**Michael DORFMAN RETURN FOR LILITH**

 

**February 20, 2023**

**Michael DORFMAN  

RETURN FOR LILITH**

In her own defense, Lilith says that her purpose is to spoil children — boys on the eighth day after birth, and girls on the twentieth.

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**Michael DORFMAN  

RETURN FOR LILITH**

The myth of Lilith, the first wife of Adam, is unique in world mythology. For a thousand years, it defined the values of the Jewish family and Jewish life in exile, and it continues to exert a powerful influence on Jewish life to this day.

Probably, for the Jewish person of all times, it would be curious to learn that one or another character from their fairy tales was borrowed from Iranian, Babylonian, or Greek folklore. At the same time, the Jew would continue to regard the characters as their own and seek confirmation in Jewish sources. The name Lilith appears in the *Epic of Gilgamesh* in the 2nd millennium BCE, long before the appearance of Jews on the stage of world history. The etymology of the name is non-Semitic. However, Jews interpret the name Lilith as "nightly." Most Bible scholars understand the word this way in the prophet Isaiah (34:14):

> *And wildcats shall meet with jackals, and the satyr shall call to his fellow; yea, there shall the night-hag repose, and find her a place of rest. There shall the arrow-snake nest, and lay her eggs, and hatch, and gather under her shadow; yea, there shall the kites be gathered, every one with her mate.*

Only in the King James translation of the Bible is *lilith* rendered as a personal name. The majority, however, interpreted this word as "night specter," "night demon." They translated *lilith* as "cry of the night owl" or "nightjar." Having once heard the eerie cry of the small nightjar bird, it is difficult to forget.

The few mentions of the word *lilith* in the Talmud also refer to certain night spirits, just as Russians named their spirits *vodyanoy* (water spirit), *domovoy* (house spirit), or *leshii* (forest spirit). It is impossible to assert with certainty whether these spirits were Semitic or borrowed by Jews from other peoples. It is also unclear whether the Talmud is referring to personal names or using common nouns that replaced tabooed, forbidden names of spirits.

And yet, the source of the myth of Lilith is found in the Bible. Even those who believe in the divine inspiration of Scripture and perceive the Bible as a unified narrative cannot fail to notice that in the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis, two different accounts of the creation of man are presented one after the other. First, the Lord creates man and woman from dust. Then, in the second chapter, a completely different story is told about the creation of Adam from dust, about his sojourn in paradise, and about the creation of woman from his rib. This discrepancy, whether real or imagined, stirred the imagination of many readers of Holy Scripture, giving rise to numerous interpretations and legends. The earliest and most famous of these is set forth in the apocryphal Jewish work *The Alphabet of Ben-Sira*:

> "— After the Holy One created the first human being, Adam, He said: 'It is not good for Adam to be alone' (Gen. 2:18). — He created a woman, also from dust, and called her Lilith.

> — They immediately quarreled. She said: 'I will never lie beneath you!'

> — He said: 'I will not lie beneath you, but only above you. You are to be fit (ready) to be under me, and I above you.'

> — She replied: 'We are both equal, because we are both from dust (earth).' Neither listened to the other. When Lilith realized what would happen, she uttered the Ineffable Name of God and flew away.

> — Adam then raised his prayers to the Creator, saying: 'Master of the Universe! The woman You gave me has fled from me.' Immediately the Most High, Blessed be His Name, sent three angels after her.

> — The Most High said to Adam: 'If she returns, all is well. If she refuses, she must reconcile herself to the fact that one hundred of her children will die every day.'

> — The angels went after her and caught up with her at the sea, in the mighty waters, where the Egyptians were destined to perish. The angels told her God's word, but she did not want to return."

