My Grandfather and the Volcano Goddess

Disclaimer: As you can see by its label, this blog post is in the "musings" category, and is different from most of what I write. As a ger (convert), I sometimes have moments when I think about the different direction my life could have gone had I not encountered the Jewish teachers I met at the critical points in my development. This post started off as one of those musings, and I decided to see what would happen if I articulated these thoughts in writing.

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photo of a volcanic eruption at Mt. Kilauea,
claimed by some to be a photo of Pele, the goddess of volcanoes

My Grandfather and the Volcano Goddess

Introduction

Hawaii has a special place in my heart. I was born in Hawaii. My mom was born in Hawaii. My grandparents on my mom's side of the family were born in Hawaii. Even my great-grandfather was born in Hawaii. I grew up there. My mom's whole side of the family lives there. I've visited my grandmother there almost every year since I was a teenager. 

On Thursday, May 3, I received an emergency notification on my phone: "Mt. Kilauea is erupting." The volcano had been showing increased activity since 1983, but this last round seems to have gotten more news coverage than others in recent memory. Although my grandmother lives on Oahu, and will not likely be affected by the volcanic events on the Big Island, the news of the eruption still felt close to home.

Kilauea is not the only fiery mountain that has been on my mind for the past few weeks. There is another, which is even closer to home: Har Sinai. 

The connection between these two mountains in my mind has less to do with their fire and more to do with their association to the divine within their respective nations. For Jews, Sinai's significance lies in the singular revelation of Hashem and the giving of His Torah. Lehavdil, the ancient Hawaiians viewed every volcanic eruption as a manifestation of Pele, the volcano goddess.

(Halachic reminder: it is prohibited to verbalize the name of an avodah zarah deity. I have decided to use the name of this Hawaiian deity in writing, but if you plan on talking about it, the recommended course of action is to either avoid saying the name, or to come up with a derogatory nickname, like "Poopy" - which is probably what Eliyahu ha'Navi would have called her, given his track record of mocking false gods using bathroom humor.) 

According to Wikipedia: "In the Hawaiian religion, Pele, the Fire Goddess, is the goddess of fire, lightning, wind and volcanoes and the creator of the Hawaiian Islands." Pele came up in an article I read this week about how the current volcanic activity on Kilauea is viewed by some Hawaiians even today. The article reports: 

As threats from the latest Kilauea eruptions continue in Puna, many speak of the dramatic lava flows as the work of Pele, the goddess of fire and volcanoes. 

These Native Hawaiians and other Hawaii residents accept the volcanic activity that has consumed 36 structures and displaced hundreds of residents as demonstrations of Pele’s power and beauty. And there is no way to stop her. 

Pelehonuamea, or Pele of the sacred earth, is also known as “ka wahine ai honua,” woman who devours the land. She is also called Madame Pele or Tutu Pele. 

“I usually use Tutu Pele because she’s an ancestor to me and one of our family aumakua, or family guardian, so we have great respect for her,” said Lilikala Kame‘eleihiwa, a professor at the Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies on the University of Hawaii’s Manoa campus. “We have a personal relationship with Pele” ... 

Kame‘eleihiwa said those who feel they have a relationship to Pele may put markers at the boundaries of their property hoping she will spare it. Others may clean out their homes and leave hookupu, or gifts, for her ... 

Kame‘eleihiwa was on her way to Tahiti this weekend to visit the birthplace of Pele, where she planned to offer a prayer and a gift of Hawaiian salt.

My mind kept on returning to this article throughout the week leading up to Shavuos. I started musing on various themes which overlapped the Hawaiian belief in Pele's revelation at Kilauea, and our conviction in Hashem's revelation at Sinai (the term "lehavdil" should be inserted throughout this blog post).

I decided to write a blog post about three of these musings. 

Fear of Hashem vs. Fear of Pele

Unlike many of my Jewish and non-Jewish friends, I was not raised with any superstitious beliefs. Neither of my parents are superstitious, and neither were their parents - at least, not that I know of. Judging by the stories I hear from my friends about their upbringings, I really dodged the bullet on this one.

