The Demise of Death's Dance

And Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel (Ex. 35:1)

The Zohar on this verse (Vayakhel page 10 Sullam edition) deals at length with the rule that women should not mix with the men during a funeral procession. Rabbi Shimon begins by saying that most people do not die before their allotted time unless they did not take care of themselves in this regard. The Angel of Death is present amongst the women during a funeral. At that time he has the opportunity to seduce the women, an ability he has already demonstrated when he seduced the first woman in Gan Eden. There is an ancient custom to try to confuse the Angel of Death…

There is an ancient custom to try to confuse the Angel of Death by blowing the shofar [ram's horn] when somebody dies or during a funeral. During the procession permission is granted to Satan to be active and, having examined their faces, to select his victims. The Zohar goes on to explain how to arrange funeral processions so that men and women should not face each other, and so that the men should not walk where the women had walked before. All of this is intended to neutralize the power of the Angel of Death.

During the episode of the Golden Calf, the Angel of Death danced amongst the Jewish people. When Moses observed this he assembled all the men apart from the women so as to neutralize the power of the Angel of Death. The men were prohibited from mingling with the women until the donations fro the Tabernacle were collected. This is the meaning of the verse "The men came with the women" (Ex. 35:22). It is significant that the Torah does not say "The men brought [donations] with the women". The Torah wanted to point out that from the episode of the Golden Calf until the building of the Tabernacle the men were kept aloof from the women. Only then did the Angel of Death depart from the camp.

[Translated and adapted by Eliyahu Munk.]