*The Alphabet of Ben-Sira* (23a-b)

Further on, the book relates how the angels continued to insist. Lilith agrees to see the daily death of her children, provided she retains her independence. In her own defense, Lilith says that her purpose is to spoil children — boys on the eighth day after birth, and girls on the twentieth. She swears not to touch human infants if they are provided with amulets bearing the names of all three angels. To this day, Lilith remembers her oath and does not touch children protected by such a talisman. Let us note that Lilith, like Medea, was not personally punished by God. But such a circumstance, like numerous analogies with other mythologies, is secondary for us, since we do not regard Lilith as a variety of the many Hecates from the myths of the world's peoples. We are interested exclusively in the Jewish aspect of the myth of Lilith.

[Image: Kabbalistic amulet protecting infants from Lilith. Depicted are the three angels Senoi, Sansenoi, and Samangelof, whom Yahweh sent to Lilith upon Adam's complaint.]

The Jewish myth of Lilith crystallizes in sources from the period of exile. In the Talmud, which codified the heritage of the period of Jewish statehood, mentions of Lilith appear rather rudimentarily. The legend of Lilith receives later development in the *Book of Zohar* (Splendor), which gave rise to the Jewish mystical teaching of Kabbalah. Let us note that the codification of the Talmud was completed around 500 CE. *The Alphabet of Ben-Sira* was written in the Gaonic era, somewhere between the 7th and 10th centuries, and the *Zohar* appeared in the 13th century. All these books were written outside the Land of Israel. The destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and subsequently the liquidation of Jewish statehood by the Romans in 70 CE, cast the Jewish people into exile, led to the creation of the Jewish diaspora, and placed the Jews in a position of minority, dependent on the will of rulers and deprived of political control over their own destiny. For 2000 years, Jews lived in communities marginalized in relation to the socio-economic structures of their countries, to the history, religion, culture, politics, and aspirations of the surrounding peoples; they were subject to laws and lawlessness; doomed to humiliation; often defenseless against the tyranny of the mob. The Jews knew that exile, or in Hebrew *galut*, must be endured and overcome.

The only way to preserve themselves as a people, the Jews saw in following the Teaching, in "building a fence around the Torah," in preserving, developing, and following the "Jewish constitution in exile" — *Halakhah*. The role of "government in exile" was assigned to Jewish rabbinic scholars. In the model of organizing Jewish society, the rabbis were assigned the role of making legislative decisions. The Jewish principle of decision-making is difficult to describe in terms of Western sociology. Here, the analogy with the inherently Russian principle of *sobornost* (conciliarity) is more appropriate. In real life, of course, things happened differently, but the hero and role model for the Jewish man was the rabbi, the Talmudic scholar. Such a model had been forming even in the era of Jewish statehood, but it reached its apotheosis only in the *galut*.

Ancient Jewish society knew different types of women: prophetesses, witches, harlots. There was a class of women who supported and fed themselves and their families. The Hebrew word *zonah*, usually translated as "harlot," comes from the root *zun* — meaning to feed, to be nourished — and originally meant a woman who earned her own living. Real prostitutes, of course, also existed, although the term for them — *prutzah* — appeared only in the Talmudic era.

All this is marginal to patriarchal Jewish society. With few exceptions, a woman was not viewed as an individual with her own interests, but only as the property of her father's or husband's family. It was believed that the interests of the family, clan, and society should also be her interests. She was not recognized as having interests of her own. The primary function of a woman was to provide for the household and care for her husband and children. The Bible presents various models of female behavior. What they have in common is that the woman was assigned the role of her husband's support. In the *galut*, this role was further strengthened, and the woman in many ways became the sole support of the husband, who devoted his entire life to the study of the Law. In many Jewish communities, it is accepted without much fuss that the woman also takes the reins of management in the household.

Jewish life is sustained by many myths. Among them: the Jewish family is more stable and sanctified in heaven, and is a bulwark against the hostile outside world; the Jewish husband does not drink and does not beat his wife; the Jewish mother is selflessly devoted and does not abandon her children; Jews take care of their own and will not let anyone perish. Since these are myths believed in unconditionally, the discrepancy between reality and the myth generates not protest, but guilt and fear. "After all, such a thing cannot happen, so I must be guilty or she must be guilty." The model of the Jewish woman, the famous *Yiddishe Mame* (Jewish mother in Yiddish), was formed in society as early as the early Middle Ages. Lilith is precisely the antithesis of such a role, literally and figuratively expressing a refusal to become her husband's support.

