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The 11th of the month of Cheshvan comes in October or early November,
at the height of autumn, when leaves fall, rain pours, and animals
and plants slow down for the winter. It is a time when the world
appears to die, yet the root of life remains, ready to sprout
forth when the spring comes again. In Jewish legend, this date
marks the death of Rachel, the mother of Israel—Rachel dies
in childbirth as her son Benjamin is born. Mystically, Rachel
represents the Shekhinah—the motherly presence of God that
exists within all things.1
Rachel’s death symbolizes the descent2
of the Shekhinah into the underworld—the deep internal places
of the spirit. Yet in the book of Jeremiah, Rachel is the loving
mother who, buried in her tomb, waits for her children, the Israelite
people, to return from exile, so that she may be reborn in them.3
Rachel is the root from which new saplings will spring. The 11th
of Cheshvan marks the new growth in the Divine root within us
even in times of loss and destruction, just as Rachel is the root
of her exiled children. It is the seed of Tishrei growing underground:
we cannot see it, but we know it is there. |
“There is hope for a tree:
if she is cut down, she will renew herself,
and her new shoots shall not cease,
though her roots are old in the earth
and her stump dies in the ground…”
—Job 14:7-8
Element: Gateway between Earth and Fire
Direction: North-West
Angel: Katriel
Sefirah: Keter (crown/the root of the
Tree of Life)4
World: Assiyah (Body)/Atzilut
(Spirit) |
The Story of the Season |
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Rachel, the biblical matriarch, was one
of four wives of the patriarch Jacob, and was Jacob’s most
beloved wife. Jacob served her father Laban5 for seven years in order
to win her hand. At the end of the seven years, Laban tricked Jacob
and gave him the eldest daughter, Leah, instead. Jacob consented
to work another seven years for Rachel. Yet Rachel remained barren
for years, while Leah bore child after child.6 Finally, Rachel gave
birth to two sons, Joseph and Benjamin.7 Rachel died while giving
birth to Benjamin. The story of her life shows how death and life,
barrenness and growth, are inextricably linked. Like the goddess
Inanna of Mesopotamian legend, who descends to her sister Ereshkigal
who rules the dead,8 Rachel must descend to the underworld in order
to bring new life. Jacob too must be exiled from his beloved Rachel
for seven years—another kind of journey into darkness, in
the service of life and union. Jacob becomes the root of the twelve
tribes of Israel. So too, the Shekhinah goes into exile—into
the places of our pain and suffering—in order to enliven us
again. This is the theme of autumn—death in the service of
new life. |
"Our mother Rachel broke forth in speech
and said before the Holy One; master of the universe, it is revealed
and known before You that Your servant Jacob cherished a great
love for me. Because of me, he worked for my father seven years.
When the time for the marriage to my husband arrived, my father
conspired to substitute my sister for me. Yet I was not jealous
of my sister and did not expose her to shame. Now if I, who am
flesh and blood, dust and ashes, was not jealous of my rival,
then why should You—the living, merciful, and enduring king—be
jealous of idols with no ultimate reality, and banish my children
because of them?
"At once the mercy of the Holy One crested, and he said:
'for your sake, O Rachel, I will restore Israel to their place.'"
—Lamentations Rabbah 24 |
A rabbinic legend tells that when God
exiled Israel from its land for the sin of worshipping other gods,
all the patriarchs tried to convince God to relent, without success.
Yet Rachel pleaded before God that she had not been jealous of her
sister when Leah married Jacob.9 If Rachel could manage not to be
jealous of her flesh and blood sister, Rachel argued, why should
God be jealous of statues and pillars, which did not threaten God
in any way? God redeemed the people because of Rachel’s plea.10
Rachel represents the truth that the Divine within us is loving,
compassionate and unselfish. She transforms severity into compassion
and despair into hope. So too, Chassidic tradition teaches that
through acts of love, the Shekhinah will rise from her exile and
“shake off the dust”—through kindness, the root
of creation ceases to be hidden.11 |
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For centuries, Jews have celebrated
the 11th of Cheshvan with pilgrimages to Rachel’s tomb in
Bethlehem. In modern times, women go to Rachel’s tomb in
Bethlehem to pray for relief of barrenness or for safe childbirth.
