About Lilith and Androgyny
Andrea Dworkin
From the book "Woman Hating", Chapter "Androgyny: The Mythological Model", page 171-172
Even Jewish mythology provides a primal androgyne. Here is the substance of a cultural underground most directly related to us. According to the Zohar, the first created woman was not Eve but Lilith. She was created coterminous with Adam, that is, they were created in one body, androgynous. They were of one substance, one corporality. God, so the legend goes, split them apart so that Lilith could be dressed as a bride and married to Adam properly, but Lilith rebelled at the whole concept of marriage, that is, of being defined as Adam’s inferior, and fled. Lilith was in fact the first woman and the first feminist both. The Jewish patriarchs, with shrewd vengeance, called her a witch. They said that the witch Lilith haunted the night (her name is etymologically associated with the Hebrew word for night) and killed infants. She became symbolic of the dark, evil side of all women. Of course, Lilith, we know now, made the correct analysis and went to the core of the problem: she rejected the nuclear family. God, however, saw it differently -- he had created Lilith from dust, just as he had created Adam. He had created her free and equal. Not making the same mistake twice, Eve was created from Adam's rib, clearly giving her no claim to either freedom or equality. It took the Christians to assert that since the rib is bent, woman’s nature is contrary to man's.
How then can we understand the biblical statement that God created man in his own image -- male and female created he them? The Midrash gives the definitive answer: When the Holy One, Blessed Be He, created the first man, he created him androgynous. There is also a corresponding Jewish androgynous godhead. The very word for the godhead, Elohim, is composed of a feminine noun and a masculine plural ending. God is multiple and androgynous. The tradition of the androgynous godhead is most clearly articulated in the Kabbalah, a text which in written form goes back to the Middle Ages. The oral Kabbalah, which is more extensive than the written Kabbalah, originates in the most obscure reaches of Jewish history, before the Bible, and has been preserved with, according to occultists, more care than the written Bible -that is, the Bible has been rewritten, edited, modified, translated; oral Kabbalah has retained its purity.
The Kabbalistic scheme of the godhead is complex. Suffice it here to say that god is male and female interwoven. Certain parts are associated with the female, other parts with the male. For instance, primal understanding is female; wisdom is male; severity is female; mercy is male. Special prominence is given to the final emanation of the godhead, Malkuth the Queen, the physical manifestation of the godhead in the universe.
From the book "Woman Hating", Chapter "Androgyny: The Mythological Model", page 171-172
Even Jewish mythology provides a primal androgyne. Here is the substance of a cultural underground most directly related to us. According to the Zohar, the first created woman was not Eve but Lilith. She was created coterminous with Adam, that is, they were created in one body, androgynous. They were of one substance, one corporality. God, so the legend goes, split them apart so that Lilith could be dressed as a bride and married to Adam properly, but Lilith rebelled at the whole concept of marriage, that is, of being defined as Adam’s inferior, and fled. Lilith was in fact the first woman and the first feminist both. The Jewish patriarchs, with shrewd vengeance, called her a witch. They said that the witch Lilith haunted the night (her name is etymologically associated with the Hebrew word for night) and killed infants. She became symbolic of the dark, evil side of all women. Of course, Lilith, we know now, made the correct analysis and went to the core of the problem: she rejected the nuclear family. God, however, saw it differently -- he had created Lilith from dust, just as he had created Adam. He had created her free and equal. Not making the same mistake twice, Eve was created from Adam's rib, clearly giving her no claim to either freedom or equality. It took the Christians to assert that since the rib is bent, woman’s nature is contrary to man's.
How then can we understand the biblical statement that God created man in his own image -- male and female created he them? The Midrash gives the definitive answer: When the Holy One, Blessed Be He, created the first man, he created him androgynous. There is also a corresponding Jewish androgynous godhead. The very word for the godhead, Elohim, is composed of a feminine noun and a masculine plural ending. God is multiple and androgynous. The tradition of the androgynous godhead is most clearly articulated in the Kabbalah, a text which in written form goes back to the Middle Ages. The oral Kabbalah, which is more extensive than the written Kabbalah, originates in the most obscure reaches of Jewish history, before the Bible, and has been preserved with, according to occultists, more care than the written Bible -that is, the Bible has been rewritten, edited, modified, translated; oral Kabbalah has retained its purity.
The Kabbalistic scheme of the godhead is complex. Suffice it here to say that god is male and female interwoven. Certain parts are associated with the female, other parts with the male. For instance, primal understanding is female; wisdom is male; severity is female; mercy is male. Special prominence is given to the final emanation of the godhead, Malkuth the Queen, the physical manifestation of the godhead in the universe.