The Wisdom of Solomon: An Esoteric Mystery

posted by r. Gafni Assistant

On the hidden teachings of the Wisdom of Solomon:

R. Simha Bunim of Pshischa in Kol Simha, quoted in Kol Mevaser on I Kings 11:6: “King Solomon desired to heal evil, that is, that evil be integrated in good. This is why he married foreign women — in order to rectify them and to introduce everything into holiness, just as it will be in the future, at the time of the Messiah. Since it was not yet the time of the Great Fixing, Solomon was incapable of completing this work. R. Mordechai Lainer, Mei Shiloah, on I Kings 11:1: “For all the strength of the nations of the world can be found in their women, especially in their princesses. For this reason he married princesses, in order to subjugate their energies to the sacred”.

These are not isolated passages but part of a broader strain of thought that runs through Pshischa and Ishbitz. I expand significantly on this strain of thought in my doctoral thesis. This school picks up on earlier strains in exoteric and esoteric Hebrew literature, which read Solomon’s wives as part of a broader proto-feminist mystical project initiated by Solomon and opposed by the prophets. In this reading, the prophetic opposition is tactical, not essential; they argue that Solomon was before his time. There were not yet vessels to hold the full erotic power of Shehina consciousness.

This reading is in response to modern writers like Joseph Campbell who accuse the prophets of slaying the goddess. The prophets kill the great mother even as they revere the Great Goddess. The prophets -a close reading reveals- actually evolve the great mother into the great goddess!. But that is a topic which is beyond this post. We will I hope return to it in a later post.

I significantly expand on this topic in The Dialectics of Non Dual Humanism in the Thought of Mordechai Lainer of Izbica which has just been accepted for publication:)

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