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Courses
Session Eight
Where Do We Go From here You could study the Zohar on your own, with a study partner,
or with a group. All have advantages. It may often be possible
to go further and deeper by yourself, at your own pace. With
a study partner you may be blessed to know the Zohar more deeply
as you know each other more deeply. With a group new ideas and
insights that you would never have thought of are almost sure
to emerge and delight you. In partner or group learning, it might be best to take turns
preparing texts. The one whose turn it is to prepare would have
read the text thoroughly beforehand and done a lot of the work
of trying to understand it. Then they can be helpful to the others,
while still remaining open to corrections and new insights. Openness means not being afraid of the differences between
traditions, either. For example, in traditional Christian teaching
an aspect of God came down from heaven, so to speak, and became
a human being like us; this is called the Incarnation, God becoming
the human being Jesus, merging the divine with the mortal. As
far as I know there is nothing in Jewish tradition quite like
this story, in which God becomes actually one of us, even to the
point of dying. It is a face of God which Judaism does not show
us. And Judaism probably could not show us this face, because
it clashes with too many basic insights of Torah and tradition.
Yet how sad it would be, and how it would limit our glimpses
of God, if this Christian story were not in the world! A petichta to parshat Noach Rabbi Abba opened: "Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear;
break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail
with child" {Isaiah 54:1, first verse of the haftarah for Parshat
Noach.} Now, did not the women of Israel have many sons and daughters!?
But the Blessed Holiness was speaking to Israel with great and
abiding love, saying: As it were, I have been a father to you,
a lord to you; from now on I will be a baby to you. You will
no longer be barren in regard to Me; you will be a mother to Me
and I will be your only son. As Rabbi Yitzchak has said {see Pesikta deRav Kahana 1:3}: The
Blessed Holiness calls Israel "mother", as it is written: "Go
forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the
crown wherewith his mother crowned him" {Song of Songs 3:11}.
We have read and reread all of Scripture, and we have not found
that Bathsheba made a crown for Solomon her son. Rather: "King
Solomon (Shlomo)" is the King to whom peace belongs (shlomo meaning
"His peace"). "With the crown" of commandments and good deeds.
"His mother" is Israel. -- Kolel offers courses on Kabbalah in most semesters, often taught by Rabbi Lawrence Englander.
-- It is well worth looking at the course offerings of your local synagogues, JCC, etc, while keeping in mind the cautions above about different perspectives.
We have learned seven selections from the Zohar together. I would
like now to look back over what we have learned, and forward toward
possible next steps.
Here are the contents of this module. There are 4 main sections.
Please feel free to skip around from one to another.
How to Keep Studying Zohar
Too Much God
Responsibility
Eros
Is God One?
Faces of God
Radical Pluralism
Boldness
New Zohar (2): a midrash by Justin Jaron Lewis
HOW TO KEEP STUDYING ZOHAR
This section makes suggestions for studying the Zohar on your own or with friends. For suggestions about taking classes on Zohar or Kabbalah, please see the section on Resources for Further Study at the end of this module
Please feel free to contact me directly with any questions related to the Zohar.
With Whom
All these forms of study also have their dangers. If you
are studying Zohar by yourself it is highly advisable to check
in with a teacher from time to time (I am available), and certainly
to read further about the Zohar (see the reading list at the end
of this module). The waters of the Zohar are deep and dangerous
and it is not advisable to swim in them all alone.
If you are studying with a partner -- whether Zohar or any
other wisdom -- you may be blessed to find that the holy sparks
of your study spark an intensity in the relationship between you.
If that happens -- as it often does -- then, unless you are already
spouses or lovers or are both free to become lovers, you will
have to be very careful not to be carried away. Chevrusa (studying
with a partner) is designed to produce intense, passionate relationships.
It can lead to wonderful friendships; it has also led to love
affairs that have broken up marriages. Be aware, and direct the
passion of your study to the learning.
