The Mother of Seven Languisheth

The Pesiqta Rabbati, a Palestinian Midrash dating probably from the 7th century, contains the following passage on Mother Zion:

Jeremiah said: When I went up to Jerusalem, I looked up and saw a woman sitting on top of the mountain, clad in black, her hair dishevelled, crying and hoping that someone would comfort me. I approached her and spoke to her and said to her: "If you are a woman, speak to me, and if you are a spirit, get away from me!" She responded and said to me: "Don't you recognize me? I am she who had seven sons. Their father went overseas, and while I went up and cried about him, behold another [messenger] came and said to me: 'The house fell upon your seven sons and killed them' [Job 1:18-19]. Now I do not know for whom I should cry and for whom I should dishevel my hair!" I answered and said to her: "You are not better than my Mother Zion, who has become a grazing ground for the beasts of the field." She answered and said to me: "I am your Mother Zion. I am the mother of seven, for it is written, 'She that hath borne seven languisheth' (Jer 15:0).1

In man there are seven subtle centres, each one reflecting a different quality of G_d. As it is said: "G_d created man in His own image, in the image of G_d created He him; male and female created He them." [Gen 1:27]. The mother of the seven is the divine love that created these centres in man. By our sins we have dirtied these seven lamps of G_d within and they no longer show their light in our thoughts and actions. For this tragedy the mother of seven sorrows.

1) The Hebrew Goddess, 3rd Enlarged Edition. by Raphael Patai, Foreword by Merlin Stone. Pages 211-212. Detroit: Wayne state University Press, 1990 (1967).