John D Brey said:
...unless we can find a way that the intercourse can take place without succumbing to the prohibition against unlawful mixing?
That is a really good point. In fact, it may be the most important issue ever. . . From my perspective, the
kil'ayim is directly referring to Genetic Engineering and God Eugenics. . . I believe the Israelites were being trained for the task of correcting the corrupt genetics of Earth. This was a huge responsibility going all the way back to our original purpose for being created in the first place...
I've quoted Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan too many times to count pointing out that in some sense the practice of circumcision ritualizes a return to the status of Adam before the first sin: "To some degree, circumcision restored Abraham and his descendants to the status of Adam before his sin" (
Handbook of Jewish Thought, p. 47). If we picture cutting and bleeding that particular flesh as a ritual emasculation, then the return to the status of the human before the sin is also a return to the original (female) body of the first human prior to the addition of the novel flesh that occurs when the human (
ha-adam) has flesh sutured shut סגר (in Gen. 2:21) creating the first
penile-raphe. That's all covered in detail in former threads like
Notre ha-aDam[e].
Understood in the context of the exegesis found in these past threads, circumcision pictures the removal of the tree of knowledge from the tree of life. This statement can be confusing since the phallus is fancied the tree of life, the branch that causes life to arise when it's combined with what's purported to be the tree of knowledge ידע (i.e., the source of sexual experience, the female body). Professor Gershom Scholem has been quoted pointing out that in the Fall, polarities got reversed creating the muddle that's the current state of the world:
The primal flaw must be mended so that all things can return to their proper place, to their original posture. Man and God are partners in this enterprise. . . The predicament of Israel, then, is not a historical accident but inherent in the world's being, and it is in Israel's power to repair the universal flaw.
Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, p. 46.
This universal flaw is symbolized by the fleshly-phallus which is the poster-child for
kil'ayim. The fleshly-phallus symbolizes biological-masculinity when masculinity, in its ontology, is invisible/immaterial deity (ala Philo). By positing the mixing of immateriality/deity (i.e. living soul) with biological flesh ----as though they're now one entity (rather than two) -- the phallus transgresses
kil'ayim and represents the most fundamental sin associated with
kil'ayim.
Brit Milah (ritual circumcision) represents the destruction of fleshly-masculinity, removing it from the physical body, thus returning the body to its original, holy, state, as the original tree of life (the virgin female flesh), which segues nicely into the title of this thread,
Virginity: The Pregnant Metaphor.
Genesis 2:5
"And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground."
The phrase 'till the ground' is in context with this verse...
Correct exegesis of Genesis 2:5 is crucial to making sense of these things. The narrative's key point is that the plant of the field was created coterminous with the earth. The plant already was, before it came out of the earth. The plant was in the earth, hidden, from the very creation of the earth. The seeds weren't placed in "tilled" earth, as is the case with post-lapsarian farming (to include post-lapsarian tilling of the female body to raise biological offspring). Prior to the lapse, i.e., Genesis 2:21 and the sin that comes of it, the earth already (prior to tilling) had plants inside it awaiting a time to "spring" as
nazarenes נצרות from the virgin soil.
Likewise, the holy tree of life, ha-adam's female body prior to the lapse, was created already pregnant with the son of man, the son of God. Ha-adam's virgin body, like the pre-lapsarian earth, didn't require a till, a tiller, or a phallus/spade to open up the flesh/earth for the seed to go in. The seed was already there. And it didn't require fertilization. Tilling and fertilization weren't required until the expulsion from the garden. The virgin earth, and the virgin human (ha-adam) were created pregnant and ready to produce their genet, their clonal colonies.
Genesis 2:7
"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
When we put the two concepts together, we discover that 'tilling the ground' is a metaphor for creating people and life in general from scratch.
God tilled the ground in order to create Adam. Later we see God tilling the ground again to create animals...
God "forms" the human from the "dust" of the ground. God doesn't till the ground. No tilling occurs until
ha-adam is fitted with a spade (Gen. 2:21). And we're naturally calling a spade a spade.
The Hindu who, embracing his wife, declares that she is Earth and he Heaven is at the same time fully conscious of his humanity and hers. The Austroasiatic cultivator who uses the same word, "lak," to designate phallus and spade . . . knows perfectly well that his spade is an instrument . . . and that in tilling his field he performs agricultural work . . ..
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, p. 166-167.
Exegeted carefully, I'm not sure Genesis 2:7 claims God forms man "from" the dust of the ground. The Hebrew can be interpreted to say God forms man
fresh/new עפר to
come out of מן the ground. Rather than tilling the ground to place his seed in the earth, as Adam tills Eve's ground to place his seed in her after the sin, God instead formed ha-adam at the same time he formed the earth and the plants. God breaths his son, the breath and bread of life, into the mouth of
ha-adam, which is to say into an orifice originally created open such that no closed, intact, virginal membrane, need be tilled, torn, or transgressed, in order for the seed of eternal life to enter inside. All genuine
nazarim, or nazarenes, sprout from seed come thorugh the mouth and transferred into the ear: two orafices not fitted with a sealed-membrane signifying: Keep Out -- Trespassers will be Prosecuted to the Letter of the Law.
As the serpent is a trespasser in the garden of God, the flesh created in his image transgresses and trespasses through a fleshly membrane/curtain God placed to guard the most holy place in the middle of the garden of the human body. Anything transgressing that curtain from the outside in is demonic, while anything or one already inside the garden when it's created is part and parcel of the Son of God, the Shetiya Stone, from whence the garden and the world emanate that he might open the veil in the temple from the inside out.
John
