The Case of the Headless Man and Insufficient Repentance

Learn about a Kabbalistic tradition that will tell you if you have been sealed in the Book of Life or Death following the High Holy Days.

This woodcut appears in the book "Customs" (Minhagim), published in Amsterdam in 1661 by Uri Weibash

In 1661 a book of Jewish customs was published in Amsterdam. It was originally written in Hebrew, but, being a book of Ashkenazi traditions and customs, it was translated into Yiddish. The book contains woodcuts of Jewish practices as described by the 14th century Austrian Rabbi, Yitzhak Ternau, who provides an overview of the traditions of Ashkenazi Jews including the rituals of the High Holy Days and the festival of Sukkot.

One woodcut shows a man building his sukkah, the traditional hut built by Jews in celebration of the festival.

Building a sukkah

In another image, two Jews are seen examining arba’at ha’minim, “The Four Species” used in the Sukkot prayer services.

Carrying the plenty

The third woodcut depicts the custom of throwing fruit for children to pick up during Simchat Torah, the Jewish holiday that immediately follows Sukkot and which celebrates the completion of the annual cycle of the reading of the Torah.

Giving fruit to children

But of all the woodcuts in the collection, it was the fourth one that truly caught our attention. Why you may ask? Well, perhaps because it is simply so… eye-catching. The woodcut features two men holding one of the four species. One of them is inexplicably headless!

In our attempts to solve this mystery, we asked ourselves and everyone around us if they know why one figure had a head and the other seemed to have lost his?

The picture that piqued our curiosity.

For some, the image was bizarre and jarring but the National Library experts who came to our aid were surprised people weren’t aware of this common Kabbalistic practice.

Here is some of what we learned:

A discussion of common Sukkot practices

 

As per Kabbalistic tradition, on the night of Hoshana Rabbah, the seventh and last day of Sukkot and just one week after Yom Kippur, a devout Jew may find himself wondering, “Have I been sealed into the Book of Life or rather the Book of Death?”

What is a devout Jew full of uncertainty to do in such a scenario? An ancient Kabbalistic custom which can be found among the writing of Nachmanides from the 13th century offers a solution.

On the night of Hoshana Rabbah, one should step outside and examine the shadow they cast by the light of the moon. If the shadow that is cast is that of a whole person, then the believer should have no qualms, for he has been sealed in the Book of Life. If the shadow appears to be headless, the devout Jew should begin getting his affairs in order.

17th century Yiddish that reads, “He struck with the willow for he has no head.”

This custom seems to raise more questions than it answers. After all, according to age-old tradition, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the day when those of Jewish faith are judged and sealed into the Book of Life or Death by God. Kabbalistic tradition explains that, though we are judged on Yom Kippur, the verdict is only signed on the night of Hoshana Rabbah, and in this window of time it is said that we can catch a glimpse of what the final verdict will be.



Maria the Jewess: The First Century Maker of Gold

"One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth," so goes the axiom of a sage of Alchemy, Mary the Jewess, quoted throughout the writings of the magical-science and as mysterious as the alchemical process itself.

Mary the Jewess - Michael Maier's Symbola aurea mensae, Frankfurt, 1617

Alchemists from the mythic Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton sought to transmute lead into gold. It was believed that through the transformation of the material, they could attain wisdom beyond the limitations of man and create great works that would transmute themselves closer towards divinity through the Philosopher’s Stone and the Elixir of life.

None of that could be done without an ancient alchemist named Maria.

Recorded in the annals of ancient Alchemists, such as Zosimus of Panopolis, is Maria the Jewess, also called Maria the Prophetess or Maria the Hebrew, who lived in ancient Egypt around the first century CE.

She is credited with inventing an alchemical apparatus’ that copied the process of distillation in nature, what the alchemists believed provided the bedrock for the creation of gold in nature. This apparatus would become a staple in modern chemistry labs.

