Mishkan, Circle Of Protection

Ashnistrike commented regarding my entry Athame & Mezuzah (also posted on my blogs), writing:

I'll just say that as someone who uses both an athame and a mezuzah, I'm interested in the possible connections that can be drawn between them. Do you integrate this connection into any of your practices?

In practice, I only use the athame presently. My mezuzot are stored away in a chest. When I became a ba'alat teshuvah over a decade ago, my professional livelihood was deliberately destroyed. I've stayed with relatives for the past several years. I can't put up a mezuzah.

Of course, I'm sure my enemies are quite pleased with the fact that I can't put up a mezuzah. Nevertheless, I don't need it. It's like all the other rituals tools - the only real tool a witch needs is herself. I truly know this now.

A few days ago I had a vision of a metaphysical fist being flung toward me, and of it being deflected by an invisible shield around me. I was only able to "see" the shielding force by the "reverberations" in spacetime and shapeshifting coming off the dark light (which the shield was made of) as the striking fist impacted against the field which surrounded me. I never take my circle down. It goes with me wherever I go.

And every shabbat and with every ritual, I reinforce it.

Jewitch In The Aron HaKodesh

Negative mitzvah 310 tell us that a witch is not to be killed directly, but is merely not 'to be let to live'; she will obviously die as a result of not being let to live. What does this mean?

The Torah uses negative language to describe the method of punishment - death by active communal neglect or worse, by supporting those who would directly kill her. Estee Psaty has suggested that:

by using negative language as it does in phrasing the mitzvah, the Torah hints that the putative 'sin' of the witch is not outright deserving of punishment, thereby further suggesting that her death is viewed merely as a 'necessity'.

See, the problem is that she isn't really deserving of death - yet her death would be welcomed by those who think she (the one who is "bewitchingly" different) is a threat to the influence of those who control and hold power within the community. Consequently, she becomes a "marked woman".

Considering all this, it is clear then, that not only does the kabbalah have a built-in immune system, but also does Torah Law have a built-in immune system against those who would abuse it to justify manslaughter at best, murder at worst (should the witch die). Importantly, the "Jewishness" is questionable of any Jew who would blindly observe this mitzvah to allow harm to come to an innocent person by his or her active and knowledgeable neglect (or worse).

Why is the "Jewishness" of a Jew who blindly observes this mitzvah in doubt? Because, the truth is, the witch will not obviously die. And when she fails to die, she will eventually come to understand what the community has tried, yet failed, to accomplish - to indirectly, yet actively, kill her, abusing Torah Law to justify it.

The real sin done with respect to this mitzvah, is not one done by the witch, but by those who have turned the mitzvah into an idol, using it to justify participation in and/or facilitating the possible death of someone innocent (the witch not deserving of outright punishment) as opposed to using the mitzvah as a catalyst to discover his or her own "enlightened ignorance" in the active effort not to participate in or facilitate indirectly, yet actively, killing (or even harming) an innocent person just because a mitzvah seems to advocate it and G-d seems to have commanded it. A true child of Avraham and one with Torah in his or her innards would do the latter.

Without a doubt.

In Pursuit Of Ignorance

Essential Austerity

A Jewitch, similarly to a Pagan witch, is who she is.

Here is an excerpt from a good article with ideas applicable to anyone whose spirituality and practices are shunned by the mainstream. Kestryl Angell writes on Being A Plain Clothes Witch:

One of the most stringent tests of faith that a witch, or any pagan for that matter, can experience is austerity. Whether by personal circumstances, age, locale, income, life catastrophe or other cause, a witch or pagan without their tools -- and stripped to only themselves, the God(s) and their faith -- never has an easy path to travel and thus it is one rarely chosen by practitioners on purpose.

Being a “plain clothes” witch is a hard path, indeed. Like most humans, we pagans like our pretties. However, sometimes it becomes necessary, especially in the beginning of learning, to step away from the shiny toys and pretty props and learn the underpinnings of our faith by practicing with our first and most basic tool, our selves. . . .

I hear much discussion, especially from struggling young pagans whose parents or other family and friends would not approve of their choice of faith focus, based upon the premise that without their books, their pentacle or pentagram, without their crystals and wands and lovely cloaks and magickal doo-dads they are so fond of…that they are thus stripped of their faith and/or religion. Frankly, if they can be stripped of their faith by having their toys taken away, then they have much to learn from the very austerity I speak of. Such as these have not yet learned to use the one tool that every witch must have well in hand first before any of the other pretty magickal props can even function properly. The witch. . . .

Learn from the Dark Times that a witch cannot be his or her tools. Tools can be taken away and destroyed. Faith cannot be so easily destroyed. The Witch IS the Tool… a willing, harmonious tool of the Universe whose faith, knowing and to his or her world is unshakable. You are this tool whether in flowing robes of velvet or jeans and a t-shirt in the woods at dawn making coffee on a campfire.

Excellent! Whether Jewitch or Pagan, the article makes many good points regarding the valuable spiritual lessons to be gleaned from an essential experience of austerity.