Elisabeth Janeway, author of the classic work *Man's World, Woman's Place*, notes that every positive social role has its crude reverse, a "shadow role," as the researcher defines it. The shrewish career woman is the shadow role of the pleasant society lady; the bitch is that of the loving woman, the tender mistress; the despotic witch is that of the selflessly devoted mother. Positive and negative female roles alike serve to maintain the patriarchal order. The former as a model, and the shadow roles as a threat. In such a model, Eve plays the role of support, while Lilith plays the shadowy threatening role of destroyer. By her refusal and demand for equality, Lilith weakens, undermines, and destroys Adam, who, according to Talmudic tradition, was also engaged in the study of the Torah in paradise.

*The Alphabet of Ben-Sira* is certainly not the only or even the most authoritative source of the myth of Lilith. Being in form a work of Talmudic literature, a *midrash*, it was not included in the canon, but only in the apocrypha — *sefarim hitzonim* (external books). Some Talmudists even considered it necessary to forbid their reading. At various times, the *Alphabet* was extremely popular among Jews, although it was always viewed with some apprehension. Not surprisingly. The book is full of sarcasm, written in a venomous language, and contains barbs and fragments capable of offending the feelings of believing Jews. Some scholars consider it a collection of forbidden Jewish tales, others — a polemic with Christians or Karaites. The book is full of salacious details.

Biblical and Talmudic heroes are presented in the *Alphabet* in caricature, often very maliciously. Thus, the main character Ben-Sira is conceived through the incestuous union of the prophet Jeremiah with his daughter while she was bathing in a bathhouse. True, traditional commentators explain that the semen accidentally reached her, but this is impossible to understand from the text of the *Alphabet* itself. Yehoshua Bin Nun (Joshua) is depicted in the book as a fat clown, unable to mount a horse. King David is a malicious hypocrite, secretly rejoicing at the death of his son Absalom, but publicly putting on a mask of grief. All this gives Eliezer Segal grounds to call the book an anti-Semitic satire. However, the myth of Lilith is much older than *The Alphabet of Ben-Sira*. Archaeologists have discovered ancient amulets against Lilith with the names of the angels, made significantly earlier than the *Alphabet* was written.

Since we are dealing with a myth, all the circumstances of the biblical legend are completely unimportant. It does not matter that it was Eve, not Lilith, who led Adam into sin. It does not matter that Eve, not Lilith, brought lust into the world by betraying Adam with the Serpent. The theme of the sexual relations between Eve and the Serpent is developed in many Jewish sources. Interestingly, although all participants in the Fall are punished — Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and even the earth — all responsibility is placed on Adam, and even the sin is called "Adam's sin."

The meaning of "Adam's sin" is that God commanded Adam: "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Gen. 2:17). What does Adam do? He acts like many husbands after him. Just in case, he tells his wife an untruth, exaggerating the danger: "only of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God said, you shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it." Although God had not forbidden touching the fruit at all. Eve saw that the tree was good for food and desirable, and she took of its fruit. And nothing happened! And then she fell into sin — she ate of the forbidden fruit and also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. (Gen. 3:6). The Talmudic tractate *Bereshit Rabbah* sums it up: "What caused Eve to touch the tree? — Adam's words, who built a fence around the words of God."

[Image: art_lilith]

Most peoples have myths about female rebellion. The motives causing such rebellion are also numerous. The myth of Lilith is probably unique in this respect. We do not know of another myth where a woman rebelled for the sake of equality. By telling the myth of Lilith, the man told the woman: "If you are demanding, self-confident, independent like Lilith, you will end badly: a nymphomaniac, frigid, childless witch!" Undoubtedly, Lilith is the most negative female image in Jewish mythology, created in the *galut*.

