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Head of Lilith
Adam and Lilith never found peace together; for when he wished to
lie with her, she took offence at the recumbent posture he demanded.
‘Why must I lie beneath you?’ she asked. ‘I also was made from dust,
and am therefore your equal.’
Because Adam tried to compel her
obedience by force, Lilith, in a rage, uttered the magic name of
God, rose into the air and left him.
Adam complained to God: ‘I have been deserted by my helpmeet.’
God
at once sent the angels Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof to fetch
Lilith back. They found her beside the Red Sea, a region abounding
in lascivious demons, to whom she bore Lilim at the rate of more
than one hundred a day.
‘Return to Adam without delay,’ the
angels
said, ‘or we will drown you!’
Lilith asked: ‘How can I return to
Adam and live like an honest housewife, after my stay beside the Red
Sea?’
‘It will be death to refuse!’they answered.
‘How can I die,’
Lilith asked again, ‘when God has ordered me to take charge of all
newborn children; boys up to the eighth day of life, that of
circumcision; girls up to the twentieth day. None the less, if ever
I see your three names or likenesses displayed in an amulet above a
newborn child, I promise to spare it.’
To this they agreed; but God
punished Lilith by making one hundred of her demon children perish
daily; and if she could not destroy a human infant, because of the
angelic amulet, she would spitefully turn against her own.
Numeri Rabba Wilna 1884 edition |
