WOMEN IN THE BIBLE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE SACRED FEMININE by Dr. Andrew Cort, DC, JD 2010 (Based on the Video Series) INTRODUCTION In this article we are going to discuss the Sacred Feminine in the Bible. Each section will focus on one of the female characters in the story – including Eve, Rachel, Mary, and so many others – and what she represents. By way of Introduction, I want to talk about the approach we’re going to take to these stories. We won’t be talking about them as ‘literal history’, and for the most part we won’t be talking about them in terms of the social or ethical lessons they may contain. We’ll be talking about their inner psychological meaning. What I mean is, the Bible can be read as an allegorical description, a symbolic ‘Instruction Manual’, for the inner work the soul must do to rise from this lowly material State of Being, to a state of Spiritual Awakening and Enlightenment. More precisely, it tells the story of the soul’s Descent from Heaven to Earth (what the ancient Greeks called the Lesser Mysteries) and then it gives instructions for returning ‘home’ (the Greater Mysteries). This Sacred Quest to return ‘home’, to find what we’ve ‘lost’, has been called by many names: “The Return to the Promised Land”, “The Quest of the Holy Grail”, “Persephone’s Return to Olympus”, and many others. In the first sentence of the Bible the One becomes Two: God, the One, creates Heaven and Earth. ‘Heaven’ represents God’s Masculine aspect, and ‘Earth’ represents God’s Feminine aspect. We will see that throughout every step of this path there will always be a Feminine aspect as well as a Masculine aspect. The Creation sequence ends the very same way it began: the One becomes Two. In this case, an androgynous ‘earth creature’ is divided into Adam-the-Male and Eve-the-Female. (We’ll talk more about Eve soon.) Most of Genesis then covers the story beginning with Abraham, who talks to God in the ‘Promised Land’, and the stories of his children, grandchildren and descendants, ending in a state of slavery in Egypt. This entire story, when the symbolism is understood, represents the preparation of an individual soul which comes from a state of communion with God and enters the experience of material life in which we find ourselves now. These are the Lesser Mysteries. ‘Egypt’, by the way, does not mean a literal ‘place over there’, and the ‘enslavement’ is not ‘something that happened to other people a long time ago’. ‘Egypt’ is a symbol for our lives, right now. We are all “the children of Israel enslaved in Egypt”. We must find our way home. So the rest of the Torah, and through the Book of Joshua, consists of the Greater Mysteries: Moses leads the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land, from slavery and 'sleep' to spiritual awakening and enlightenment. At every step along the way there is a necessary Feminine Principle as well as a Masculine Principle: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Joshua and Rahab, and in the New Testament, Jesus and Mary. In fact, we’re going to see that without the help of the Sacred Feminine, attaining enlightenment and spiritual awakening is impossible! ALL spiritual evolution is impossible! She is the key to Creation and Return. EVE (The ‘Rib’) Let’s talk about Eve. First, we’ll discuss the Rib. Then we’ll talk about the 'Fall'. To begin with, the Hebrew word that is translated as ‘Adam’ is actually a gender-neutral word that means ‘a creature of earth’. In other words, Adam was initially created neither Male nor Female. The creature was placed in the Garden and given only one restriction – not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam lived a quiet, comfortable, and all but purposeless life in the Garden, tending the flora and distributing names to the animals. But God saw that Adam was alone with no emotional life, no tension, hardship or struggle. So God decided to put Adam to sleep and separate it into Male and Female in order to provide an emotionally meaningful life for humanity. Here is an extremely important point: The Hebrew word tsela appears many times in the Bible. With one exception it is translated as ‘side’, typically referring to the side walls of important structures such as the Tabernacle. On one occasion only, here in Genesis, tsela is translated as ‘rib’. This unique translation has had horrendous repercussions. But if we give the word the same meaning that it has on every other occasion, the story makes more sense. God took one side of the creature and out of this he made Eve, the woman, and the other side became Adam, the man – where neither had existed before. The ‘One’ has become ‘Two’, and there is nothing in this description to indicate anything other than perfect equality. The isolation of one human creature can now be replaced with a new form of wholeness that is attainable through love and erotic longing between two individuals. One possible reason for the early translator’s choice of the word ‘rib’ in this one place is that by taking a rib God revealed the Heart of the creature, analogous to opening Pandora’s Box, thus bringing emotions (which are universally symbolized by the Feminine) into the realm of human life. Like Pandora’s story, this is where pain and difficulty enter the world, but also happiness and meaning, and only then do mortal beings become moral beings with the ability to make choices and mistakes, and thus to evolve and grow. Even if we retain the word ‘rib’ as the translation of tsela, we see that this rib did not come from a previously created male, thereby suggesting some sort of primacy for the ‘man’. On the contrary, the rib came from a previously created earth creature of no gender. And in fact, the Woman, Eve, in this story, was created before the Man!
Later in the story of Eden, the Bible says: “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Notice here that Adam’s behavior in this story is completely passive. Throughout the scene, he is silent. The Serpent and Eve have their discussion, she decides to eat the fruit, she gives some to Adam, and he eats it too. That's all! The story doesn’t say that Eve tempted Adam, and nothing in the narration or in his silence suggests that she did. There’s no indication he’s reluctant to eat the fruit, that his better judgment is overwhelmed by Eve's treachery and deceit, or even that he thinks about it at all. He says nothing and he takes no initiative. It’s merely a passive act of acquiescence. Socrates will later describe the human soul as composed of three parts – the Thoughts of the Mind, the Emotions of the Heart, and the Needs and Appetites of the Body. He shows how these parts are in a state of total chaos and disorder. To ‘perfect’ one’s soul means that each of these parts must perform its own proper task in a well-ordered harmony with the others. In the story of the Garden, which is a parable of our inner life and the need to evolve and perfect our soul, Adam represents the Mind, Eve represents the Heart, and the Serpent represents the Body. In their proper alignment, the Mind should be the Active principle that governs the soul. The Body should the Passive principle which supports the efforts of the Mind. And the Heart should be the Reconciling principle that protects and nurtures the soul under the guidance of the Mind. But what happened in the Garden of Eden is that the appropriate ‘order’ became inverted. The serpent (the Body) interfered, took the active lead, and persuaded Eve (the Heart) to go along with its wishes. Adam (the Mind), silent and oblivious, passively joined in. This was the real ‘sin’ that occurred in the Garden of Eden, and that recurs in each one of us. This is the ‘Original’ (in the sense of ‘fundamental’) sin – the sin of an inverted soul. It takes very little imagination to see that this allegory provides a complete and accurate description of our contemporary life – the pop culture, the greed, the obscenity. The Body’s appetites are completely in charge of what we do, the Heart’s emotions fawn over these cravings, and the Mind (at least in the sense of genuine Wisdom) sits back silently and lets it all continue. ‘Original Sin’ is not “something an evil woman did a long time ago”. Quite the contrary, we are all committing this sin right now. It is high time we stopped blaming ‘Eve’. When God returns to the Garden of Eden, his instructions are really quite simple. If the soul wants to evolve, the Serpent must crawl on its belly – in other words, the Body must be Passive and focus on the Earth. Adam must “earn his bread through the sweat of his face” – in other words, the Mind (the "face") must become Active and take control. And Eve must “obey” her husband. This latter should not be twisted into a sexist command about social and marital relations. It’s an inner symbol which simply means the Heart must listen to the intelligence of the Mind, not to the cravings of the Body. SARAH Early in the story of Abraham and Sarah, there’s a little story that reads like a preview of the soul’s entire spiritual journey of Creation and Return. The couple descends from Canaan to Egypt because of a severe famine. In Egypt they meet Pharaoh, there’s a plague, it’s blamed on them, and in the end they load their wagons with gifts and riches from Egypt and return to Canaan. It’s the entire Exodus story in a nutshell. As they approached Egypt, Abraham said to Sarah, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. If the Egyptians see you and think, ‘She is his wife,’ they will kill me and let you live. Please say that you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and I may remain alive thanks to you.” Just as he predicted, the moment they entered Egypt some men saw her and were amazed by her beauty. They brought news of her to Pharaoh and she was taken to his house. And on account of her, Abraham was treated well by Pharaoh who believed he was her brother and gave him all sorts of gifts. But God did not want the married Sarah touched by Pharaoh, and He afflicted the palace with a plague. When Pharaoh’s magicians’ figured out the cause, Pharaoh called Abraham and said: “Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?’ The couple was sent away and returned home. Now taken literally, their deceptive behavior certainly seems sleazy and Pharaoh comes off as an innocent victim. But let’s look at it symbolically. In the Kabbalah, the Sacred Feminine is described as a ‘Vessel’ that holds and protects the ‘seed’, the Light, of the Sacred Masculine, like a chalice filled with wine. Later, she will pour forth the contents of the chalice, giving birth to all of Nature and life which she will nurture. Abraham and Sarah, who represent our highest level of consciousness, are wedded to each other in the appropriate harmony and balance of a perfected soul, with the enlightened Mind governing the Emotions, and the Emotions protecting the Mind. This is why Sarah does what she must to protect Abraham from Pharaoh – who represents the Ego, and is wrongly in control of the world represented by ‘Egypt’. The sacred Feminine always shelters and protects the sacred Masculine – Miriam cares for Moses, Mary cares for Jesus, we will see this everywhere. Sarah is the archetypal essence of the Sacred Feminine (in Hebrew ‘the Shechinah’), and as such she naturally glows with a heavenly beauty that ordinary people like Pharaoh have never seen before. The experience of the Shechinah, always arouses desire, and Abraham knows that the Ego is always ready to take whatever it wants, satisfying its greed, gluttony and lust, and believing that whatever it wants it can have: and it’s quite willing to silence and destroy any higher representative of consciousness that dares to suggest otherwise. This is Pharaoh’s home turf where he is at his most powerful, so anyone challenging his authority would be in great danger. So Abraham comes up with a clever ruse so Sarah can protect him. And Sarah, the essence of the Sacred Feminine, would never have been in any real danger. The Talmud says that whenever Pharaoh tried to touch the Shechinah, she signaled an angel to smack him with an invisible stick, toying with him all night long! It is also noteworthy to see that in order to function successfully at this level of Being, Abraham and Sarah are well aware they must employ cleverness and sometimes even trickery. HAGAR Despite several promises from God, Sarah was getting old and had still not had a child. She had an Egyptian servant named Hagar, whom she had raised herself, and according to the accepted custom of the times she said to Abraham, “Consort with my maid; perhaps I shall have a son through her.” According to Hebrew legends, Hagar was herself a princess, a daughter of Pharaoh, who had been given to Abraham and Sarah to give her a better life. So Abraham and Hagar spent a night together and she conceived. At first everyone was happy, but the pregnant Hagar soon began to treat the barren Sarah scornfully, reversing their roles and trying to increase her own importance, and Sarah complained to Abraham. He told her to do whatever she thought was right. She started treating Hagar harshly and Hagar ran away. But God sent an angel to find her, and when the angel found her near a well (which always signifies a source of divine truth) he told her she must return home and put up with Sarah’s treatment. But he promised her that God had heard her cries, and that through her son, who was to be named ‘Ishmael’, she would be the mother of a race of great warriors. Satisfied, Hagar responded joyfully, “The Lord has seen me!” She named the well ‘Beer-lahai-roi’ which means ‘the well of the Living One who sees me”, and then she returned to Sarah. Thirteen years later, when Sarah was 99 years old, she gave birth to Isaac. Once again, a conflict arose between Hagar and Sarah. This time, Sarah became worried that Hagar’s son Ishmael was going to share the inheritance she wanted exclusively for Isaac, so she told Abraham to cast them out! Abraham consulted God, and God told him to obey Sarah but not to worry – God would take care of them and Ishmael would father a great nation. Abraham packed them supplies of food and water, and the pair left. Soon the water ran out, and Hagar wandered away from Ishmael, not wanting to see him die. But again, God sent an angel to find her, and to open Hagar's eyes so that she saw yet another well which sustained her and Ishmael in the wilderness. Hebrew legends confirm that Abraham loved his eldest son and visited him often during his long life. Why this conflict between Hagar and Sarah? Remember, this is an internal spiritual story. Women in the Bible represent Emotions. Both of these women are called ‘princesses’, which means they certainly represent positive attributes. But Sarah, the Shechinah, represents emotions from the highest, most sacred part of the soul: Sarah comes from Canaan, the Promised Land. Hagar is a child of the Ego; Hagar comes from biblical ‘Egypt’, which symbolizes the material level of the soul, the level of illusion. Now Abraham is the Bible’s great personification of Mercy and Loving-kindness, the highest qualities of a human being. But it is possible for loving-kindness to go too far, becoming undisciplined, and generous-to-a-fault. Sarah, the Sacred Feminine, is once again protecting Abraham – this time from himself! Hagar and Ishmael represent very high level qualities as well, but they are worldly qualities, not spiritual qualities, and Abraham must not become too attached to them. Ishmael is a great and powerful warrior – a man of this world. The name ‘Hagar’ means ‘stranger’ – she is a stranger in Canaan, where it was completely inappropriate for her to try to reverse roles with the Shechinah and make herself superior. This, of course, is exactly what her father, the Ego, tried to do to Abraham when Abraham and Sarah were in his palace. So, Sarah, the Sacred Feminine, is once again protecting Abraham and making sure that lower influences do not take advantage of him and usurp his authority. REBECCA Immediately after the episode of the near-sacrifice of Isaac, Sarah passed away. When the time