Masterpieces of Hebew Literature: Selections from 2000 Years of Jewish Creativity

ZOHAR: Introduction

The Zohar The Zohar (meaning "splendor" or "radiance"), composed in the last quarter of the thirteenth century, is the chief text of the mystical tradition known as Kabbala. Like the early Midrash, the Zohar is a symbolic and allegorical exegesis of the Torah. The homiletical, discursive style is prominent and stories abound. Tradition has it that the Zohar was composed in the second century c.E. by R. Simeon ben Yohai who supposedly hid in a cave for thirteen years to avoid Roman persecution. However, the many linguistic anachronisms in the work—it is written mainly in Aramaic—and the references to religious and social practises prove that it is basically a medieval composition which modern scholarship attributes to Moses de Leon (1250-1305). For instance, the limited vocabulary, the grammatical errors and, chiefly, the artificial Aramaic that sounds as though it were translated from the Hebrew, indicate that the author was not thoroughly familiar with his chosen language. Moreover, his terrain of Palestine is a familiar one in Hebrew literature, found in the works of writers who never set foot in the Holy Land; it is a Palestine of the imagination, based on literature rather than on personal contact. Like other pseudepigraphic writers before him, Moses de Leon, too, attributed his text to a famous ancient personality in order to gain greater renown for his work. Nevertheless, there is undoubtedly older material incorporated in the Zohar, some of it going back to ancient times. Moses de Leon's sources were various midrashim, the Babylonian Talmud and the Aramaic translations of the Bible, the latter two providing him with the groundwork for his vocabulary. He also used medieval works, including the philosophic texts of Maimonides and Judah Halevi, and the kabbalistic writings of his own era. But in his desire to put the patina of age on a thirteenth-century document, he is 458 THE ZOHAR 459 silent about his real contemporary sources and invents a bookshelf of concocted ones (as did other medieval authors, Geoffrey of Monmouth and his "book," and Chaucer in the Troilus story). During the several centuries following its composition, the Zohar ranked with the Bible and the Talmud as the leading texts of Judaism, and was the first book since the Talmud to achieve canonical status—within fifty years of its appearance it had circulated widely among Jewish communities. The Zohar is not one book, but like the Talmud a vast work with many parts: in addition to the main section, which is arranged according to chapters of the Torah, there are twenty-three other divisions. Like the Talmud it lacks an organized doctrine and is dependent upon free association: if a word or an idea triggers another similar phrase or thought, the discussion moves freely on. The Zohar focuses on the soul, the nature of God, the symbolic meaning of the Sabbath, the origin of the universe, the future redemption. It particularly accents the divine fusion between man and God, and man's ability to influence the cosmos —by being a better person man prompts the increase of divine grace. Yet, along with the preponderance of ethical teachings and transcendant poetry, there are many superstitions and foreign elements (demons and metempsychosis) in the work. One of the repeated motifs in the Zohar is that the Torah is not to be understood solely in its literal meaning. With the genius of poetry and legend it probes truths beyond those that meet the eye; it posits a level of knowledge and existence above the commonplace . Typical of its allegorical stance is its discussion of the Book of Jonah; although the details differ, the allegorical approach is coincidentally and strikingly similar to Father Mappie 's sermon in the opening of Melville's Moby Dick. Although the Zohar uses the four traditional methods of Biblical exegesis —the literal, the aggadic or homiletic, the allegorical, and the mystical—the latter is the most important for the author of the Zohar. In line with the kabbalists' desire to find a means of drawing near to God and search for perfect communion with Him, the Zohar seeks to illumine the words of the Torah with a higher, more profound meaning, and seek out the hidden nuances of words and phrases. The concepts of unity, harmony between man and God, spiritual existence, and divine emanations , had their impact on later Hasidism, whose early proponents were devotees of kabbalistic literature. THE...