Kabbalah and Cabals

[Brian D. McCary]

"And did those feet, in ancient times, walk upon Englands mountains green?
 and was the Holy Lamb of God in England's pleasant pastures seen?
 ...."
 - Wm. Blake
 
 I'm slightly shaky on the rest.  (btw, this song is hauntingly rendered in
 the movie version of Paul Austner's "The Music of Chance", which should go
 over well with p-listers)  This is, of course, in response to 
 Craig Clark's comment:
 
"There was also a British-born crackpot from the turn of the century (the name 
eludes me but I can probably track it down) who argued ... that the *real* 
setting for the New Testament arratives was Britain."

It wouldn't surprise me if his views came from earlier British sources. A
lot of visitors to the middle east seemed shocked by what they found, and
many of them seemed to leave trying to take any further need for the middle
east out of their religion.

w/r/t the lost tribes:  By the mythology, there were twelve original
tribes.  The tribe of Levi had no land, and the tribe of Joseph was split
into two tribes (Manassah and one other).  After Soloman died ca 935 BC,
Israel split into two kingdoms.  The Southern Kindom was Judah, ruled
by the Davidic dynasty, while the North was made up of the other
eleven tribes.  The Syrians took over the Northern Kingdom around 780 BC,
absorbing and dispersing it's population.  This was the point at which
the ten tribes (counting Joseph as one instead of two) became "lost":  Judah
remained as the southern kindom for another two centuries, and Levi, which
never had any land in the first place, remained as the priestly class in
Judah.  Of course, the lost tribes were never really lost; they stayed
where they were, just under differant rulers, or moved elsewhere and
assimilated, or moved south into Judah and got absorbed.  However, the 
biblical account is sufficiently garbled to allow devoted but careless
students plenty of room for spurious speculation.  (Was it WC Fields who
said, "I'm not lost, I'm here.  Philidelphia is lost."?)

Another mythology burst:  After the Macabean revolt, which established
the last quasi-autonomous Jewish Kingdom before modern Israel, there
was a period where the nationalistic Macabeans were forcing conversions
to Judaism.  I ran across several referances to this last year in Isrelii
Museums.  I can't remember the source, but I suspect it is Josephus' 
"Jewish Antiquities".  

Norman Cantor, in "The Sacred Chain", touches on the story mentioned
by David Casseres about the conversion of the Khazars.  The story is 
supported by population counts:  the Ashkenazi's appear to be decendants
of the Jews kicked out of Spain and later chased out of Germany and
Austria by pograms.  Jewish population counts a couple of centuries after
these events in Eastern Europe are way too high for normal assumptions about
population growth and the size of the immigrant population.  Conversion
of the local population (achieved, per usual, by peaceful conversion 
of a ruling family, which carries it's own coercive power with the
established population) is one reasonable explanation.  However, as 
Cantor points out, the case is only as strong as your faith in the
population counts, early and late, and the growth model assumptions.

My recollection is that the Kabbalistic writings came together in the 
eleventh or twelfth century, in Spain, Portugal, or Morrocco, which 
would predate the origins of the Ashkenazies.  However, it seems like
the roots of the Kabbalistic systems reach back to the Zoastrians and
the Gnostics, anc certainly the Gnostic texts would have been well 
known to the Jewish schollars who developed the Kabbalah.  I'm on shaky
ground here (having a weak memory) but if I can draw that conclusion, 
I'm sure any morbidly fascinated fasist could as well, being as motivated
as they might be.  It wouldn't be any differant that the christians who
resolved the conflict of the existance of the native americans by claiming
that they were the lost tribes. 

David Casseres is on target with his remarks about the pedigree fixations
of racists, but keep in mind that this is probably human nature.  Jewish
mythology goes to great lengths to show that the Cannanites they killed or
displaced during the time of the judges were racially distinct, even though
they shared (as far as archeologic evidence can show) a common culture and
alphabet.  Inevitably, when push comes to shove in matters of territory,
power, and dignity, people become blind to real or symbolic brotherhood.

Perhaps we can revisit this impulse when we get to the sections
about Titcherine and Enzian in the GRGR.  It's been way too long since I
read those sections, and I never was comfortable with my understanding
of this relationship, but I'm sure some metephor, real or imagined, 
can be constructed by the able minds on this list.  


Brian McCary