of mourning was over, Abraham sent a servant to the land of his birth to find a wife for Isaac. When the servant arrived outside the city he stopped beside a well and prayed for a sign. Instantly the beautiful Rebecca appeared, who turned out to be the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother, and who possessed a generous and loving nature much like Abraham himself. Rebecca agreed to return with Abraham’s servant and marry Isaac. Just as Rebecca reached the home of Abraham, the text says that “Isaac had just come back from the vicinity of Beer-lahai-roi”, ‘the well of the Living One who sees me’ that was named years earlier by Hagar. It then says, “Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he took Rebecca as his wife. Isaac loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother’s death.” We are told very little else about Rebecca. But in the very next sentence the Bible tells us that Abraham also now remarried, this time to a woman named Keturah, and they had several more children. Abraham lived to be 175 years old. When he died, Ishmael and Isaac buried him beside Sarah. After this, we are told, Isaac and Rebecca “settled near Beer-lahai-roi.” This perplexing jumble of information begins to make sense when we learn from the Talmud that ‘Keturah’ was another name for Hagar. Before Rebecca's arrival Isaac had been in Beer-lahai- roi, which strongly suggests that he had been living with Hagar and his brother Ishmael. Abraham evidently also joined them, and after Abraham’s death Isaac and Rebecca returned to them and settled there. On a spiritual level, the story reminds us that the various inner forces within the soul, no matter how divergent, can always reunite and work together in harmony. On a psychological level, it suggests that it’s never too late for broken families to come back to each other and heal their wounds. On a social level, given the extraordiany importance of this particular family for all of western history, it tells us clearly that since Isaac and Ishmael could reunite as brothers, there is no reason why their children, Jews and Muslims, cannot do the same. Isaac and Rebecca had twin sons, Jacob and Esau. Esau grew up to be a fierce hunter. His temperament was much like his father, Isaac. Jacob was quiet and mild mannered, a gentle soul like his mother and his grandfather. According to the Kabbalah, the original divine plan was that the twins would share the responsibility as the next Patriarchs of Israel: Esau would be responsible for the nation’s physical well-being, and Jacob would be responsible for the nation’s spiritual well- being and spiritual awakening. But Esau did not like responsibility. He was selfish and violent. This changed Jacob’s destiny. By whatever means necessary, he would have to take Esau’s job away from him, and balance both archetypes within himself. The story of how Jacob took on both roles began when Esau came home hungry after a hunt and Jacob was cooking a stew. When Esau asked for some, Jacob said, “First sell me your Birthright,” and Esau agreed. Shortly after this, Isaac, whose eyes were growing dim and knew he soon would die, told Esau to hunt some game and prepare a meal for him. Isaac would then give him his blessing as the eldest son. But Rebecca, the Shechinah, had been listening, and as soon as Esau left she called Jacob and told him to disguise himself as Esau, bring Isaac a feast she would prepare, and take the blessing. The ruse worked, and Jacob now possessed Esau’s birthright and blessing. The journey forward of the soul could now continue, thanks to the help and protection of the Sacred Feminine, Rebecca. RACHEL AND LEAH After stealing Esau’s blessing, Jacob escaped his wrath by running away to Rebecca’s brother, Laban. Rebecca covered for him by telling Isaac he went to seek a wife among his own people. Soon, Jacob came to a well and the beautiful Rachel appeared, just as Rebecca had appeared at the same well long before. In Biblical symbolism, water represents a high level of divine truth, and a well signifies a source of this truth. When Abraham’s servant came to the well it was open and accessible. But now the soul is moving down into denser and denser levels of materiality, so when Jacob came to the well it was covered by an enormous stone: the divine truth was blocked by dense, heavy, matter. When Rachel came to water her father’s flock, Jacob went up and rolled the stone off the mouth of the well. Jacob then kissed Rachel, and broke into tears. He had contacted the Shechinah, the Sacred Feminine, in Rachel, he recognized her immediately, and all the waters of divine love and sustenance began to flow down and feed the flock. Rachel took Jacob to her home, and soon thereafter Jacob asked Laban for her hand in marriage. Now Laban was a crook and a swindler. For a long time he’d been anxiously waiting the day when Jacob would arrive – ever since that day when Abraham’s servant had arrived with gold and jewels on behalf of Isaac. But to Laban’s great disappointment Jacob brought no gifts, so the two men struck a deal: Jacob would work for Laban for seven years, and then he could take Rachel as his wife. When the long-awaited wedding day came, it turned out that Laban’s wicked ways were just beginning. In the morning, after consummating his marriage, Jacob beheld his new wife and discovered it was Rachel’s older sister, Leah! “What have you done”, he demanded. “I was in your service for Rachel!” Laban said, “It’s not our practice to marry off the younger before the older.” He then told Jacob that, if he would agree to continue working for another seven years, he could marry Rachel as well, immediately after the bridal week. Jacob agreed to these terms. On one level, it seems that Jacob is getting back a bit of his own. After all the tricks that he pulled on his brother and father, he now must repay karma by being the object of his uncle’s deceptions. But again, there’s a deeper meaning to the story. The Kabbalah suggests that Rachel and Leah had always been betrothed to Jacob and Esau. Like their cousins, the sisters were different types. Leah was quiet and contemplative, the unworldly daughter who stayed at home. Rachel was the active daughter, who went into the fields to shepherd the flock. Rachel was of the earth, and she had an earthly physical beauty that immediately attracted Jacob. But Leah was not of the earth. Genesis describes her as having “weak eyes”. Th symbolism means that she did not see well into this world, for she was always looking inward. Leah was not pretty, but Leah had a beautiful soul. The Kabbalah relates a magical story about the birth of Dinah and Joseph. Leah was fruitful and had six sons. She also had two more sons through her handmaid. Rachel also had two sons through her handmaid. But Rachel herself had long been barren. Now Leah was pregnant again, and so, at last, was Rachel. Leah was carrying another boy, and Rachel was carrying a girl. Leah felt compassion for her sister and prayed that Rachel might give birth to the son (so that Rachel would give posterity at least one of the prophesied twelve tribes) and she herself, after so many sons, would carry the daughter. God, says the Kabbalah, heard her prayer and switched the children in their wombs! Leah then gave birth to Dinah, and Rachel gave birth to Joseph. The intended betrothals of Jacob and Esau with Rachel and Leah were a perfect matching, balancing, and completion of qualities. Esau, the man of action, would marry Leah, the woman of contemplation. Jacob, the man of contemplation, would marry Rachel, the woman of action. This was the divine plan. But it all had to be changed, for Jacob was no longer just Jacob. Having acquired the birthright, the blessing, and in fact the entire archetype of Esau, Jacob was now both men. To complete the divine scheme, both women needed him equally, and he needed both of them equally. Leah represents ‘Understanding’ according to the Kabbalah, on a very high level. Rachel represents the physical manifestation: together they are the Sacred Feminine, the