Genesis Bereshith Cycle 7

Bereshith


Sometimes as we move from one end of the scroll to the beginning we find ourselves in unknown places. How did we get here, we wonder. The letters of Torah are seemingly gone for a blink of an eye. It's a frightening moment. Vulnerable. The good part is we can bring-in what we choose. This space of dangling time from  the end of  Deuteronomy to Bereshith...and it is there...can be seen therefore as a metaphysical sukkah.

 I want to bring in Abigail. For those who still believe in the sin of Eve, Abigail sets things straight. She does more than that. Abigail bring transformation to David. She needs to be re-discovered by both men and women lost in a fleeting world that clings to an under current of desperation. I would dedicate this to the unconsciously cruel people of the world, but I'm not Abigail. I do yearn to be like her though and my midrash of her is below.

Please note: I take a few liberties as you will see. However, it did get read before a well respected Bible historian....without any questions. 

Footnotes will follow.  I cut them out of the narrative for flow.  The most important source I use is certainly Megillah 14a. There, the rabbis tell us a bit about Abigail's thigh.

                             
Transformation and Abigail

Abigail. First you say A.

Ahhh.

Mouth wide open.  There’s flow.  Like Adonay.

Think of the small aleph in Vayikra when God calls to Moshe. Think of the aleph of ahavah, of avad. Of love and destruction. You hear it in the throat. Ahhh.

The lips touch for the Bet. Bet like Bereshit. Beginning. Then  a yud, a power point. Then the Gimmel, the letter of humility, another Yud and the Lamed. Yes, her name must end with a boundary. This way she’s a poem with form and content.  Let’s repeat: God flows in the Aleph, through the keter above her head,  her crown, through her chochmah, her wisdom, her binah, her maternal knowledge,  to all points on her being to the Lamed, the letter of teaching and learning, of prophecy. This was Abigail, her father’s joy.

 The first time I saw Abigail we were dancing. It was a day of blue tears flowing, a bull offering , the taste of laughter like pomegranate juice on our tongue.  We twirled, we stepped, we dove, we grabbed. We ran, we skipped, we jumped, we lay on backs spent.  White linen soared like strips of moonlight and herbs crowned our hair.  The beat of the frame drum entered our veins like snake poison and dumb doubt. But we were not the sotah that day! Oh no! We were with Ba’al, the Rider of Clouds,  in his arms, in his mind, him in us, us in him and lost in the timbrels and lyres.  One woman with long fingers and coal bangs rolled in the hot sand. Another drew lines of wine on her belly.  This was not calm praise. This was not a useless rite.

 This was a guttural call with fists full of raw soul.

  It was a wild day, a great day, a climax of victory after many battles lost. Do you remember?  Even the Ark of the Covenant couldn’t save us .  But David, the mercenary-meshiach, he could. We danced!  Ba’al himself was tickling our feet. We chanted! 

  

Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands!

The gold on our ears was swinging, our charms were shining and our bracelets were clanking as if in battle on our wrists.  Abigail was twirling with Elohim, stomping with El Shaddai.

  God  said, they will build me a home so I can dwell among them.

 She was that God, the Shechinah, the spark of transformation! That’s what we ancients are all about, the Hebrews, the Israelites, the Jews, the people of Israel. Transformation!  Just look at any teaching centuries later. It became an obligation.  Abigail knew what she was doing, mind you. She knew very well. She was transforming the snake, transforming Eve, transforming war into peace, man into woman, woman into man, the past into the present, and the future into the past. She knew the importance of her thigh. She was assuring the survival of her future children. And you don’t have to be sweet and girly to get these things done.

They say that real prophets are aware. Real prophets, so I have heard, don’t lose their minds. They remain calm like skin of a palm tree, like Moses as he speaks to the people on the first of the eleventh month in the fortieth year.  Like Abigail as she speaks to David and to the Amalekites much later.  I disagree though. I think prophets shiver crazy like palm leaves in a dust storm and fall flat on their faces. They writhe and scream in exhilaration and agony.

My great grandmother remembers Moses. She was the daughter of one of the spies. She says they were simply trying a Korach stunt, that it was a hoax to get God to punish Moses. Grandma says the spies never left their tents. They drank cactus juice and imagined the whole thing. Wouldn’t surprise me. Not one bit. I mean has anyone really seen the bed of Og of Bashon for real? For example? If you’re going to bring giants into the equation, you know the imagination is working overtime. You know the prophecy is manipulated.