What terrible sins do Jews accuse Lilith of? Lilith causes miscarriages, harms women in childbirth; maims and destroys newborns — boys before circumcision, and girls up to twenty days. Lilith, the night witch, seduces and exhausts men, steals their sperm in their sleep, giving birth and placing demonic offspring in exchange for their own. In a huge number of legends and beliefs about Lilith, these three qualities are invariably present. Aviva Cantor, author of the classic work *The Lilith Question*, notes that these qualities reflect the age-old male fear of impotence and loss of "manly strength"; anxiety over the loss of female support in the family; and fear of the threat to the survival of the entire people. Each of these fears individually also found reflection in non-Jewish sources. However, it is unique to the Jewish myth that they are combined in one mythological figure. In the stressful situation of the *galut*, the Jewish man feared losing his masculine qualities, feared the collapse of family morality and the fading of Jewry.

In a patriarchal society, a man's status is largely, and often entirely, determined by his ability to be a father. An example is the Arab custom of calling a man by his son's name. Therefore, the fear of the woman-Lilith, who might deny her husband this, is seen as an absolute threat to the very male essence of society. In the conditions of the *galut*, deprived of many of the prerogatives of power characteristic of a patriarchal society, the Jewish man especially needed a powerful myth distinguishing him from the woman. The meaning of one of the main Jewish prayers is that a man thanks God for not making him a woman.

In stressful conditions, the Jewish man feared that the woman would refuse to care for him, deprive him of her support, or even leave. What was threatening for the Jewish man in the *galut* was that Lilith left Adam. The family was the stronghold and center of Jewish existence, and the man's anxiety at being abandoned, the fear that the woman would refuse the role of being the support of the home, were sublimated into the eternal guilt of woman. This anxiety was projected onto the woman herself, expressed in the desire to keep her in a subordinate role, to take away important social functions, such as the study of Torah and participation in decision-making.

The Jewish woman, like any other, also felt the stress of the *galut* acutely: the powerless position, dependence on the whim of rulers, crises, wars, revolutions, emigration. But the woman perceived stress not as a catastrophe, but merely as a worsening of the situation. More problems, more worries, but not ruin and rupture. After all, she remained the real support of the family and, in essence, the real mistress of the Jewish home. It has been proven more than once that in stressful situations, women could cope better with the difficulties of everyday life. This further intensified the man's fear that the woman could use her strength for her own selfish interests and deprive her husband of support and sustenance.

Therefore, female strength was tolerated and even desirable only as long as it was not linked to any form of power and authority. Janeway notes that male fears, accompanied by the creation of negative roles for women, intensified during times of social change. In such times, people's nervousness increases because new social roles appear in society and people do not know what to expect of them.

This is precisely what happened in the 16th–17th centuries, during the transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era. Precisely when the foundations of feudal society were crumbling in Europe, and the Khmelnytsky Uprising, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, swept through, the mystical teaching of Kabbalah appeared among the Jews. In the main Kabbalistic *Book of Zohar*, Lilith — the wife of the chief of demons Samael and a participant in the Fall of Adam — acquires new features. The Kabbalists envisioned the harmony of the world as the union of the Lord with His presence in the world, expressed in the female image of the *Shekhinah*. The name *Shekhinah* is derived from the name of the tent in which the Lord dwelt (*Mishkan*). In another aspect, the *Shekhinah* is also the people of Israel, the Bride of the Lord, His wife, beloved, and even daughter. The Kabbalists describe the relationship between the Lord and the *Shekhinah* in explicitly sexual terms. The Jerusalem Temple served as the bedroom where the Lord met the *Shekhinah*.

> "...Some say that while the Temple stood, the King (God) descended from His heavenly abode every midnight, yearned for His Wife (Shekhinah), and possessed her...

> ...Others say that the King possesses His Wife only once a week, on the night of the Sabbath...

> ...and from their union came people and angels."

*Book of Tikunei ha-Zohar*, Tikkun 34, 77; *Book of Zohar* 3, 296a; *Book of Zohar* 1.12b.

