Hebrew Dionysus

The Myth, the Archetype of Dionysus/Bacchus breaks out in the Hebrew
World with King David and Rabbi Yeshua ben Yosef.

There is no Human more beloved by divinity then the King David.

Although David is a great horn dog, sending the husbands of women he
desires into the thick of battle where they would surely be killed, he
is the flavor of Human that the god of the original testament loves.

He is the dancing-ous, the most ecstatically drunken Hebrew in the
Bible. He ecstatically, drunkenly, fearlessly dances through the
streets of Jerusalem. He is a poet, songwriter, a musician, a rapper,
a great warrior, and an even greater lover. He is a mortal God of the
is-ness of the limit-less feast/party of more life in life.

Rabbi Yeshua's first defining miracle, his first demonstration that he
is House of David, was the making of the water into wine. This is the
way that Dionysus/Baccus always rolls.

Christian priests and clergy will always break this story out to speak
of how the Rabbi Yeshua (a.k.a. Cheese-us) endorses marriage. And yet
a thing illuminated by this miracle story is how poorly Christian
priests and clergy have read their own scripture.

A conscious reading of even the canonical text tells of how Rabbi
Yeshua arrives in his hometown, Nazareth, with a bunch of his
commercial fishermen friends. Everyone goes to a high society, rich
peoples' wedding, probably without wedding presents. And they then
drink all the wine.

The narrative is a story of the power, the Myth, the Archetype of the
Jewish Mother. Miriam tells her son that this will not stand,
something has to be done about the drinking of all the wedding party's
wine, even if it means breaking into the cosmic wine cellar.

Rabbi Yeshua protests to his mother, says its not the time to be
revealed, in this way.

His mother says, in no uncertain terms, that there's no better time to
reveal himself - as Hebrew Dionysus.

Rabbi Yeshua, not wanting anyone to be hurt or killed, does what his
mother says.

In this time another Hebrew Dionysus is breaking out from the Hebrew
World. He is Matisyahu. He is a poet, a songwriter, a rapper, an
ecstatically drunken dancer, a lover, and a warrior for the Lubavicher
Hassidic movement.

Israel ben Eliezer, 1698 - 1760, the founder of Hasidic Judaism, lived
during a time when the center of Jewish tradition, practice was
rigidly formally centered on the academic study of Talmud. Organized,
normative Judaism lacked joy, creativity transcendence, spontaneity.

Ben Eliezer taught that the ordinary person filled with a sincere
belief in God, and whose prayers come from the heart, is more
acceptable to God than someone versed in and fully observant of Jewish
law who lacks inspiration in their divine service.

Hasidic Judaism became a Davidic thing of ecstatic dancing, singing,
prayer, direct experiencing of the transcendental.

Ironically the Lubovitcher Hasidic movement of which Matisyahu is an
important part, is about Hasidic Judaism returning to an intellectual,
not emotional comprehension of divinity. It emphasizes mind over
emotion, it's about the formal study of Torah rather than ecstatic
worship.

The Lubbavitcher movement, as it is known now, is the creation of
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. He taught that a Jew's central
purpose was to return to the orthodox tradition of Judaism, the
learning and dissemination of Torah, which benefits one's fellow Jew,
and hastens the arrival of the Messiah.

Schneerson, who died in 1994, is considered to be the Messiah, by Lubavicher's.

I saw and heard Matisyahu at the first Wakarusa Music Festival at
Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, Arkansas, in June.

I was moved.

It was all Davidic, the dance, the song, the love, adoration between
the king, the mortal god of the party and the people, all
ecstatically, drunkenly dancing.

I was so moved that I visited Matisyahu and his people at the Shabbos tent.

And I was disappointed in that their shabbos/sabbath was a formal,
rigid thing of the thou-shalf-not. It was a thing that was not made
for the Human. In their shabbos/sabbath the Human is made for, made to
obey all the thou-shalt-nots of the normative, formal rigidity of the
Orthodox Judaism.