That became the problem with David.

Please forgive my tangents. I’ve been told by my grandmother that one day I will be a mystic, a rebel, a cave dweller and a myth writer. I’m going to create constructs,  impossibly beautiful and  complicated constructs that  God won’t understand. I find this hard to believe. I’m just a nomad after all, a shepherdess, a betulah with an obsession for Abigail.

But let’s get back to the dance. What happened is she fell. I think she tripped over her garment. It was as long as her hair unwrapped, a deep purple-blue like dessert mountains during Rosh Chodesh.  I  grabbed her forearm. She stood and laughed.

 “After you fall,” she whispered, “You keep dancing. Women must keep dancing. That’s how we survive.” 

Abigail (my grandma once said) is wisdom personified: She opens her mouth with wisdom.

So we grasped hands and the dance was hard. It was a shield, a metal garment, a weapon, raw meat for food, an iron mask of sexuality, a gathering of the female hordes or tsvaot,  a way to lift our heads and be counted as well, a way to cause our bodies to flower like staffs of the kohenim. We are necessary.  We are needed. We must live.

With eyes like almonds she motioned to me. Her elbow was bleeding. I spit on my finger, held it to the setting sun and touched the wound but it started again, a drop in mid-bubble on broken skin.

Flustered, I backed away.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“A  shepherdess.”

“I’ve been to your tent.”  She flicked a twist of hair from her eye. It flashed with a speck of silver in the crawl of evening. 

“My grandmother?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. “Everyone seeks her advice.”

I shrugged. 

“What would you need from her?” I asked.

“Here,” she said. She reached into her satchel for a branch of hyssop. She rubbed her blood on it.  “Give her this. I’ll be there soon.”

Then she was gone, her ebony skin, her green eyes, her full lips, gone with the blue-purple mountain blood in her veins.

I sat.  My guess is if I hadn’t helped her up she would have bounced up all by herself. Her bones were that light, like Josephs. In fact, if we carried his in one trunk we could carry hers in the other and they would feel the same. I shuddered, smiled, wanted to spy on her. I can claim nidah, I thought.  How can anyone know?   Nidah means no work. It means isolation.  You see, getting close to a woman in nidah is a disgusting perversion.  And God cuts us off for disgusting perversions. He cuttingly cuts us off and cut us off even more.

I knew where she lived. I knew the thousands of flocks, the many tents. It would be easy to hide and spy.

Then, I ran.  In the Ein Gedi  you hop stones and sand rocks, squat brush and pebbles that bite. The wind blows and you see as many as five families spread over hills and patterns of goats and sheep stopped still. You see the sea down below filled with salt that brings white to the skin. You pass some high places or bamoth. Oval platforms are surrounded by sun-whitened rocks and there are steps. When I put my ear against them I can hear the fire singing and the children scream.  I will cut down your high places, God says. You will destroy the high places and demolish their molten images. 

Sometimes, on festivals, I see lines of people like ghosts parading up with their first fruits.  Grandma says that parents want renewal, redemption, rain. They want their kids to give it to them.

 I could feel the stamping of my feet as they slammed the ground,  feel the sweat teasing my pores.  I had shoes but I was holding them. Better to protect my shoes than my feet.

“Hey, Shoshana!”

It was Benjamin.  He was cradling a new born goat.  Benjamin’s  father had been killed by Philistines, body torn apart and left to bleed with buzzing flies. That’s how he was found, in bits and pieces, red flies like boils on rotted skin.  Benjamin didn’t speak for six months.  The goat bleated.  It bleated hard. I think it was asking to be the sin-offering.  Better to have your blood sprinkled beyond the cloth partition on the ark cover and on the horns of the copper altar than to be led to some demon named Azazel. 

I said a quick prayer under my breath thanking God that I wasn’t a goat. Baruch atah adonay…. and started down the hill.

“I’m in a hurry,” I called to Benjamin.

“Just got a job with Nabal,” he called after me. Nabal was Abigail’s husband.

“He punched his last servant to death.”

“He was caught stealing.”

“He should have taken the matter to David.”

“Saul.”

“David.”

“Marry me!” he called. The words stung my eyes like lemon.

“I marry no one” I called back.

“I marry no one” he mimicked.

