Judaism

"In brief, the Tree of Life is a compendium of science, psychology, philosophy and theology."

"The four species are all plants that need an abundance of water, and at the end of Sukkot, prayers for rain will be said."

"The preferred Shofar of Redemption is the Divine call that awakens and inspires the people with holy motivations, through faith in God and the unique mission of the people of Israel. This elevated awakening corresponds to the ram's horn, a horn that recalls Abraham's supreme love of God and dedication in Akeidat Yitzchak, the Binding of Isaac."

"It is a common custom to write [God's name,] Shaddai, on the outside of a mezuzah opposite the empty space left between the two passages."

"Just as Hanukkah candles are lighted one by one from a single flame, so the tale of the miracle is passed from one man to another, from one house to another, and to the whole House of Israel throughout the generations."

"The terms used for this metal are either ba'aẓ or avaẓ, kassitera, kassiteron, and gassiteron (Gr. κασσίτερος). Both ba'aẓ and kassitera are used in the same passages (Men. 28b and elsewhere), which implies that they were two different metals or kinds of the same metal. The Temple menorah was not to be made of them, but when the Hasmoneans cleansed the Temple and needed a new menorah (the golden one having been carried off by Antiochus IV), they made it of seven spears plated with tin. It was forbidden to make weights out of metal – tin and lead being mentioned specially – because metal wears away. The traveler Pethahiah of Regensburg (12th century) reports that in Babylonia people were summoned to synagogue by a tin instrument. In the later Middle Ages up to modern times tin was used extensively for artistic ritual objects such as Ḥanukkah menorot, seder, Kiddush, and Havdalah plates, etc."

"According to one theory, the six-pointed "shield of David" which adorns the modern Israeli flag, started to become a national symbol with David al-Roy's crusade. "Ever since," writes Baron, "it has been suggested, the six-cornered 'shield of David', theretofore mainly a decorative motif or a magical emblem, began its career toward becoming the chief national-religious symbol of Judaism. Long used interchangeably with the pentagram or the 'Seal of Solomon', it was attributed to David in mystic and ethical German writings from the thirteenth century on, and appeared on the Jewish flag in Prague in 1527.""

"Behold the sea, great and immense, | where countless creatures move, | small and large animals. | Ships travel there | and there swims the leviathan whom you created to have fun. (Psalms)"

"On that day the Lord will punish | with the hard sword, large and strong, | the darting serpent Leviathan, | the tortuous serpent Leviathan | and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea. (Book of Isaiah)"

"As Ea defeated Apsu and Marduk defeated Tiamat, so Yahweh did with the sea monster Rahab (Job 26, 12-13) and with the Leviathan (Job 41 ; Psalms 74, 14)."

"The literatures of the Iron Age of both the Aryan Greeks and the Romans, and the Semites of the Near Levant repeat the theme of the defeat, by a solar hero, of a despicable monster belonging to a previous divine order and possessor of some treasure : a land, a maiden, gold or simply one's own power. The main biblical example is Yahweh's victory over the cosmic sea serpent, the Leviathan, of which he himself boasts to Job."

"Leviathan is the sacralized example of an alpha predator in a certain culture. Amba is another, Bäru yet another. Similar beliefs and traditions could be cited for jaguars, Nile crocodiles, pumas, reticulated pythons and all the other species of large predators that lived in uncomfortable contiguity alongside humans, of whom they sometimes preyed. The mythical dimension of alpha predators, reflected and amplified in those beliefs and traditions, has contributed significantly to shaping the vision developed by our species of its place in creation."

"This original Leviathan should not be confused with a whale. In later times the name took on this meaning generically, but the biblical Leviathan is something stranger and more frightening. It is a chimerical creature, half crocodile and half dragon, evoked for spiritual purposes by elements of psychological and zoological reality."

