The Hebrew
Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women’s Spiritual Leadership by Jill Hammer and Taya
Taya Shere (Ben Yehuda Press 2015), trade paperback, 330 pages.
[The
authors are co-founders of Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute. In an email response to my query, Rabbi
Hammer explains that the title rav
kohenet was given to them both by their students and is based on the
ancient Phoenician title rab kehinit,
which, translated to English, means high priestess. Except for the bios at the
end, this review will refer to the authors as Rav Kohenet Jill and Rav Kohenet
Taya, using their first names rather than their patriarchally-determined
surnames. Unless otherwise noted, Rav Kohenet Jill is author of all sections of
the book with the exception of Rav Kohenet Taya’s Introduction and the practice
sections at the end of chapters about the individual priestessing paths.]
The authors’
introductions to The Hebrew Priestess
are just the beginning of the treasures in this book. Both introductions tell of the authors’ journeys to the priestess
path and their co-founding of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, which now
has chapters on both the East and West Coasts of the United States.
Rav
Kohenet Jill’s introduction, the longer of the two, begins and ends with
symbolic and possibly prophetic dreams, discusses the influence of her
childhood, her education, the conflicts in her desire to be a rabbi, and the
influence on her of the feminist movement and Jewish women poets, of which she
writes:
“To me,
what these women were writing could not be defined solely as poetry. It was
liturgy. God was mother, lover, bride, queen, even rebel lesbian . . . . I
learned the word Shekhinah – divine presence, bride of God – and then heard a
respected professor rail against Jewish feminists’ use of the word. . . . Why
all the anger? I began to wonder. What is there to be afraid of in a female
image of God?”
She also tells of her time in rabbinical school, her writing of midrash (stories
interpreting biblical texts), her time studying in Israel, of her building of
altars centering around the female divine and earth-based spirituality, and
other subjects leading to the founding of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess
Institute.
In her
introduction, Rav Kohenet Taya writes of her involvement in African-Brazilian
spiritual tradition while in graduate school and her time in a “women’s
collective house that was a living laboratory of ecofeminist spirituality,”
along with her discovery of Goddess. She ends her introduction with questions
she suggests readers ask themselves and concludes:
“Know that
you are not alone and that you are necessary. The world, Jewish and beyond, is
gifted and transformed by your unique expression of spiritual connection and
leadership. Your work and play and prayer are powerful. Your dancing and your
loving are medicine. Your waking and sleeping dreams are sacred. Your laughter
and your tears are holy. Your being is ancient and new and alchemical. We need
your priestessing. We need you, priestessing. We need you, priestess.”
In Chapter
1, “A Brief History of The Hebrew Priestess,” Rav Kohenet Jill discusses the
relationship of the Hebrew priestess to priestesses of other religions of the ancient Near
East, Africa, and Europe, such as Sumerian poet and priestess Enheduanna,
best known for her poem/hymn, “Exaltation of Inanna; the Delphic Oracles;
priestesses of the Egyptian Goddess Hathor; Demeter’s bee priestesses; Yoruba
priestesses; and women who had similar roles in Ireland, Germany, the Americas,
and Asia. She elaborates on the names by which Israelites who held the role of
priestess were known, prominent biblical priestesses, and the controversy over
whether or not certain titles referred to priestesses involved in sacred sex
practices. She traces the history of Hebrew priestesses from their prominence
to the lessening of their role beginning with the Babylonian exile after
the first destruction of the Temple; their presence in the Egyptian Jewish
community; and their role or lack thereof in medieval times. The chapter ends
with a brief discussion of contemporary Hebrew priestesses. She goes on, in
chapter 2, to give “A Brief History of the Hebrew Goddess,” by the various
names by which she was known, her relationship with other Middle East deities
of the time and their similarity to goddesses of other cultures. Also discussed
are the roles of the Goddess in the “portable Tabernacle” in the 11th century
BCE, and in the Temple in Jerusalem in 953-586 BCE. Rav Kohenet Jill writes:
“Post-Temple
Jewish ritual hints at the Goddess even as it erases Her. The Torah, dressed in
finery and then undressed during the Torah service for a ritual of learning and
knowing, is an image of a woman.”
She goes
on to quote Amichai Lau-Lavi, who has written:
“the ark.