We were laughing and he was following,  goat bleating more, my heart racing, my feet licking the earth. When he tripped me I flew into a shrub.

“You jerk!” I said, hair  in my mouth.

“What’s that?” he asked, staring at the hyssop.

“None of your business,”   Remembering Abigail I looked down with feigned humility and gave a small smile.

“Come visit later,” I said touching his forearm.  When I ran he didn’t follow. I think he was shocked. In the past I would have kicked him in the shin.

When I arrived home my father was at the door of the tent.

“Ah, the visitation from the angel,” he said.

He always said that. He was a far cry from Abraham but please don’t tell him.

“A dusty, scratched, filthy angel,” he continued.

I shrugged.

“And your Mother?” he asked.

“Still dancing,” I said and charged towards the women’s partition.

“Don’t see your grandmother like that! Get a hold of yourself! At least wash your feet!” 

“Tell her to enter!” Grandma called.

She was seated on violent purples and blankets the color of sapphire,  the color that Moses sat on when he saw God on Mt Sinai and ate and drank with the two sons of Aaron soon dead and dying in flames  in their offering before  Adonay.  She was dark and wrinkled, smiling.

“Give it to me,” she said.

I handed her the stained hyssop.

“She was so beautiful,” I said. “I never thought any woman could be like her. She was graceful and kind and….radiant."

“Go watch her,” Grandma said. “Don’t leave her out of your sight for a second.”

Her eyes were dimming. Soon would be time for her blessing. Would she leave me the laughter of goats, the milk of trees? The honey of the drought or the feathers of cows? Would she make me a mother of kings, a leader, a servant, a huntress with rainbows or a seamstress with a web of threads?  I placed my hand on hers.

“May you bring vision to your people,” she said.

“Cain y’hi ratzon. May it be your will,” I said and bowed my head down.

“You silly goose. It’s not time yet.” When Grandma laughed she sounded like the broken sobs of a donkey.

Relieved I laughed as well.

“Now go.”

I stood.

“Bring me news.”

“Why?”

“You’ll know when to send her here.”

And so it began. That first night Abigail served grains and wine for her husband.  He didn’t eat though. He slobbered the food like a camel, his bare belly glistening red and pushing out from beneath his robes.  There were many servants racing but not fast enough to refill his glass. When he invited her to eat with him she refused, claiming  he was superior. Once again, I saw it, that dance, the hard dance, the look down, the small smile.  She took a plate and brought it to her tent and ate alone, laying down from time to time and staring up at the stars through the openings. Her friends sat outside her tent and that’s where they were when Nabal approached.

“All of you, move” he said. He was hopping from one foot to the next waving a knife. The friends held arms to make a boundary.

“Move!” he said.

“She’s in nidah,” one said. She was wispy thin, with wrists almost as large as her waist.

“Like last week?”

Silence.

“Like the week before?”

Silence.

“Move or I’ll carve out your eyes and post them on the gates of my house with the Sh’ma! Move or I’ll throw a corpse on your faces at night! I’ll cut you off, give you leprosy, ask God to smite you for your disrespect, tell your husbands about your infidelity, bind you to me forever, deprive you of the yoval, sell you to the Philistines…”

“Oh please.”

It was Abigail. She stepped out of the tent.

“You called?” she asked. 

 

At the sight of her he fell shaking.  She was fully dressed but her top was sheer and the moonlight exposed the shape of her breasts.

“Whore! Slut!”

“Look…your servants are approaching….”

Abigail held her arms up to the sky and began chanting a haunting tune.   Nabal turned and started throwing stones at the shadows. This dancing beauty was for him alone. He bent over and chose one stone, flinging it.

“Ouch,” I heard. I could swear it was Benjamin.

“He’s drunk.”

“Sir, let us put you to bed!”

“I am not drunk!”

Abigail continued chanting. The maid servants backed away. I lay under a brush about a parsang from Nabal’s left foot. I was surprised to see a tattoo on it, an evil eye.

  

As Nabal kept throwing rocks at his servants, one finally jumped him from behind. They both went rolling, muscles clenched.  At the same moment Abigail dove into her tent and her friends followed giggling.  It wasn’t funny though. The servant was bloody and swollen.

What I would soon learn was that for Abigail, this was just another night. 