There are only two incidents in my memory of any of my close family members exhibiting superstitious beliefs, and both of them stemmed from the same superstition: Pele's Curse. According to Wikipedia:

Pele's Curse is the belief that anything natively Hawaiian, such as sand, rock, or pumice, will effect bad luck on whoever takes it away from Hawaii. The myth has caught on, told as if it were an original Hawaiian taboo, and every year countless tourists send these back in order to escape the awful luck that Pele has caused them.

I first heard about this when I was a kid, when I traveled to the Big Island with my grandfather. We went on a couple of hikes around the crater at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and when we were about to leave I showed him a cool volcanic rock I found, that I planned on taking home as a souvenir. "Leave that here" he said, "or Pele will bring bad luck." I don't remember the dialogue exactly, but I probably asked him who Pele was, and he probably told me that she is the volcano goddess, and that she doesn't let people remove rocks from her mountain.

But my grandfather didn't stop there. He proceeded to tell me a story about a friend of his who tried taking volcanic rock back home with him after a hike near a volcano. He was on his way back to his car but was stopped by none other than Pele's daemonic white dog, who blocked the path and wouldn't let him pass. Lo and behold, when he emptied his pockets of the rocks, the dog left him alone. 

Although I was not a superstitious child, and didn't believe my grandfather's tale, he definitely did (since he was eager to believe things like this), and because of this, he made me leave the rocks behind. 

Fast-forward 15-20 years later. My family visited the Big Island and went to that same national park. This time I noticed something that was probably there when I was a kid, but escaped my attention: food offerings to Pele (which I now know are called "hookupu"), placed near the crater. I have no idea who brought these offerings, and whether they did so out of custom, out of religious belief, or out of some mixture of the two. 

When we were about to leave, I picked up a volcanic rock to take home as a souvenir. My mom said something to the effect of, "You can't take that home. It's bad luck." I was shocked. This was the first time I had ever heard my mom utter anything even remotely superstitious. Since this was years after we had all converted to Judaism, and since my mom was well aware of the Torah's stance on avodah zarah and superstition, I called her out on it, asking if she really believed in what she said. As though shaking off a sorcerer's spell, she immediately realized the stupidity in what she had said, and then proceeded to give me a different rationale for leaving the rock behind - namely, that it's illegal to take rocks from a U.S. national park. 

I think it's safe to say that neither my mom nor my grandfather actually believed in Pele. My mom certainly didn't harbor this belief, and even my grandfather - a quasi-lapsed Catholic - probably wouldn't admit to harboring such a belief, if asked directly. And yet, both of them had an instinctive fear at the prospect of violating this Hawaiian taboo. In my grandfather's case this fear had melded with his own quirky view of the way the world works: everyone needs to visit Hawaii, everyone should start their own business, everything in Reader's Digest is 100%, bee honey cures every type of malady, and if you take volcanic rocks home, Pele will bring bad luck, or send her daemon dog to stop you. In my mom's case, the fear manifested as the vestige of a taboo that was probably inculcated into her by my grandfather when she was just a child. 

Thinking about this primitive "fear of Pele" - as displayed by my grandfather and my mother in a mild form, and by the native Hawaiians (like Lilikala Kame‘eleihiwa of the article) in an extreme form - led me to associate to a different type of fear: the yiras Hashem (fear of God) at Sinai: 

The entire people saw the thunder and the flames, the sound of the shofar, and the smoking mountain; the people saw and trembled and stood from afar. They said to Moshe: "You speak to us and we shall hear; let God not speak to us lest we die."

Moshe said to the people: "Do not fear (אַל תִּירָאוּ), for in order to elevate you has God come; so that the fear of Him shall be upon your faces (וּבַעֲבוּר תִּהְיֶה יִרְאָתוֹ עַל פְּנֵיכֶם), so that you shall not sin." The people stood from afar and Moshe approached the thick cloud where God was. 

This contradiction is impossible to ignore: first Moshe tells them "do not fear" but then he says that "the fear of Him shall be upon your faces"! 

The answer is clear: there must be two different types of fear: one which Moshe urged Bnei Yisrael not to have, and the other which was one of the very reasons why the entire revelation at Sinai took place. What are these two types of fear?

