The Androgynous Phallus: Tzitzit in the Flesh.

[John D. Brey]

During the time of the reading of the Shema, the tzitzith should be taken in the left hand and during the פרשת ציצית in the right hand. At וראיתם אותו one should look at the tzitzith. After having looked at them, some pass the tzitzith gently to their lips, as a sign of devotion and joy . . . Who, after having pondered the significance of tzitzith, cannot apprehend the meaning of the pronouncement of our Sages: "He who observes the duty of tzitzith well will reach to behold the face of the Omnipresent God"?

Horeb, Tzitzith, p. 186.​

This statement by Rabbi Hirsch, thoroughly discussed in the essay, Kiss My Sitsit, segues too nicely with the spirit of another essay concerning a like-minded concept, Crossing [out] Gender Boundaries. These two essays make explicit what's mostly implicit in the logic they employ, i.e., that the tzitzit is the symbolic manifestation of the most unique, singular, flesh, that will ever be: the androgynous phallus.




John

 

[WalterTrull]

Oy Vey

 

[John D. Brey]

During the time of the reading of the Shema, the tzitzith should be taken in the left hand and during the פרשת ציצית in the right hand. At וראיתם אותו one should look at the tzitzith. After having looked at them, some pass the tzitzith gently to their lips, as a sign of devotion and joy . . . Who, after having pondered the significance of tzitzith, cannot apprehend the meaning of the pronouncement of our Sages: "He who observes the duty of tzitzith well will reach to behold the face of the Omnipresent God"?

Horeb, Tzitzith, p. 186.​

This statement by Rabbi Hirsch, thoroughly discussed in the essay, Kiss My Sitsit, segues too nicely with the spirit of another essay concerning a like-minded concept, Crossing [out] Gender Boundaries. These two essays make explicit what's mostly implicit in the logic they employ, i.e., that the tzitzit is the symbolic manifestation of the most unique, singular, flesh, that will ever be: the androgynous phallus.

. . . God does not wish you to follow the course prompted by your heart or your eye, and so He has given you a means whereby in the present, visible world you will always have a visible reminder of God---Himself invisible . . . Him who is Invisible, and the word of the Invisible revealed in the past have imposed upon you a higher obligation----in short, a means which directs your attention from the visible to the invisible and brings the past palpably before you in the present. This means is the tzitzith (ציצית); indeed, it is called ציצית from the root meaning "to appear in visible form."

Ibid. p. 181.​

An idol by another name is still an idol. Which segues into one of the gems of the logic that recognizes the tzitzit as the symbol of the androgynous phallus. Rabbi Hirsch is clear that God is invisible, such that the tzitzit is being said to be the emblem of the invisible God "appearing" (a no no in Jewish monotheism) in "visible form" (a double no no).

Which is where the gem comes in since if the tzitzit is a visible manifestation of the invisible God, an idolatrous suggestion (with apologies to Rabbi Hirsch), then the idolatrous investiture of invisible deity on a tangible branch (the word "tzitzit" means a "sprouting," branch) produces, and induces, its heresy, its crime and blasphemy, a crime that's the crux of divine retribution, capital punishment for idolatry, by transgressing the most fundamental prohibition of Jewish monotheism, which is the prohibition on mixing things that can't and shant be mixed (visible and invisible), the law of shatnez, which Rabbi Hirsch teaches is the most basic foundation of Torah law.

The centrality of the exploitation of metaphor and narrative in this configuration highlights the tenacity of the imagination and the theolatrous impulse that lies coiled in the crux of theism. Worshiping the one God without images was predicated on smashing the idols of the other gods, but if this one God were to be truly deprived of all imagery, including the apophatic image of no image, then there would be nothing not to see and, consequently, nothing to venerate as what cannot be seen. Invisibility itself would finally be reckoned iconologically as visible in virtue of its invisibility, a disrobing of the naked truth fully attired in the cloak of untruth.

Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, Giving Beyond the Gift, p. 260.​

So where's the beef! . . . The promised gem?




John

 

[John D. Brey]

So where's the beef! . . . The promised gem?

Professor Wolfson's comment about, "a disrobing of the naked truth fully attired in the cloak of untruth," is almost a channeling of what's in the cross-hairs of the cross examination of the tzitzit which is here being said to symbolize the fleshly, visible, androgynous flesh of the singularly unique phallus.

