The well-known verse of Genesis 1:1..."In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"....has been misunderstood and interpreted in order to set the stage for a fully abberant version of the true history of the universe and humankind.

The word "Elohim" which is the word normally translated "God" in Genesis 1:1, and normally understood to be male only, is actually a plural form of the singular ALH, Eloh, by adding IM to the word.  IM is usually the termination of a masculine plural, and by adding this masculine ending to a feminine root, it can be understood as "a female potency united to a masculine idea" (Kabbalah Unvieled, MacGregor Mathers', p. 108).

To quote from a learned Jewish Rabbi the writer was aquainted with, "Those who write on the Bible must be very careful when they come to speak of the position of woman to make a clear distinction between the Old and the New Testaments. In the Old Testament...woman occupies a true and a dignified position in society and in the family. For example, take the position of Sarah, of the Prophetess Miriam, the sister of Moses, and Deborah the Prophetess. They all exemplify the true position of woman in the Old Testament. While Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, and the chief writer in the New Testament, condemned woman to silence in the Church and to strict obedience to her husband, making her thereby inferior to the man, the Old Testament gave free scope to the development of the Holy Spirit in woman. To intensify this teaching upon the position of woman, we find even the voice of the Deity telling Abraham: 'Whatever Sarah tells thee, thou shalt hearken unto her voice,' showing that woman in her own home was the guiding power." In regard to another point this Rabbi says: "The learned Jewish Rabbis of modern times do not take the rib story literally. And this may be said of many of the olden times" (p. 110).

Just as the traditional interpreters understood there to be one God, but within that God there are Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the true trinity is Father, Mother and Offspring.  It does no damage to the idea of God to realize that God is both male and female, and has been worshipped as such throughout human history.  Even though modern commentators have done their best to present God as only male and patriarchal rule as divine, they could not erase all illusions to the equality of gender, for in Genesis 1:26 God proclaims "Let us make man in OUR image"  and therefore he made humans male and female.  One cannot be made male and female and be made in the image of God unless God also is male and female.

Rather than being classified according to our sexual organs, we must realize that all human beings are both male and female in one body.  Each individual carries characteristics of each sex.  According to the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical text, " And therefore is Aima (the Mother) known to be the consummation of all things; and She is signified to be the beginning and the end. . . . And hence that which is not both Male and Female together is called half a body. Now, no blessing can rest upon a mutilated and defective being, but only upon a perfect place and upon a perfect being, and not at all in an incomplete being. And a semi-complete being cannot live forever, neither can it receive blessing forever."

The following is the author's comment upon the above: "This section is another all-sufficient proof of the teachings maintained throughout the Kabbalah, namely, that man and woman are from the creation co-equal and co-existent, perfectly equal, one with the other. This fact the translators of the Bible have been at great pains to conceal by carefully suppressing every reference to the feminine portion of the Deity, and by constantly translating feminine nouns by masculine. And this is the work of so-called religious men!" (p. 110).

Let this be the beginning of the re-understanding of the true equality of our people, in the sight of God.

Men and women, you are equal.   Man is not the head of the family, man and woman are co-equal and co-head.   Man cannot tell woman what to do, woman cannot tell man what to do.  Mutual respect is demanded, and do not allow yourself to be a part of a religion which deems you to be less than what you are.   Embrace Unhindered Spirituality, in which mutual respect and understanding is the basis of all.