"You have divided the sea with power, | you have crushed the heads of the dragons upon the waters. | At Leviathan you broke the head, | you fed him to the sea monsters. (Psalms)"

"The representation of Leviathan is [...] for Job a celebration of the supreme lordship of the Creator who can even allow himself to "play with him like a sparrow, tying him up for the amusement of little girls" (40.29). This is why, according to a Jewish tradition, Leviathan will be killed and prepared for the messianic banquet of the righteous. (Gianfranco Ravasi)"

"According to one theory, this figure derives from a previous Phoenician monster called Lotan, a seven-headed dragon representing primordial chaos, defeated by the deity Baal. In the Jewish scriptures, Leviathan seems more firmly under divine power. Yahweh is Almighty. Leviathan is powerful, and then comes all the others. The passage quoted from Job is a portrait of the predatory servant of God, a creature who exists to remind humans - poor Job himself and all of us - that we are in third place, not higher, in the food chain of power and glory."

"We probably mean the crocodile, an animal similar to the alligator, but larger and more formidable, with a narrower snout and webbed feet up to the ends of the toes. [...] It seems that the word Leviathan refers to the crocodile in Ps. 74:14 and Isa. 27:1. But in Ps. 104:26, this term evidently applies to some sea monster, perhaps to the whale. Various large cetacean animals are found in the Mediterranean. (Philip Schaff)"

"As Ea defeated Apsu and Marduk defeated Tiamat, so he did Yahweh with the sea monster Rahab (Job 26, 12-13) and with the Leviathan (Job 41; Psalms 74, 14). (Joseph Campbell)"

"The Mother-Abyss, | that formed everything, | has prepared Irresistible Weapons: | brought into the world [...] ferocious Leviathans, | to which it gave a frightening appearance | and surrounded with supernatural splendor, | thus equating them to the gods: | "Whoever sees them (he said) | lose consciousness! | And let them once launched, | never retreat!" (Enûma Eliš)"

"You can fish Leviathan with the hook | and hold his tongue with a cord, | stick a reed in his nostrils | and pierce his jaw with a hook? | Perhaps he will make many supplications to you and will he speak sweet words to you? | Perhaps he will make an alliance with you, | so that you may take him as your servant forever? | You will joke with him like a sparrow, | tying it for your maidens? | The fishing companies will put it up for sale, | will the traders share it? | You will riddle his skin with arrows and with the harpoon his head? | Put your hand on him: | at the memory of the fight, I did not rebuke! (Book of Job)"

"We have clear evidence throughout the biblical text that the Lord Yahweh was himself an aspect of the serpent's power. [...] We will not be surprised then to learn that the name of the priestly tribe of Levi, Yahweh's favorite, derived from the same verbal root as the term Leviathan and that, when paintings of the non-depictable god finally appeared, his form it was that of a god with serpent-shaped legs."

"You dominate the pride of the sea, | you calm the tumult of its waves. | You have trampled Rahab like a vanquished man, | with a mighty arm you have scattered your enemies. (Ethan the Ezraite, Psalms)"

"Rahab is the formidable Tiamat, which the Babylonian demiurge Marduk cut into two parts, from which heaven and earth arose. The Jews were able to learn about this myth even before the captivity. Traces of it are found in Job and in some psalms. (Alfred Loisy)"

"Vain and useless is the help of Egypt; | therefore I call him «Rahab the idle». (Book of Isaiah)"

"God does not withdraw his anger: | under him the supporters of Rahab are crushed. (Book of Job)"

"Have you not torn Rahab in pieces, | did you not slay the dragon? (Book of Isaiah)"

"Snakes in the Bible"

"With force shakes the sea | and with intelligence tames Rahab. | At his breath the skies clear up, | his hand pierces the twisting serpent. (Book of Job)"

"I shall shake all the nations, and the treasures of all the nations will flow in, and I shall fill this Temple with glory, says Yahweh Sabaoth."

"Go up into the hills, fetch timber and rebuild the House; and I shall take pleasure in it and manifest my glory there -- Yahweh says."

"The abundance you expected proved to be little. When you brought the harvest in, I blasted it. And why? - Yahweh Sabaoth declares. Because while my House lies in ruins, each of you is busy with his own house."

"That is why the sky has withheld the rain and the earth withheld its yield."

"Think carefully about your behaviour."