In the essay, Jewish Clothing - The Naked Truth, the tallit is show to be representation of the first clothing given to Adam after the Fall and his subsequent expulsion from the idyllic realm of postlapsarian Eden where (Eden) there was no distinction between naked and clothed. That distinction appears to have arisen when the new appendage on Adam's body, Genesis 2:21, gives rise not only to the previously unheard of distinction between man and woman, but forthwith, and with the new fore skene of Adam's naked body now visible, the distinction between naked and clothed.

God gives Adam his clothing, represented by the tallit, to cover up the new appendage whose arrival and appearance caused the division (male and female, naked and clothed, Jew and Gentile) that was intolerable within the sanctified precinct of the Garden of God.

Professor Wolfson's comment concerning, "a disrobing of the naked truth fully attired in the cloak of untruth," is breathtaking in the sense of the tallit, as the cloak of untruth (a falsehood, or fore skene, that covers-up the ugly truth concerning the desecration of the first human body through the deceitful redesign of that originally perfect body) since it's so perfectly attuned to this current discussion situated around the paradox of "seeing" the invisible God's naked truth beneath every idolatrous cloak trying to clothe that naked truth by means of numerous cloaks of untruth.

The tallit is thus the "covering" given to Adam to cover up the result of his epispasmic-surgery (i.e., the tree of knowledge added as an appendage to the asexual Tree of Life that was his prelapse, non-gendered body). . . And yet a unique "sprout" tzitz, grows out from under the "covering" designed to cover the existence of un-circumcision, i.e., the addition of the tree of knowledge, the un-pruned tree (that covers up the Tree of Life). -----This new “sprout” thus represents a return to circumcision: prelapse flesh:

The tallit is thus the "covering" given to Adam to cover up the result of his epispasmic-surgery (i.e., the tree of knowledge added as an appendage to the asexual Tree of Life that was his prelapse, non-gendered, asexual, body). . . And yet a unique "sprout" tzitz, grows out from under the "covering" designed to cover the existence of un-circumcision, i.e., the addition of the tree of knowledge, the un-pruned tree (that covers up the Tree of Life). -----This new “sprout” thus represents a return to circumcision: prelapse flesh.

Jewish Clothing - The Naked Truth.​

The essay just noted, quoted, moves on to point out the perfect irony that sets the background for revealing the gem of this current essay when it point out that technically speaking the post circumcision Jew shouldn't need to wear the tallit since he's removed the covering, the coverup, the flesh covering up the desecration of the original body, such that the essay implies the Jew should be happy to run around naked as a jaybird since his circumcised flesh has uncovered itself from a cover-up so ugly, so scaring of the human psyche and collective unconsciousness of humanity, that no longer possessing the flesh of the desecration would be the ultimate consecration of a human body.

Here lies the gem of a great mystery. Why does the Jew, of all people, sacerdotally cover himself in the symbol of the original clothing designed to hide the original desecration (which made the original sin possible) when he, of all people, has symbolically removed the flesh added to desecrate the original type of the original body (making the original sin a possibility in the first place, Genesis 2:21)?



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Here lies the gem of a great mystery. Why does the Jew, of all people, sacerdotally cover himself in the symbol of the original clothing designed to hide the original desecration (which made the original sin possible) when he, of all people, has symbolically removed the flesh added to desecrate the original type of the original body (making the original sin a possibility in the first place, Genesis 2:21)?

. . . The foregoing seems to imply that circumcision, far from being the final event required for the theophany that allows the circumcised Jew to "behold the face of the Omnipotent God . . . in visible form," is instead not only merely a preparatory event on the path to that revelation (of God in visible form), and not only symbolizes the return of the body to its predesecration form (prelapse Adamic non-gendered flesh), but a revelation that the predesecration form, pristine Adamic flesh, was itself a covering of the true revelation of the divine theophany whereby God can be spied in a visible form.

By ritually returning the human body to its predesecration form, brit milah prepares the Jew for a theophany for which brit milah is only the fore skene, the foregrounding, the juxtapositioning of the circumcised flesh against something hidden even by the circumcised flesh.

The tallit, far from being removed and discarded at the bris in order to symbolize being naked but not ashamed (as was prelapse Adam), instead shames its wearer, not withstanding his prelapse innocence of the sin made possible by the flesh ritually removed (symbolized by circumcision), but instead for being innocent of the knowledge of good and evil, a knowledge without which no creature would be capable of distinguishing a good God, from an evil god.

