"There never was an alternative way": masculine domination and the feminization of the moon in the talmudic parable and a thirteenth-century kabbalistic commentary on the "Blessing of the Moon"

This study exposes a line of thought in Kabbalistic interpretations of theogony where in the beginning no female power existed in the divine theosophy, but instead, two males existed who competed over sole power or dominion of the world that would be created, referring either to the emanated world or the lower material world (or perhaps both). The import of this tradition is that it apparently points to the state prior to the organization of the divine male body, in which Tiferet and Yesod are integrated organically as the body (torso, or spinal column) and the sexual organ, recalling the Bahiric phrasing The Book Bahir ‘the body and the [organ of the] covenant’ are [considered] one’ (§1 14).This commentary on the blessing on the moon is unique in the bold formulation of the account of these two male kings at the beginning of divine creation. It may, however, be telling of what may underly other kabbalistic texts, in that the invention or creation of the feminine was the result of a crisis between two powers who were competing over sole power, as the use of the singular crown, which would be understood as the coupling with the female that was yet to be created. Two problems were then addressed by the events that ensued, the two males were integrated into one, while the second male, prior or concomitant to this reorganization, was doubled and/or diminished to become the female, identified as the crown that could be used by the now, sole male power.