"Lilith"

 

 

Lilith, the Queen of Sitra Ahra, and the Serpent who tempts men with knowledge, encouraging them to look for the  path of Self Deification. The ancient name “Lilith” derives from a Sumerian word for female demons or wind spirits. According to midrashic literature, Adam's first wife was not Eve but a woman named Lilith, who was created in the first Genesis account. Only when Lilith rebelled and abandoned Adam did God create Eve, in the second account, as a replacement. 

 

According to the Alphabet of Ben Sira, Lilith was Adam’s first wife but the couple fought all the time. They didn’t see eye-to-eye on matters of sex because Adam always wanted to be the dominant one while Lilith also wanted a turn in the dominant sexual position. When they could not agree, Lilith decided to leave Adam. She uttered God’s name and flew into the air, leaving Adam alone in the Garden of Eden. "God" sent three angels after her and commanded them to bring her back to her husband by force if she would not come willingly. But when the angels found her by the Red Sea they were unable to convince her to return and could not force her to obey them. Because of her disobedience to God,  She was considered  as a dark and evil entity.

 

But Her origins going back much earlier than the "sacred scriptures", in fact The earliest surviving mention of Lilith’s name appears in Gilgamesh and the Huluppu-Tree, a Sumerian epic poem found on a tablet at Ur and dating from approximately 2000 B.C.E. She is also found  in the Babylonian demonology and next migrated to the world of the ancient Hittites, Egyptians, Israelites and Greeks. She makes a solitary appearance in the Bible, in Isaiah 34:14 as a wilderness demon dangerous to pregnant women and infants.  

 

In most manifestations of her story, Lilith represents chaos, seduction and ungodliness, that  has cast a spell on humankind. She had a fearsome reputation as a kidnapper and murderer of children and seducer of men. It would seem, according to Sumerians and Babylonians that Lilith was with God when he created animals and man. For the Zohar asserts that Lilith, the soul, is both the animating and instinctual forces of every animal of the field (Zohar I 34a).

Only with the advent of the feminist movement in the 1960s did she acquire her present high status as the model for independent women. She is the liberator of women. She is the patron of strong women and a Goddess of women’s rights. Lilith represents sexual liberation and pleasure. 

 

Each of us has a little of Lilith inside. When we speak with courage, when we rebel in circumstances we don't like, in our desire for freedom, when we rising to be who we are.Only with the advent of the feminist movement in the 1960s did she acquire her present high status as the model for independent women. She is the liberator of women. She is the patron of strong women and a Goddess of women’s rights. Lilith represents sexual liberation and pleasure. 

Each of us has a little of Lilith inside. When we speak with courage, when we rebel in circumstances we don't like, in our desire for freedom, when we rising to be who we are.

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Paola Luciani Fulbright