Sekhmet

“ Evarne's brown eyes had grown graver, and all-unconsciously she had sighed deeply as she stood amidst those numerous Sekhets seated beneath the clear blue sky. They had struck strange awe to her heart, these symbolic counterfeits of the goddess who presided over the most powerful—the most eternal—forces in heaven and earth, Sekhet—goddess both of Love and of Cruelty! Ah, they were a subtle people, those ancient Egyptians, skilful in reading the heart of humanity, fearless of the truth, defiant in stripping the gloss from life! ”

“ Evarne flung herself upon the couch, pressing her face despairingly into the cushions. And in the blackness arose, clear and distinct, a mental vision of that little Temple of Sekhet far away in the land of Egypt. How minutely could she recall the terrifying aspect of the goddess who held dominion over Love, over its joy and its cruelty. Almost with the vividness of reality could she see those ominous features—that flat head with its receding brow, beneath which no wise benevolence, no tender charity [pg 281] could ever find place. ”

“ From the time a person is born his Sekhel, mind, is in a state of Tzimtzum, contraction. If and when he starts using it in Hitbonenut, contemplation of Hashem's greatness and holy devotions - that's when his Sekhel starts growing. But when a person admits machshavot chitzoniyyot, alien thinking, into his mind - they are chokhmot chitzoniyyot, foreign ideologies - then the sanctity of his Sekhel, mind, is diminished in direct proportion to the space occupied by the chokhmah chitzonit. ”

“ Don't let your Chokhmah exceed your deeds. Because the main way to make the heart strong, so that it should follow the truth - Hashem Yitbarakh and His holy Torah - is none other than good works. But anyone whose Sekhel, intelligent designs, are more than his good deeds, hasn't the power in his heart to properly make his Sekhel whole in sanctity. Then his Sekhel will make him err more. This is why you need to stay clear of excess Chokhmot of this world's nonsense Chokhmot. Most of all stay clear of philosophy. ”

“ The ancient Shechem is one of the most prosperous towns in the Holy Land, being still the metropolis of a rich and extensive country, and abounding in agricultural wealth. Nor is there any thing finer than its appearance when viewed from the heights by which it is surrounded. It strikes the eye of the traveller who advances from the north, as being imbosomed in the most delightful and fragrant bowers, half-concealed by rich gardens and stately trees, collected into groves all round the beautiful valley in which it stands. ”

“ But provide for his wife and his children, and let the Sekhti himself also have a living. Thou must cause one to give him his portion without letting him know that thou art he who is giving it to him." There were given to him four loaves and two draughts of beer each day; which the Lord Steward Meruitensa provided for him, giving it to a friend of his, who furnished it unto him. Then the Lord Steward Meruitensa sent the governor of the Sekhet Hemat to make provision for the wife of the Sekhti, three rations of corn each day. ”

“ Just guarding oneself from foreign idea-systems is not enough; you must always try to bring new vitality into your Sekhel, mind. This is how you revive and refresh your Neshama, soul, because the Sekhel is the Neshama [that gives life to the body, as written (Eccl. 7:12) , "Wisdom is what gives life..."] (Ibid. 2) .
29. None are more prone to the attacks of the Yetzer haRa, Evil Inclination, which is the aspect of the primordial Serpent, than Talmidei Chakhamim and Torah scholars, since they have the biggest minds (Daat) . ”

“ And Amu-an-shi said, "This is by the will of the god (King of Egypt) , for what is a land like, if it know not that excellent god, of whom the dread is upon the lands of strangers, as they dread Sekhet in a year of pestilence?" I spake to him, and replied, "Forgive me, his son now enters the palace, and has received the heritage of his father. He is a god who has none like him, and there is none before him. He is a master of wisdom, prudent in his designs, excellent in his decrees, with good-will to him who goes or who comes ”

“ May the good Ptah open my mouth, and may the god of my city loose the swathings, even the swathings which are over my mouth. Moreover, may Thoth, being filled and furnished with charms, come and loose the bandages, even the bandages of Set which fetter my mouth; and may the god Tem hurl them at those who would fetter [me] with them, and drive them back. May my mouth be opened, may my mouth be unclosed by Shu with his iron knife wherewith he opened the mouths of the gods. I am the goddess Sekhet, and I sit upon [my] place in the great wind (?) ”

“ If the Baal-worshippers of Shechem would make him king there ought to have been a cause of war against them in which every good man and true should have taken the field. We look in vain for any such opposition to the usurper. Now that he is crowned, Manasseh, Ephraim and the North regard him complacently. It is the world all over. How can we wonder at this when we know with what acclamations kings scarcely more reputable than he have been greeted in modern times? Crowds gather and shout, fires of welcome blaze; there is joy as if the millennium had come. ”

“ Is it then for naught that they have done all this?
54 And now why art thou afraid or distressed, and why art thou displeased at my brothers, and why is thine anger kindled against them?
55 Surely our God who delivered into their hand the city of Shechem and its people, he will also deliver into our hands all the Canaanitish kings who are coming against us, and we will do unto them as my brothers did unto Shechem. ”

“ Meaning, to accept on oneself the Kingship of Heaven in truth and in complete faith and constricting his mind and expelling all his wisdom entirely as if he has no intellect himself at all, disdaining all the outside wisdoms and intellects, seeking out and hoping and yearning to only receive light and the life from the true Sekhel and Chokhmah that are in the category of the Upper Sekhel of holiness which is the main source of the holy vitality that is in each thing as mentioned above. ”

