Mystical Poetics: Narrative, Time and Exegesis in the Zohar

Despite the great strides in Zohar scholarship, the major work of the Spanish Kabbalah has rarely been analyzed as literature. Focusing instead on historical, philological, exegetical, and theosophical questions, Zohar scholars have made only tentative forays into the literary analysis of the kabbalistic masterpiece.

This study seeks to further advance such analysis through a close reading of one extended zoharic unit. Focusing on the intersection of the composition’s two key rhetorical modes—narrative and exegesis—I argue that the unique poetics of the Zohar are intimately connected with its deepest mystical goals, namely, the generation of mystical consciousness among its readers. The narrative-exegetical weave of the Zohar is thus one of the composition’s central performative strategies.