Nov. 2nd, 2024: Mystery of the North

“Four Winds blow every day, and the Northern wind does most of all.”

—Bawa Batra 25a

It is important to emphasize that scripture, being manifold and multi-layered—consisting of innumerable “gradations” of meaning—must be read in accord with its nuances. A part of the exegetical ethic is that one must prudently “navigate” through-out these “strata” of implication, and see through the deceitful clothings and husks assigned to our scriptures by “malevolent” agents.

With that in mind, now we’re going to attend to one of the spiciest and most-controversial topics in our scriptures: The Serpent. Indeed, the Serpent is qualified with a “deceitful” nature—which was assimilated into humanity due to Sin (cf. Jer. 17:9). But there are, surely, nuances to the mystery of Deceit, which—on the one hand—is considered the most antichristian attribute (the references in NT are too many to be listed), but was also notably excercised by Jacob (cf. Gen. 27:35), in his pursuit of the divine birthright.

The verse that the rabbinic sages frequently quote in that respect is Ecclesiastes 7:14 (“God also hath set the one over-against the other”), hinting at each type containing in itself two mirroring aspects: good and evil, one and another. For that reason the Tree of Knowledge is named “of Good and Evil”—as it consists of a “good” side on top of its “evil” side. What the sages teach here means, quintessentially, that the quality of deceit has a holy side, “set over against” the evil side. For this reason the rabbis spell Jesus’ name as ישו, Jeshuu, which gematrically equals ערום, ‘arum, meaning “prudent” or “crafty”. The Jewish messiah is understood as he who will outsmart the Serpent, and deceive the Deceiver.

For this reason we get “mixed signals” concerning numerable signs associated with the Serpent; those are the metal of Gold, the cardinal-point of North, and the tribe of Dan, most notably. I will explain: It stands for us that Babylon was named “The Golden City” (Isa. 14:4); moreover the idol of the Calf was Golden (cf. Exo. 32); it is written that “זהב [‘Gold’] will come from the North” (Job 37:22), and that (Jer. 1:14) “...out of the North, an Evil shall break-forth”, referring, on the literal level, to Babylon. It stands for us that the tribe of Dan was situated to the Northern side of the Camp (Num. 2:25), and Dan “...shall be a serpent by the way” (Gen. 49:17). We thereby understand the North as the habitation of the Serpent, whose essence is of Gold.

The “mixed signals” I mentioned come to the open when taking into account that “The City of the Great King” (Ps. 48:2) is situated along “the Sides of the North”. Moreover, Dan (in Heb: דן) gematrically equals מטה, the word used for Moses’ Rod. On an esoteric level, we understand the rod’s “smiting of the rock” (Num. 20:11) to be typically equivalent to the “biting of the horse heels” (Gen. 49:17). An “innuendo” toward the Crucifixion is at play here as well. The word “evil” in Jeremiah 1:14 is הרעה, which is spelled identically (yet pronounced differently) to the Hebrew word for “shepherd”, ascribed to Jacob, Moses and David, who are all called הרעה, “The Shepherd”. The Talmudic sources portray an even more nuanced picture (Bawa Batra 25a) with the “Northern Wind” mitigating the effects of Judgment, & preserving the world. In addition, a person commonly seen as a prototype of Christ is Samson the Judge—who was, all in all, an unruly Danite.