“ Arlee spoke in a hushed voice, as if the cat-headed women were straining their ears.
"They're mysteries," said Billy, speaking in the same low tone. "Generally they're said to be statues of the Goddess Pasht or Sehket—but it's a riddle why the Amen-hotep person who built this temple to the goddess Mut should have put Sehket here. Sehket is in the trinity of Memphis—and Mut in that of Thebes. And so some people say that this is not Pasht at all, but Mut herself, who was sometimes represented as lion-headed. Between a giant cat and a lion, you know, there's not much of difference." ”

“ The essence of the tale is the difference in social position between the Sekhti, or peasant, and the Hemti, or workman—the fellah and the client of the noble; and the impossibility of getting justice against a client, unless by some extraordinary means of attracting his patron's attention, is the basis of the action. There is not a single point of incident here which might not be true in modern times; every turn of it seems to live, as one reads it in view of country life in Egypt. ”

“ Khama knew that their wild incantations had no power to make rain, but that God alone ruled the heavens. So he refused.
Sekhome now made his last and most fearful attack. He was a witch-doctor and master of the witch-doctors whose ghoulish incantations made the Bamangwato tremble in terror of unseen devils. ”

“ This impelled the angels to ask God: "'What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?' Why didst Thou abandon the highest of the heavens, the seat of Thy glory and Thy exalted Throne in 'Arabot, and descend to men, who pay worship to idols, putting Thee upon a level with them?" The Shekinah was induced to leave the earth and ascend to heaven, amid the blare and flourish of the trumpets of the myriads of angel hosts. ”

“ If we may trust the Book of Jasher, the affair of Shechem, the son of Hamor, was as follows:—The men of the city were not all circumcised, only some of them, so as to blind the eyes of the sons of Jacob, and throw them off their guard; and Shechem and Hamor had privately concerted to fall upon Jacob and his sons and butcher them; but Simeon and Levi were warned of their intention by a servant of Dinah, and took the initiative.395 But this is a clumsy attempt to throw the blame off the shoulders of the ancestors of the Jewish nation upon those of their Gentile enemies. ”

“ The open valley at each end offered no natural defence and the overhanging heights rendered it especially open to hostile attack. Its importance was due to the rich territory which encircled it and to the important highways which connected it with Jerusalem and Hebron in the south, with central Israel, Damascus, and Phœnicia in the north, with the coast plains on the west, and with the Jordan valley on the east. At Shechem all these great roads focused, making the city throughout all its history an influential commercial metropolis. ”

“ Darkness shut us in among the pillars and the black, lion-faced statues. The least imaginative of my charges seemed to feel the influence of the place. Not an Arab, not even the superior boat dragoman, would come inside with us: because after the sun has set, dethroned Sekhet comes into her own again. Strange stories are whispered by Arabs, of the Temple of Mût, and of the ghostly, golden dahabeah that, once a year, sails slowly by to a faint sound of music, on the Sacred Lake. ”

“ Shechem, the old metropolis of the tribe of Ephraim, was the chief city of this league. Here on the citadel at Shechem the united cities had built a temple to Baal Berith, i. e. to Baal of the league, and established a fund for the league in the treasury of this temple. One of the 70 sons of Gideon, the child of a woman of Shechem, by name Abimelech, conceived the plan of establishing a monarchy in Israel by availing himself of Gideon's name and memory, the desire for order and protection from which the league had arisen, and the resources of the cities. ”

“ In this valley, which runs east and west, is Shechem, on the southern side and partly built upon the ascent of Mt. Gerizim. The gathering may have taken place on the west of the city, where the valley is bounded on the north by that part of the western extent of the Ebal range which slightly recedes from the line of the valley and takes the form of an amphitheatre. But there is ample room on the east, where the elevations of both sides are far greater. The valley opens eastward upon the great level plain of Moreh, several square miles in extent. ”

“ That is why one has to be so careful to guard his mind and not allow any foreign thinking to enter in. And it's the key to repentance and repairing all his sins - when he makes a determined effort to expel and keep out all foreign thoughts from his mind. Because the Sekhel is the Neshama, soul, so sanctifying his mind is sanctifying his soul, and this is the way to lift his soul higher and bring back everything to its source. ”

“ We had excellent opportunity to examine the physiognomy of this Schech, who is venerated like a demigod by all the Arabs between the Atbara and the Red Sea. 'He is a brave man,' they say, 'full of courage; there is no other like him!' His face is fat and round, with small grey-brown, piercing, treacherous-looking eyes, expressing both the cunning and the obstinacy of his character ”

“ In our days it is difficult to reach the position of these rare men. In former times when the Shekinah rested in the Holy Land, and the nation was fit for prophecy, there were people who separated themselves from their neighbors and studied the law in purity and holiness in the company of men like them. ”

“ In May 1854, accompanied by two young Englishmen— James Chapman and Samuel Edwards—Moffat crossed the edge of the Kalahari desert, found Sechele and his people among the precipices of Lethubaruba, passed over 120 miles of desert to Shoshong, the residence of Sekhomi, chief of the Bamangwato tribe, then by compass over an unknown and uninhabited country in a north-easterly direction for eighteen days, until he reached Mosilikatse and the Matabele. ”

“ But even in your own country it may be that sanctity of the mind and grace of the dust created body do not always match. Indeed, the Sheik's beard was scanty and of a mottled color; he was not over-clean, especially when you consider that as a most holy man he was supposed to be most rigorous in his daily ablutions. He had grown fat and bulky with years of good living; for tell me, should not a holy man live well so that he may reach a ripe old age, and that many growing generations of disciples may drink the clear drops of honeyed piety which fall from his lips? ”

“ At this point the traveller enters the narrow valley of Shechem, or Sychar, as it is termed in the New Testament, overhung on either side by the two mountains Gerizim and Ebal. These eminences, it is well known, have obtained much celebrity as the theatre on which was pronounced the sanction of the Divine law—the blessings which attend obedience, and the curses which follow the violation of the heavenly statutes. ”