Shechinah – the ‘presence’ of God in the world. Jacob, having previously sealed together his brother’s qualities with his own, now unites with these two feminine energies as well. Out of this extraordinary 4-way union will come the Twelve Tribes. Leah and Rachel gave Jacob twelve sons and at least one daughter (some sources say twelve of each). The number Twelve is always a Bible symbol for abundance. Psychologically, all of these children symbolize the vast multitude of human qualities being brought down into the world. By the time of the births of Dinah and Joseph, the years of Jacob’s servitude to Laban finally came to an end, and it was time to take his family and begin the journey down to the next stage of the Lesser Mysteries. But Laban did not want him to go, for he had grown very rich over the years due to Jacob’s efforts. In addition, Laban was an idol-worshipper, he practiced a form of sorcery and fortune-telling with his idols, and these had warned him that if Jacob were to leave, Laban’s wealth and abundance would go with him. It must be noted here that although the Bible warns us against the use of magic, it does not say that magic doesn’t work! Unbeknownst to Jacob, as the family was secretly preparing to leave, Rachel stole her father’s idols so they could not warn him of Jacob’s flight. But Laban’s shepherds noticed that the well, which had flowed abundantly since Jacob’s arrival, had inexplicably dried up. Laban immediately realized that Jacob must have taken off, and he rushed off in pursuit. But God came to Laban in a dream and warned him not to try anything amiss with Jacob. So when he caught up with the family, he only demanded to know why Jacob had stolen his idols. Jacob, unaware of what Rachel had done, found this accusation ridiculous, and he told Laban to go ahead and search everyone and everything, even adding, “anyone with whom you find your gods shall not remain alive!” Laban rummaged everywhere in search of his precious idols, but found nothing. When he entered Rachel’s tent, she asked him to excuse her for not rising in greeting because, she said, “the period of women is upon me.” He never knew that Rachel was sitting on the package of his idols. And so, using all her cunning and wisdom, the Sacred Feminine has protected the Sacred Masculine and transferred all of Laban’s power to Jacob. DINAH Jacob and his family came to the city of Shechem. Jacob bought some land from a man named Hamor, whose son’s name was Shechem, like the town. On one particular day, while Jacob’s sons were out pasturing the flock, Hamor’s son Shechem brought some of the young maidens of the land to sing and dance near the Israelite camp. Dinah, now a girl of about thirteen, went out to see them. Shechem took her and raped her. When her brothers heard the news, they were outraged. But Hamor, the boy’s father, tried to pacify them by saying that the boy loved Dinah, and wished to make things right by marrying her. Hamor then made a speech suggesting that the family should remain in his land, they could trade together, and all should intermarry. After all, this would be advantageous to everyone. They couldn’t do this, the brothers responded, because the men of Shechem were not circumcised. But if every male of the city would become circumcised, they said, “Then we will give our daughters to you and take your daughters to ourselves; and we will dwell among you and become one kindred.” The men of Shechem agreed to this condition and they all were immediately circumcised. But three days later, when the pain of recovery was at its worst and these men were quite helpless, two of Dinah’s brothers, Simeon and Levi, entered the city, took Dinah from Shechem’s house, killed the boy and his father, and then killed all the males of the city. The other sons then came and plundered the city, taking all their wealth, their wives, and their children, because their sister Dinah had been defiled. On the surface, the brothers’ cruel and deceptive actions seem despicable. But this should not be taken literally. Dinah, the feminine aspect of the Soul, had been trapped and defiled by lower forces of materiality, and these forces had to be destroyed. The story represents the destruction of evil within us, evil arising from a lower plane represented by Hamor and his people who are trying to infect us with greedy and malicious passions, trying symbolically to ‘intermarry’: that is, trying to mix lower emotions with higher emotions –which is a sin that the Bible calls ‘Adultery’. Before the soul can move forward to the next level, the sons of Jacob (who symbolize high spiritual attributes) wreak terrible vengeance on all those who dared dishonor the Sacred Feminine, who dared defile the human Soul, who dared suggest a sinful union. To do this, they employed all the treacherousness of Laban and all the fierceness of Esau, qualities which they had now absorbed through Jacob. They had also absorbed his spiritual generosity. So first they prepared the men of Shechem by circumcision, a ritual removal of their sinfulness. Then they completely annihilated this internal threat. ZULEIKA AND ASENATH We all know the story of how Joseph’s brothers became jealous and angry and sold him as a slave to a caravan that was headed to Egypt. Joseph was sold to Potiphar, an official of Pharaoh’s court. His very presence in Potiphar’s home brought wealth and abundance to his master, just as Jacob’s presence had brought wealth and abundance to Laban. Soon Potiphar put him completely in charge of the entire household. Like his mother Rachel, Joseph was extremely beautiful. Soon, Potiphar’s wife, Zuleika, was overwhelmed with desire for him. Although he resisted her attempts to seduce him, she persisted, coaxing him day after day to make love to her. But he always refused, saying, “How could I do this most wicked thing, and sin before God?” Finally, angry and humiliated, Zuleika sought revenge. She told her husband that the Hebrew slave had tried to seduce her. Potiphar then had Joseph thrown into the royal dungeon. He remained there for ten years. This is a story of how the soul ought to be balanced, how to avoid the Fall. This time, Zuleika represents the Heart and Joseph represents the Mind. Zuleika is completely under the spell of the physical appetites, and she wants to bring Joseph with her. This is not because she is evil (nor was Eve). It is because she sees that he is beautiful (like the fruit of the Tree), she recognizes that he is blessed with divine wisdom (like the fruit of the Tree). Plus, her idols have revealed that her posterity shall also be his posterity. This turns out to be true, though not in the way that she expected. But Joseph understands both on a literal level that it is a sin to sleep with a married woman, and more importantly, he understands on a symbolic level that he must not commit inner ‘adultery’ -- he must not ally himself with lower forces. Unlike Adam, Joseph is not passive, he does not sit silently and acquiesce. Joseph is active. He has already taken over complete control of the ‘household’, thus rendering the body passive which is as it should be. This time, when the Heart, beguiled by the physical, asks him to join her, he does not succumb. He does, however, pay a heavy price. After 10 years Pharaoh released Joseph from prison when he heard about his ability to interpret dreams. Deeply impressed with Joseph’s abilities, Pharaoh put him in charge of the entire nation and the preparations to store food to prevent famine. Pharaoh also arranged for him to be married, and his wife was to be none other than Asenath, the beautiful daughter of Potiphar and Zuleika! Asenath gave Joseph two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. And thus, Zuleika’s idols were right, and her posterity was also Joseph’s posterity. However, some legends say that Asenath was the adopted daughter of Zuleika, and was actually the daughter of the rape of Dinah, Joseph’s sister. And this union symbolizes the beginning of the healing that will be completed later when his brothers arrive in Egypt