Frame—Translations from the Zohar by David Rosenberg

For quite a number of years already, the poet David Rosenberg has been our most innovative translator of Biblical and Pre-Biblical Literature. His most celebrated translation was The Book of J, but The Poet's Bible, The Lost Book Of Paradise, and The Book Of David have all been integral, too, in the reconstruction of a Jewish (and an ecological) mythopoetics. Now he's come up with Dreams Of Being Eaten Alive: The Literary Core of the Kabbalah, a new translation of The Zohar, the key text in the Jewish Kabbalah. That work is forthcoming from Harmony Books. "Dreams Of Being Eaten Alive", the book's title piece, follows here.

How does the existence of such a text in English reshape our foundational poetic investments in Adam, in Eve, in the Serpent, in coitus and in onanism?

            —Leonard Schwartz



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Dreams of Being Eaten Alive


Adam entered blithely, hardly knowing it was the ancient serpent, a silent, screaming temptation. His desire rose to her siren; he lowered himself to the strumpet. (1)

*

Adam did not realize he had never before seen her. Thinking she was a mate—she had the soft voice of Eve—he was not careful. She appeared as a creation for him, a spirit visiting him in sleep. (2)

*

Meanwhile, he avoided intercourse with Eve. In his sleep, however, he continued to be visited by female spirits, and union with them bore ghosts and demons. (3)

*

One night, his undergarment wet, Adam removed it and reentered his bed—suddenly a bed of water, a trap. When Eve appeared she removed his covers. Distressed—she was fully dressed—he dared not think of his own nakedness. Frozen by embarrassment, he sunk deeply down, covering himself again to the neck.

She was exquisitely clothed, as if an actress in the first drama. He was beguiled by memory come to life, a light slap in the face, a first kiss. She spoke curvaceously, her mouth a newly discovered fruit. His thought became froth there, leaving him speechless, lipreading. Then a fear of deafness followed; he could feel his hairline recede, crawling up his skull. He was confined in a place that felt well-like (he whose place had been everywhere) and he was unmanned.

Yet unbroken, wild, his yearning cut a swath to her—out and away from a fear to be breathing his last, to be turning to dust. (4)

*

Observe a secret beyond secrets: it erupts from a blazing noon in Adam's mind, exudes from the wine dregs Isaac would drink—from both, a mottled fungus appears. Rose-red, it is all rose: male and female in one. As a flame, it unfolds in many directions of time, from Adam forward to Isaac.

On the other side of that noon, the male is called Samael, his mate a part of him, within. On the pure side it is the same, a reflection: the male and female locked in embrace. Samael's female is named Serpent, siren woman. At the end of all flesh she is known to lie in waiting, on a body's last day she is waiting to be entered. Together, they are the limits of contempt locked in one embrace: the male spirit is subtle, the female distracted in many directions, lying on many paths—but locked to the male in spirit.

See it clearly: the couple were one, as if fastened to the same rock in an ancient fresco—and the rock had been through a weathering process, leaving it smooth-looking, the movement of their coupling almost imperceptible. He advanced his hands over her body slowly, as if annointing her.

In their movement, they seemed under a mushroom-colored coverlet, their limbs braided together.

They appeared—new wine in old bottles—a fermenting color. As their entwined figures wobbled, a shuddering wave appeared to flow over them.

As if the organ of the brain could be imagined to conceive, a vine rises from the gravebed: its flowers the unspoken words, a language of Samael's spirits, accusing. The entire aspect appears designed by a man absorbed—but without hands, embracing it in his mind. Meanwhile, a pain builds in Adam that Isaac feels as he sleeps, a stimulation, a hemorrhaging: he wanted to wake, to be there—to stop it and announce his presence, master of this shame.

At the climax, the spirit was released and Adam saw Isaac's offspring, two sons embracing in struggle. There, in his own grave—Adam could see into time, past the flowers, beyond the lichen, as if a womb had opened and contained all the words that would be spoken. (5)

*

Isaac's old bones did not look as if they could hold up a father of young children, and similarly, Rebecca appeared to have travelled too far down nature's path to bear children. When pregnant seven months, she wished that the curse of childlessness had not been withdrawn. The pain was appalling: the twin sons had begun their life's-worth of duelling—to the death, it would seem. Samael worked through Esau, who would have cut off Jacob in his mother's womb. (6)

*

Now return: Adam and Eve are still in Paradise when Samael, with a little boy in tow, accosts Eve. "Would you mind merely keeping an eye on my son?" he asks her. "I will soon return." Eve agrees.

Returning from a walk in Paradise, Adam follows the piercing squeals of the child back to Eve.