She woke at dawn, snuck out of her tent and raced over the field up the nearest hill. There, she covered her head with her gilded scarf and faced the rising sun. She sat there for hours, not moving. I could hear some words from her lips. I could see her fists grabbing the earth and her body rising and cowering.  Then I heard this:

Let Ba’al love Adonay.

Let Adonay love Ba’al.

Let Shalom be King

And Olam be now.

Let the rain come down

And the crops rise strong

Blessed be the Holy

Who keeps my children safe from harm.

Abigail didn’t have children.  I guessed she was praying for the future though, like my Dad would make sacrifices for my future sins. She prostrated herself hands flat and rose. I stayed far behind and hidden as she descended. Always, Nabal would be waiting for her.

“There you are again. Take a mikvah now. It’s an order.”

“Yes of course, “ she would say. And then: “Have the animals been watered?”

“Yes.”

“Have the servants been fed?”

“Yes.”

“Have the poor gathered from the corners of the field?”

“You must be fucking kidding.”

She would turn to her closest friend.

“Feed the poor at our gates.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

And off she would go, as per Nabal’s orders, to the mikvah on the corner of the property.

After seven days I arrived late. She had finished her morning prayers and all five of her friends were with her at the mikvah whispering. Or shall I say, they sounded like five shofars blowing.

“They were David’s men,” one said.

“Oh come on.”

“No, they had to have been. They were that strong.”

“And that handsome.”

“How many?”

“A hundred, maybe even a thousand!”

“There were ten men,” one corrected. She wasn’t much older than me but had a baby at her breast.

“Really don’t exaggerate. Everyone always exaggerates. They exaggerate everything they hear and then they exaggerate what they didn’t hear. Sooner or later you don’t know what happened anymore."

This was the oldest friend of Abigail. Everyone nodded in agreement.

“What did they want?”

“What do you think?”

“Nabal told them to get lost.”

“He did what?” Abigail asked.

“He said get off of my land you whoredogs or I’ll chop off your balls and eat them for dinner.”

“He did what?”

“He said take a hike you pussy mercenaries or I’ll rip out your eyeballs and swallow them for breakfast.”

“Where are they now?”

“They just left.”

“Come on!” Abigail said. She hopped out of the mikvah like a fish and tied a fuschia wrap around herself, leaving her hair wild and her feet bare. “Come on!”

Then began the chase. We could see the dust they left but we women were all skin and colors flying over the earth without even a frame drum to urge us on. We were lithe desert mammals feeling our way to the sweat and muscle of camped out testosterone. We were barefoot and silent, our steps tiny next to the patterns left by paws of lions and paws of bears. We feared most the giant beasts of  David’s  army  in  angry retreat. I was in full camouflage-mode with beige scarf.  My eyes were huge and my heart trembling.

David’s camp was what I imagined.  Men with copper boots and coats of mail spoke with the King who had once carried the head of Goliath in his very hands. Then we saw this: They wrapped their belts three times and sat and started sharpening their swords. They were being girded for war. I was so obsessed with the sight I didn’t realize that Abigail and her friends had left.  They had helmets glistening with gold and hands as big as my face. 

I raced back to my grandmother and once again my father was at the door of the tent speaking of angels. I didn’t heed his word and crashed into the women’s section. Abigail was there.

“Then,” Grandma was saying, “they block the roads, occupy the watering places, and starve us all. When we are weak they attack and kill the men and ravage and steal the women.” 

“How much should I give?” Abigail asked.

 

“Two hundred loaves.”

 “Ten.”

“Two hundred,” my grandmother said.

“Thirty.”

“Quantity does not deal with the ultimate level of existence.”

“Can she come with me?”

Abigail was motioning at me.

   

“No,” Grandma said. “You go alone. Remember that the purpose of performance is to transform the performer.”

“Yes,” Abigail said.

“Remember the vow with Abraham and his servant .”

“Abraham and his servant?” I asked.

“Remember the vow with Jacob  and Joseph.”

“I think I understand,” Abigal said.

“How  in Torah do men carry on the paternal line?”

“Through women,” I said.

“Abigail,” my grandmother said. “It is not time to be a woman. It is time to be a man.”

Abigail nodded and  ran out.  I was happy to have Grandma to myself.

“I saw David,” I said. “He was huge, two thousand parsangs tall, and his arm-spread must have been a thousand. I bet even Adam lost a piece of his own life for him.” 

“Make sure she gives enough sheep.”

“Yes Grandma.”

“Well what are you waiting for?”