during the famine. TAMAR After Joseph was sold into slavery, and prior to his being sold to Potiphar, Genesis interrupts the story and inserts this interesting, and seemingly-out-of-place, interlude about Joseph’s brother Judah. Judah had gotten married and had three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. When Er came of age, Judah found him a wife named Tamar. But Er was evil (we are not told why), and God took him. After Er died, the tradition of the times was that his brother must marry the widow, and the children of this marriage would be considered the children of the dead elder brother and would continue his line. So Judah had Onan marry Tamar. But Onan wasn’t interested in supporting a family that was not considered his own, so when he slept with Tamar he would not ejaculate inside her. This displeased the Lord who had commanded his people to ‘be fruitful and multiply’, and Onan, too, was taken. Next, Shelah was supposed to marry Tamar, but Shelah was still a boy. So Judah told Tamar to return to her own father, and when Shelah was grown up they would be married. Shelah grew to manhood, but Judah didn’t contact Tamar. She seemed a bit of a jinx, and he probably didn’t want to lose his only remaining son. Long after, Judah’s wife passed away. After the period of mourning, he took a trip to Timnah, and Tamar heard that he was going there. She also knew that Judah hadn’t done what he had promised and should have done, for Shelah was obviously now a fully grown man. Since it was her sacred duty to bear children, and she was considered betrothed to the family of Judah and could not marry anyone else, Tamar devised a clever plan: She disguised herself and sat by the road to Timnah. When Judah saw her, he didn’t recognize her and thought that she was a harlot, and he asked to sleep with her. Tamar asked what he would pay. He offered a young sheep. She agreed, but since he didn’t have the sheep with him, and was only promising to send it later, Tamar asked for some collateral. Judah gave her his seal, cord and staff. They then slept together and she conceived. He later sent a friend to give her the sheep and retrieve his belongings, but Tamar was nowhere to be found and no one had seen any harlots. Months later Judah received word that Tamar was pregnant. Since she was betrothed to his family, and Shelah hadn’t married her, Tamar was evidently guilty of adultery, a capital offense. So Judah ordered her executed. As she was being brought out, she sent a package and a message to her father-in-law: “I am with child by the man to whom these belong. Examine them: whose seal and cord and staff are these?” Judah recognized them and said “She is more righteous than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah.” This public confession of wrongdoing is the first such confession in the Bible (long overdue since Adam first blamed Eve and Eve blamed the Serpent), and it is a symbol of profound repentance. Tamar was spared. Thanks to her, Judah has learned to bear responsibility and to be merciful. Later on, this preparation will serve him well when he has to confront his brother Joseph. There, as the story of the soul’s descent into material life comes to an end, Judah will exemplify the highest form of human love, without which life on earth could never succeed – the willingness to sacrifice one’s life for another. Tamar, the Sacred Feminine, took her role seriously. Her devotion to God and to personal duty helped turn Judah into a Tzaddik -- a just and righteous man -- and this enabled the soul to complete its journey into manifestation. For this, Tamar is greatly honored. She soon gave birth to twins, Perez and Zerah. King David would later be a descendant of Perez, and so too would be the Messiah. JOCHEBED, MIRIAM, AND BITHIAH Now we begin the story of the Greater Mysteries, the soul’s ascent from the illusion and slavery of material life back to a state of enlightenment and communion with God. The Hebrew Bible calls this inner journey of spiritual awakening “the Return to the Promised Land”. After many years of enslavement, the Israelites had greatly multiplied. Pharaoh worried that if a war were to break out with Egypt’s neighbors, the thousands of slaves might side with the enemy. So steps had to be taken to reduce their population. Also, Pharaoh had been warned by his astrologers that a child who would free the Hebrews and devastate Egypt was about to be born. So he ordered the two Hebrew Midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill all the male babies at birth. Shiphrah, according to some stories, was another name for a Levite woman named Jochebed. Puah was her daughter, also called Miriam. The midwives disobeyed Pharaoh’s order. So Pharaoh gave a new order, that every male baby was to be thrown into the Nile River. Jochebed’s husband, an important Israelite leader, ordered the men to leave their wives, rather than having babies that would be slaughtered. But his daughter Miriam reminded him that at least Pharaoh’s command only applied to males, and who could know whether the edict would even be enforceable. Her father’s decision, however, would shut the door to life on all Hebrew children and would definitely be enforced. But it was God’s Will that the Hebrews ‘be fruitful and multiply’, and who could say what His divine plan might be or how these events might play out. Her father agreed and rescinded his order. Jochebed soon conceived a son, and Miriam had a dream that this child would be the promised redeemer. Jochebed was able to bring her son to birth without being noticed because he was premature and no one was expecting him yet. Later, when the time of his birth was expected and prying eyes were watching, she placed him in a tiny ark in the Nile to await the will of Providence. Miriam hid by the river to watch. Soon Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh, came to bathe in the Nile. She heard the cries of the child, saw the basket, and retrieved it. She took pity on him and said, “This must be a Hebrew child” (perhaps because she saw that he was circumcised, or perhaps, as some legends suggest, because Bithiah could 'see' the Shechinah, who was always with Moses, beside him and protecting him). Miriam then appeared and convinced Pharaoh’s daughter to let her find a Hebrew nurse for the child. She fetched Jochebed. So Jochebed took her son and raised him. Later, when he turned twelve, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter who made him her son. And thus Jochebed, a representative of the Sacred Feminine whose name means ‘Divine Splendor’, cared for and raised her son for several years, teaching him to love God, bequeathing to him everything good and useful from Israel, in order to protect him from the negative influences of the Egyptian palace where he would have to go when he was twelve years old. But it is also said in the legends that Pharaoh’s daughter, Bithiah, whose name means ‘Daughter of God’, was an initiate of the Egyptian Mysteries and a devotee of the true God. She would bequeath to Moses everything that was good and useful from Egypt, and would later join the Israelites in the Exodus. Thus was Moses brought into life, protected, raised, and prepared for his task, by a triad of sacred feminine power. Without the wisdom and foresight of his sister Miriam, the child would never have been born at all. Without the cleverness and love of his mother Jochebed, he would never have survived. And without the kindness and piety of his step-mother Bithiah, he would never have fulfilled his destiny. ZIPPORAH Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s palace, but one day he went out among his own people, became angered at an Egyptian taskmaster who was whipping a Hebrew slave, killed the Egyptian, and had to run away from a furious Pharaoh. He went to Midian where he met a Priest named Jethro, whose daughter, Zipporah, became Moses’ wife. Years later, after the famous incident at the Burning Bush, when God told him to return to Egypt and free his people, Moses took Zipporah and their two