"I have called down drought on land and hills, on grain, on new wine, on olive oil and on all the produce of the ground, on humans and animals and all your labours.""

"A little while now, and I shall shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land."

"Our rabbinic texts, all in the Bavli, emphasize that Jesus, the new Balaam, does not have a portion in the world to come: his fate is that he must be punished in hell forever, with no chance of redemption—and the same is true for his followers: they better give up any hope of earning eternal life in his succession, as his apostles promise."

"Jesus is accordingly, in the following curious Talmudic legend, thought to sojourn in hell. A certain Onḳelos b. Ḳaloniḳos, son of Titus' sister, desired to embrace Judaism, and called up from hell by magic first Titus, then Balaam, and finally Jesus, who are here taken together as the worst enemies of Judaism. ... Onḳelos then asked the nature of his punishment, and was told that it was the degrading fate of those who mock the wise (Giṭ. 56b–57a)."

"אֲזַל אַסְּקֵיהּ בִּנְגִידָא לְיֵשׁוּ הַנּוֹצְרִי אֲמַר לֵיהּ מַאן חֲשִׁיב בְּהָהוּא עָלְמָא אֲמַר לֵיהּ יִשְׂרָאֵל מַהוּ לְאִדַּבּוֹקֵי בְּהוּ אֲמַר לֵיהּ טוֹבָתָם דְּרוֹשׁ רָעָתָם לֹא תִּדְרוֹשׁ כׇּל הַנּוֹגֵעַ בָּהֶן כְּאִילּוּ נוֹגֵעַ בְּבָבַת עֵינוֹ אֲמַר לֵיהּ דִּינֵיהּ דְּהָהוּא גַּבְרָא בְּמַאי אֲמַר לֵיהּ בְּצוֹאָה רוֹתַחַת דְּאָמַר מָר כׇּל הַמַּלְעִיג עַל דִּבְרֵי חֲכָמִים נִידּוֹן בְּצוֹאָה רוֹתַחַת תָּא חֲזִי מָה בֵּין פּוֹשְׁעֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לִנְבִיאֵי אוּמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם}}"

"In the part lowest of the abysses is Sheol, the place where those dwell who have passed to the state of rephaim or "shades". This is the place lower than any other, which is described in the Book of Job (x. 21–2) as the land where the shadow of death reigns, where the shadows are scarcely broken by any glimmers of twilight, where there is no order, and whence there is no return—in short, as something very like the Hades and Avernus of the Greek and Latin classics, and the Aralu of the Babylonians. No Hebrew Dante has described this place; yet we already find in Ezekiel a part of Sheol distinguished as deeper, called the "pit" or "the lowest parts of the earth", where the uncircumcised descend and those who have fallen by the sword, causing terror in the land of the living. In course of time this distinction came to be more definite: the upper part of Sheol, destined for the just, was called "Abraham's bosom", and the lower part became Gehenna, where sinners were tormented in flames."

"Here the dead meet (Ezek. xxxii.; Isa. xiv.; Job xxx. 23) without distinction of rank or condition—the rich and the poor, the pious and the wicked, the old and the young, the master and the slave—if the description in Job iii. refers, as most likely it does, to Sheol. The dead continue after a fashion their earthly life. Jacob would mourn there (Gen. xxxvii. 35, xlii. 38); David abides there in peace (I Kings ii. 6); the warriors have their weapons with them (Ezek. xxxii. 27), yet they are mere shadows ("rephaim"; Isa. xiv. 9, xxvi. 14; Ps. lxxxviii. 5, A. V. "a man that hath no strength"). The dead merely exist without knowledge or feeling (Job xiv. 13; Eccl. ix. 5). Silence reigns supreme; and oblivion is the lot of them that enter therein (Ps. lxxxviii. 13, xciv. 17; Eccl. ix. 10). Hence it is known also as "Dumah", the abode of silence (Ps. vi. 6, xxx. 10, xciv. 17, cxv. 17); and there God is not praised (ib. cxv. 17; Isa. xxxviii. 15)."