This is not a literary metaphor or a philosophical image. Judaism is not inclined toward abstractions. Based on the above quotations, the Kabbalists recommend that God-fearing Jews engage in intimate relations only on the Sabbath. But this rule is not obligatory, because if the temptation is great and the sin of involuntary seminal emission is more severe, then intimacy is permitted on weekdays and even the services of prostitutes are allowed, provided it is done discreetly and in a foreign city or quarter.

Naturally, the indications that the Lord is "not alone" shocked orthodox Talmudists of many generations. The study of Kabbalah was forbidden or permitted only to especially steadfast, older married men. After all, these are not literary metaphors or some secret writings, but legislative texts of Judaism that determined the way of life of people, families, and society. When a pious couple makes love, taught Rabbi Yosef Karo, simultaneously a Kabbalist and author of the main code of Jewish law, the *Shulchan Arukh*, they (and all Jewish couples) must imagine "as if they directly, in one place and at the same time, perform a union as between the heavenly family (pair)." The greatest Kabbalist of the 15th century, Rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi, also known by the acronyms ARI or Ariza"l, wrote even more explicitly. The teaching of the Ariza"l to his wife is known: "The fulfillment of the commandment of intimate relations (copulation) is the union of the Holy One, Blessed be His Name, with the Shekhinah."

The Kabbalistic doctrine of the *Shekhinah* and Lilith as divine female emanations corresponded to powerful archetypes of Jewish folk consciousness, which largely determine the collective psychology of Jews to this day. "The fact that no other element of Kabbalah won such enormous popularity among the people," writes the greatest researcher of Jewish mysticism, Gershom Scholem, regarding the *Shekhinah* and Lilith, "proves that it corresponded to the deep religious needs of the people."

The Kabbalists believed that after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, unity was broken and the *Shekhinah* went into exile together with the people of Israel. The place of the *Shekhinah* with the Lord was taken by Lilith, "the handmaid-concubine who previously sat at the hand mill" (*Book of Zohar* 3, 69a). Lilith symbolizes the exile and desecration of the *Shekhinah* and herself becomes a divine emanation in the world. However, the evil personified by Lilith is not limitless. On the holy Sabbath day, Lilith is forced to withdraw from the world into the wilderness, where she cries out in pain, longing, and jealousy. This is precisely the source of the "cry of the night owl" in the King James translation from the prophet Isaiah. The Kabbalists believe that the liberation and reunion, the intimate closeness of the *Shekhinah* with the Lord, will take place on the Sabbath day, when there is an opportunity to overcome evil. According to the *Book of Zohar*, the angels cast Lilith into the sea, where she was destined to remain until the atonement of Adam's sin. Later, the Lord rescued Lilith and gave her power to punish the sons of men "for the sins of their fathers."

It is probably no coincidence that the place of Lilith's imprisonment was chosen as *Yam Suf*, the sea where, according to Ben-Sira, "the Egyptians were destined to perish." The place where the enemies perished, who sought to limit the freedom of the Jews led by the Lord out of Egyptian slavery. It can be assumed that in the complex symbolic world of Kabbalah, where nothing is accidental, the place of imprisonment of the symbol of Jewish exile, Lilith, is also connected to the place where "the Egyptians perished," who intended to return Israel to exile.

The real threat to Jewish existence, to the Jewish person, family, and people, came not from a woman who rebelled against her husband, but from exile, from the *galut*. The real threat came from the whims of rulers, from authority, from the moods of the mob. The threat was not only to physical existence. The temptation of assimilation, the temptation to adopt the culture of surrounding peoples and rid oneself of the fate of exiles, to improve one's affairs, to try one's luck, and often to save one's life, was great. At all times, Jews firmly believed that assimilation is very tempting but barren and incapable of satisfying. It is precisely these traits that Lilith is endowed with in the popular consciousness. The seductive but sterile and unsatisfied witch dries up the seed of life, "manly strength." She destroys the man, deprives him of offspring, and encroaches upon the promised eternity of Israel. Lilith attacks Jews in their most vulnerable and unprotected places. Along with the sperm, she shamelessly steals their hope and their future. It is in this sense that the image of Lilith is much more than just a metaphor for Jewish exile. What is terrible for the Jewish person are the numerous descendants of Lilith, born from stolen seed, who lay claim to a place in the eternity of Israel and a share in its inheritance. It is no accident that the belief, atypical for a patriarchal society, that Jews can only be the children of a Jewish woman is so strong in Judaism.