"It is Samael's," she tells a vexed Adam. His anxiety increases along with the screams of the little one, which grow unbearably violent. Beside himself, Adam delivers a blow that kills the youngster then and there. Yet its body continues to wail at a fever pitch, monstrous groans that do not stop when Adam cuts the corpse into bits.

Then Adam cooked the pieces of flesh and bone that remained, to wipe out this fiend. Together with Eve, he ate all that was left. They had hardly finished when Samael called for his son. Denying any knowledge of his son, the culprits were protesting their innocence when suddenly a louder voice cried out from within their stomachs to silence them: it was the dead boy's voice come straight from their hearts, his words directed to Samael.

"Leave me, now that I've pierced the hearts of both Adam and Eve. I remain in their hearts forever, and in their children's hearts, their children's children—until the last generation I abide here." (7)

*

Up and down Lilith went until she reached the baby-faced cherubs. She would not budge from them, longing to assume their shape, to never leave. The divine one blessed us in wresting her away, forcing her down below. Then he created Adam and his partner, and when Lilith saw Eve attached to Adam's back—their beauty reflecting perfection—she flew up again, longing to behold the baby faces.

Yet the celestial gatekeepers blocked her, and the divine one in his blessing scolded, casting her down toward the bottom of the sea. She was living there until the day of Adam and Eve's contempt.

At that time, the divine one in his blessing brought her up from the sea, to rule over the baby faces of mankind: for their father's sin they are already sentenced. Pacing the earth back and forth, she finds the place of the Garden, and there at the gates she sees the guardian cherubs—and then the blazing sword. There she abides, near the essence of her origin.

When Cain is born, Lilith wanted to (but could not) attach herself to him, so she turned to him to accept his penetration, bearing demons and spirits. Adam himself ejaculated with female spirits for a hundred and thirty years, when Naamah was born. She is the one who strays about at night, agitating the sleeping sons of men until they are stained with their own semen. (7b)

*

A child was born of Isaac's dream and nocturnal emission. Rebecca did not know of it. The secret consumed Isaac; he couldn't sleep. Finally, he planned to tell Rebecca at a dinner arranged for themselves in private (he ordered a stew prepared).

"What is this dinner for?" she asked.

"I have a story to share," he answered. "A tale long growing in my dreams, until now it consumes me.

"A woman approached as I was reading the Garden story in the scroll. I was thinking of the serpent, his intelligence, how much like a woman—in the dream. 'Subtle,' I was thinking, and then the woman appeared. As if she had been in the corner all along, too shy to speak, I thought. Yet she spoke freely, smooth-tongued. 'You, scrollworm,' she whispered, 'I can read your mind. You were meditating on Samael, and I was drawn to you.'

"I found her irresistable. She emptied my mind by fascination, and then took over. I thought: for the first time I know what it feels like to be a woman. And then I began to laugh, uncontrollably, and she joined in. 'You see,' she said, 'I read your thoughts, with no help from philosophy.'

"I became very nervous; it seemed I was trapped in a tent during a long rain. I looked down and my knuckles were white as they gripped the scroll handles. I became dizzy, the scene blurred and then I saw that I gripped her arms, was staring into her face—in place of the scroll. Running through the middle of her forehead—similarly, her chin—a startling dimple, as if it were the crease between the pages of an opened prayer book. Her face was luminescent, a halo itself for the defining furrow in the middle, the dimple.

"And then—rain gone—and in an instant I was overexposed in desert sun.

In the grip of this intense moment, I was blind with dread.

"Night after night, she grew familiar to me. All her features exaggerated in some way: eyes and bosom large; exquisitely small nose; long, long fingers. I was joined with her, slowly and all of a sudden—I was falling from a great height, so that one can tell it only by a sinking feeling inside, spirit sucked out in the cold damp air.

"Then one night, expecting her to appear—I didn't bother even to read further in the scroll—a small girl came crawling on all fours toward me. I stared at this wonder, saw that she was in all ways like her mother, except without exaggerations. A model of perfection. Thereupon you came in, Rebecca; your hand went to your mouth and as the child saw you, she screamed, would not stop. You did not ask who or from where the girl came. You began to wheeze, with great groans in rhythm with each louder shriek of the baby girl, until both of you were red-faced. Finally, you pushed me with a strange strength, lifted up the infant and flung her through the open window.

"In the courtyard she continued the screeching; you went down, returned with her, placed her on the kitchen table and with the carver lopped off her limbs and sawed through the neck. Yet the head still wailed, the limbs flailing. All the while I'm frozen in disbelief, in fear of you; I can't move. You gather up the pieces, force them into a pot, light the fire, boil them. A calm comes over you as you cook, adding vegetables and spices. 'Cut up these vegetables,' you say and I do.