The first type of fear is a primal, instinctive, animalistic reaction - in this case, Bnei Yisrael's fear that they were going to die. Rationally speaking, this type of fear was misplaced. They knew that Hashem was not planning on killing them, and that as long as they followed His instructions and stayed within the boundaries, they had nothing to be afraid for their lives. Moshe pointed this out to them, saying: "Do not fear, for in order to elevate you has God come." This injunction highlights their mistaken underlying premise. It is as if he said to them: "I understand that you are afraid, but this fear that you are currently experiencing does not reflect the reality of the situation. You might feel that you are in danger, but in actuality, the opposite is true: you are being elevated. But in order for this elevation to take place, you must see through the falsehood of your primal fear."

The second type of fear is the yiras Hashem which the Sinai experience was intended to instill in the nation of Israel. This is the same yiras Hashem which was subsequently given as a commandment in the Torah, which Moshe later says is "the only thing Hashem asks of you." This yiras Hashem is eloquently defined by the Rambam in the Mishneh Torah alongside his definition of ahavas Hashem (love of God):

What is the way of loving and fearing God? When a person contemplates His great and wondrous works and creations and sees from them His infinite and incomparable wisdom, he immediately loves, praises, and extols and is filled with a great desire to know the Great Name, as David said: “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalms 42:3).  

And when he reflects on these same principles in relation to himself, he immediately recoils back with fear and dread, and knows that he is a small, insignificant, unenlightened creature standing with a frail and puny mind in the presence of Perfect Knowledge, as David said: “[When I behold Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and stars that you have set in place, I exclaim,] ‘What is frail man that You should notice him, [and the son of mortal man that You should take note of him?’]” (Psalms 8:4-5).

This is the type of fear that Moshe told Bnei Yisrael to internalize. According to the pesukim cited above, the Sinai experience was not intended solely in order to provide experiential and historical evidence for Mosaic prophecy. It was also intended to create a foundational national experience of yiras Hashem - the awareness of man's status as a frail creature who forms an infinitesimally small part of the universe that Hashem created. This yirah will, in turn, prevent man from sinning. This can happen on three levels:

Level #1 - Fear of Punishment: On the most elementary level, a person will be afraid of Divine punishment - whatever his or her conception of that may be. Having seen, heard, and experienced the awesome and terrifying Revelation of the Shechinah at Sinai, he or she will think twice before violating God's law. Even if the person's grasp of Divine punishment is immature, incomplete, or flawed, it will at least be rooted in the historical reality of the event at Sinai, when Hashem demonstrated His might to the entire people. 

Level #2 - Fear of Consequences: On a more mature level, this type of yiras Hashem - rooted in the awareness that we live in a world governed by rational, lawful principles of cause and effect - will lead to a development of a chochmah-centered approach to decision-making based on anticipation of natural consequences. This is the type of yiras Hashem that Shlomo is referring to when he says: "Fear of Hashem is the discipline of wisdom" (Mishlei 15:33). 

Level #3 - Awe of Hashem: On the highest level, this type of yiras Hashem will lead to the awe of the Creator - as defined by the Rambam in the halacha cited above - which will naturally give way to ahavas Hashem via the continued pursuit of chochmah.

Now, compare the two fears, experienced by my avos (forefathers) on both sides of my family: the fear of Pele as experienced my grandfather, and the fear of Hashem as experienced by my ancestors who stood at Sinai. The fear of Pele is a primitive, superstitious, detrimental fear rooted in childish imaginations and psychological insecurities, whereas the fear of Hashem is a mature, reality-based, developmentally beneficial fear rooted in the intellectual apprehension of the laws of nature, and their Author.

As I thought about these two mountains - Kilauea and Sinai - and the two deities (lehavdil) who were feared and revered by their respective nations, I became filled with a deep gratitude to Hashem for enabling me to join the Jewish people and to embrace a chochmah-centered life governed by the Torah regimen.

And this past Shavuos, "zman matan Toraseinu" ("the time of the giving of our Torah"), I truly meant it when I thanked Hashem "she'hechyeanu, v'kiyemanu, ve'higiyanu la'zman ha'zeh" ("for giving us life, for preserving us, and for enabling us to reach this time").