However, Aviva Cantor believes that the antithesis of the demanding and non-altruistic role of Lilith became not Eve or the *Shekhinah*, but Esther — also a demanding, but altruistic character of Sacred History. The Scroll of Esther is devoted to the story of the threat to Jewish existence in exile. The Scroll tells how the Jews who lived so well in Persia suddenly found themselves under threat of annihilation. Incited by his minister, the king decided to carry out a general pogrom and annihilate the entire people of Israel. It turned out that the Jews were defenseless against the threat. The Jews are saved by Esther. She sacrificed herself, gave herself to a gentile, and became queen. The obvious altruism was that she helped her uncle, and according to some sources her husband, Mordecai, to approach the king. And then Esther showed demandingness by asking the king to save her people. The demandingness of the Jewish woman obviously proved "good for the Jews," which contrasts with the behavior of her predecessor, Queen Vashti, a figure who was also demanding but not altruistic, for which she paid with her crown. Cantor sees clear analogies between Vashti and Lilith. "The Jewish woman must be a support or..." — the researcher leaves an ellipsis.

Let us note that misogynistic motifs are characteristic not only of the legends of Lilith. Even for the *Shekhinah*, only the metaphor of a footstool was found, which served as the motive for the well-known Jewish belief that a wife's place in paradise is as a footstool at her husband's feet. We have written about this earlier. It is precisely in Kabbalistic texts that the male Adam appears, created in the image of the Lord, while the female Lilith, according to later Kabbalistic notions, was created before Adam only as "one of the creatures of the earth." All this mysticism is in glaring contradiction with the real state of affairs in the world of Ashkenazi Jews, where the woman was the backbone of the family, and often the sole breadwinner. The classic joke about the three signs of a Jewish woman is well known: excess weight, brilliant children, and a bumbling husband. There is a grain of truth in every joke. Let us leave aside excess weight, symbolizing the desire to overfeed one's family, as almost the only way to express one's love. The bumbling husband is not even engaged in the low-income craft of Torah study. Brilliant children, who must be brilliant because mother invests so much in them.

Numerous attempts to comprehend the image of Lilith are made in contemporary art. Lilith is a powerful archetypal image that has inspired numerous non-Jewish legends. The image of Lilith has become one of the leading ones in the formation of "women's" art. Lilith's assertiveness and striving for independence have inspired numerous feminist works. Like the image of the prophet Elijah, from the punishing thunderer of the First Temple era to the wandering, ever-cheerful Jewish peddler-miracle worker with a knapsack, going from shtetl to shtetl, the image of Lilith is transformed by them into a positive and creative one.

It is interesting that the image of Lilith in Ashkenazi folklore is almost never "reduced." Even the all-conquering Jewish humor, the main weapon against all fears and misfortunes, which playfully and daringly spins sacred biblical themes and Talmudic *halakhot*, bypassed Lilith. Lilith does not become the subject of jokes, anecdotes, or even fairy tales, according to the well-known expression — "myths that are no longer believed in." And what "reduction" can there be when solid rabbis today refuse to sit in the same room with a woman? There is no rational explanation why well-mannered fathers of Jewish families become indescribably aroused at the sight of lingerie advertisements. Without Lilith, one cannot explain why, in the late 1980s in Jerusalem, religious Jews burned practically all the bus stops in the city where Oberson swimsuit advertisements were displayed. Out of fear of Lilith, religious men jump up as if stung when a woman sits next to them on public transport or when a woman addresses a religious Jew on the street. On one of the largest Russian-language websites, in response to a question why Judaism forbids mixed dancing of men and women, a modern scholarly rabbi answers that the *Shulchan Arukh* gives two reasons: mixed dancing increases the likelihood of involuntary seminal emission, which is a very great sin; it is also forbidden to touch a ritually unclean girl. Only fear of Lilith can explain many features of the psychology of modern orthodox Jews. The motif of demonic children from the union of Lilith with a Jewish man has not undergone any "reduction" at all. And what reduction can there be when the ancient halakhic rule of recognizing only those born of a Jewish mother as Jews is seriously discussed in the Israeli parliament as a basis for citizenship law?