"'Set the table,' you command and I fulfill the order. As we were eating we drank the new wine.'

At this very moment Isaac looked down at his meal and the wineglass beside it, then at Rebecca. She continued eating, unfazed by all he was telling.

"I told you it was not good to practice union while drunk with the new wine," she said momentarily. "You reproach yourself in your dreams but I have seen the results; I cannot hide it. I find your dried seed in the sheets in the morning. If you must have wine—no more than a glass."

As Rebecca put down her fork her brows were knit. "But Isaac, this is dangerous. You should not think of it. Put it out of your mind."

Then she gasped. "It was the new wine that made us drunk that night: this same bright red wine we are drinking," and she flung her glass to the floor.

Someone knocked. Isaac turned as white as he had imagined himself in the dream. Rebecca answered the door, found a blind man, hand cupped to his mouth in a repeated gesture, as if feeding himself. Food? Was it food he wanted? He made a biting gesture, repeatedly. She brought food and he caressed a chicken bone with his hand, did not eat.

A choking scream. "Isaac, what happened?" she exclaimed, returning to find him sprawled on the couch. "The child, the child," he murmured. "Tell him to go. Shut the door in his face, hurry."

Then he explained: "It was in my dreams too. The voice of the girl tore at my heart like a daughter; I couldn't ignore it—abandoned like my own daughter. A voice from the stew kept speaking, in a low murmur: 'I have lost my heart and you will lose yours. To the end of days, the end of all flesh, all living hearts must be broken—a piece broken off and eaten, sticking in your throat.'

"I woke up, couldn't fall back asleep, could not even swallow. That is why you heard me many times going out for water."

Rebecca groaned and clung to Isaac, these old ones twined together as ancient vines. (8)

*

"You looked forward to the death of Adam, to make his wife your bride. I make you enemy to woman, enmity bound between your seed and hers." And the angels were made the bearers of this sentence. They came down from heaven to chop off his hands, his feet. So wild was his pain, screams of torment were heard from one end of the world to the other. (9)

*

Soon Rebecca was noticeably ready, and then gave birth to twins. Isaac was almost blind, so Rebecca read to him. Then, in bed once again, they clung together in union.

Jacob climbed down from his crib and crawled toward his parents' bedroom, where he heard their whispers. Closer, he heard his mother's whimpers coming from the bed; then he saw his father above her, thrashing. He sunk back on his knees, transfixed with fear.

A low moaning now came from his mother. Jacob pulled in his head, touching his forehead to the floor. He heard the wheezing and pummeling of his father grow louder, the bed creaking as though it would break.

What had his mother done to deserve this? Why did she not cry out for help? She began to gasp for breath; Jacob feared for his life. His father would beat him also, and for having spent time at her breast he would be killed. He tried to look away, raised his elbows over his head, then buried his face in the matted carpet, his hands clasped tightly together.

Now his mother's breath came in little shouts. Soon she would be dead, he thought. Jacob wanted to scream, to howl, but he was afraid his father would murder him on the spot. He tried to back out of the room, though his legs did not want to move, as if locked, and as if his head was joined to the floor.

How could such force be left in the frail body of his father? Jacob 's body trembled as he heard the sudden love cries of his mother, warm, high-pitched, as if they were his own crying out in his sleep. He burst into great sobs, drowning out his parents dying murmurs. They jumped from the bed as if the clumsy vines of their exhausted embrace were chopped asunder. (10)

*

When Jacob grew into a boy, his father Isaac heard a command that his meek son Jacob be married to a Canaanite priestess. It came in a low voice that made Issac shiver—so thoroughly intimate with him. It was as if the voice were within, his own, his father's. Then he identified it in panic: the disembodied, guttural voice from the stew.

Jacob followed a strange song out into the fields. He told his father the story of this voice. Fearing it was the same siren song, a shaken Issac sent his son to fetch his older brothers, who were pasturing the flocks near Dothan.

On his way, Jacob felt the singer pursuing, as a magnet is drawn to the truth. The descant trailed him; he went hurriedly, stumbling over a stone here and there, as if lost in listening. So clear the air became, he imagined the earth smell of her hair. (11)

*

Dressed up like a fancy whore, she waits gaudily for men drawn to her, standing by crossroads and highway corners. As a man accosts her, she hugs him with fondling kisses, then mixes her cheap wine with venom for him. Now he has drunk and forgotten his journey in order to pursue her. She sees he has left the way of truth to come with her and now removes the showy mask and costume: she dissolves the disguises this man has swallowed.

