The Shabbat Bride/Queen is . . . David HaMelech? First Take

My friend Netanel Zellis-Paley, on Twitter, asked for everyone's spiciest Judaism take, and this occurred to me Friday night while reading Arthur Green's A Guide to the Zohar, so I tweeted it in response as my spiciest take. I will post an expanded version later on.

Kabbalah teaches that Malchut/Shechinah is the alienated bride who desperately longs to be reunited with her male lover, G!d, which happens on Shabbat when Malchut is the Shabbat bride. (This is already a very traditional take that was spicy in its day.) There are figures from the Tanach associated with each sefirah. The ones primarily talked about are the male figures. The figure associated with Malchut? David HaMelech.

Many readings of David and Yonatan see it as more than a friendship, but rather as a gay love relationship. II Samuel 1:26 has David saying Yonatan's love was more wonderful than that of women and I Samuel 20 seems to be about lovers forced to part, with 20:41 perhaps referring to a physical sign of arousal on David's part toward Yonatan. Therefore, I think one can read Malchut/Shechinah and G!d's love story as a gay love story, and the Shabbat Espoused as David - and this is how I will think of it going forward, as a gay man, when reciting Lecha Dodi and Ka Gavna, on Friday nights.

HaAkud

He never really paid much attention to me before. Sure, he threw a big party for me when I was weaned, but that was more about him proving what a big man he was, not really about me. The only person who paid attention to me that day and played with me was my older brother Ishmael, and my mother, whose picture is in the dictionary next to the word “overprotective,” got so jealous because she hated his mother, my Aunt Hagar, for sleeping with my father AT HER REQUEST that she had both of them sent into the wilderness. Worst day ever.

Well, until that fateful day when my father took me and a couple of servants and the family donkey on a trip to make a sacrifice. The three days’ journey was great, camping out under the stars. It’s the first time he really paid attention to me as anything other than a prop for his fantasy of being a rich wealthy family man.  Or so I thought. Once he and I set out to climb the mountain, with me carrying the wood, naturally, it slowly dawned on me that he didn’t leave the others behind to spend quality father-son time together. No – he was going to sacrifice me – I later found out because the Holy Terror in the Sky told him to. And he nearly went through with it, too, until that angel stopped it!

We ended up sacrificing a ram caught in the thicket. It smelled soooo good – I’ve loved wild game ever since. But when it came time to go back, I knew I had to run away – no way could I spend another minute with that sociopath.

It was hard and I had to find my own way – but it was the best decision I ever made. I never spoke to him again – and now that he is gone, I do not regret that decision one bit.

I eventually realized that the Holy Terror in the Sky wasn’t the G!d I came to know and I learned to pray in the field in the evening when I go out to meditate. But finding G!d was very much in spite of my father, and not because of it. And I will never forget how distant G!d felt in that moment when the knife was descending to kill me.

I still wake up in a cold sweat sometimes, feeling the ropes binding me to the cold sharp stones of the altar.