However, in religious circles they do not like to talk about Lilith for a simple reason. Among orthodox Jews, it is not customary to pronounce the name of an evil force or a troublesome phenomenon, as one of the powerful means of combating them. Here we have the archetype of representing evil in a female image. Such a segregation of consciousness leads to a loss of balance, and the unconscious strives to "compensate" for the one-sidedness of consciousness. Carl Jung wrote that if consciousness no longer takes into account the experience of archetypes, if symbolic transmission is impossible, then archetypal images can invade consciousness in the most primitive forms. Understanding Jewish archetypal images such as Lilith could help in understanding the sensitivity of various Jewish groups and facilitate intra-Jewish dialogue on many seemingly intractable issues.

Probably, the time has come to heed the numerous calls today to "return to the sources" and turn to the first chapter of the book that Jews call *Bereshit* ("In the Beginning"). After all, everyone agrees that the beginning of the story of Lilith was as follows:

> *27 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.*

> Genesis (1:26-27)

The translation from *The Alphabet of Ben-Sira* and the *Book of Zohar* is by the author.

The author expresses gratitude to Natalya Tyshkevich (Israel) and Marina Ostrovskaya (France) for their assistance.

Li_Rosset10

All rights belong to Michael Dorfman (c) 2003  

© 2003 by Michael Dorfman. All rights reserved.

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**Footnotes:**

3. Elisabeth Janeway, *Man's World, Women's Place*, NY 1976.

4. Eliezer Segal, "Looking for Lilith," *Jewish Free Press*, Feb. 1996.

5. E.g., Talmudic treatises *Avodah Zarah* 22a and *Yevamot* 103a.

6. Tractate *Bereshit Rabbah* 19:3-4.

7. Aviva Cantor, "The Lilith Question," cited in the collection *On Being a Jewish Feminist*, Shooken Books, NY 1983.

8. "In paradise, the wife is a footstool at her husband's feet," *Notes on Jewish History* No. 23: http://www.berkovich-zametki.com/Nomer23/Michael2.htm

9. http://www.jewis.ru/

10. Code of religious Jewish canons and prescriptions (16th century).

11. Cited in Rafael Patai, *The Hebrew Goddess*, 3rd ed., Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990.

12. Gershom Scholem, *Kabbalah*, New York: Dorset Press, 1987.

While I cannot generate or create actual images, I can provide you with a **detailed conceptual description and visual blueprint** that you could give to an artist, graphic designer, or AI image generator (like Midjourney, DALL-E, or Stable Diffusion) to create a powerful illustration for this text.

Here are **three conceptual visual ideas**, ranging from literal to symbolic, based on the core themes of the article.

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### Option 1: The "Duality of Woman" (Surreal/Archetypal)

*This concept captures the central thesis of the article: Eve as the submissive support vs. Lilith as the rebellious shadow.*

**Description:**

A diptych or split composition. On the left side, a serene, golden Garden of Eden. A demure, head-covered Eve stands slightly behind Adam, her hand gently resting on his shoulder as he studies a glowing Torah scroll. She is illuminated by warm, divine light. A soft, celestial feminine figure (the Shekhinah) hovers above them like a peaceful dove.

