Living Kedushah

כ' באדר א' תשס"ח
Keolwulf 21

Another point related to today's Walking On Fire entry Roar Of The Lion, pertains to a second point of the article by Rabbi Ari Enkin posted by Gil Student at Hirhurim in the discussion on knotting tzitzit during the blackness of night and more:

Many Tzitzit professionals have the custom never to cut Tzitzit strings with scissors or any other metal object. Instead, any necessary cutting or shortening is done with one's teeth.[1] This idea of not using metal in the process of making Tzitzit mirrors the building of the Beit Hamikdash. We are told that it was forbidden to use any metal utensils when hewing the stones which were to be used in the construction of the Altar. As such, some suggest that the use of metal should be forbidden in the process of making Tzitzit as well.

This common denominator between the Altar and Tzitzit is their role in lengthening human life, [2] while metal is a material used in weaponry whose primary purpose is to shorten it. [3]

Back in January of 2007, I posted a kabbalistic perspective regarding the iron of a witch's athame as a holy tool of her sacred altar, writing:

The iron blade of a witch's athame upon her altar is a perfect symbol for the rectification of evil and its elevation back into the realm of kedushah (holiness, sacredness). In the Jewish tradition, this rectification and re-elevation is called tikun olam (repair of the world).

The iron of knives and swords have historically been used to shorten life, making them typically antithetical for use upon a sacred altar, whose purpose is to enhance and lengthen life. However, in the "future world" (in Hebrew "leatid lavo" לעתיד לבא, a code for the transcendent rectified feminine sefirah Binah and her parzufim), our Sages teach that the Temple will be built using iron. Normally, it is forbidden to use tools of iron to cut stones for the Temple altar.

Kabbalistically, iron, one of the seven metals [1] corresponding to the seven mystical attributes of the heart, corresponds to the attribute of Malchut, the element of the heart most "vulnerable to negativity and egocentricity". Malchut symbolizes the feminine Kingdom of the world of action and expression (see sefirotic array here). It also symbolizes the Indwelling Divine Feminine, the Shechinah.

Given the intimate connection of iron with the kedushah of the Holy Temple, we can understand then, that the status of iron (as being holy or not), rests in it's relationship to shortening or lengthening life.

My athame - Time Witchery.

Footnotes:

[1] Mishna Berura 11:61

[2] Shabbat 32b

[3] Shulchan Aruch Harav 11:24, Middot 3:4