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© 2015 John D. Brey.
johndbrey@gmail.com
© 2015 John D. Brey.
.
. . It's common knowledge in Jewish midrashim that Adam is created from the
place of his atonement. And it's not really that esoteric to say that his
Hebrew name ---alef----dalet-mem---- suggests of the blood (dalet-mem)
of a bull (alef) since the alef is a pictogram of a bull and dalet-mem
spells blood.
The
only thing that's even potentially added to the fore-going equation is
the idea that a specific "bull" (the Yom Kippur bull) is the one
whose blood is used to create an already atoned for Adam. Jewish
midrashim claims God provided the means for atonement even before the sin
occurred that required the atonement. Adam is created already atoned for since
God fore-knows the meaning of the fore-skin.
In
his, The Handbook of Jewish Thought, Rabbi Kaplan says Abraham's
circumcision, "occurred on Yom Kippur" (4:23).
In
ancient symbolism the "bull" is a phallic symbol. So if mainstream
Judaism were of a mind to decipher what her own symbols signify, the first
place they'd likely look is to the nearly universal equating of the
"bull" with the phallus. Since the "bull" universally
represents the "phallus," it's not a stretch (after the fore-going),
to say that the least surprising thing about Abraham's circumcision is that he
circumcises himself on Yom Kippur. He draws the blood of the
"phallus" on the same day atonement is ritualized by drawing blood
from a "bull." He sanctifies Isaac's conception, ritually at least,
on the same day, and with the same representative blood, ritually at least,
that's drawn on Yom Kippur from a specific bull.
When
it's conceded that the Jerusalem temple represents the "house of
God," and that a Jewish man's "house" represents his
"bride" (Yoma 2a), and that the blood of the phallic-bull is brought
behind the "veil" of God's "house" on Yom Kippur . . . .
and this blood of the bull sanctifies the nuptial chamber (behind the intact
veil) on Yom Kippur . . . . well . . . it doesn't take a great Jewish sage to
see what mainstream Judaism must be working overtime not to see: sanctified
birth is birth conceived in the blood of the phallus.
Once it's conceded that the
fore-going (so to say) is the symbol of a sanctified birth, the rituals
associated with Yom Kippur clarify another element in the symbolism of bris
milah. The idea that sacred souls, or "souls drawn from the highest
spiritual level" (R. Kaplan) are associated with the birth ritualized in
bris milah.
It's taught throughout
Judaism (if not mainstream Judaism itself) that the birth associated with bris
milah (ritual circumcision) draws down sacred souls . . . souls drawn from,
and associated with, the highest spiritual realm: heaven itself. Rabbi Kaplan
goes so far as to say something that's been said a number of times in a number
of essays, that these "highest souls," conceived through the actual
circumcision (ritualized in bris milah), are more like a new species (2
Cor. 5:17) than a mere addendum to the rest of the human race: "The Israelites were thus totally sanctified
to God, and became virtually a separate species" (Ibid. 4:46).
In Christian theology, Jesus
of Nazareth takes his own blood into the true spiritual temple in heaven. With
his own hand, the nails in his own hand, he tears the veil of the heavenly
temple, which is the intact hymen of the world-to-come; he's virgin born into
the world-to-come as he was virgin born into this world: he tears both veils
with nails in his hand.
In the symbolism, Jesus
represents the Jewish high priest entering behind the veil of the temple (into
the heavenly realm) on Yom Kippur. He uses his own sanctified blood (he is
himself born of a circumcised pregnancy) to purchase soul that God has, by
reason of his fore-knowledge (of the meaning of the fore-skin), set aside in
case the actual circumcision ever displaced the ritual circumcision.
Once Jesus passes through
the hymen of the morgue, which is the veil of the temple in heaven, he exits
out the other side into the world-to-come, which, for him, as the first fruit
of that world, has already came. He comes into that kingdom to birth offspring
God has set aside in case the ritual of circumcision ever actually takes place
in historical time.
Circumcision
thus made the sexual organ into the holy sign of the covenant . . . through
which Abraham and his offspring would be able to use the sex act to draw souls
from the highest spiritual levels. It is for this reason that circumcision is
performed on the eighth day of the child's life; Genesis 17:12, Leviticus 12:3.
. . The seventh day then represents the central point, which unifies the other
six; Sefer Yetzirah 4:3. Seven thus represents the perfection of the
physical world, which was completed in seven days. Therefore, eight denotes
that which transcends the physical. Since circumcision is performed on the
eighth day, it gives man the power to transcend the physical world. . . At the
beginning of creation, God made a storehouse of souls, to be given to
"Israel" and associated with the Torah. . . It was with the
commandment of circumcision that Abraham was given access to these souls.
Ibid.
Note 64 at 4:24.
Throughout Jewish midrashim
the holy of holies is referred to as the nuptial chamber where God and Shekinah
embrace in a quasi-sexual union. The cherubim on the ark of the covenant
are said to have been in such an embrace. The Talmud calls the Holy
of holies the "bedroom" where God and his bride, Israel, consummate
their union. At II Kings 11:2, Rashi says:
He
calls it the bed-chamber in the manner of (Song of Songs 1:13) "Between my
breasts He lodges." This is what R. Eliezer instituted, "The
destruction of the bed-chamber, [may He remember for an atonement"; i.e.,]
may the destruction of Your Temple atone for them.
It's into this theological
zeitgeist that it becomes evident that the Yom Kippur bull is phallic, and that
Abraham circumcises himself on Yom Kippur, and that the angel tells him while
that emasculation wound is healing, that Sarah will have a child; such that the
child is conceived through the blood of Yom Kippur, the blood of the
circumcision. Which blood is brought into the "bedroom" on Yom Kippur
to conceive the Son of God, born of God and his bride/wife, Israel; through the
blood of the phallus, which is the blood of the bull, which is the place of
atonement, which is where Jewish midrashim says Adam is conceived.