The God Stories: A Celebration of Legends [Hardcover]

As the Talmud says, God made people because God loves stories... The God Stories is a celebration of the spellbinding stories that some readers first meet, in part, in the Bible. Through her research of the Talmud and of folklore, Berg lyrically and successfully reclaims these stories for everyone, religious and irreligious, aged nine to ninety.

I wrote this book primarily because I wanted to give back to people the folk tales and legends which religious institutions and people in power, by dogmatism and manipulation have taken away from them.

Almost nobody reads the Old Testament voluntarily, for pleasure, today - the institutional layout, the notes, the pious paper and binding, the moralistic associations. I wanted to make a book of stories rooted in the Old Testament that would exhilarate everyone, not by taking away its poetry, a modern idea which is to me absurd, but by first taking away the religious and political and sociological manipulation; and then building not only on the stories themselves, but on the loving, fanciful improvisations that through centuries have been woven by learned and unlearned people, over them - rather like jazz.

Early in my research I came across a Staff, a Staff of sapphire, blue as the sapphire sky - a Cloak, which had pictured on it every animal, bird and insect in the world - a Book, that had in it all knowledge worthy to be told, including the song of the sun and the thoughts of the rain. In legend these gifts were given to Adam and Eve to protect them when they left the Garden of Delight, and then handed down through the ages. I decided to make them my framework, and to write the book only about the characters who in legend had been given them.

Following Jewish folklore, I made God male and female together, and the first human being male and female together, since it was made in God's image. It was also in legend made all colours, so that it could live happily and freely anywhere in the world. And the earth in legend belonged to God and was to be respected. Today we call that respect for the environment.

The God Stories is a book for people aged nine to ninety, irreligious or religious, who are captivated by stories. I hope they will read it on the train on their way to work or back, or relax with it after school; and that parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, will read it aloud to each other for shared pleasure, as they read other books of powerful stories. It is a book for storylovers and storytellers.

"God made people, because God loves stories" (The Talmud)

Leila Berg grew up in a Jewish immigrant neighbourhood in Salford in the twenties and thirties, when the scissors-grinder and the ragman and the bagel-seller still came round the houses, and grandmothers kept barrels of pickled herrings and onions in the living room, and Manchester was full of books and concerts and theatre and films. "A good place to grow up in", she says. "Much better education than school." She has cared all her life about what we currently call 'the empowerment' of children, writing stories for children (Little Pete, and the Nippers series among many) or stories about children (Risinghill, Death of a Comprehensive School, Reading and Loving and Look at Kids). She was awarded the Eleanor Farjeon Medal in 1973 for her services to children's literature. Her latest book, Flickerbook, an account of her childhood, was the first book ever to be made Book of the Month by a unanimous vote of Waterstones booksellers.

Lilith

The Woman had long hair that hung loose, and it waved like the serpentine sea. And as they lay in love together, it smelled to the Man of cinnamon. And to the Woman, the hollow under his arm smelled like apples warming in the sun. And they were as close as any two can be.

Then the Man said, "Get below me!" The Woman smiled, for she thought he was jesting. But he said again, "Get below me!"

And the Woman did not smile so much and she said, "We were made equally and together of the same dust from all the four corners of the earth."

But he said again, "Lie below me!"

And she said, "We were one body and one being, for we were made he and she together in God's own image, and we cried equally to God out of our loneliness. And that is the only reason God made us two."

But the Man said only, "Below me!"

Then the Woman said - and now she spoke more loudly and faster - "Together we named every animal that prowls the earth, every bird that wings the sky, every fish that cleaves the waters. And the angels so envied the glory and the vastness that was equally ours when we were undivided, that they cried to God, 'What is this creature that you are so mindful of it?' And yet you say to me 'Get below me!'"

And in anger she cried out the ineffable name of God. And the power of the name was so great it lifted her into the air, and she hovered above the Man. And he stood up and called, demanding, after her. Then she was gone, and he saw her no more.

And, bereft, he cried to God, "The woman you gave me has deserted me!"

So, hearing the Man, God sent three angels - Senoi, Sansenoi and Sammangelof - to find the one with the long loose hair that waved like the serpentine sea. And after many days they found her rocking on the mighty waves of the Red Sea that already murmured unceasingly of the ghosts of the Egyptians yet to come. And she now had myriads of children, fathered by the demons who lived on the seashore, and they were half-magical and grew more each day. And in anger the angels commanded her to return. But the Woman said, with scorn, "Shall I who have rocked on the waves of the murmuring sea, and heard many different voices, and had many arms round me, shall I return to the Man who says 'Get below me!' and live like a housewife?"

And the angels cried, "Do as we say!" And they cast around for a way to force her to return. And they cried, "We will kill your myriads of children!"

And the Woman of the long hair cried back, "Take care! Take care! What you do to me, I will do to others!"

"If you do," cried the angels, "we will drown you in the waters of the sea!"

"Only try!" she taunted them.

And they tried to grasp her, but over and over again she slipped mockingly through their fingers and her long hair spread through the waters like seaweed. But at last one caught her by her sun-gold arm, and another by her rosy heel, and the third by her glistening rippling hair, and they held her under the waves till she cried, "Let me go!"

But they only cried back, "Will you still kill the children of humans?"

And she struggled for air, and said, "I will spare any child who has your names above the cradle." So flattered, they released her.

But as she swam away, she cried over her shoulder, "But I will never return to the Man. I have made a bargain and I will keep to it, for I am more trustworthy than he is. But I will never return to him, for we were made equal and he would not have it so!"

And so it has been ever since. The angels killed her children daily because she remembered how she and the Man had been made all in one and equal to each other. And because they did so, she killed the children of humans (for her own are half-magical). But she kept her bargain, and spared the children who had the angels' names above the cradle - Senoi, Sansenoi and Sammangelof.

And even today there are old women who still remember. And they hang over the cradle the names of the three angels, for the whole of eight days if it is a boy child, for the whole of twenty if it is a girl; for after that time, they say Lilith has no power over them. And if a baby laughs in her sleep, they say Lilith is playing with her and beguiling her, and they wake her roughly and snatch her up. But sometimes they forget to watch, or they forget to hang up the names, or they forget the names - Senoi, Sansenoi and Sammangelof. And when they come back the child is dead, and on the coverlet a long golden hair.