Lilith (×Ö“Ö¼××Ö“××Ŗ) is a mysterious figure. Her name appears (possibly) once in scripture, in Isaiah 34:14. Rashi, the foremost biblical commentator, simply says she is āa demoness,ā while the Metzudot calls her āthe mother of the demons.ā
Others1 take a far more pedestrian approach, and interpret lilithāwhich appears to be closely linked to lailah, Hebrew for ānightāāas a bird that howls in the night.
The sages of the Talmud seem to take it for granted that we all know the story of Lilith, which could explain why they never really tell us her backstory in full. From the various (seemingly unrelated) times she is mentioned almost in passing, we can glean that she has long hair2 and wings,3 and preys on those who sleep alone.4
The question is: Was she real or is this all allegorical?
Apparently, both. The most commonly repeated factoid is that she was the woman Adam married before Eve.5 That didnāt work out (more about that later), and she was āturned to dustā and replaced by Eve, āmother of all [human] life.ā
From that point on, itās obvious that every reference to Lilith is to a non-physical being, as the Kabbalist Rabbi Chaim Vital explains in his Book of Reincarnations.6
This includes a tradition cited in both Talmud7 and Midrash:8 After Adam and Eve ate the fruit and were booted from the Garden of Eden, in typical form for human beings they blamed one another and went their separate ways. Thatās when some spiritual form of Lilith returned to mess with Adam againāsomehow getting him to bring evil spirits into the world.
To paraphrase Gād Himself, āA man alone is not a good idea.ā9
The mystery continues in Kabbalah, as the Zohar contains at least 30 references to Lilith. In later literature of halachah, Kabbalah, and liturgy, she makes more common appearances, but always remains an enigmaāto the degree that she seems more a quirk in the cosmic system than just another spirit. Indeed, in later kabbalistic literature, sheās referred to as the āfeminine side of evil.ā
Indeed, the concept of Lilith really tells us much about a fault in the nature of the masculine side of humankind. She could even be seen as the one propelling man to fix himself, to recreate himself, to bring himself to his own 2.0.
Lilith Is From Tohu; Eve Is From Tikun
Lilith, as I wrote, was Woman1.0. As first releases often go, she was difficult, judgmental, and generally not too friendly. (As weāll see, Adam 1.0 hadāand still hasāhis own issues.) Thatās what Adam alluded to in his enigmatic dual metaphor, āThis time [she is] a bone from my bones, flesh from my flesh.ā10 āBone of my bonesāāmeaning: a personality as inflexible as a dry bone.11
Adam dumped that one fast. As the Midrash cited above puts it, āshe returned to the dust.ā
āFlesh from my fleshā refers to Woman 2.0, a.k.a. Chava (somehow that became āEveā in English).12 She was more easy-going, less critical, far more responsiveāas flesh is relative to bones. This worked really well for a long-term relationship. (You canāt say āuser-friendlyā on 2.0, since this was really a peer-to-peer relationship. Weāll get to that soon.)
As for Lilith/Woman 1.0, she endures only as a spirit without a body,
The two versions had much to do with the technology implemented. The Lilith 1.0 version relied on technology from the World of Tohu. Thatās a world, previous to ours, built entirely on absolutes. Absolute light, absolute darkness, absolute kindnessā¦and absolute harshness.
Tohu Technology was an all-around failure, resulting in a major system crash throughout the cosmos. In the aftermathāand pretty much in response to that disasterāthe World of Tikun was formed.
In Tikun, everything was balanced and harmonized in a holistic and relativistic system. Light was tempered with darkness and darkness with light. Kindness knew what it means to be harshāand could even use that harshness if necessary to attain even greater kindness. As for Harshness, it lost its autonomous modality altogether, becoming no more than an adjunctive function to Kindness.
So it was with Lilith and Chava (Eve). Lilith was a woman of absolutes, intolerant of anything but perfection in her man and in his relationship to her. Not a great recipe for a marriage. Chava was ready to look the other way for the sake of the relationship, aware that things are never perfect, but love can make it work. She contained within her some of Adam and could feel his heartās rhythm within her own.
Woman was upgraded. The problem was, Adam wasnāt.
Adamās Original Sin
The first sin of humankind can be traced to Adamās failure in response to Chava: The Ari (Rabbi Yitzchaak Luria, 1534ā1572) explains that
The Tzemach Tzedek (Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch, 1789-1866) elucidates and illuminates this teaching of the Ari:14
When it comes to sanctity and getting things right, preparation is everything. In order to be involved in this relationship in a human, inner way, both parties need to prepare and wait for the appropriate timing. Shabbat night is the appropriate time for Chava. She is Shabbat. This is her time, this is her space.
Besides, Chava needs to first develop an emotional relationship
So we see that Adam retained remnants of the earlier Tohu protocol, namely its top-down hierarchy. Tohu was all about unidirectional data flow: Information descends from the Infinite Light to create and sustain a worldāand thatās where it stops. No dynamics for user feedback. Zero learning curve. Basically, the end client (āuserā) is treated like just another accessory to the hardware/software and I/O.
Thatās the way, after all, the world was originally created. Gād spoke and it was. There was no interest in user feedback; you couldnāt ask the created beings, āWhat do you think if we do it like this?āābecause there were no created beings, no users, since thatās what was being invented. So creation, initially at least, was entirely a top-down protocol.
All this was reflected in Adamās attitude toward Chava. He treated the relationship in a top-down fashion, as though she was no more than an accessory to him. Bad deal for Chava, not too good for Adam, either.
Recognizing the Other
Adam also needs time. His role is to be more than a seed-delivery mechanism. He needs to be the Provider and Protector of his family. When he charges impetuously into a physical relationship driven by his own hormonal urges, he subverts all of that, effectively reversing the roles: Chava now holds the goods and heās degraded himself to the point of begging for them. Or worse, heās grabbing the goods and causing even more harm.
Adam was stuck in the old protocol. He should have learned from Gādās own modality-shift with him: Having created the world, Gād turned to Adam to initiate a two-way, interactive relationship. Adam awoke to a latent world, where life lay just below the surface of the soil, āfor there was no Adam to work the soil.ā In this case, Adam was bright enough to figure out what was demanded of him. He prayed for rain, āand a mist rose to water the garden.ā
From that point
Ever since, this has been the greatest challenge of every man who has felt for a woman: the challenge to be a man and rein in his own one-way urge. The challenge to recognize that, hey, thereās someone else here besides me (yes, the greatest epiphany that could occur in a manās life). This is a person, an āother,ā a ānot-meāāand maybe sheās not in the same space as me quite yet. The challenge to wait and to share.
If he fails, he becomes a slave and in the long run, despised and used by the woman he believes he has conquered. If he succeeds, he unites with her and is respected by her. The children that are born from that union are granted peace between their own bodies and souls. In miniature, he has repaired the entire cosmosāand that itself is reflected systemically throughout all of Creation.
Everything starts at home, even world peace.15
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