Sukkot, Deborah
This week the Jewish holiday Sukkot is celebrated.
Type your cut contents here.Purpose of Sukkot is to remind Jewish people of Exodus, the forty years that the Israelites have wandered through the desert. Centre of the festival are self-made shelters, the so-called sukka’s. These huts symbolize the booths the Israelites had to live in during their wanderings in the desert. During this week seven ‘special guests’ are invited in the hut, in earlier times all biblical male figures, the so-called "forefathers" nowadays often also biblical female figures, "fore-mothers". Pictures of these forefathers and -mothers are hung on the walls of the Sukka. According to ancient kabbalistic tradition, each of these men and women is associated with one of the seven spiritual attributes of God, later on with seven of the Kabbalah’s sephirot of the Tree of Life.
This week I invite seven foremothers in my blog, Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Hulda and Esther, each on one day, to teach me something.
Today Deborah is invited. Here picture hangs on the wall of my blog. Deborah is associated with the virtue of splendor, the sephira Tiferet on the Tree of Life. What does Deborah have to teach me?
As an answer to this question I pulled the High Priestess from the Tarot of the 78 Doors. The Priestess is depicted as a woman in oriental clothes, her hands circle round a crystal boll and cards lay on the table.
Deborah is a Judge, a warrior and a poetess. She advised in the shade of a palmtree in the countryside. Deborah is a well respected advisor in her society. Sometimes I find it hard to do what I do: 'reading the cards'. Then I see myself as the High Priestess on this card, whom I do not like: a bit strange, dressed in exotic clothes, living at the boundary of the city, not counting as a worthwhile citizen. I feel that way sometimes, because reading cards is not a respected job in our society and many people in our churches are frightened by it, even downright against it.
Deborah teaches to stay in my centre (Tiferet is in the middle of the Tree of Life), and believe in the worth of what I do: read the cards, be a counselor in that way.