Studying as a group can involve all the limitations and frustrations
of any group interaction: people slowing things down, dominating
the conversations, being stubborn, getting crushes on each other,
etc. Also, both with a partner and with a group, it is important
to keep some outside input coming; again, see my e-mail address
and the resource list below. Remember, though, that it is group
study that the Zohar itself celebrates most and through which
it was written.
How
How to study: read some Zohar, think about it, talk about
it, read it again. Let it wash over you at first, then try to
understand how it hangs together literally, then bit by bit explore
its meaning, asking questions, sharing insights. Look at commentaries,
preferably, only after exploring the text without them, and don't
let the commentaries be the end of the story.
If you can intersperse your reading and questioning with
quiet meditation or niggunim, how good!
In partner or group learning, it might often be good for
the first reading to be a visualization: one person would read
the text aloud slowly while the others, eyes closed, hear it and
imagine it.
What
In English, of the texts that are currently available, I
recommend starting with Daniel Matt's Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment
(see the book list at the end of this module). This book has
a well-chosen selection of excerpts from the Zohar, translated
clearly and poetically, and good, clear commentary at the back
of the book where you won't be as tempted to look at it right
away.
After you've learned all the texts in Matt, I would continue
with Isaiah Tishby's The Wisdom of the Zohar (originally in modern
Hebrew, now available in English.) In three volumes, this is
a very full selection of excerpts from the Zohar in accurate and
fairly clear translation. The commentary is in the form of footnotes
(cover up the bottom of the page at first reading!) and good introductory
essays.
These two books have enough material to keep you going for
several years, if you take the time to really study each passage.
By that point, Daniel Matt's long-awaited translation of the
entire Zohar should be in print and would be the obvious next
place to go. (I do not recommend the Soncino Press translation
of the Zohar for study purposes, because of how it abridges the
material.)
When reading the Zohar directly, rather than in the form
of selections, you will have to be alert as to where a section
begins and ends. It's not always easy to tell, and of course
things sometimes flow into each other in typical Zohar fashion.
Pay attention to who is speaking, where they are (if there is
a narrative framework), what the subject matter is and what Biblical
verses are being explained, in a petichta format or in other ways.
In French, there is an excellent translation of the Zohar
by Charles Mopsik, which is being published slowly, one small
volume at a time. There are deep, thoughtful introductory essays;
the commentary is sparse (there is more in some volumes than others)
and reading the text is a lot like reading the Zohar itself.
Reading the Zohar itself, in Aramaic, is not hard. If you
can understand the Hebrew of the Torah, or the Siddur, it will
not take long to master the Aramaic of the Zohar, which has a
very small vocabulary. When I first began reading it I found
an edition with vowels (nekudot) which made it easier to sound
out and read. I've recently seen a newer edition with vowels
in the Aramaic and with a literal Hebrew translation side-by-side
on the page, published by a yeshiva in Israel (without proper
publisher/date information...) I personally mostly use the edition
called "HaSulam" (The Ladder) which does not have vowels but arranges
the text conveniently in paragraphs and sections and has a Hebrew
translation; the translation is mixed in with a commentary which
is deep but almost totally useless for understanding the contextual
meaning of the Zohar, since it is based on ideas from later Kabbalah.
Warning: This edition is offered for sale at inflated prices
by various promoters of Kabbalah; check your Jewish bookstore
instead.
In general, if you would like to buy an edition of the Zohar,
see what your Jewish bookstore has available or contact me and
I'll see what I can find. (Do not buy Rabbi Yodel Rosenberg's
edition, which has the text of the Zohar in Rashi script side
by side with a Hebrew translation; it is in a different order
from all other editions of the Zohar which makes it impossible
to look things up.) I do encourage you to move toward studying
the Zohar in its own language; there is nothing like it.