“What did the hyssop say? With her blood?”

“Crazy child of my child!”

“Crazy?”

“Am I some kind of magician? A soothsayer?”

“But…”

“Do you think I make oracles, speak face to face with God?”

“But…”

 “What matters is her faith! She brought the blood and the hyssop to me! If she hadn’t we would all be dead before morning!”

 Soon I was gone too. I stayed far behind and watched as she gathered her friends. Each went away with eyes like moons. Nothing was hidden that moment. Nothing was beyond our action.  She returned to the mikvah even though it was close to nightfall. This is when Benjamin arrived.  I hid behind a wall but  know he saw me because he pinched my cheek and winked. He was still holding his dumb goat. He approached Abigail. She smiled warily as if motioning him to speak his mind. And he did.  He said that Nabal had put them all at risk by being so rude to David. He said that David’s men had always been like a wall against evil but now evil would arrive. He really didn’t hold himself back. I was proud of him. The first of Abigail’s friends returned with two jugs of wine and the goat squirmed out of his arms. Abigail didn’t have time to say goodbye as Benjamin hopped after his future sacrifice.

Abigail quickly dried herself off, got dressed and didn’t even brush her hair.  Then she and her friend ran to the cart waiting down the road. There were many loaves of bread as well as prepared sheep and other gifts. All of her friends were waiting and whispering. A donkey was tied to the cart.

Then we were off. Or they were. I was just following. And so was Benjamin. At one point he tried to spy by my side but I slapped him away. It was a glorious sunset moment.  The hills were the purple of Grandma’s blankets and the blue that Moses sat on when he ate and drank with the two sons of Aaron and we could hear the stomping of the tsvaot of David’s men. Then, this is what happened: We could hear a giant sound, a throaty call. And we saw it, the biggest donkey ever. In my opinion its throat was clothed with thunder.  It was that big and frightening.  Benjamin was not pleased.

“We’re not supposed to use horses,” he said.

“Go away,” I whispered. “You’ll wreck my cover.”

“The Mitzrayim used horses,” he continued.

“Get out!”

“It’s a bad omen.”

“Go look for your goat.”

“I don’t need to,” he suddenly said.

Because there was another man on another horse and we knew he was Jonathon the son of Saul. Now he himself looked like a company of horses on Pharoah’s chariot. I mean, he was so beautiful. And the problem was this: He was clutching  Benjamin’s  goat.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, forgetting I wanted him gone.  Abigail was pushing her donkey and cart by the both of us and glancing our way.

“I’m not going to ask,” she whispered.  Her eyes were soon elsewhere,  gazing up at  perfect male on perfect neighing horse.

“Out of our way,” David demanded. The horse reared itself high.

“Please listen to your servant,” Abigail began.

“Oh pretty please,” Jonathon said, “Place your cart to the side before we march over it.”

“Sir,” Abigail said again and bowed. “Please my husband was wrong.”

“Yes.” David said and his eyes shown bright with fire-pain.

 Benjamin stepped out onto the path. I thought he was out of his mind.

“Well who’s this?” David asked.

“Please sir, just a servant,” Abigail said. Both men were staring at him.

“I need my goat back,” Benjamin said. “He doesn’t have a mark and I’ve been raising him for the yearly sin offering.”

“Come,” Jonathon said.  Jonathon jumped off of his steed and helped Benjamin onto it. Jonathon was still holding the goat but Benjamin was on his horse, more than a fair trade.  All eyes were on Benjamin.  He looked elegant,  his head piece tilted over one beautiful eye. 

“Benjamin,” Abigail said.

“Yes?” Benjamin’s voice was small.

“Shall I tell my husband Nabal that you are now with David?”

“Of course you should,” David said. He dismounted and approached Abigail. “But he is really your husband?”

“Oh please sir, take these gifts.  My husband is a fool."

Abigail fell flat on her face.

 “The insult is too grave.”

“The insult?”

David was silent.

“It is my vow with God,” he said.

“And how did you vow?”

“What?”

“Did you find favor in God and place your hand on His thigh as did Joseph for Jacob?”

“Why no….”

“On which holy thigh do you make your vows then?”

“On the thigh of God as revealed to me…"

“On this thigh of God?” 

Abigail raised up one sandaled foot and placed it on a rock, exposing her thigh. The air felt squirrelly. David jumped away. Three parasangs at least.