Without knowledge of good and evil, which requires the assent into evil, and redemption from that evil, and more specifically being redeemed without relinquishing the knowledge of evil gained at so great a price, a return to innocence is a return to the blissful state of Adam and Eve whereby an evil god giving divine decrees without giving the whys and wherefores of those chukkim, those decrees, those commandments, can expect blind obedience from his well-meaning and good intentioned subjects since they're not subject to making evaluations that come from a divine level of freedom that can't be purchased on the cheap, can't be purchased without the loss of blood, and can't be retained without some level of antinomian freedom to determine divine versus evil in the bedchamber of ones own soul and not from what's written on a godly scroll:

מילה [circumcision] is not a completion of, or supplement to, physical birth, but the beginning of a higher "octave." It marks the second, higher "birthday," man's entry into the Divine level of free and moral action. Physical birth belongs to the night . . . but מילה [circumcision], birth as a Jew, belongs to the daytime.

Hirsch Chumash at Gen. 17:23.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

.

Without knowledge of good and evil, which requires the assent into evil, and redemption from that evil, and more specifically being redeemed without relinquishing the knowledge of evil gained at so great a price, a return to innocence is a return to the blissful state of Adam and Eve whereby an evil god giving divine decrees without giving the whys and wherefores of those chukkim, those decrees, those commandments, can expect blind obedience from his well-meaning and good intentioned subjects since they're not subject to making evaluations that come from a divine level of freedom that can't be purchased on the cheap, can't be purchased without the loss of blood, and can't be retained without some level of antinomian freedom to determine divine versus evil in the bedchamber of ones own soul and not from what's written on a godly scroll:

מילה [circumcision] is not a completion of, or supplement to, physical birth, but the beginning of a higher "octave." It marks the second, higher "birthday," man's entry into the Divine level of free and moral action. Physical birth belongs to the night . . . but מילה [circumcision], birth as a Jew, belongs to the daytime.

Hirsch Chumash at Gen. 17:23.​

Since a proper examination of the symbolism and meaning of the tallit implies that it's a covering up of man's most ugly flesh, the flesh of the desecration of the original body, the removal of that most ugly flesh, to re-establish the original covenant (by the ritual removal of the flesh through which the original sin came), implies that removing the tallit would be a fitting mitzvah after circumcision contravening the symbolism of donning the tallit:

In an unredeemed world the Torah is revealed in positive and negative commandments and all that these imply, but in the redeemed future uncleanliness and unfitness and death will be abolished. In an unredeemed world the Torah must be interpreted in manifold ways---literal, allegorical, mystical; but in the redeemed future it will be revealed in the pure spirituality of the Tree of Life, without the "clothing" it put on after Adam sinned. It will be wholly inward, entirely holy. In this conception, redemption becomes a spiritual revolution which will uncover the mystic meaning, the "true interpretation," of the Torah.

Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, p. 40.​

In a true interpretation of the Torah, pre-lapse Adam is the first Jew, such that after the original sin, where the first Jewish mother (pre-lapse Adam) desecrates the original body to become the first Jewish father (who can't father Jewish offspring by Jewish law) God graciously gives Adam (who is the first min), the first Jewish father, formerly the first Jewish mother, a covering, the tallit, to cover-up his crime in order that his offspring not hold him accountable for all that's set to befall them by reason of the Fall.

This being the case, there's reason to question why then, when Abraham ritually removes the flesh that transformed Adam from the first Jewish mother, into the first Jewish father, does not now nakedness, a return to nakedness, not logically and theologically follow from the removal of the organ that made nakedness shameful in the first place, the Garden, and whose manufacture, caused God to give the tallit to Adam in order that he (Adam) retain some vestiges of his original priestly role by covering up the flesh opposed to that role?

Furthermore, after an introduction darned near as belated as the historical traversing of time from Adam to Abraham, the question arises as to how all this has anything to do with the tzitzit, and specifically the tzitzit as symbolic of an androgynous phallus?



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Furthermore, after an introduction darned near as belated as the historical traversing of time from Adam to Abraham, the question arises as to how all this has anything to do with the tzitzit, and specifically the tzitzit as symbolic of an androgynous phallus?