LIVING WITH THE ZOHAR
Can the Zohar change your life? I don't think that studying the
Zohar is a miracle cure, or will make you rich. On the other
hand, it can nourish you spiritually and influence your view of
the world in deep ways. For some people the influence is a straightforward
one; it means taking on the beliefs which are implied in the Zohar.
This would mean believing in the ten Sefirot, the exalted importance
of the Jewish people, the cosmic essentialness of following halakhah
strictly, and so on.
As you might guess, this is not what living with the Zohar during
the last 15 years has meant for me. I have not exchanged my own
ideas for the Zohar's, but something new has come from the meeting
between them. Of course that something new could be different
for every person.
These are some of the ways I look at the world that are marked
by the Zohar:
Waking Dreaming
Dreams have been important to me since my early childhood,
treasured evidence to me that my soul is alive and growing. The
Zohar offers a world of waking dreams, an approach to God through
a wide-open imagination. According to some traditions, you are
not supposed to study Kabbalah until -- as the traditional expression
puts it -- "your belly is full of Talmud and halakhah". Dreams
are often influenced by what we eat, and, of course, by what's
in our minds. If your mind is as full of Jewish learning as your
belly with food after a rich meal, what would you dream? I think
you would dream something like the Zohar. But for those of us
who are not yet so learned, the texts of the Zohar offer a gate
into that dream-world.
Too Much God
For many religiously sensitive people today, the absence
of God is a problem. It is hard to see anything divine in a world
filled with so much strife and pain. For me, looking at the world
with the imaginative eyes of the Zohar, the problem, if anything,
is the presence of God. Alerted to the multiplicity of images
of God, the many ways in which God can be felt, the ways that
God can be present even in strife and pain, even in emptiness,
inside and outside of Jewish law and tradition, the problem becomes
living with so much God while still making choices in life between
different ideas and actions.
Responsibility
Judaism teaches responsibility. The Zohar celebrates and
accentuates this theme of Judaism, teaching that God and the world
depend on our choices. Taking the Zohar's teachings on this theme
literally might push a person to stricter and stricter observance
and could become deadening. Taking in the Zohar's words without
literalness, though, nourishes me as I make choices in the world.
The Zohar says that we make God through our deeds of love, kindness
and justice. One way of looking at this is that it is our actions,
with all their limits and clumsiness, that make God real in the
world. A conversation with a friend, washing the dishes, joining
a demonstration, studying Torah on line -- all the kind ways that
we are involved and attentive are deeds of God in the world.
Eros
Tikva Frymer-Kensky, in her book In The Wake of the Goddesses,
explores from a scholar's perspective how the religion of the
Bible is different from other religions of the ancient Near East.
While she is very much in favour of Biblical religion, she acknowledges
some of its lacks. Among them, she notes that the Bible has very
little to say about sex or erotic desire and pleasure, other than
some rules regulating sexual behaviour, and standards of ritual
purity which would keep sex out of the Temple. Frymer-Kensky
says that this stance turned out to be unsatisfying for the human
psyche, and so the importance of sex made its way back into later
Judaism in various ways. In the Zohar, sexual desire and love
are essential to the vision of the divine life.
Religion as many of us have inherited it contained a negative
attitude toward erotic desire and toward our bodies in general.
The Zohar, in its celebration of the passion between Malkhut
and Tif'eret, the Shekhinah and the Blessed Holiness, opens one
door to reintegrating our bodies with all their desires and pleasures
into our connection with God.
Is God One?
One of the most challenging insights of the Zohar, which
so often describes God as a couple, is its openness to plurality
as well as unity in God. My teacher Ros Schwartz points out an
analogy from physics. Light can be demonstrated by experiment
to consist of particles, or of waves. It's not that light is
waves of particles, or sometimes waves and sometimes particles;
these waves and particles are two distinct modes of being. We
can't demonstrate that light is both, because the two are incompatible.
Yet, we can show that light is waves and we can show that it
is particles. The underlying unity must be there, but it remains
a mystery.
