Jewish mystical tradition offers a fascinating, and sometimes surprising, answer. We're talking about Metatron.
Now, you might know Metatron as the angel who was once Enoch, the mortal man who ascended to heaven and was transformed. But there's another, even more ancient, idea about Metatron – a Primordial Metatron.
This Primordial Metatron, according to some traditions, was the very first being created, almost like a divine blueprint for everything that followed. The Tree of Souls calls him the son of the Shekhinah. That's a loaded term. The Shekhinah is often understood as the divine feminine presence, God's immanent presence in the world. But the Zohar, the foundational text of Kabbalah, takes it even further, describing the Shekhinah as God's Bride. So, if Metatron is the son of the Shekhinah… well, you can see where this is going. We're talking about a divine family, with God and the Shekhinah as parents, and Metatron as their child!
It's a concept that resonates with other mythic traditions, doesn't it? Divine families are a common theme, whether you look at the Greek gods on Mount Olympus or the Canaanite deities. And, let's be honest, the idea of a "son of God" has some pretty strong echoes in other religions as well.
The Zohar (1:94b) even suggests that the very first words of the Torah, "In the beginning God created," actually refer to Metatron. According to this mythic tradition, the Primordial Metatron assisted God in the creation of the world, and has assisted God ever since in ruling the worlds above and below.
And here's another mind-blower: there are hints, surprisingly, even in the Talmud (B. Sanhedrin 38b), that when God said to Moses, "Come up to the Lord," He actually meant to come up to Metatron!
Now, this idea of a Primordial Metatron definitely shakes things up. It challenges the more common understanding of Metatron as the transformed Enoch, which dates back to around the second century BCE. The Zohar, where we find this Primordial Metatron concept, wasn't compiled until the thirteenth century. So, is this a later development, a new mythic tradition woven into the tapestry of Jewish thought? It's certainly possible.
This concept also brings to mind other ideas in Jewish mysticism, like the Heavenly Man and Adam Kadmon, archetypal, primordial forms of humanity. (You can find more about those in Tree of Souls.) But the unique twist here is Metatron's parentage – being the offspring of God and the Shekhinah.
So, what are we to make of all this? Is Metatron a transformed human, or a being who existed from the very beginning? Maybe the answer is… both. Maybe these different traditions offer us different facets of a complex, multifaceted angel. Maybe Metatron, in all his forms, represents the ongoing dialogue between the human and the divine, the eternal dance of creation and re-creation.