They wind red threads around the stone that is Rachel’s
grave marker, and bring them home to wear or tie around the belly,
as a charm. The red threads associated with Rachel are symbolic
of the thread of life.
Schoolchildren in Israel celebrate the 11th of Cheshvan as a
kind of Mother’s Day, celebrating their own mothers as they
honor Rachel, the mother of Israel. In fact, the 11th of Cheshvan
falls forty-one days after Rosh haShanah (the new year)—in
Hebrew, the letters that add up to forty-one (aleph and
mem) spell out “eim” or mother.12
If the new year in Tishrei is the seed, the 11th of Cheshvan is
the root, the mother, from which the new plant will grow. |
"Let us see the light in others and honor
that light.
remember the dead who paid our way here dearly, dearly and remember
the unborn for whom we build our houses.
—Marge Piercy, "Amidah: On Our Feet We Speak to You"
in Mars and Her Children (Knopf, 1982), p. 153-155.
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Steps of the Season |
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In Israel, Cheshvan is the rainy season,
and the months of Cheshvan and Kislev are associated with the
story of the Flood. This story from Genesis tells of how God decided
to destroy the world by flood because the humans upon it were
corrupt and violent. God chose to save one man, Noah, and his
family, by hiding them in an ark—a wooden box that floated
on the waters.13 Many Near Eastern myths share the notion of a great
flood. According to Jewish legend, it was on the 27th of Cheshvan
that Noah, Naamah, and their children exited the ark—another
kind of emergence from the underworld.14 The first of Kislev, according
to some, is the day when the rainbow appeared as a sign, to announce
that God would never again destroy the world. (In the Zohar, the
rainbow indicates the sefirah called yesod—the realm of
God that is about generativity, and foundation.) Noah’s
family hide sin the ark in order to replant and repopulate the
world, just as this season is a time of cold and retreat, but
leads to new life in the spring. According to Rashi, the forty
days of rain that cause Noah’s flood finish on the 28th
of Kislev—just in time for the days to begin growing longer
again.15
The 25th of Kislev marks the first day of Chanukah and the beginning
of the festival of lights. Chanukah marks the rededication of
the Temple after a civil war—an emergence from a dark time.
In its essence, Chanukah is a festival celebrating the triumph
of light over darkness. It is the emergence of the root from the
ground. The 25th of Kislev also marks the time when the Israelites
in the wilderness finished building the pieces of the mishkan,
the dwelling place of the Shekhinah, but did not yet set it up
as a single structure. So too, we piece ourselves together in
the darkness, in preparation for the hard work of planting and
harvesting that will come later. |
In the evening your vision widens
looks out beyond midnight—
twofold I stand before you—
green bud rising out of dried-up sepal,
in the room where we are of two worlds...
—Nelly Sachs
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Other Paths |
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Rachel’s yahrtzeit
(death-anniversary) frequently falls near the Celtic or Wiccan
holiday of Samhain, the day when the dead and the living can speak
to one another.16
This same day is the Day of the Dead in Mexico, where people go
to visit their loved ones in cemeteries, picknicking and celebrating
with them. In Scandinavia, this day is the day of Hella, goddess
of the underworld, when the living pray for Hella to open her
halls so that they may see their loved ones. Catholicism refers
to this day as All Soul’s Day, a time for remembering the
deceased and praying for them. Like the 11th of Cheshvan, these
are all festivals of connection with dead ancestors—with
our roots. Crone-goddesses of death and rebirth, like the Welsh
Cerridwen and Nicneven of Scotland,17
are honored at this time of year. Like these other festivals,
the 11th of Cheshvan connects Jews to an ancestor-figure, Rachel,
who embodies both death and the return to new life. |
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Ideas for Celebration |
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One way to celebrate Rachel’s
yahrtzeit in an earth-based fashion is by visiting graves
of our ancestors or making pilgrimages to sacred sites. We can
visit elders and ask them to tell us stories, or we can tell stories
of those we remember who have died. Another ritual might be gathering
together to weave a web of red thread. Each celebrant takes the
thread, says her or his name, and then tosses the thread to another
woman while continuing to hold her or his section, so that a web
is created. Then, while the group still holds the thread, the
web is cut into equal pieces so that each person has a red thread
to keep throughout the year as a sacred sign of life. We can also
make this a time to tell Rachel’s story of childbirth and
death, compassion and transformation to one another through dance,
drama, or art. We can also go out and gather red autumn leaves,
and make a collage or wreath honoring Rachel and the Shekhinah.
