Visions of Lilith (Adam's First Wife)

This past semester was the first in which I was exposed to any characteristically feminist scholarship, and I found a lot of interesting points made by authors chosen for both my religious theories and religious ethics courses.  I found these perspectives generally illuminating, and I wasn't overpowered by any of my preconceived concern that it would be primarily focused on bashing the behavior of men with whom I don't necessarily relate anyway.  Rather, it seemed that a lot of the grievances contend with general disregard for/ignorance about women's perspectives and abilities, rather than male aggression toward women.  I found myself pleading ignorance or acquiescent guilt to sex role-assumptions and implicit attitudes upon which I was raised, and thus I found most of the charges made by feminist authors like Darlene Juschka, Mary Daly, and Judith Plaskow to be quite fair. 

While in some essays she does take fairly radical/progressive stances, I was struck in my early reading of Plaskow - who is a scholar of Jewish feminism - by her midrashic description of Lilith, the first wife of Adam.  She rightfully provides "a new" (in other words, "recovers women's") perspective in The Coming of Lilith, identifying her as strong, beautiful, sisterly, and completely human (this last point is indeed relevant).  I was surprised, though, upon reading the Talmudic renditions of Lilith, that Plaskow could resist tearing these rabbis apart.  Certainly, she conveys a strong and more positive message by keeping her focus on the recovered version of Lilith, but more allusions to the fairly horrific Talmudic Lilith character might have further reinforced the need for Plaskow's midrash.

I'm still working through some ideas to read more into Plaskow's essays and bring them into conversation with other modern feminist theologians.  For now, though, I thought it might interest others to read a recap of some of the vivid language through which Lilith has been described.  The following is an informal, late-night summary/reaction paper to a weekly reading assignment in my ethics class from a few months back.

Plaskow’s vs. the Talmudic Lilith

           Plaskow calls her Coming of Lilith story a midrash – “a form of biblical interpretation that often begins from a question, silence, gap, or contradiction in a biblical story and writes the story forward in response to the interpreter’s questions” (85) – of the original Talmudic midrash of Lilith.  While she is clear about the significance of writing the Coming of Lilith 23 years prior, her reflection on the piece reinforces its continued benefits and meanings for her and other feminist theorists today.  Even though she admits that she appropriated the story of Lilith more for how the character fit the bill of helping interpret the feminine experience, I think she could have said more about just how different her depiction of Lilith was from Talmudic descriptions.  Her motivations were not directly reactionary to the Talmudic moods surrounding Lilith, but Talmudic depictions reinforce just how much of a leap forward Plaskow’s Lilith makes with respect to themes of strength and sisterhood as well as understandings of her (or woman’s) qualities and place in the world with Adam (or man) and God.

            The prevailing themes differ vastly between Plaskow’s story of Lilith and that which was developed through Talmudic writings.  Where Plaskow focuses on positive connotations and traits for Lilith and her legacy, readings from the Talmud paint a much more negative picture.

            Plaskow’s Coming of Lilith (30-31) introduces a Biblically-set, mythical example of women made stronger by sisterhood.  Lilith is Adam’s first wife – predating the creation of Eve – and she is self-respecting in the face of Adam’s power moves.  Not “one to take any nonsense, [Lilith picked] herself up, uttered God’s holy name, and flew away” (31).  She would not stay away forever, though, and sometime after Eve is created Lilith makes two unsuccessful attempts to return – not passively but aggressively, by force – to the garden (31).  On the second occasion, “Eve [gets] a glimpse of her and saw she was a woman like herself”, and months later Eve acts upon her own curiosity by muscling her way over the wall and out of the garden.  Over the course of many meetings, Lilith is welcoming to Eve and the two develop a strong sense of sisterhood over shared teachings, stories, laughter and tears (32).

            The strengths possessed by the Talmudic Lilith are much less enviable.  She has no intentions of returning to the garden, and strikes a troubling deal to stay in exile.  Having been, in her own attributed words, “created to strangle newborn infants,” Lilith trades the lives of 100 of her “demon offspring” daily in return for the right to prey upon infants whose amulets do not bear the protective names of three angels working for God (216).  Her ability to negotiate and generally have her way, as the original woman, is less of a boost to the perception of all women to follow when the terms guarantee death and destruction motivated by bloodlust.  Lilith’s sexual lust is described in predatory terms, too, as she seeks to seduce men – especially the best among them, as in the example of Rabbi Elimelekh of Lizhensk (219) – and steal their seed (217).  Thus, the Talmudic depiction of the first woman unmistakably lists seduction among her powers, with high murderous and lustful capacities as well.  The descriptions of her interactions with men are immoral or even evil, while importantly her interactions with women are unaddressed.

            The stories also differ in meaningful ways with regard to Lilith’s identifying features and how she is described in relation to Adam and God.  Lilith is made, with Adam, of dust in the same creative act of God, and she does not signify the subordination of woman (or, analogously, community) to man (or Jesus).  She is a link, with Eve, in the first community building efforts in the women’s experience but her status as an equal to Adam in all ways precludes justification of her subordination, even if Adam himself is displeased with Lilith’s “uppity” nature (31).  In fact, it is Lilith and Eve who are in such a position of power with their sisterhood that they instill expectancy and fear in God and Adam for the day that the women would return to the garden (32).  To these very clear descriptions of a more represented and equal (even powerful) womanhood I must add one subtlety that I found to be personally meaningful.  While Plaskow does not strip God of the male gender and pronouns typical of God-language (44) – a conscious decision she defends retrospectively (82) – she does make an alteration that I saw in the Coming of Lilith for the first time.  The “Adam and Eve” duo with which I am so familiar is instead addressed as “Eve and Adam” (31).  While it is a subtle difference, it was so novel in appearance that – perhaps indirectly indicative of a bias with which I was always taught the story – my first reaction was to the effect of “wait, did I misread that?”  Plaskow’s Lilith is not described in terms of specific features, but instead more generally as “beautiful and strong” in Eve’s estimation, whereas the Talmudic descriptions of Lilith describe her long dark/black (217, 219) or red hair (218) and seductive ornamental (218) or scant (219) attire.  Lilith is still described to have been created from dust but, like Eve, she comes after the lonely Adam (216).  The Talmudic version of Lilith lacks not just equality with Adam but, at times, simple humanity.  Rather than a woman, Lilith is in many places referred to instead as a “witch”, “evil female spirit” (217), “Queen of Demons” (218) and the “incarnation of lust” (217).

            Coming from the long discussion of women’s experience and Lilith in Plaskow’s essays, the short Talmudic excerpts even more dramatically depict a much less favorable, less human understanding of Lilith.  The strength of Lilith and Eve for Plaskow is rivaled by Talmudic Lilith’s influence in sealing deals with murderous terms and seducing men and demons alike, while the sisterhood or community as formed between Plaskow’s Lilith and Eve apparently has no precedent in the Talmud.

Further Reading
   References to Plaskow's work are found in The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism, and Sexual Ethics, 1972-2003. Beacon Press, 2005.
   The tone of Talmudic descriptions may well be fairly consistent in any available print of the text.  I don't have a name at hand but I can find the translator(s) of the referenced snippets in my old notes upon request.