DBCohen wrote:The image of the veil has many sources in mythology, literature and art, but I think Leonard Cohen may have been influenced here by a specific source, which is a passage in Sefer HaZohar or The Book of Splendor, the major theosophical composition of Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism. (In passing, let me warn you against the New Age version of Kabbalah, championed by the like of Madonna, and which has very little to do with historical Kabbalah). This book was compiled in Spain, in late 13th century, although it is attributed to a sage of the former millennium. In this specific passage the Torah (a term referring to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible specifically, and to Jewish law and teaching generally), is likened to a beautiful maiden secluded in an isolated palace, and revealing herself only to her true lover. The passage is very long, so I will quote only a few parts of it (from the selected English translation edited by Gershom Scholem):
“So it is with the Torah, which discloses her innermost secrets only to them who love her. She knows that whosoever is wise in heart hovers near the gates of her dwelling place day after day. What does she do? From her palace, she shows her face to him, and gives him a signal of love, and forthwith retreats back to her hiding place. Only he alone catches her message, and he is drawn to her with his whole heart and soul, and with all of his being. In this manner the Torah, for a moment, discloses herself in love to her lovers, so as to rouse them to renewed love. […] And when he arrives, she commences to speak with him, at first from behind the veil which she has hung before the words […]. Then she speaks to him behind a filmy veil of finer mesh, she speaks to him in riddles and allegories […]. When, finally, he is on near terms with her, she stands disclosed face to face with him, and holds converse with him concerning all of her secret mysteries, and all the secret ways which have been hidden in her heart from immemorial time.”
LC is undoubtedly familiar with this passage. Let me also point out section 3 in The Book of Mercy, which is arguably LC’s most Jewish book (those unfamiliar with Jewish sources may not be aware how often does LC lift images or quote directly from various traditional sources in that book, including from the Hebrew Bible, the Prayer Book, the Mishnah, and Kabbalistic teachings). That section in The Book of Mercy seems also to allude to the same passage from The Book of Splendor.
And finally, why “Sahara”? Is it somehow derived from “Zohar”? Or from “Torah”? I’m not convinced myself. However, mixing images from different sources is common in LC’s writing, so “Sahara” may come from a different place altogether. If somebody has a better idea, I’d be glad to hear it.
Sincerely,
D. Cohen
That is a wonderful post, Doron (the poem you wrote in your other post was pretty good, too), and, four years later, I thank you for it! Yes, thanks to Abby too for re-surfacing this thread.
Why Sahara? To me, this is about the actual Sahara; the desert. After your and Greg's posts I thought that would sound daft so I didn't say anything at the time:-) A desert is by definition the most austere, silent, and barren of landscapes, and therefore conducive to spiritual transformation. The expansive, 'big sky' feel of the Sahara has been described by Paul Bowles
*, American writer who lived in Morocco. He noted that French colonists in Morocco called the desert experience "le bateme de la solitude" (the baptism of solitude), and said, "once you have been under the spell of the vast, luminous, silent country, no other place can provide the sensation of existing in the midst of something that is absolute." Sand dunes, where they occur in the desert, also provide a shifting, impermanent landscape, equivalent of a psychological truth in a way that most landscapes are not. Edward Abbey wrote about the American deserts, and he along with others emphasised the depth of the desert's silence: "I become aware for the first time today of the immense silence in which I am lost. Not a slience so much as a great stillness - for there are a few sounds - the creak of some bird in the juniper tree, an eddy of wind which passes and fades like a sigh, the ticking of the watch on my wrist - slight noises which break the sensation of absolute silence." Something else Abbey said, and one of my favourite quotes, was, "what draws us into the desert is the search for something intimate in the remote."
So, for someone like me who has no religion but considerable "spiritual tendencies", the Sahara holds great allure.
You Are Right Sahara also reminds me of this Renato Casaro print of a woman merging with a desert dweller, that has pride of place in my living room. This picture was used in the poster for Bertolucci's The Sheltering Sky (adapted from the novel by Paul Bowles) :
Then such a one, if he is a man, is ready to love the woman Sahara; and such a one, if she is a woman, is ready to love the man who can put into song The Great Distance of Mist and Veils. Is it you who are waiting, Sahara, or is it I?
Doron wrote, The Book of Splendor wrote: the Torah (is) a beautiful maiden secluded in an isolated palace, and revealing herself only to her true lover.
*Isabelle Eberhardt's wonderful series of short stories, The Oblivion Seekers, was translated by Paul Bowles, it is also worth noting. Ms Eberhardt was a European who travelled to the Sahara early in the 1900's and (disguised as a man to enable it) became a Sufi. I have also just discovered Bowles had a huge interest in Moroccon music.
More of the piece about the Sahara:
Baptism of Solitude
this essay first appeared in Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue: Scenes from the Non-Christian World (published in 1963)
Immediately when you arrive in the Sahara, for the first or the tenth time, you notice the stillness. An incredible, absolute silence prevails outside the towns; and within, even in busy places like the markets, there is a hushed quality in the air, as if the quiet were a conscious force which, resenting the intrusion of sound, minimizes and disperses sound straightaway. Then there is the sky, compared to which all other skies seem faint-hearted efforts. Solid and luminous, it is always the focal point of the landscape. At sunset, the precise, curved shadow of the earth rises into it swiftly from the horizon, cutting it into light section and dark section. When all daylight is gone, and the space is thick with stars, it is still of an intense and burning blue, darkest directly overhead and paling toward the earth, so that the night never really grows dark.
You leave the gate of the fort or town behind, pass the camels lying outside, go up into the dunes, or out onto the hard, stony plan and stand awhile, alone. Presently, you will either shiver and hurry back inside the walls, or you will go on standing there and let something very peculiar happen to you, something that everyone who lives there has undergone and which the French call le baptême de la solitude. It is a unique sensation, and it has nothing to do with loneliness, for loneliness presupposes memory. Here, in this wholly mineral landscape lighted by stars like flares, even memory disappears; nothing is left but your own breathing and the sound of your heart beating. A strange, and by no means pleasant, process of reintegration begins inside you, and you have the choice of fighting against it, and insisting on remaining the person you have always been, or letting it take its course. For no one who has stayed in the Sahara for a while is quite the same as when he came.
Perhaps the logical question to ask at this point is: Why go? The answer is that when a man has been there and undergone the baptism of solitude he can't help himself. Once he has been under the spell of the vast , luminous, silent country, no other place is quite strong enough for him, no other surroundings can provide the supremely satisfying sensation of existing in the midst of something that is absolute.
He will go back, whatever the cost in comfort and money, for the absolute has no price.
Anyway, it is very interesting to know the Kabbalah source for this piece. I am starting to think that Mat is correct when he says that Leonard Cohen (amongst all the other things he is) is a mystic - concerned with the direct experience of God or truth - given his references from Kabbalah, Sufi poetry, Christian mysticism (e.g.the Cloud of Unknowing), Vedanta...and his immersion in Zen.