Seductress, heroine, murderer, chaos Goddess, seduction and Lust personified, ungodliness in the best way. in her every guise, Lilith has cast a spell on humankind.
In the Renaissance, Michelangelo portrayed Lilith as a half-woman, half-serpent, coiled around the Tree of Knowledge. Later, her beauty would captivate the English poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. “Her enchanted hair,” he wrote, “was the first gold.” Irish novelist James Joyce cast her as the “patron of abortions.”She is all these things,and knows how to make man and god alike sigh with desire and tremble with anticipation and fear.She wanders about at night time, vexing the sons of men and causing them to defile themselves,but cares for them as a mother for her child.
The earliest surviving mention of Lilith’s name appears in Gilgamesh and the Huluppu-Tree, a Sumerian epic poem found on a tablet at Ur and dating from approximately 2000 B.C.E. The mighty ruler Gilgamesh is the world’s first literary hero; he boldly slays monsters and vainly searches for the secret to eternal life.a In one episode, “after heaven and earth had separated and man had been created,” Gilgamesh rushes to assist Inanna, goddess of erotic love and war. In her garden near the Euphrates River, Inanna lovingly tends a willow (huluppu) tree, the wood of which she hopes to fashion into a throne and bed for herself. Inanna’s plans are nearly thwarted, however, when a dastardly triumvirate possesses the tree.Then in steps Lilith: “Inanna, to her chagrin, found herself unable to realize her hopes. For in the meantime a dragon had set up its nest at the base of the tree, the Zu-bird had placed his young in its crown, and in its midst the demoness Lilith had built her house.” Wearing heavy armor, Gilgamesh kills the dragon, causing the Zu-bird to fly to the mountains and Lilith to flee “to the desert.”Originating about the same time as the Gilgamesh epic is a terracotta plaque, known as the Burney Relief, that some scholars have identified as the first known pictorial representation of Lilith. (More recently, scholars have identified the figure as Inanna.)
She loves this relief,and whatever the scholars have said,she has claimed it as her own in the hearts and minds of men and woman everywhere.The Babylonian relief shows her as a beautiful, naked sylph with bird wings, taloned feet and hair contained under a cap decorated with several pairs of horns. She stands atop two lions and between two owls, apparently bending them to her will.And it is her will that is to be done,and Victor knows it,try as he might to think he does his own. Lilith’s association with the owl—a predatory and nocturnal bird—bespeaks a connection to flight and night terrors.At times she will send an owl to watch over a woman she cares for and has taken under her "wing".The Tetragrammaton is considered “the name that comprises all” (Zohar 19a). In the Bible’s burning bush episode of Exodus 3, God explains the meaning of the divine name as “I am what I am,” or “I will be what I will be,” a kind of formula for YHWH (vuvh), associated with the Hebrew root “to be.” The whole of the Torah is thought to be contained within the holy name. In The Alphabet, Lilith is one of the few Goddesses who know these syllables, and can crack open Paradise with a word. So Lilith flies, having gained power to do so by pronouncing EL's avowed name,and found out things about YHVH that were never meant to be uncovered. In The Alphabet of Ben Sira her destination is the Red Sea, Just as the ancient Israelites achieve freedom from Pharaoh at the Red Sea, so Lilith gains independence from Adam by going there.YHVH tells Adam that if Lilith fails to return, 100 of her children must die each day. Apparently, Lilith is not only a child-murdering Goddess but also an amazingly fertile mother. In this way, she helps maintain the world’s balance between good and evil.A very Left Hand Path act indeed.Three angels are sent in search of Lilith. When they find her at the Red Sea, she refuses to return to Eden.To prevent the three angels from drowning her in the Red Sea, Lilith swears in the name of God that she will not harm any infant who wears an amulet bearing her name. Ironically, by forging an agreement with God and the angels and using the name, Lilith demonstrates that she has power over YHVH and can Bind him to her will.And she can,and often does Bind EL,Angels,Demons and foolish Magi to her will whenever it pleases her..A parable by a daughter of Lilith, Judith Plaskow Goldenberg shows another view of Lilith. At first Goldenberg’s fanciful tale follows the basic Ben Sira plot line: Lilith dislikes being subservient to Adam, so she flees Paradise and her absence inspires God to create Eve. But in Goldenberg’s retelling, the exiled Lilith is lonely and tries to re-enter the garden. Adam does everything he can to keep her out, inventing wildly untrue stories about how Lilith threatens pregnant women and newborns. One day Eve sees Lilith on the other side of the garden wall and realizes that Lilith is a woman like herself. Swinging on the branch of an apple tree, a curious Eve catapults herself over Eden’s walls where she finds Lilith waiting. As the two women talk, they realize they have much in common, “till the bond of sisterhood grew between them.” The budding friendship between Lilith and Eve puzzles and frightens both man and deity.And that she does, proud and willful, claiming equality with Adam because she was created from the same dust,any Man with a pompous need to rule fears her,and all Woman secretly adore her.She is also called “The Howling One.”and is noble in her rebellion against male and Deity domination. irresistibly seductive,wantonness and Wisdom with wings and claws,Succubus.,Mother,Goddess,Whore,She is every woman we love and hold dear.This is our Lilith!
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