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Mar. 17th 2025: The North, Pt. 3



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“And a man that is clean shall gather up the Ashes of the Heifer, and lay them up Without the Camp, in a Clean Place.”

—Num. 19:9


“And he—bearing his cross—went-forth into a Place called The Place of a Skull, which is called, in the Hebrew: Golgotha.”

—Jhn. 19:17


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Following the previous part in my Mystery of North series, I want to discuss, today—a little bit—the insight of the rabbin Nathan Gazzatti (who’d worked with Millenarian Christians, so bear with me) concerning the Mystical North (Zafonne).

While an explicit, upfront discussion of the North is missing in R. Nathan’s work, nevertheless there are indications that he was aware of its esoteric charge. Let me expound this.

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Among R. Nathan’s central “concepts”, is that The World—created constituted of “Four Elements” (Water, Fire, Air & Earth)—had (while fully created) not been fully made. The Element of Earth, according to Nathan, was the unmade part of the World—which is why it’s called (Gen. 1:2) “Without Form” (Tohu).

A similar story—which I mentioned in the previous post—in the Midrash, tells of the World’s “Four Winds” (South, West, East & North) being mostly-made, with the exception of the North. The North is, also, depicted as “stretched-out” along the Tohu (Job 26:7), the “Empty Place”. This is among the very few appearances of the word Tohu throughout the Bible.

So we have here, profoundly established, an equation of the Earth (the “fourth element”) & the North (the “fourth wind”) as both qualified with Tohu – “Emptiness” or “Formlessness” – which relates them (in Nathan’s view) to the “Depth”, or “Ocean” which the Cabalists call: the Tehiero (the “Exposed Space” [Joma 59a] – the “receptacle” of “Divine Thought”).

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According to R. Nathan, in the same manner that (Num. 19) the Red Heifer is burned “Without The Camp”—so is the “Element of Earth” being made in a state of “lifelessness” & outsideness. This is why the word used for the “Ashes” of the Heifer (ibid. 19:17) is עפר, (which literally means “Earth”).

R. Nathan quotes the Sohar (I don’t remember page), stating that it is when “the Fountain of Life withholds itself”, that the receptacle of Thought builds itself, & “coalesces”.

This is why Jesus, when crucified, said: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).