I enjoyed the stars on the building and the single star visible in the clear sky between the clouds. Now I realize the star in the sky is really a jet plane with a contrail. Lol

A favorite style of mine...

We are currently studying Torah discussions in the Talmud using the very beautiful Schottenstein Edition of the Tractate Shabbos of The Gamara. This is one volume of the extensive Vilna Edition of the Talmud Bavli, which is the Babylonian Talmud.

Well.

The figure has Barbie Doll anatomy, but in the interests of keeping my photostream labelled "safe," I thought about strategically covering her a little, still. And look at what happened - she looks more scandalous now than if I had left her uncovered! What with the Barbie Doll anatomy, and all.

Lilith originated in the Babylonian Talmud, though she may be related to the akkadian demon, Lilitu. Maybe - they're kind of different apart from the name.

For the most part, early sources just record her as a generic demon or pagan goddess, but the Alphabet of Ben Sirah (8th-10th Century AD) is the earliest-known document to develop the idea of Lilith as Adam's first wife (the tradition may have existed earlier). Essentially, Lilith was Adam's first wife, but she insisted on dominating him (sexually!!), and was kicked out, after which she became a powerful demon associated with Asmodeus. When babies choke and die, Lilith is behind it. When men are driven into lust, it's Lilith's fault. When you read the first half of that description, you can see her as sort of a feminist icon. Then you note the baby-strangling, and suddenly you don't like her so much anymore.

In modern occultism, Lilith is a far more sympathetic figure, sometimes identified with the goddess Babalon, but almost always a positive female role model. In a way, this constantly-changing defintiion of Lilith really ain't anything new.

The Demon's Chronicle figure bears a really good resemblance to the Burney Relief from Babylon (1800-1750 BC), which was identified as Lilith for a long, long time... before we realized that it was probably Ishtar. Still, the accuracy is cool! The Queen of the Night in the relief is nude, has wings (and that hairstyle), holds an ankh, and is accompanied by owls and lions.

"Judaism considers what the Bible actually says as merely an outer "shell" and as we know, shells are meant to be discarded. Maimonides wrote concerning the Bible, "In every word which has a double sense, a literal one and a figurative one, the plain-meaning must be as valuable as silver and the hidden meaning still more precious... Taken literally such (Biblical) expressions contain wisdom useful for many purposes, among others, for the amelioration of the conditions of society. This hidden meaning, however, is profound wisdom, conducive to the recognition of real Truth." For Rabbi Nahmanides (thirteenth century), the plain text of the Bible was merely "an accommodation to the ordinary human mind." Judaics of course are regarded as smarter than gentiles and possessed of extraordinary minds. For such people the words of the Bible are not to be taken literally (that's only for 'freierim'- an Israeli word for "suckers" or "losers"). For a Judaic who has been "initiated into 'razaimehemanutha,' the mystery of faith, as the Kabbalists called it, the letters (of the words of the Bible) could be reassembled into highly esoteric combinations..." For Judaism, this is where the highest and truest meaning of Scripture is to be found, in intricate word games which these soothsayers play with letters which are in turn assigned numbers, in one of the most potent systems of self-delusion ever devised. The fantastic lengths to which the rabbis will go to impose their gutter mentality and wild fantasies on God's Word, gives testimony to the fact that Scripture is nowhere to be found in Judaism [I think all this is is an ongoing attack on Christianity and the Bible for the sole purpose of destroying Christianity. The Judaics have attacked Christianity right from the start and their Bible Code and their Kabbalah, etc. are merely weapons that they have devised throughout history to attack Christianity, the Bible, the Church and the Christian believers to divert the true meaning of Scripture- Preterist 1951]. It is instead, buried under a mountain of phantasmagoric rabbinic recension and magical cant that becomes ever more voluminous, virulent, burdensome and self-deluding with each successive generation.

"The lawyers tricks, sexual metaphors and mystical robes which the rabbis use to cloak and nullify the Word of God are not a joke. They are not mentioned here merely for amusement at the expense of the rabbis, or for the reader's diversion. The first victim of the Satanic[like] deception within Judaism's methodology for Biblical interpretation and embellishment, is the Judaic person him or herself. In historic Christian circles much emphasis has been placed on the negative effect Judaism has had on gentiles and Christians. Insufficient emphasis, however, has been placed on Judaism as a form of diabolical enslavement of the Judaic person ensnared within it. Much of Judaism's hermeneutic is calculated to destructively increase the pride and ego of the Judaics. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady wrote: "It is said in the name of several tzaddikim that a jew never fully sins. The Jewish demon created by his transgressions is always missing one limb or the other. It can never be wholly evil, because the act that generates it is ever wholehearted. A Jewish sin always contains an iota of good intent...""