Here is the masquerade by which mankind is seduced: her hair is long, red like a lily; her face white and pink; six pendants hang at her ears; her bed is made of Egyptian flax; all the ornaments of the East encircle her neck; her mouth is shaped like a tiny door, beautified with cosmetic; her tongue is sharp like a sword; her words smooth as oil; her lips beautiful, dripping lily-red, sweetened with all the sweetnesses in the world; she is dressed in purple, cloaked in thirty-nine items of finery.

So the man has followed her, consumed her cup of wine, and entered her wanton arms, fully enchanted with her. What does she do? While he sleeps in her bed she goes up to heaven to accuse him. Warrant in hand, she comes down to watch the man awake. He is eager to fondle her familiarly, but as she removes her clothes, out steps a ferocious warrior in an armor of blazing fire: a vision of dread that seizes body and soul. Full of gaping eyes, this other holds a sharpened sword with drops of venom suspended and dripping from it. He kills the man, throws him into the abysmal pit. (12)

*

He was in a trance. His head seemed to levitate above his body as she came from behind, so that he backed into her, or fell backward. The notes of her syllables entered in one ear and exited the other in perfect order. His hands felt silky against her smooth skin, yet he could not tell where she was, beneath or behind, his hands groping along bald air.

He heard something—deep sobs, or was it cackling? Where was he? Yes, a cackling, and in his hands, hair.

And he began to understand: she was grunting in a vernacular he had learned as a child and almost forgotten, barely knew, a rural accent that struck a deep chord in him: a childhood and its innocent dreams lost. She was the instrument of it, mocking human brevity in hoarse lullabies of death. In his arms he held a skeleton. The hair in his hands was soft and greasy as worms: she had dissolved. His eyes reopened, he saw the house he was truly within; a pit opened within him, a deflowered garden. He was mated to her, found himself standing in bile—in a liquid, pulsing grave. Then his mind began to levitate, his body an empty bag in her arms. He found himself above ground, on the lip of the pit. The sun shone, and then a shadow fell over him. He turned to face—her face again, restored in a man's body. "You are a two-faced Jacob," the other was saying. "You have sent me up into the moonlight from below."

Her male countenance was deformed by fury; all face was lost. Yet what did he do, what offense? The virile one flew at Jacob with a weight as if dropped from heaven. He rose quickly like a dead actor from the stage, found grim strength in himself. His body appeared to mimic the other's, as if lip-reading with all his limbs. They grappled evenly for a long time, back and forth. From a distance they seemed a single otherworldly figure acting out the telling of a portentous war.

The virile one spewed impenetrable sounds of labor as Jacob opposed him in a standoff, matching his every maneuver. Neither could the virile one overpower Jacob, nor overcome his own indignation at the light of day. (13)

*

He saw all through the rich facade of her house, withdrew himself after entering. Samael, her mate, was shamed, came down to pin him there, but he could not dim the perception's power. (14)

*

First, it happened: "My father," Isaac asked Abraham...

Meanwhile, Samael approached the Patriarch Abraham, chastising him: "Old man, what are you doing? Are you crazy? How can you go off to kill a son with whom you were blessed when a hundred years old?"

"I will go even this far," said Abraham.

"But if He puts before you an even greater test, how much can you stand?" asked Samael.

"I will go even farther," he said.

"Tomorrow he will tell you, 'You are a murderer, a guilty man.'"

"I will be content," he answered.

Getting nowhere with Abraham, Samael turned to Isaac: "A mournful mother's son you are. He goes off to kill you."

"I accept my fate," he answered.

"So all the superior tunics your mother made for you will become the despised Ishmael's, as a reward?" (15)

*

Samael rode his mate, Lilith, through the night; he on her serpentine back, she curling her tail around him, holding him firmly there. In his ear she curled her tongue, whispering to him the happiness she felt: their son had found his way to the heart of the human.

"Yet there is something I must tell you," Samael said later to Lilith. "The boy will never be seen again." Lilith was astonished, wounded; it had not occured to her that Samael could give up their son forever. She wailed, legs coiling around Samael as if to strangle him. "This you did for the love of Eve. For my part, I will entertain every man I might, until the last man at time's end—where my boy waits for me, in him." (16)

*

Now Sarah took Isaac into her bed, with caresses and soothings, binding him to the promises of devotion she desired, until it was morning. Then Sarah came out to the road where Abraham and Isaac were preparing to leave, walking beside them when they mounted.

"Return to the tent," they ordered her. Hearing these words come also from her son Isaac hurt Sarah deeply; then Abraham wept with her, and then Isaac too, making a great weeping—to which the wails of the servants who went with them were piercingly added. Now Sarah grasped hold of Isaac, pulling him toward her, her arms wrapping around him.

"Who is it who knows if I will ever see you again?" Sarah sobbed. "Who can tell me this is not the last day?" (17)

*


from the Zohar
translated by David Rosenberg