You Saw No Image

In thinking about Kilauea vs. Sinai, I couldn't help but associate to another phenomenon: the seeing of a "divine image" in the fire of the mountain. Take a look at the picture at the beginning of this article. This photo gained notoriety because people claim to see the likeness of Pele in the eruption. Similarly, Hawaiians believed that "[Pele's] body is the lava and steam that comes from the volcano" (Wikipedia). This article and this video show that Pele sightings are as common today as they were in ancient times. 

Compare this with Moshe Rabbeinu's recap of the Revelation at Sinai to Bnei Yisrael before his passing:

Only beware for yourself and greatly beware for your soul, lest you forget the things that your eyes have beheld and lest you remove them from your hear all the days of your life, and make them known to your children and your children's children - the day that you stood before Hashem, your God, at Horeb, when Hashem said to me, "Gather the people to Me and I shall let them hear My words, so that they shall learn to fear Me all the days that they live on the earth, and they shall teach their children." 

So you approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire up to the heart of heaven, darkness, cloud, and thick cloud. Hashem spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you were hearing the sound of words, but you were not seeing a form, only a sound. 

He told you of His covenant that He commanded you to observe, the Ten Declarations, and He inscribed them on two stone Tablets. Hashem commanded me at that time to teach you decrees and ordinances, that you shall perform them in the Land to which you cross, to possess it. 

But you shall greatly beware for your souls, for you did not see any likeness on the day Hashem spoke to you at Horeb, from the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make yourselves a carved image, a likeness of any shape; a form of a male or a female; a form of any animal on the earth; a form of any winged bird that flies in the heaven; a form of anything that creeps on the ground, a form of any fish that is in the water under the earth; and lest you raise your eyes to heaven and you see the sun, and the moon, and the stars - the entire legion of heaven - and you be drawn away and bow to them and worship them, which Hashem, your God, has apportioned to all the peoples under the entire heaven! But Hashem has taken you and withdrawn you from the iron crucible, from Egypt, to be a nation of heritage for Him, as this very day.

Moshe Rabbeinu knew how difficult it would be for the recently liberated slave nation to relate to a completely non-physical God, especially after having been steeped for two centuries in Egyptian idolatry - with all of its  superstitious beliefs, occult practices, and anthropomorphic deities. This is why, in his parting speech to Bnei Yisrael, he emphasized again and again - as we must believe that he did throughout all the 40 years in the Wilderness - that they and their parents did not see any image or likeness in the conflagration of Sinai. They heard the Divine voice proclaim the Ten Declarations, but they did not see the Divine, because the Divine has no image or likeness.

Compare this to a statement from a local Hawaiian: "Pele is very real to us ... She is a living god. You can see her, you can feel her, you can taste her, you can smell her." This is a far cry from what we mean when we describe Hashem as "a living God," which we intend as an allegory, emphasizing again and again that Hashem is not physical, has no physical qualities, and is not comparable in any way to anything physical. The Rambam codifies this in the Mishneh Torah:

It is explicitly stated in the Torah and in the Prophets that the Holy One, Blessed is He, is neither a body nor a corporeal form, as it is stated, “For Hashem, your God, is the God in the heavens above and on the earth below” (Devarim 4:39), and a body cannot be in two places. It is also stated, “For you did not see any image” (Devarim 4:15), and it is stated, “To whom can you compare Me that I should be equal?” (Yishaya 40:25), and if He were a body, He would be comparable to other bodies ... 

Once it has been clearly demonstrated that He is not a body or a material form, it is also clear that He is not subject to bodily occurrences: neither combination nor separation, neither place nor measure, neither ascent nor descent, neither right nor left, neither front nor back, neither sitting nor standing. And He doesn’t exist in time, such that He would have a beginning, an end, or an age. And He does not change, for there is nothing that can cause Him to change. 

And He has neither death nor life like the life of a physical being, neither foolishness nor wisdom like the wisdom of a wise man, neither sleep nor waking up, neither anger nor jesting, neither happiness nor sadness, neither silence nor speech like human speech. Thus, the Sages declared: On High there is neither sitting nor standing, neither separation nor connection. 

