked, for example. We could also read that Adam, Eve and the snake were all naked or that they were all cunning. Once Adam and Eve eat of the Tree of Knowledge, their passion for each other is aroused because they become aware of the fact that they are naked. Perhaps the snake is naked in his full disclosure of his passion. He’s obviously eaten of the fruit and wants to share the wealth.
The story of the Garden of Eden is a metaphor of developmental psychology as well as the development of consciousness. Young children are not self-conscious about their bodies because they have no awareness of their nakedness. They also have no understanding of how their needs are met (cause and effect). Once adolescence hits, however, those hormones let them know all the implications of nakedness and cunning! Is there any other population more cunning than aroused teens? The fruit they eat, the apple or perhaps pomegranate represents fertility. Until they eat, and “know” their nakedness, they cannot know fertility, in other words, they can’t reproduce. Reproduction, creativity is a result of stepping into the flow of abundance, God consciousness.
The “punishment” for this “sin” is mortality. Prior to the fruit fest, Adam and Eve were immortal beings. But, as my son, Philip so aptly pointed out; their immortality would have ended the story. Sure they didn’t die, but they weren’t going to have anyone to come after them to spice things up either. After all, what good is fruit without some nuts? God, who loves stories, especially complicated, dramatic ones, had to lure these boring, static characters into some kind of intrigue.
The pain of childbirth speaks of the pain of birthing anything, whether it is a baby or a song, or a relationship. Adam’s toil speaks of the necessity of work. No pain, no gain. I’ve never heard of any truly great work of art that just came out of nowhere. Picasso didn’t blithely paint the powerfully moving “Guernica” after a Sunday picnic and I know of no deeply connected couple that didn’t have an argument now and then. The success of a truly meaningful relationship, whether it is with God, one’s creative works or one’s life partner depends on hard work. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Understanding is the very foundation of love.” And it takes great effort to understand. I don’t understand how the need to make an effort in life got transformed into sin and punishment. It’s really a matter of accepting cause and effect. This awareness shouldn’t come as such a big surprise, but somehow this punishment has been taken quite literally and the snake gets the biggest bum rap in history.
Rereading this story with the information introduced earlier turns snake’s reputation around 180 degrees: The enlightened one (aka. Snake) was cunning and encouraged Adam and Eve to experience their naked passion so that they would gain immortality through their offspring. Adam and Eve spoke with the diviner who was possessed with essential vitality, the very stuff that initiates life. They would become immortal not through their merit alone but through the accomplishments of the generations that followed, embracing the concept of hemshech la’asot, the continuation of creation. In the Garden, life was self-perpetuating, but Adam and Eve came to understand that they, having been made in God’s image, had to continue the work that God began. As it is written, “The reward of a mitzvah (good deed) is… another mitzvah.”
The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden was a necessary developmental milestone in human consciousness. It demanded embracing the core of life—vitality and passion, bringing with it responsibility for one’s sustenance through engaging in the process of inner growth. Such is the experience of life in its complete, complex whole.
Straight talk from the curvy snake
In the book of Exodus, Moses has a spiritual awakening initiated with the sighting of the burning bush. The flame inside it does not consume the lowly scrub brush. He sees the flame of supernal creation, the energy of illumination. At this point of his enlightenment experience, Moses hears a voice that tells him to go to Pharoah to free the Hebrew slaves. When he asks who he should tell sent him, the voice doesn’t answer with a name, but all forms of the verb to be. "I am that which I am becoming."
Moses reacts from a place of fear. How could he, who is slow to speak, assume such a huge task and who is going to believe that he was directed by the supernal energy of creation? Who knew or could even conceive of this Infinite? The Infinite gives Moses various forms of proof to show that he is capable to take on the task of liberation as well as convince Pharaoh that this guiding energy will overtake him if he doesn’t cooperate.
The rabbis say that this is proof that there is nothing on this earth that does not contain sparks of holiness in it. It’s a matter of looking closely at even the most seemingly unimportant details of life. We can take this one step further and apply this teaching to people. Even the most seemingly inconspicuous person we may not consider worthy of our attention contains words of wisdom, for as it is written in Pirke Avot, "Who is wise? He who learns from all people."
Moses is impressed, but he’s not running back home with the good news. God obviously needs to be more convincing, if he is to succeed in gaining Moses’ cooperation, so he tells Moses to throw down the staff he is carrying. Here again, we see a rather inconspicuous object raised to the level of an oracle. The snake, too, is “lowly” crawling around on his belly. When he picks up the staff, it turns into a snake. God then instructs Moses to pick the snake up by the tail and the snake becomes a stick again. The odd thing about this instruction is to pick the snake up by its tail instead of its head. No detail in Torah is an accident; everything contains a deep teaching. Given that we already know that the Hebrew word for snake can also mean diviner it doesn’t seem so odd, does it? The head initiates movement and is the place of its mouth. Perhaps this snake-turned-stick is a symbol of Moses frenetically writing. Perhaps he is “on fire” with the passion of spiritual inspiration.