On the right side, a dark, stormy desert night. Lilith is depicted not as a monster, but as a powerful, unshackled woman with wild flowing hair, caught mid-flight, soaring upwards toward a dark sky. Her expression is one of fierce determination and defiance. Behind her, three imposing, stern angels (Senoi, Sansenoi, and Samangelof) reach out with glowing hands, trying to drag her back, but she is breaking free. In the background, a faint outline of the Red Sea (Yam Suf) crashes, symbolizing her imprisonment and the Egyptian exile.

**Key Symbolism:**

- Light vs. Darkness.

- Submission (Eve) vs. Defiance (Lilith).

- The three angels as the forces of patriarchal order.

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### Option 2: The "Threatened Household" (Layered/Symbolic)

*This concept visualizes the psychological fears described in the text: the threat to the Jewish family, male potency, and children.*

**Description:**

An interior scene of a traditional Eastern European Jewish home (*shtetl*). In the center, a pious Jewish man sits at a table, deeply engrossed in a large, open Talmudic text, but he looks over his shoulder with anxiety. Behind him, a faint, translucent shadow of a woman with long, claw-like fingers hovers over a sleeping infant in a wooden cradle. The baby wears an amulet around its neck with three Hebrew names (Senoi, Sansenoi, Samangelof).

Outside the window, a storm rages, but the shadow of Lilith is also superimposed over the window—she is both inside and outside, representing the internal and external threats of exile. On the table, next to the holy books, lies a *Shulchan Arukh* (code of law) open to the laws of family purity. The man’s hand is clenched into a fist, symbolizing his fear of impotence and losing control, while the woman’s shadow seems to drain the color from the room.

**Key Symbolism:**

- The cradle and amulet = fear for children.

- The clenched fist and Talmud = loss of "manly strength" and the overcompensation of study.

- The storm = the chaos of exile (*galut*).

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### Option 3: The "Kabbalistic Universe" (Mystical/Cosmic)

*This concept visualizes the mystical aspects: the Shekhinah, the Sabbath, and Lilith as a divine emanation of evil.*

**Description:**

A complex, cosmic Tree of Life (Sefirot) diagram. At the top, in radiant gold and white light, is the Ein Sof (the Infinite). The divine presence descends through the spheres. On one branch, the *Shekhinah* is depicted as a beautiful, radiant Queen, dressed in white, standing next to the Sabbath Queen. She is in a state of union with the divine.

However, in the dark "shells" (*kelipot*) below the Tree, in a shadowy realm, Lilith sits on a throne of thorns, crowned with darkness. She is depicted with the face of a beautiful woman but the lower body of a serpent, holding a broken millstone (referencing the "handmaid at the mill"). She is exiled to a desolate desert landscape filled with the "cries of night owls." On the Sabbath path, a glowing line of light connects the Shekhinah and the divine, while Lilith is forced to retreat, screaming in jealousy. Tiny angelic figures float around her, binding her with chains.

**Key Symbolism:**

- The Sefirot = the Kabbalistic worldview.

- The Queen (Shekhinah) in union vs. the Serpent-woman (Lilith) in exile.

- The Sabbath light as the moment of redemption.

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### "Prompt" for an AI Image Generator (e.g., Midjourney)

If you want to generate an image using AI, here is a detailed prompt based on **Option 1**:

> **Prompt:** *A surreal, cinematic split composition. Left side: peaceful Garden of Eden, warm golden light, a modest Eve supporting a scholarly Adam studying a Torah scroll, a dove-like Shekhinah above them. Right side: a dark stormy desert, a defiant Lilith with wild red hair flying upward, escaping three stern glowing angels reaching for her, with the crashing Red Sea in the background. Style: mystical realism, dramatic chiaroscuro, intricate Jewish symbolism, Kabbalistic motifs, 4k, highly detailed, like a Gustave Doré engraving mixed with modern digital art.*

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If you have a specific visual style in mind (e.g., Renaissance painting, woodcut engraving, modern minimalist, or surrealist), let me know and I can refine the description further!