“For this thigh is also a holy thigh so if you want to vow your revenge on my husband, vow here. Place your hand next to the deep sighs of my fertility. How is this thigh unlike yours, and therefore unlike God’s, even if it is a bit softer to the touch?”

“Please…”

“Come…I own the thigh of God. Vow. Make your vow. Give me your hand.”

“Please…”

“Come. Vow on this thigh that you will kill the men and ravage the women.”

“Please…”

“Vow here on this my very vulnerable sacrifice to God,  that you will leave them bloody and finished, fathers and sons, innocent servants.”

“Please…”

“You can’t do it.”

“You’re a woman!”

“Man and woman He created him He created them. This is God’s thigh.”

“I vow with my sight.”

“Not good enough."

Abigail covered herself again and turned leaving the gifts. Her friends followed her.

“What about murder?” Abigail called behind.

“What about it?” David asked.

“Is that an order from God? Murder?”

“I only fight for God.”

“No,” Abigail turned and her voice was like a bell. “Without a real vow you only fight for yourself. Don’t you see? You are meant to be King. You will be powerful and huge, David. But once you kill you can’t be the choice of God anymore. God will be angry. This is clear to me. Don’t you see it as well? You who are so amazing and brilliant that a thousand gems would only dim in your wake?”

David fell to his knees.

And then she walked slowly down the hill. Her friends followed her astonished. I wondered how my grandmother could possibly have thought that the offering of gifts could have done it alone. I also disagree to this day…despite what her friends said… that she was whoring herself to save her people. No, she was bringing the offering to a whole new level. She was enacting her glory.

If that isn’t transformation I don’t know what is. The problem is no one takes anything beyond face value anymore, even her friends, even her friends’ great grand children. If we keep obsessing with the grit though, with the lowest common denominator, that’s what we become.

Speaking of grit….what happened to Nabal? Well, on the way home Benjamin and I went swimming and kept the salt all white on our skin. When we arrived at Nabal’s tent  it was dark and we flew from bush to bush. We wanted to frighten him…not kill him. I think he thought we were ghosts. Nabal dropped like a camel...or a horse... to the ground.

Then, yes, we got married (Benjamin and I) and Abigail married David.  I don’t see her at all anymore. After all, she’s the queen and I’m just a shepherdess. I wanted to name my baby girl after her but I named her after my grandmother instead.

What would have happened if Abigail did not exist? If we forgot what she did and how she did it? I think we would all be stuck, incapable of moving forward, of inner change, of dream and of action.  We would be as flat as a corpse.  Good thing we do remember her though, and her glorious thigh. Good thing we can be in flow with her transformation and the vow that finally David did take. Her relative happiness does not make her…or us… real. Only her behavior raises us all above our image of her. She is in our homes and that makes us each a daughter of her voice.  While the male bat-kol can burn us like one mean comment, the whispers of Abigail live on.



 

Partial Sources (please excuse non MLA, not all publishers cited)

*Bach, Alice. The Measures of Her Text.

*Berlin, Adele. Cleanliness, The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, 2011

*Boisseau, Michelle; Mann, Randall; Wallace, Robert. Writing Poems. Longman, Inc. 2011

*De Vaux, Roland. Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, William B. Erdmans    publishing, 1997, pp284-287

*Finkelstein, David and Solomon, p13

*Heschel, Rabbi Abraham Joshua. God in Search of Man, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1955. pp310-312

*Heschel, Rabbi Abraham Joshua, The Prophets, Strauss and Giroux, New York. P 434

*Kushner, Lawrence. The Book of Letters: The Mystical Aleph-Bait. Jewish Lights     Publication, 1990.

*Maimonides, Guide to the Perplexed 2, Chapter 41.

*Meyers, Carol.  Of Drums and Damsels: Women’s Performance in Ancient Israel. Biblical Archeologist 54 (1991):16-27

*Scholem, Gershom. Kabbalah, Meridien Books, New York, 1978. pp 87-105

*Proverbs 31, Midrash Tehillim 90,4,   BabTalmud Sotah 12b,  Bab Talmud  Sotah 13a, Zohar1,170b and Beresheit 99a,  Isaiah, 1:11-15, Jeremiah 2:23. 9:14, 11:17,

 1 Enoch 10:8, Parah (Tosefta) 3:8. Of course, many quotes are from Torah,  Samuel and Kings.

    

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