Another way to mark this sacred time is to light a yahrtzeit
candle, representing the soul of Rachel, and to light the way
of the exiled Shekhinah as she wanders in darkness. One can also
go out on the 11th of Cheshvan and welcome the growing moon, using
the ceremony of Kiddush Levanah, the sanctification of
the moon (the 11th always falls as the right time in Cheshvan
to do this), for it is written in the Talmud that “All who
greet the new moon in its time are as if they greeted the face
of the Shekhinah.”18
In the Zohar and elsewhere, the moon is the symbol of the Divine
feminine, so greeting the growing moon is like welcoming the Goddess
back from the realm of death and exile into the realm of light.
—Jill Hammer
Articles
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[1] I Zohar, 153b-154a. Back
to [1]
[2] In Jewish terms, I imagine this as an ascent to the realm
of keter or atzilut, the realm of the spirit.
The beginning of the winter season returns us to the world of
fire, the world of inner spirit. Back
to [2]
[3] Jeremiah 31:14-16: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation
and bitter weeping. It is Rachel weeping for her children, refusing
to be comforted for her children, for they are no more. God
said: refrain your voice from weeping…for there is hope
for your future, and your children shall return to their borders.”
Back to [3]
[4] While Rachel traditionally symbolizes the realm of malkhut
or Shekhinah, in this essay the 11th of Cheshvan marks the sefirah
of keter, which is the root connecting the “tree
of life”—the divine presence in the world—to
the eternity of the Divine, and also is the mirror of malkhut
(one is at one end of the mystical tree and the other at the
other end). Back
to [4]
[5] Laban means “the white one” or ‘the
moon”—Rachel is “the child of the moon,”
associated with the Shekhinah who is also called moon. Back
to [5]
[6] Genesis 29-30. Back
to [6]
[7] Genesis 32. Back
to [7]
[8] Wolkstein, Diane and Kramer, Samuel Noah. Inanna: Queen
of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Legends from Sumer
(Harper and Row). Back
to [8]
[9] Though Rachel’s father Laban had promised Jacob that
he would have Rachel as a wife, Laban secretly replaced Rachel
with her older sister Leah when it came time for the wedding.
Jacob had to promise another seven years’ labor in order
to marry Rachel as well. Back
to [9]
[10] This tale comes from Lamentations Rabbah, Prologue, 24.
Back to [10]
[11] Iggeret haKodesh 21. Back
to [11]
[12] See material from the Gal Einai Institute, inner.org/times/cheshvan/rachel58.htm. Back to [12]
[13] In midrash, Noah’s wife is called Naamah and, in
some traditions, is believed to have been a musician (Genesis
Rabbah 23:3).. Back
to [13]
[14] Seder Olam 4. Back
to [14]
[15] Rashi on Genesis 7:12.
Back to [15]
[16] This day, Oct. 31, is called a cross-quarter day (a day
halfway between an equinox and a solstice, which draws its power
from being a doorway between seasons). The 11th of Cheshvan
is also a kind of cross-quarter day, falling almost exactly
halfway between the Jewish calendar’s first day of autumn
and first day of winter. Back
to [16]
[17] Telesco, Patricia. 365 Goddess: A Daily Guide to the
Magic and Inspiration of the Goddess (HarperSanFrancisco,
1998). Back to [17]
[18] Sanhedrin 42a.
Back to [18]
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