sons and began the journey. And then a very strange thing happened as recorded in Exodus (and seldom talked about!). "At a night encampment on the way, the Lord encountered him and sought to kill him. So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ legs with it, saying, 'You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!' And when God let him alone, she added, 'A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision.'" A commentary in the Talmud says it was not God Himself who tried to kill Moses in this startling story, but two Angels-of-Punishment who came disguised as serpents. They took Moses and swallowed his whole body down to his feet, and only gave him up after Zipporah circumcised her son and touched Moses’ feet with the blood. One interpretation of this story is that Moses had not yet circumcised his son out of respect for Jethro who was not an Israelite, but now God had grown impatient and forced him to do it. Others say that God wished to punish Moses for killing the Egyptian, or that He was angry about all the objections Moses had raised at the Burning Bush. But none of these interpretations have a satisfactory ring to them when compared to the extraordinary bloodiness and eeriness of the story. There has to be more. And there is. God’s attempt to kill Moses means that something in Moses, something in the Initiate, has to ‘die’. The Talmud adds that serpents were involved. Serpents, because of their ability to shed their skin, are symbols of ‘rebirth’. Here, two vicious serpents try to ‘swallow’ Moses, pulling him back down to the realm of earth, preventing him from rising up on his path of Initiation. In other words, since a death and a rebirth are required, God comes to kill him! It is Zipporah, the Sacred Feminine, who must protect him and allow the new birth. So Zipporah performs the circumcision and he is ‘reborn’ by being disgorged by the serpents. Circumcision is a universal symbol of Rebirth. The symbolism of this story is magnificent in its symmetry. Consider the implications! The Mind and the Heart, represented by Adam and Eve in the story of the soul’s descent, are now represented by Moses and Zipporah in the story of the ascent. Once again, a Serpent, representing the Body, tries to draw the Mind down, which would again invert the soul. This time, however, the woman realizes the appropriate internal relationship, and acknowledges that the Mind, not the Body, is the Heart’s true “bridegroom”. Thus it is that on the return journey to Enlightenment, the Feminine saves the soul from a ‘Fall’! If we are going to blame Woman for the ‘Fall’ in Eden, it’s time we gave her full credit for saving the soul from a ‘Fall’ here in Midian. MIRIAM Once, during the long years of wandering through the desert, the people demanded that Moses give them water. So God gave Moses the ability to perform a miracle and get water from a rock. Legends say that God did this for the sake of the prophetess Miriam, as a reward for all her merits. The rock became known as “Miriam’s Well”, and it followed the Israelites throughout their many years of wandering, giving them water until they reached Canaan. This abundant source of nourishment, of course, is an attribute of the Feminine, the Shechinah. As we’ve already noted, the Feminine aspect of Creation is the vehicle, the ‘Vessel’, through which the Divine can be expressed in this world. Miriam has been the personification of the Shechinah throughout this part of the story. It is Miriam, the midwife, who brings new life to birth. But eventually we read, “The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin on the first new moon, and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there.” With her passing, the abundance which she miraculously supplied for the Israelites during their many years in the desert was withdrawn. The rock no longer gave water. As always, the withdrawal of the Mother’s nourishment brings a time of suffering. A defining characteristic of the Masculine is the need to think things through in a linear, step-by- step manner, to experience a reality that is limited and finite and therefore straightforward, controllable, and ‘knowable’. A defining characteristic of the Feminine, on the other hand, is the ability to experience reality in a holistic, open-ended, all-at-once manner, to take in and accept limitlessness and infinity. Needless to say, we each have a share in both of these characteristic abilities. But since God is endless, infinite, and inherently indefinable and unknowable, it is the Sacred Feminine in the world (women) and within the individual (the heart) that must introduce the Sacred Masculine to the ineffable reality of Divine Being. This is why Miriam had to die first, before Aaron and Moses. The Shechinah must lead the way. Another defining characteristic of the Masculine is that it expresses the Active force within the Creation, and as such it is always involved in doing, fixing, making, and acting. The Feminine, on the other hand, is the Passive/Receptive force of Creation. This quality of passivity has been given a very bad name in our frantically productive society, where it’s been saddled with negative and destructive connotations of weakness and submission, and we’ve seen in the story of Adam an example of irresponsible passivity – that is, passivity precisely when the male principle ought to be active. But if the truth be told, passivity is the higher quality. Action is the emblem of the realm of Matter: the Masculine ‘does’. Passivity is the emblem of the realm of Spirit: the Feminine ‘is’. It is this ability to be passive, to ‘be’ without having to ‘do’, that allows the Sacred Feminine Vessel to receive pure, endless, unknowable Being, without having to limit it or define it through any agenda of her own, and then to bring it to birth as infinite abundance and love in the physical world. RAHAB The soul’s journey is coming to an end. Just before Joshua and the Israelites entered the Promised Land, Joshua sent two spies on a reconnaissance mission. The spies set out, according to the Bible, and they came to the house of a harlot named Rahab and lodged there. Now why, of all places, would Joshua’s spies go to the house of a harlot? Doesn’t the Bible say that God hates harlots? A ‘harlot’ symbolizes the seductive sensations and desires that inflame our lower nature but leave the soul unsatisfied. The name ‘Rahab’ means proud or arrogant, and it is a term that is sometimes used to signify the domain of ‘Egypt’. Jericho, Rahab’s city, means Moon – which is another symbol for the illusory level of life that ‘Egypt’ also represents. The soul’s first mission in the Promised Land will be to once and for all completely destroy ‘Jericho’, so that no illusions remain and the soul can reach enlightenment. But ‘Rahab’ means something else as well. Rahab symbolizes the primordial Chaos that was ‘vanquished by the Creator’ in Hebrew legends. For example, Isaiah will later say: “It was You that hacked Rahab in pieces, That pierced the Dragon. It was You that dried up the Sea, The waters of the great deep.” And Job will say: “By His power He stilled the sea; By His skill He struck down Rahab”. According to another legend from the Oral Tradition, Joshua was swallowed by a sea-monster in his infancy, but at a distant point of the sea-coast the monster spewed him forth unharmed. So on a deep psychological level, we see that Rahab was the ‘sea-monster’ who spewed forth Joshua – in mythical terms, his ‘mother’. Later on, according to the legends, Joshua will marry Rahab (in her current incarnation as the ‘harlot of Jericho’), so she is also his ‘wife’. (This is a recurrent theme in mythology and religion. Eve was Adam’s wife, but she was also his Mother – since he calls her ‘the Mother of all Living’. In Greek mythology, some stories have Gaia as Uranos’ wife, while in other stories she’s his mother). Like the Greek goddess Gaia, Rahab is Chaos, the turbulent Passions. She is the ‘Sea’, the deep vast unconscious. Rahab is the ancient archetype that underlies the power of the