Since this is so, all such [descriptions] and the like that are stated in the Torah and in the words of the prophets – all of these are metaphor and allegory. For example, “He who sits in heavens shall laugh” (Tehilim 2:4), “They angered Me with their emptiness” (Devarim 33:21), and “Hashem rejoiced” (ibid. 28:63) and the like – concerning all of these statements, the Sages said: The Torah speaks in the language of man. This is the meaning of [the rhetorical statement], “Am I the One whom they have angered?” (Yirmiyahu 7:19). Behold, it is stated: “I am Hashem, I have not changed” (Malachi 3:16). If He were sometimes angry and sometimes happy, He would change. All of these things only occur in dark and lowly bodies, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is dust. But He, Blessed is He, is exalted above all of this.

Moshe also emphasized how quickly such misapprehensions can spiral out of control. The mistake of thinking one has perceived a Divine likeness leads to the practice of making representations of the Divine, which will ultimately result in worshiping the physical. So powerful is man's need to "concretize the metaphysical" (as I wrote about in my post entitled Ayn Rand, Art, and Avodah Zarah) that what begins as an innocent misperception can quickly devolve into primitive paganism, and the loss of the abstract and tenuous concept of a totally non-physical Creator.

We live in a scientific era, in which even the most unsophisticated people are at least aware of the scientific paradigm - that the universe operates in a manner of rational, lawful principles cause and effect, which can be studied, understood, and even harnessed. But imagine a time before science and think about how this phenomenon of "Pele sightings" precludes the emergence of a scientific worldview. Allow me to paint a picture of the two paradigms:

When an ancient Jew would witness a volcanic eruption, he would say: "Blessed are You, Hashem, our God, King of the universe, Who does the work of creation (oseh maaseh bereishis)" This berachah would stem from and reinforce the recognition that nature isn't God, but is a melachah ("craft" or "product of design") created by God, which operates in accordance with the wondrous lawfulness of the "King (i.e. law giver and law enforcer) of the universe." The character of this recognition was expressed by David ha'Melech exclamation: "How great are Your works, Hashem! With wisdom You made them all; the earth is full of Your creations" (Tehilim 104:24). This orientation towards nature is conducive to the development of a scientific, chochmah-seeking worldview.

In contrast, when an ancient Hawaiian would witness a volcanic eruption, what would he say? "Look! It's Pele's hair!" "Oh no! I can see Pele's angry face!" "The lava flowing towards my land is Pele reaching out for me. Quick! I need to give her an offering to consume so that she doesn't destroy my home!" No chochmah, no lawfulness, no seeking of the underlying unity of causality in nature. Nothing but imagination and fantasy, fueled by fear and insecurity.

Divine Revelation

The last musing I had led me to think about what a "divine revelation" would mean to a religious Hawaiian vs. a religious Jew.

The Jewish view of revelation is expressed in the text of the Shofros berachah on Rosh ha'Shanah:

You were revealed in Your cloud of glory to Your  holy people to speak with them. From the heavens You made them hear your voice and revealed Yourself to them in thick clouds of purity. Moreover, the entire universe shuddered before You and the creatures of creation trembled before You during Your revelation, our King, on Mount Sinai, to teach Your people Torah and mitzvos. 

For us, revelation is the means by which the Creator of the universe gave us (to quote the Ralbag's introduction to Torah) "a regimen that brings those who practice it properly to true success (i.e. knowledge of Hashem to the extent that this is humanly possible)." Hashem's revelation at Sinai provided the Jewish people, and mankind as a whole, with a system of laws, ethical guidelines, and ideas which enable us to create a society governed by the principles of chesed (kindness), tzedakah (righteousness), and mishpat (justice), devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and human perfection.

For the ancient Hawaiian, a revelation of Pele has nothing to do with chesed, tzedakah, mishpat, knowledge, or human perfection. Pele's revelation was nothing but an uncertain glimpse into the whims of a capricious deity.

Conclusion

When I am called up to the Torah, they call me up as "_____ ben Avraham Avinu." As the Rambam explains in his letter to Ovadiah ha'Ger, all converts are described as "the children of Avraham Avinu" not because Avraham was our biological ancestor, but because he is our ideological progenitor.

When I think about my non-Jewish grandfather and his cultural heritage and compare that to my Jewish "father" of Avraham Avinu and his cultural heritage, am moved to say: "Blessed are You, Hashem, our God, King of the universe, Who chose us from among the peoples, and gave us His Torah. Blessed are You, Hashem, Who gives the Torah."