The Eternal Jew’s Tale, #145, Batkol’s Journal, 1

In this episode we meet Lilah, the healer, or is she a demon?
Warning: there is some crude sexual talk in this episode.

The Eternal Jew’s Tale
Nineteenth Era, Part 4, ~1425 C.E., back in Genoa
Batkol’s Journal, part 1

[Editor’s note, by Saadia, me:]
Batkol kept a journal of all that she learnt, and here it be, writ by her. I weren’t meant to behold these words. In many another human soul such poison secrets might lay hid.
‘Never tell and all be well’
as the sayin’ goes. But not Batkol. She knowed that poisons in your soul never must be bottled up. They fester like a boil does, that needs the lance to be opened up with many a painful and bitter cry, til all the pus and rancid blood be squeezed out, and more the hurt, that ever it might heal again. Many a noble soul grown sick — trustless, bitter, spiteful, cruel — hidin’ the venomous thoughts and deeds. Gnarled soul, gnarled acts, a body festered in disease.

Tho first she hid these books from me in fear and shame, our nasty fight concernin’ that converso, Juan, exposed the toxin’s chokin’ her. She gave me these leaves like God’s own Book of Judgements of whether she should live or die. Raw and jagged words they be, that tore my gut like a tiger’s swipe. Long I brooded with vengeful thoughts– Lilith’s curses slivert us both — til love’s antidotes slowly healed us.

With trepidation, here they be, except some useless details and facts, and some tales too raw for me to repeat.

The Lesser Yikhud*
Dreamers and Demons I Met in the Hills

* Hebrew: union, divine or human; Kabbalistic term

North of Genoa, a two days walk up the Secca River and then turn east, in a hamlet I hear of a healer-witch. They call her Lilah and they call her Eve, a holy woman, feared by men, but much revered by the women here. One of them women with a sick child was bound to see her. I come along. Cow paths then deer paths, now the woman is lost. Finally a clearing and a plume of smoke. There, a hut as has no like. Layers of shale packed with clay jut from a boulder — the back wall. Timber, branches, twigs, and thatch make the roof impervious to sun and storm and predators too. Thick hangin’ felts serve as a door; parchments made of rabbit and squirrel cover two misshapen window holes, the only light that enters here.

There, a spirit is starin’ out at us. A thick corona of matted hair, granite gray; a much creased face, tho her age nary a one can say. Layers of blouse and skirt and shawl, a patchwork of worn-out scraps and rags. Her feet leather, gnarled and black. We stare at each other, soul to soul. Like a mountain stream, turbulent, swift, now sparklin’ clear, now foamy and dull, now turbid with silt or dark with shade. Now she appears as a gorgeous nymph, now an ancient wizened man, now a hag with an icy sneer, now a child simple and dear. Many souls inhabit her, and many bodies they carry with them, and many wisdoms and many tales spinnin’ their vortex inside of her. This I seen in her rivery eyes.

I expected her voice to be gratin’ and hoarse like a saw cuttin’ thru a knotty log. Strange then to hear the musical purr, like a cat that’s curlin’ into your lap.

“You not in illness, nor in pains. The soul-chokin’ spirits be fearful of you. You come here a-peerin’ in me, callin’ my goddess in misshapen prayers, all wantin’ all sexin’ all kissy and beg, and if I don’t give, you’ll smile and you’ll bow, and paw in my craw*, all swollen and wet, and groan it and squeeze the truth out of me, like takin’ challah**, twistin’ the dough, *just takin’ another little piece of my heart* to throw it in fire and burn it up. You be Jew. You be fearful strong, and you come with your God to sacrifice me, I who live on the other side and can see what your God don’t want you to see.”
* or did she say {deleted}? ** a braided bread, originally for offerings
*-* Janis Joplin, Piece of my Heart

Tremblin’, ashamed, exposed, maligned, revered, judged. She seen the me that I don’t see, entered my depths* from the other side, come into me from the spirit world, from the bottom up into my thoughts. And what were me and what were her, I couldn’t say. We were almost one. And now she seen me seein’ all this, me seein’ her seein’ me where we stood.
* or did she say ‘deaths’?

“But I gots a things to say to you! My Goddess want to talk to your God. Into him Adam she will Eve. She would Shekhina the veilin’ of Hims. Will you let Her vortes* in?”
* ? vortex? German ‘wort’, words?

I have no answer. I have no words. I, a shadow of a leaf in the wind. And so she begins…

“Who be tellin’ of the Divine Bride, her wedding vows and her first nights of lovin’ joys and intertwines, of whisper, kissin’ touch and taste, explorin’ the pleasure palace rooms, its treasuries and glory arts? Who be called in prophetic writ to tell the orders and holy states found in Shekhina’s starry spheres? Who be tell the apostasies and hidden worlds and folded times? Yea, where Eternal Female rules and men be seen as they ever are, as servants, guards, and hunters of food; as dogs a-howl for the female rut, and ever strut and pose and fight to get a whiff* of a {deleted}. Who be tellin’ the violent rapes, shames, and scars, and suicides the Eternal Female ever known?
* or did she say ‘wife’?

“In these hills, that Woman speak in birthin’ hut and dyin’ bed, in little girl and ancient crone, in illness and delusive moan, in fancy, and privy dream, in gurgle stream an summer breeze and thunder sea.

“Your Bible give us just a hint, and Oral Torah eensy more. Them rabbis feart the sexxin’ urge, suppressin’ it behind their word. But I ken hear them hidden geists, them women singin’, long suppressed, them cryin’ inside *Order Nashim*….”
*-* Talmud is divided into 6 orders, one of which is Nashim, ‘women, wives’

~~~~~~~~~~

In the next episode… midrash never before revealed. Fasten your seat belt.