Sacred Feminine. In Jericho, he lives in a tower, high above the city. Rahab was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world, a theme we have seen before when a woman in the story represents the Shechinah, the Sacred Feminine in the world. As always, the Masculine needs her protection, so when the king of Jericho hears rumors of spies, Rahab hides the two men on her roof and tells the king to take his soldiers out of the city and search for them in the nearby hills. Then she made a deal with the men that when the day of Jericho’s destruction came, they would first come and rescue her and her family. The spies of course agreed. This is the end of the story in the Hebrew Bible, and now, as the soul ascends to Enlightenment, Rahab, the Sacred Feminine, must reunite with Joshua, the Sacred Masculine, so that together they can merge back into Oneness and return home to God. The Shechinah was present at the beginning of Creation, she imbues all levels of Creation from the lowest to the highest, and she is still present here at the end of the story waiting for the Masculine to return. Just before the destruction of Jericho, Rahab, the rescuer who saved the spies, is rescued in return, and she returns to Israel where the Bible says, “she continues to dwell to this very day.” THE VIRGIN MARY We now move on to the story of the soul's spiritual awakening as it is told in the Gospels. Woman provides the passageway into life. This of course is true literally, but this literal truth is a material reflection of an even deeper spiritual truth. As we discussed in the story of Miriam, it is through the Sacred Feminine that the soul enters the material world, and it is only through her intercession that the evolved and perfected soul can return home to God. In the New Testament, the name ‘Miriam’ is translated as Mary. In the Gospels, Mother Mary represents the Shechinah – God’s “Presence” in this world. As the story begins, Mary is betrothed, but not yet married, to a man named Joseph. According to the story, she was a ‘virgin’. This is actually a mistranslation: the word translated as ‘virgin’ only means ‘a young woman of marriageable age’. However, I have no quarrel with the use of the word ‘virgin’ if it is taken in its symbolic sense: To say that Mary was a ‘virgin’ means that her soul was pure and completely free of sin. This state of being is not brought about by avoiding sexual behavior. It is brought about by inner spiritual effort. The Gospel is simply acknowledging the extraordinary level of holiness that she had attained – a degree of spiritual awakening and perfection that was so high and sacred that her soul, by itself, could conceive and give birth to Divinity. As the story unfolds we are told surprisingly little about Mary. But she is present at the three most critical moments of Jesus’ life: his birth, his first miracle (which she asks him to perform and which inaugurates his mission), and his death. The first miracle takes place at Cana. Jesus is attending a marriage, and Mary is also there. The sacrament of Marriage symbolizes the re-unification of the earthly level of the soul with the heavenly level of the soul, the ‘raising up’ of our lower aspects: in other words, the “Marriage of Heaven and Earth”. At this wedding, according to the Gospel of John, the wine being served to the guests ran out, and Mary said to Jesus: “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill up the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. “Now draw some out and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it out.… [The water] had become wine. Jesus had just said that the lack of wine was no concern of his, since his ‘hour’ had ‘not yet come’. But a moment later he turned six jars of water into wine. What happened in the interim that caused him to change his mind? Well, this is what happened: His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now remember our premise that the Gospel story gives us a symbolic representation of the steps of a spiritual initiation. The “Marriage at Cana” indicates that the soul is now rising to the heavenly level. The Divine Mother is the ruler of this level, just as the sun is the ruler of the planets. The soul, represented by Jesus as he performs the initiatory rites for all of us to watch, is destined to rule this realm as well, but he cannot assume this authority until he is commissioned by the Mother. But something is lacking. Without wine, evidently, the Sacred Marriage of Heaven and Earth cannot proceed. Even though Jesus objects that his hour has not yet come, Mary decides that he is ready and she gives him her authority: “Whatever he tells you,” she said to her heavenly subjects, “you must do.” Jesus then made sure there would be abundant wine. Let’s look more closely at what this symbol means. We‘ve seen that Water is a symbol of God’s Truth. At our level of Being, this high level of Truth must be filtered through stone, which represents a literal level of truth, so that we can comprehend it with our sense-based consciousness. When God gave Moses the Torah, for instance, the words had to be inscribed on tablets of stone. This is a similar image to the water that Jesus now has the servants pour into jars made of stone. But now, Truth can blend with the initiate’s higher level of Being (instead of with ‘stone’) and be transformed into spiritual Wisdom (even better than Truth). The resulting attainment of this high level of consciousness is the mystical meaning of the transformation of Water (which means Truth) into Wine (which means Wisdom). Jesus could not do this until Mary determined that he was ready. This is another example of how our soul can only return to God through the intercession of the Sacred Feminine. THE SAMARITAN WOMAN In the Gospel of John, Jesus comes to Jacob’s Well where Jacob met Rachel. But this time a high representative of the Feminine doesn’t appear. Instead, a lower representative appears, a Samaritan woman who doesn’t recognize Christ (though she’s heard he’s coming and hopes to see him). She draws some water and Jesus asks for a drink. She’s surprised, since Jews did not share things with Samaritans. Jesus says, “If you knew who is saying, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” But this is the lower Feminine principle, and she gives herself away with a literal and superficial question: “Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?” Jesus answers “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water I give them will never be thirsty.” She still doesn’t understand, and responds somewhat comically, “Sir, give me this water, so I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus, perhaps a bit exasperated, tells her to “Go, call your husband, and come back.” At first, this seems an odd bit of chauvinism, but he’s speaking symbolically and what this means is that her consciousness is completely attuned to her lower physical nature, which is why she understands everything literally, and he wants her to turn to her higher Mind, her proper ‘husband’. But she says, “I have no husband.” “You’re right”, he says, “for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” The five husbands are her five senses, none of which is appropriate. Slowly, she begins to get a little clearer. She still can’t ‘see’ very well, but she wants to -- and this means she eventually will. “I know the Messiah is coming”, she says. And Jesus says, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” At this point, the disciples appear. John tells us they were “astonished that he was speaking with a woman”, but they wisely kept their mouths shut. The Samaritan woman then left and went back to her village, where she told everyone about Jesus and asked them whether they thought he could be the Messiah. We’re told that “many believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.” Then they “left the city” and went to meet him. Meanwhile, the text says that Jesus’ own disciples had gone “to the city” in search of food. In other words, they had gone off in the opposite direction, away from Christ, seeking sustenance in the lower realm, in Samaria, while the residents of Samaria were now coming upward, searching for sustenance in Christ! Now the disciples have returned and they urge Jesus to eat. But he says he has other food, food they know nothing about. Like the Samaritan woman, they take this literally and ask each other, ‘who gave him food?’ Jesus tries to explain, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” He then tells them not to think that someday ‘in the future’ the harvest will be ready. The harvest of this food is here now. Open your ‘eyes’, he says, “and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.” At this point the Samaritans arrive and ask him to spend time with them, and Jesus “stayed there two days”. After this experience they said to the woman, “it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” This is a major point that the Bible often makes but no one seems to hear. Faith is not ‘believing what someone else tells you’. Faith is knowing, with certainty, for yourself, from your own inner experience. THE WOMAN WITH THE ALABASTER JAR In Luke’s gospel a Pharisee invites Jesus to dinner. Luke uses the word “Pharisee” to represent narrow-minded religious bigots who have lost sight of the inner spiritual meaning of religious rules and customs. More importantly, the word also applies to that place in ourselves that does this: that forgets about love and human-kindness and forgiveness, and focuses instead on performing routine and empty rituals in order to appear holy (and then to condemn other people who don't follow the same rules). "And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with the tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment." Here we have a virtual fountain of priceless biblical symbolism. Women of the Middle East would often carry ointments and perfumes in alabaster jars, and this is not the only time that Jesus will be anointed by a representative of the Sacred Feminine who uses a fragrant balm that she keeps in an alabaster jar. Anointing, as well as bathing one’s feet and kissing, were common signs of hospitality at this time. But in this case, these customary gestures are performed with an uncustomary extravagance. ‘Anointing with oil’ is a Biblical symbol for the ‘fire’ of the Holy Spirit entering the soul of the initiate (the 'oil' is the fuel of 'fire'). In fact, the word Messiah means ‘the anointed one’. Anointing the head with oil is a symbol for confirming and strengthening the Mind, and it is the ritual which many ancient traditions, including Judaism, have used to empower a King. In many traditional mythologies, this anointing would be done by a woman, the bride of the king. But in this story, it is the feet that are anointed. ‘Feet’ symbolize the foundation of our physical life, but through the act of walking they also symbolize the soul’s efforts to advance. ‘Tears’ are a symbol of the soul’s suffering in the pursuit of divine Truth, its remorse when looking squarely at its bondage to external life, and its compassion for those who remain asleep and enslaved. ‘Hair’ sits at the apex of the Mind, and is a symbol of the highest qualities of the physical realm reaching upwards to touch God. A woman’s hair in particular is a symbol of the pure feminine receptivity which alone allows divinity to enter the world. Lastly, a ‘kiss’ symbolizes love and union, such as the ‘kiss of heaven and earth’. Naturally, this woman with the alabaster jar was a sinner, just as we all are sinners at our level of Being -- mistaking the illusory for the real, worshipping wealth and fame (the Bible calls this 'idolatry'), and doing anything necessary to achieve them (the Bible calls this 'harlotry'). She, however, has changed. But the Pharisee within us, the hypocrite who swells with pride while observing empty religious formalism, who obeys rules technically but not spiritually, and who constantly worries about how he looks in other people’s eyes, could only feel disgust and say to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him – that she is a sinner.” Jesus, of course, heard what was in his heart, and he said to the Pharisee: “I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.” All of this demonstrates quite clearly, Jesus continues, that this is a woman who is full of love, a woman who “loves much”. The necessary karmic response is that her many sins have been forgiven. The Pharisee, on the other hand, has loved but little, and his sins have not been forgiven. MARY MAGDALENE At a certain point in Jesus’ journey, we are told by Luke, “he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and ringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources”. To say that these women “provided for them out of their resources” is an example of something we have seen many times since the story of Abraham and Sarah: the Sacred Feminine taking care of the Masculine. But let’s talk more specifically about Mary Magdalene. To say that Mary Magdalene had been ‘cured of seven demons’ does not mean, as has often been said, that she was a particularly egregious sinner. She was no more a sinner than you or I. But Mary has been fully initiated. The highly symbolic number ‘Seven’ signifies every level of a complete process: a passage through seven stages is an ancient and universal symbol of complete achievement. Thus, we have seven days of creation, seven colors of the spectrum, and seven notes in the musical scale. The Hindus speak of seven chakras, Aristotle speaks of seven spheres, Dante speaks of seven heavens. There are even seven deadly sins. To say that Mary Magdalene was cured of seven demons means that every level of Mary Magdalene had been purified and perfected. She is the archetype of the soul that drinks in the total experience of life on earth, pours forth love and attains complete forgiveness, completes all of the Great Work, and has been healed at every level of her soul. She will now remain the powerful ally and protectress of the Spirit right to the very end – Magdalene, unlike the other apostles, will still be present at the Cross. And apart from Jesus himself, there is no indication that anyone else in the New Testament achieves her level of initiation, with the single exception of her male-counterpart, Lazarus. Was Mary Magdalene the secret wife of Jesus? Was she the ‘vessel’ of his semen and his children, the mother of a lost line of kings, and thus the authentic ‘Holy Grail’? All of this is beside the point. Not because it is unimportant to return the Sacred Feminine to her rightful place in western civilization. On the contrary. It is urgent. But chasing after gossip, scandal, and conspiracy theories, is not the way to do it. If we found a Marriage Certificate with both of their signatures buried in a desert cave, how would this discovery contribute anything to the perfection of one’s soul? The search for this kind of ‘proof’ is fascinating and fun, but it is of no spiritual significance. It is merely a diversion from real spiritual work, from the efforts of spiritual awakening. The reason we must restore the Sacred Feminine to her full divine stature in our lives and culture is because without her all spiritual evolution is impossible! Without her all the ancient myths and holy scriptures are useless! As we saw in the stories of Miriam and the Virgin Mary, only the Sacred Feminine, within the soul of a human being or the soul of a civilization, can receive the pure, endless, unknowable Being of God, without trying to limit or define it, and then bring it to birth as infinite abundance and love in this world. And only the Sacred Feminine, through pure noetic intuition, can reconnect us to that infinite, timeless, Divine Being, and lead us home. She is the key to Creation and Return. The consequences of her degradation, a crime for which men and women are equally responsible, are constantly and painfully visible in the disintegration of compassion, decency, and human meaning that we witness all around us. |
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