This is a wonderful analogy for the aspects of God, with their
mutually incompatible qualities, which are manifested to us in
life experiences, meditation and text study -- the religious equivalents
of scientific experiments -- and for the underlying unity, which
the Zohar does point toward but insists that we cannot grasp.
Ros' wise daughter Melody adds: "I can't think of a person
as just one being!" If a person is so richly varied and multilayered
that it's hard to think of them as just one -- how much more so
for God, which is at least the totality of all people and the
depths of each human self.
Faces of God
At my ordination as a rabbi I shared these thoughts about
the many ways that the divine is revealed. I did not quote from
the Zohar, but it was in the background of everything I said:
... Our Sages said that the faces of Torah are faces of God.
When the Torah was given to us, we saw God with an angry face
in the Bible, with a calm face in the Mishnah, with a friendly
face in the Talmud and with a laughing face in the Aggadot, the
legends, like this one {Pesikta deRav Kahana 12:27}.
We like to speak of pluralism. God has a plurality of faces,
and the Hebrew word "panim", face, is always plural. From year
to year as I grow older, from moment to moment as I feel different,
my faces change. New faces rise from inside me, where I have
more faces than I show, more than I know.
So when I wonder whether God is real or a projection, whether
God is personal or just everything that is, the source of all
or limited like us, perhaps the answer is yes; these all are among
God's faces. Perhaps God is the many as much as the one, ephemeral
as much as eternal, random as much as purposeful, on the surface
as much as in the depths.
God's faces have changed for me throughout my life, and each
face has left its traces in me. God as my father has looked different:
when I was a child, the son of my wise and quiet father, Jack
Lewis, of blessed memory; when, as an adult, I visited my father
through his long illness and his death; when, with the birth of
my dear son, Shlomo Jack, I became a father.
Our Sages often called the face of God the Shekhinah, the
Presence. When Rav Yosef heard the footsteps of his mother, he
would say: "I will rise to greet the Shekhinah" {Kiddushin 31b}.
For me, too, my mother, Gertrud, in her faith and fearlessness,
is a presence of God. The Jewish mystics teach that a loving
couple can be faces of God to each other; they said, "a man's
wife is the Shekhinah". Jane has showed me this truth in so many
ways. And our Rabbis taught that whenever people learn Torah
together, the Shekhinah rests among them {Pirke Avot 3:2, 6}.
They also taught: "If you see a crowd of people, bless God
who knows mysteries; for just as people's faces are all different,
so their ideas are different" {BaMidbar Rabbah 21:2}. And Rebbe
Pinchas of Koretz said: Why are people's faces all so different?
Because they're in the image of God...
Radical Pluralism
Religious pluralism, respect for different paths, sometimes appears
to be a matter of not bothering each other or just not bothering,
not caring. But with openness to the many faces of God, pluralism
becomes a deep and risky commitment to be alert to the Presence
in other traditions, and in other people's opinions.
This kind of pluralism means savouring moments of connection between different faiths, not running away from them when they appear unexpectedly. For example, at the Cloisters museum in New York there is a medieval tapestry of a unicorn at a fountain of water, dipping its horn into the water, surrounded by wild animals. The story behind the picture is that the water was poisoned, the unicorn dips its horn into the water to purify it, and the grateful animals gather around to drink the water which the unicorn has made safe. Jane pointed out to me how this resembles the Jewish legend of the gazelle who digs her horns into the ground to find water for all the animals, and all the imagery in the Midrash and the Zohar of the compassionate Gazelle of the Dawn. To the Zohar the gazelle is the Shekhinah, while to medieval Christians the unicorn is Christ -- another expression of the Presence among us. From an open perspective, the two stories resemble and enrich each other.
A thoughtful book about the possibilities and dangers of this
kind of pluralism is Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty's Other Peoples'
Myths (University of Chicago Press, 1995).