You probably know it as Mary’s bath, the Bain-Marie, which you can find in your kitchen.

We do not know much about Maria herself but she is thought to have started an academy in the city of Alexandria, where she taught alchemy. Like nearly every alchemist ever, Maria worked tirelessly to create or transform gold from base metals from the Earth.

One the key stages in the alchemical process of transmuting base metals into gold is the distillation,  a process which Maria is said to have perfected. It is described in the Emerald Tablet (the key writing of alchemy) as: “It rises from Earth to Heaven and descends again to Earth, thereby combining within Itself the powers of both the Above and the Below.”

An alchemical balneum Mariae, or Maria’s bath, from Coelum philosophorum, Philip Ulstad, 1528

Maria the Jewess is also known for coining other alchemical sayings beyond her axiom.

“Just as a man is composed of four elements, likewise is copper; and just as a man results from the association of liquids, of solids, and of the spirit, so does copper.”

As well as:

“Join the male and the female, and you will find what is sought.”

Union of Opposites – Rosarium philosophorum sive pretiosissimum donum Dei, 1550

As the scientific revolution progressed from alchemy to chemistry, glassware and copper tubes continued to be used in the process of distillation, for purposes that had nothing to do with gold. You may have had whiskey made through this process, and one hopes you have double boiled chocolate with it at some point.

Bain-Marie as Used by Alchemists From Manget Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa, 1702

 

To Have and to Hold: The Wedding Between Children and the Torah

At the start of their studies, children in Morocco went through a symbolic wedding ceremony to bond them forever with the Torah

חתני כאתב. התמונה לקוחה מתוך ספרו של ד"ר מאיר נזרי, קהילות תאפילאלת סג'למאסא, כרך א, מעגל האדם, אוניברסיטת בר אילן תשע"ג

Throughout the generations, Jewish communities in the Diaspora have recognized the same historical truth that is quickly learned by all young parents: the first day of school is both exciting and a bit stressful.

Jewish communities across the world have developed their own ways of facilitating the start of Torah learning for young children when they begin their studies in Heder (Jewish school). At the southern tip of the Sahara Desert, in a region of Morocco called Tafilalt, one of the most interesting and special traditions of welcoming children to their studies in Heder was preserved until the 20th century.

A photo of a bride from the wedding ceremony. The photo is not dated. Image from the Heritage of Moroccan Jewry.

The second main event in a child’s life of every Jewish boy, after of course, his birth and Brit Milah (ritual circumcision), was an event called “Liktahb,” a term that means “entry to Heder,” in English. This central event in the child’s life is marked with a grand ceremony modeled after the mock wedding described in the Talmud that symbolically ties the youth to the Torah.

Every traditional Jewish wedding requires the participation of a bride and a groom- this was also the case in the ceremony held by the Jewish community in Tafilalt. The groom, just five years old, beginning his studies in Heder, was matched with a bride around the same age and they were joined together in a symbolic wedding ceremony.

The bride and the groom. The girl, Rachel the daughter of Hannah from Fes and the groom, Meir Turgeman from Erfoud. This picture was taken from Dr. Meir Nazri’s book, “The Communities of Tafilalt and Sijilmasa,” Volume I, The Human Cycle, Bar-Ilan University.

This unique ceremony had interesting variations within the Sephardic community. There were those who held a parade for the children down to the local river where each of the bridegrooms would throw an apple into the waters and there were those who would invite the bride’s family for dinner the night before the ceremony to eat a special, traditional dish. Some even held a special ceremony in their local synagogues that is typically reserved for a groom on the Shabbat before his wedding.

Like the tradition held in many communities where the child entering Heder licks honey off of the letters of the Aleph Bet, the wedding ceremony is also a symbolic ritual to connect the child with the Torah. The ceremony with honey symbolizes the sweetness of the Torah and the wedding ceremony symbolizes the marriage and commitment of the child to the Torah and his studies.

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