The earliest form of writing was to make marks in the dirt with a stick! I believe upon a closer reading of this chapter that the "sign" Moses received was automatic writing. The Hebrew word “ot” means “sign” as well as “letter.” Perhaps the real writing of the Torah began in this chapter! That the stick appeared to be a wildly wriggling snake because he was writing with such fiery intensity, powered by the light of Creation. This defines the fire inside the burning bush: a light that does not burn, but fuels. This scene is all about kundalini energy. Perhaps the swiftness with which Moses wrote resembled a snake’s movements in the dirt. Here again we see how the Hebrew word for snake, nachash, also means diviner opening up a new way to view this scene. This snake is perhaps the stick possessed by the spirit of divine knowledge, "spelling it out" for Moses.
Whether it was coming to consciousness in the Garden or the long journey through the wilderness towards Israel we find that no path moves in a purely straight line. Such is the path of the snake. However much we cling to the hope that life will move predictably, we are shown over and over again that this is not the case, for life’s ultimate journey is one of the heart. The Hebrew word for Israel, Yisrael can be broken into two words, which mean, “straight to God.” It is interesting to note that the Children of Israel never actually enter this Promised Land. They wander a very circuitous route, all the while being instructed by an admonishing leader on how to conduct themselves as part of a functioning community. Finding your higher purpose requires traveling over many a twisting road to get to where you want to be. Your heart has always been pointed in this direction, it's just been wending here and there, rather than going in a straight, static, uninteresting line.
The path of the snake is never straight; it is unpredictable, surprising and frenetic. At times a snake coils up into itself to rest. Snake renews itself through shedding its skin to reveal more brilliant patterns on its body.
The life of a spiritual seeker is never straight; it is unpredictable, at times surprisingly frenetic. Occasionally, a seeker takes time to coil up into him/herself in order to incubate new ideas, to integrate (digest) new experiences. A seeker of spiritual wisdom often sheds his/her outer cloak of materialism to radiate light born of inner peace.
Ultimately, the snake is a metaphor for passion. Passion, like a snake, is tough to control; without harnessing our passion, our lives can become destructive and chaotic. I think the fear of being out of control is why various religions have taken a hard stance with snake. Without passion, life would be like soup without salt, paintings without color. It is passion that impels us to paint our lives with color and sing out the song of our lives whether it is a beautiful harmony or a full-throated cry of agony. It is passion that allows us to feel that we are alive, that enables us to connect with others and that propels us to change our lives and the lives of those around us.
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Avigayil Landsman,
Torah Scholar, Calligrapher, Lecturer, Teacher & Creator of the "Letters From Heaven" Deck
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Avigayil has been a serious student of Torah for the last ten years and has written many d'vrai Torah(Torah lectures). She is the creator of Letters from Heaven, a Jewish divination system that incorporates the mystical meanings of the Hebrew letters, her chiddushim (new insights into Torah) and their application to the challenges of daily life. Her LFH readings offer seekers of all persuasions spiritual direction in finding one's authentic voice.
Avigayil is a multi-media artist who is best-known for the beaded breastplate that adorns the Woodstock Jewish Congregation's Torah. She creates personalized ketubot, beeswax Shabbat candles, shiviti plaques and other judaica as well as secular art in Sculpey, paint, and shadow boxes that combine disparate objects such as feathers, beads and wood.
Her Judaica (beeswax Shabbat and havdallah candles, havdallah spice boxes, shiviti plaques) and calligraphy cards are available for purchase at the Woodstock Jewish Congregation's judaica shop, Miriam's Well and her home. She also does private commissions.
Avigayil has taught enrichment classes in calligraphy for the Woodstock Jewish Congregation's Hebrew school. She prepares children and adults for becoming Bat/bar-mitzvah with humor and deep wisdom that come from her own unique way of living through the lessons of Torah. She has also given workshops and lectures on the spiritual meaning of the Hebrew letters and Letters from Heaven at Omega and Mount St. Alphonsus.
"Avigayil Landsman's interpretations of the Hebrew letters are original, witty, steeped in scholarship, and above all a genuine opening to our own spiritual wisdom." Rachel Pollack, creator of Shining Tribe Tarot Deck
www.rachelpollack.
com
Avigayil is available for art commissions and LFH readings in person or on the phone. She may be contacted by e-mail at:
Avigayil1@earthlink.net
Website:
www.jewish-wisdom
-and-art.4t.com
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