Boldness
Why is it that meditation, in which our state of consciousness
changes, is often considered a path to God? After all, God is
everywhere, in us and through us and around us; what different
does it make what state we're in? One answer is that, as our
consciousness expands, we ourselves are becoming bigger; and,
the bigger we become, the more of us is available, so to speak,
to connect with God.
Another way of expanding, becoming bigger, is by opening our
imaginations and minds to challenging images and ideas. Any stretch
of my being opens more of me to God; in theological thinking,
I stretch my imaginative and intellectual courage to their limits,
testing possibilities and paradoxes. That is why my selections
from the Zohar in this course have focused on ideas and images
that I have found challenging, that have demanded a stretch.
The Zohar is able to stretch us, to challenge us beyond
where we have been, because of its authors' own boldness and fearlessness.
Grounded deeply in who they were, in their bodies, in their learning,
in their environment, they were able to dream out loud and invite
us into their dreams. I bless all of us to be able to do that,
to bring our own God-dreaming into the world.
We can do this in a multitude of ways. I hope that some
of us will follow the authors of the Zohar in doing it in writing.
In the following sections are some examples of what I consider
"New Zohar" -- writing that does what the Zohar does. I hope
it will be an inspiration to more.
WRITING NEW ZOHAR
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810), one of the great
Hasidic masters, told deep, dreamlike stories -- later written
down by his close disciple, Reb Noson -- that wove together images
from the Bible with personal symbolism. For example, his famous
story "The Heart and the Spring" (part of the longer story of
"The Seven Beggars") is a kind of "Zohar" on the verse from Psalms,
"Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom"
{Psalm 90:12}.
Rebbe Nachman's stories are holy texts to his Hasidim
and have been accepted as part of world literature. His example
shows that what was possible for the authors of the Zohar is possible
in later generations too: to immerse ourselves, even for a short
while, in Torah, to dream our way in, and to tell, or draw, or
write, what we find.
Two examples follow.
NEW ZOHAR (1): A POEM BY JANE ENKIN
My life partner Jane wrote this poem through a process called
"freefall": picking a focal point and then writing whatever comes.
Since the focal point is a Biblical verse, the result is an interpretation
of Scripture through the opened imagination, very much like what
the authors of the Zohar offer us. This method may be a relatively
easy one to try out.
Jane Enkin: Freefall, March 2000
Kol Adonai al ha-mayim
The voice of God is upon the waters {Psalm 29:3}
The voice of God bobs up and down
on the waves. A red headed scruffy feathered merganser duck.
Disappears! Diving down. Pops up fantastically far away.
Holds a little fish up high, tips head back
and swallows.
The voice of God is upon the waters.
An oil slick spreads. Shimmering
translucent colours. The sound of motorboats
idling, waiting for straggling passengers to get
all the picnic baskets, water bottles,
towels and life preservers arranged. The colours
intensify in the sun, then thin, spread
and fade.
The voice of God is upon the waters.
Foghorns through the mist.
The sound of the horn low
along the surface, appearing
solid the way fog
does. Spreading, magnifying,
probing a tongue of sound
into the ear.
Is everything that appears solid as insubstantial as the fog
and the sound of the foghorn? Everything equally penetrable,
if only we know the way to slip
between molecules and
reach into the fuzzy, smoky heart?
The voice of God is upon the waters.
God left his voice behind. He
left it on the water. The
waves flop it around. It splashes
and dips.
Now it's washed up on
the shore. A beachcomber
comes across the voice of God,
polished by the waves, no
sharp edges left. Beautiful
colour, translucent in the light.
What's it good for? Put it in
your basket, you never know.
Lovely things are always worth
keeping.
The voice of God is upon the waters.
You dive through it when you take a swim.
Deep down into the silence of the water.
No God voice in this thick, airless realm.
Turn over while you're still underneath.
Float upward toward a growing oval of blue sky, brightness.
Splash out and take a deep breath of God's voice.