"The Jewish scriptures contain a variety of views about what happens to a person at death. Most commonly, a person who dies is simply said to have gone to "death"—a term used some thousand times in the Bible. Better known but far less frequent, a person's ultimate destination is sometimes called "Sheol", a term whose meaning and etymology are debated. It occurs over sixty times in the Hebrew Bible, and there is unanimity among critical scholars that in no case does Sheol mean "hell" in the sense people mean today. There is no place of eternal punishment in any passage of the entire Old Testament. In fact—and this comes as a surprise to many people—nowhere in the entire Hebrew Bible is there any discussion at all of heaven and hell as places of rewards and punishments for those who have died."

"Moses has the Being of beings say, "I am he who is." ... "I am, therefore something exists," seems to us a more primal and simple basis for experimental philosophy. Ego sum qui sum: that is God's first revelation in man and of man in the world, and it is also the first axiom of occult philosophy. . Being is being. Thus the principle behind this philosophy is what is, and there is nothing hypothetical or uncertain about it."

"After the destruction of the Second Temple there remained no trace of knowledge as to the pronunciation of the Name (see Jehovah). The commentators, however, agree as to its interpretation, that it denotes the eternal and everlasting existence of God, and that it is a composition of (meaning "a Being of the Past, the Present, and the Future"). The name Ehyeh () denotes His potency in the immediate future, and is part of Yhwh. The phrase "ehyeh-asher-ehyeh" (Ex. iii. 14) is interpreted by some authorities as "I will be because I will be," using the second part as a gloss and referring to God's promise, "Certainly I will be [ehyeh] with thee" (Ex. iii. 12)."

""The Law Is." In this Aphorism the word "" denotes "present, actual existence." It is as strong a term denoting actual existence as the English language supplies. ... The word "Is" has the significance of the word "Am" in the following quotation from Exodus, iii. 14, in the Hebrew Sacred Books: "And God said unto Moses, ' That '; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: hath sent me unto you." This then is the sense in which the Arcane Aphorism employs the term ""—in the sense of Absolute Existence."

"I AM is the self-definition of the absolute, the foundation on which everything rests. I AM is the first cause-substance. I AM is the self-definition of God.I AM hath sent me unto you. I AM THAT I AM. Be still and know that I AM God.I AM is a feeling of permanent awareness. The very center of consciousness is the feeling of I AM. I may forget who I am, where I am, what I am, but I cannot forget that I AM. The awareness of being remains, regardless of the degree of forgetfulness of who, where, and what I am."

"When HaShem commanded him to go down to Egypt and liberate the Jewish people from bondage, he asked HaShem, "When I come to the children of Israel and I say to them, 'The God of your forefathers sent me to you,' they will ask me, 'What is His name,' What [] should I say to them?" ... Now examine the final letters and discover the singular name HaShem- as follows:}}... It therefore is evident from the simple meaning of the verse itself, as well as from its letters and its numerical value, that Moshe, peace be upon him, was asking the Holy One, blessed is He, about the secret of His singular and preexistent name, Hashem-."

"And what is God's self-definition in the Bible? Did God say, "I have always been, and I always will be?" Of course not. That would have given reality to past and future. God said: "." No time here, just presence."

"When Moses asks his name and credentials, Yahweh replies with a pun which, as we shall see, would exercise monotheists for centuries. Instead of revealing his name directly, he answers: "I Am Who I Am (Ehyeh asher ehyeh)." ... When the Bible uses a phrase like: "they went where they went", it means: "I haven't the faintest idea where they went". So when Moses asks who he is, God replies in effect: "Never you mind who I am!" or "Mind your own business!""

"One might wish to follow Martin Buber and understand this "explanation" of the name as a refusal of revelation: "I am who I am" and what that is is none of your business. Nevertheless, in the following verses this explanation seems to be explicitly put into a relation to the name Yhwh. ... The form ʾehyeh echoes first of all the promise of assistance of verse 12, ʾehyeh ̔immāk. "I shall be" or "I am" refers in the first instance to the god who "is with [Moses]" and promises Moses help."

"God: [whispering] Moses... Moses: Here I am. God: Take the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground. Moses: Who are You? God: . Moses: I don't understand. God: I am the God of your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."