. . is separated by a curtain, as it was in the Temple, and behind the curtain
is the Torah, wearing a silver crown and velvet dress, always referred to in
the feminine. Then we bring her out with great decorum, kiss her, undress her,
open her up and commence the ritual of knowledge in the biblical sense.”
I applaud Rav Kohenet Jill for pointing out
that “Torah,” is a feminine noun in Hebrew and for having the courage to write
of the underlying symbolism of the ritual that precedes its reading in the
synagogue. For me, personally, it is wonderful to have confirmed a similar
interpretation that came to me in the 1990s as I was writing my book, Goddess Spirituality for the 21st
Century: from Kabbalah to Quantum Physics. In the second chapter, I wrote:
“. . .the Torah. . . continued
to be perceived by kabbalists as a crowned female wrapped in beautiful
garments. And to this day, ‘garments’ cover the Torah scroll. . . . Before the
Torah can be read, her crown and garment—usually fringed, embellished, and
embroidered velvet or silk—are removed. The two wooden legs of the scroll part
as it is unrolled.” (1997 ed., p. 46; 2008 ed., p. 60)
In Chapter
2 of The Hebrew Priestess, Rav Kohenet Jill quotes from the Zohar (an early major kabbalistic text) demonstrating
the role of the Shekhinah in medieval Jewish mysticism and goes on to write:
“the
modern feminist movement has transformed and reclaimed Shekhinah as a female
experience of deity, a way that women may begin to see themselves in the Divine
image, and a way that all people may begin to experience God as
multigendered.” She then points out that “Modern Jewish feminism, like other
types of spiritual feminism, has woven itself with the ecological movement.”
The
chapter closes with a look at contemporary views of Goddess in Judaism from
several authors and introduces an in-depth look at the role of priestessing
today, a focus which continues for the next 13 chapters, each of which is
devoted to one of the “thirteen specific priestesshoods documented in the Bible
an/or later Jewish tradition. . . . In myth, thirteen is a significant number,
representing the moons of the year and the months of a woman’s cycle.” Each of
these chapters ends with a “spirit journey,” much like a guided meditation, and
with Rav Kohenet Taya’s practice suggestions.
These
thirteen priestess paths with which the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute
works are: Weaver-Priestess, Prophetess-Priestess, Shrinekeeper-Priestess,
Witch-Priestess, Maiden-Priestess, Mother-Priestess, Queen-Priestess, Midwife-Priestess,
Wise-Woman-Priestess, Mourning-Woman-Priestess, Seeker-Priestess, Lover-Priestess,
Fool-Priestess. Chapter 16 takes another look at all these paths, focusing on
their future potential. Chapter 17, an epilogue, tells about the 2009 ritual
ordaining the first class of priestesses trained by the Institute.
The back
matter of the book contains two appendices:“MotherLine Ritual Materials,” and “Kohenet
Biographical Statements” from the priestesses, including the 3 core faculty, and the 43
students who had been ordained by the time the book went to press. There are
also 18 pages of endnotes, 12 pages of references, a 14-page index, an
Acknowledgments section, and an “About the authors” page.
The Hebrew Priestess brings together an
enormous amount of historical material, making a convincing case for the
inclusion in Judaism of what we call today the sacred feminine, or the divine
embodied as female, or Goddess, as well as the participation of women as
priestesses. The book shows how these traditions persisted despite efforts to
suppress and deny them, and how Hebrew Goddess priestessing might further be
developed today and in the future. It is an extraordinary book – scholarly,
inspiring, and, for me, exciting. I recommend it to you with great enthusiasm.
In addition to their continuing leadership at
the Hebrew Priestess Institute:
Rabbi Jill Hammer
holds a Ph.D in social psychology from the University of Connecticut and received rabbinical ordination from the
Jewish Theological Seminary. She is director of spiritual education at the
Academy for Jewish Religion in Yonkers, New York, author of 4
previous books and co-author, with Taya Shere, of Siddur haKohenot: A Hebrew Priestess Prayerbook.
Taya Shere
teaches at the Starr King School for the Ministry, has recorded
several albums of chant, has led a Jewish congregation
in the D.C. area of which she is now spiritual leader emeritus, and currently leads a spiritual community in Oakland, California
Labels: anthropology, archeology, books, Goddess traditions, Jewish feminism