from Michael Hoffman's "Judaism Discovered" pp 283-284

"Examples of nullification of the Biblical text and the substitution of rabbinic glosses for the Word of God are vast. For purposes of illustration, let us start at the beginning. According to the rabbis, the plain meaning printed in the Genesis text, when taken literally, is wrong. The rabbis teach that the description in Genesis of Adam's transgression- as having eaten the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil- is erroneous, and that the Genesis text in actuality "conceals his true sin." This rabbinic tradition is presented gingerly and fleetingly in the commentary on Genesis 2: 16-17 in the Jewish Study Bible: "Knowledge of good and bad may be a merism, a figure of speech, in which polar opposites denotes a totality..." This is The Jewish Study Bible's veiled allusion to the Kabbalistic rabbinic teaching about the Genesis account of Adam and Eve; that is: this "figure of speech" good and evil, i.e. "good and bad" is a code for the Shekhinah [the dwelling or settling presence of God (cf. divine presence), especially in the Temple in Jerusalem] and the Tiferet [the sixth sefira in the Tree of Life in Kabbalah, which is the spirituality of Rabbinic Judaism. It has the common association of "Spirituality", "Balance", "Integration", "Beauty", "Miracles", "Compassion", and "Masculinity"]. According to Judaism, without having the esoteric knowledge of the rabbis, the Book of Genesis cannot be understood. The plain meaning can only mislead. The exegetical principle of the necessity of rabbinic mediation for comprehension of Scripture, and its certain misinterpretation without such mediation, is applied throughout Judaism's encounter with the Bible. This is priestcraft.

""In the Zohar [foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah (the five books of Moses) and scriptural interpretations as well as material on Mysticism, mythical cosmogony, and mystical psychology. The Zohar contains a discussion of the nature of God, the origin and structure of the universe, the nature of souls, redemption, the relationship of Ego to Darkness and "true self" to "The Light of God," and the relationship between the "universal energy" and man. Its scriptural exegesis can be considered an esoteric form of the Rabbinic literature known as Midrash, which elaborates on the Torah], the exact nature of Adam's sin is a tightly guarded secret; the Biblical account of the Garden story is seen as hiding the true meaning. Adam conversed with Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai; "Adam sat by me and spoke to me and asked that his sin not be revealed to the whole world, apart from what the Torah says of it, and that it should remain concealed with the Tree of the Garden of Eden. But I told him that the companions had already revealed it. And he said, 'Whatever the companions have revealed among themselves is good and proper, but not the rest of mankind.' What is the reason for this? The Holy One, blessed be He, revealed it to me, by the Holy Spirit, and to the companions, so that they might discuss it among themselves, but not to the younger companions or to those who are still to come into the world." (Zohar Hadash, Bereshit 18d-19a, Midrash ha-Ne'elam).

"The tightly guarded secret behind what true Christians believe to be the literal truth of Genesis, but what is in fact, according to the rabbis a mere Biblical "figure of speech" (the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil), centers on the spirit-force personified in Judaism as the goddess known as Shekinah. It is the doctrine of Orthodox Judaism that "Adam's secret sin" consisted of having divided the unity of the goddess Shekinah as she inhabited Eden with her supernatural male consort, the Tiferet. The unity of the Shekhinah and the Tiferet that was formerly above duality (above good and evil) in the "Ten Sefirot," became, through Adam, a duality of polar opposites, and the "knowledge" obtained by Adam in the Garden was sorcery.

"The Babylonian Talmud claims that the forbidden tree in the Garden from which Adam ate was the fig: "Rabbi Nehemia holds that the tree of which Adam ate was the fig tree" (BT Berakoth 40a). The Kabbalah teaches that the leaves of this fig tree conveyed powers of sorcery and magic (Zohar 1:56b Bereshit). Cosequently, in the rabbinic mind, the aprons worn by Adam and Eve, being made from the leaves of the fig tree, were garments that gave the wearers magical powers. These aprons made from fig leaves had the power to give the bearer the ability to enjoy "the fruits of the world-to-come" in the here and now (BT Bava Metzia 114b). It is with this rabbinic understanding that Freemasons and Mormons wear these aprons in their own rituals.

"The Zohar states that by black magic Adam cut in half the divine unity of the god and goddess. Adam was formerly a giant, but after his sin his physical proportions were shrunk by God and "his erect stature diminished by one hundred cubits" (Zohar 1:53h). In the fertile rabbinic imagination, most of the Book of Genesis, when taken literally, is misleading. In Zohar 1:36a Bereshit, an account is given of the temptation of Eve in Genesis 3: 4-6: "Eat from it and you will really be like Elohim, knowing good and evil." After quoting this text, the Zohar reports that "Rabbi Yehudah said, This is not what the serpent said. For if he had said, 'With this tree the Blessed Holy One created the world,' it would have been a correct statement. What the serpent said was actually this: 'The Blessed Holy One ate from this tree and then created the world... Eat from it and you will be creating worlds.""

from Michael Hoffman's "Judaism Discovered" (pp 196-199)

Albrecht Durer of Nuremberg made this engraving in 1504