The wearing of the tallit, after brit milah, is the necessary irony that segues into the tzitzit as the androgynous phallus (which tzitzit Rabbi Hirsch equates with a seeing, with human eyes, of the invisible God, by means of the revelation of the visible tzitzit). In this vein the essay, The Consecration of the Firstborn, points out that none of the Jewish patriarchs are natural firstborn. They're all consecrated as firstborn:

None of the Jewish patriarchs are natural firstborn. -----They're all consecrated as firstborn. ---- Abraham bore Ishmael before Isaac, and Esau came out before Jacob. Isaac and Jacob are considered firstborn though neither was born first. According to Rashi, even though Esau came out of the womb first, Jacob was formed first. Rashi claims Jacob is the firstborn such that Esau usurped Jacob's status as firstborn by breaching the womb out of birth order (as Perez forced his way out ahead of Zarah, Gen. 38:28-29). ---- None of the Jewish Patriarchs are firstborn by coming out of the womb first. All of them are consecrated as firstborn by a particular ritual associated with all of them.​

It's therefore not a small clue in the search for the androgynous phallus, and its relationship to the tzitzit, that Abraham, who is to re-establish the original covenant Adam rescinded (by adding strange flesh to his formerly motherly body) not only removes the strange flesh (considered a "strange god," and Molech elsewhere in scripture), but like Adam before him, Abraham too becomes impatient waiting for the firstborn of the true covenant with God. And just like Adam before him, Abraham decides to take things into his own hands, and try to do for God what the passage of time made it appear God couldn't do for himself. Like Adam before him, Abraham births his firstborn out of divine wedlock with God by fathering him with the flesh representing uncircumcision, the flesh Adam added, and then used, to father Cain.

Abraham father's Ishmael, as Adam fathered Cain, with the flesh that initially didn't exist on Adam's body, and was ritually removed on Abraham's body before he conceives Isaac, who Sarah laughingly points out to Abraham is his second firstborn.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Abraham father's Ishmael, as Adam fathered Cain, with the flesh that initially didn't exist on Adam's body, and was ritually removed on Abraham's body before he conceives Isaac, who Sarah laughingly points out to Abraham is his second firstborn.

So who is Adam's second firstborn? Does he have one? . . . It's not Seth, since Adam doesn't go under the same knife that Abraham went under to allow him to consecrate Isaac as his second firstborn. Seth is not Adam's second firstborn. He's his second son plain and simple. So does Adam have a second firstborn? Was his impatience, his willingness to birth Cain out of wedlock with God, as a transgression of God's integrity (as Abraham birthed Ismael out of wedlock with Sarah, a transgression of Sarah's integrity), sanctified by blood, as was Isaac's consecrated conception in the blood of Abraham's circumcision?

Answering that question produces a paradox of biblical proportions, but one whose appearing lends itself to the topic of this essay.

To cut to the chase, in chasing down the androgynous phallus, Abraham bleeds the organ Adam added to father Cain, before he father's Isaac (but not before he father's Ishmael). In this bloody consecration of the conception of Isaac, i.e., Isaac's being conceived in the blood of Abraham's circumcision, Isaac being consecrated as Abraham's second firstborn, in the blood of the covenant of circumcision, Abraham reasons that Isaac is the son of the reinstated original covenant with Adam. Isaac is, in a sense, the son Adam would have birthed had he not allowed the strange flesh of a strange god, Molech, to enter into the covenant by being grafted onto Adam's original body before the conception of his original firstborn, born of the original sin, Cain.

Because Abraham isn't in the dark about all this symbolism, and meaning, something eggs at him (so to say), something bothers him; something he can't get out of his mind. If Isaac is, by reason of his consecrated birth, conceived in the blood of the removal of the offending flesh, then Isaac is the son Adam would have conceived apart from the addition of the strange flesh. Ergo, in Abraham's mind, Isaac should not be subject to death, as all born after the addition of strange flesh, the desecration of Adam's body, are condemned, because of that mixing of things not supposed to be mixed, shatnez, condemnation to a living-death ending in death plain and simple.

As the essay, The Binding Meaning [of] Isaac's Bondage, points out, the Akedah is the result of a question that eats at Abraham from the conception of Isaac, until his (Isaac's) early adulthood. Was Isaac, as the second firstborn of the original covenant with God, free from servitude to death? When Abraham loaded the wood on Isaac's back, and made him climb that rocky skull-looking hill (with the wood on his back), one thought filled Abraham's head, was Isaac, through the symbolism of his conception in the blood of the offending flesh (i.e., the precursor to the Akedah), free from the authority of death?



John