Born once again into the air.
The voice of God is upon the waters.
And I am trying to hear. Should I follow in a boat? Should I
swim? Should I learn to dance on water? Wait for the freeze
up and then walk out, on to the lake, and listen?
NEW ZOHAR (2): A MIDRASH BY JUSTIN JARON LEWIS
This one is slower reading. I wrote it in the form and style
of classic books of midrash, and actually wrote it in classical
Hebrew; this English translation was hard to do because some of
the Hebrew depends on word-plays. It is a petichta which links
the first verse of the Torah portion Noach with the first verse
of the haftarah (prophetic reading) that goes with it. Like many
classic midrashic texts, it borrows from older sources (some of
which I've mentioned in parentheses) but builds its borrowings
into something new; like the Zohar, it also puts new words in
the mouths of the ancient teachers. Much as the authors of the
Zohar may have felt freer writing in Aramaic, I felt freed by
the archaic language and style to put some of my own vision of
God into words. Other writers too may find that choosing a classic,
or otherwise unfamiliar, form can release your own voice.
"These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man; in his
age, he was perfect; Noah walked with God" {Genesis 6:9, first
verse of parshat Noach}.
And Israel call the Blessed Holiness "son". As it is written,
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given... and his
name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, mighty God..." {Isaiah
9:6}.
It is taught: Elisha ben Avuya said to Rabbi Meir: "A parable
of a king whose country was filled with violence and robbery,
suffering and evils. There came a sailor from over the sea to
dwell in that country. When he saw those evils, he said to the
people of that country: 'I see that there is no king in this
place'. The friends of the king said to him: 'Heaven forbid.
Only, our lord the king is still a baby, nursing at his mother's
breasts, and he cannot rule over his country. When the king grows
up there will be peace in our country.' That man said to them:
'I shall return across the sea; I have no wish to dwell in such
a place.'
"So it is in this world: Israel, the friends of God, what do
they say? Yitgadal... v'yamlich malchutei -- 'May He grow...
and may He rule His kingdom' {beginning of Kaddish}".
Rabbi Meir said to him: "A parable of a king who is a baby, pleasant
and sweet. He has no need to give any commands to his household;
when he is lacking anything, he shouts and cries as babies are
wont to do, and all the people of his household run to him to
do wholeheartedly whatever he wants. And what does he want?
For his household to live in love and friendship. So it is with
the Blessed Holiness and Israel, as it is said: 'None hath seen
transgression in Israel: the Eternal his God is with him, and
the shout of a king is among them' {Numbers 24:21}."
So the Blessed Holiness said to Isaiah: "Say to Israel that My
desire is to be their child: 'Sing, O barren, thou that didst
not bear', 'For unto us a child is born'." Isaiah said to Him:
"Master of the world! It is strange in my eyes that you will
be their child. I fear they will not accept You this way." The
Blessed Holiness said to him: "Was not my desire from the beginning
of the world to be your child? Bereishith bara Elohim (In-the-beginning
created God...) {Genesis 1:1}. What is 'bara'? It is Aramaic
for 'the son', as when you say 'bar mitzvah', 'son of mitzvah'.
Bereishith bara Elohim means: In-the-beginning, the son: God.
And why is the word bara in Aramaic? Because, as Rabbi Yochanan
has said {Talmud Shabbat 12b}, the ministering angels do not understand
that language -- so that they will not be jealous and angry at
you, that I am your child and not theirs."
Still Isaiah did not understand, and he did not know what to do.
One day he went into the Temple and saw a baby coming out of
the Holy of Holies crying, and his crying filled the Sanctuary.
Isaiah ran to him, took him in his arms, kissed him on the head,
and spoke to him with a heart filled with pity, and called him:
"my dear son". The baby began to laugh with very sweet laughter,
went down from Isaiah's arms, played in the dust at his feet,
and went back into the Holy of Holies. Isaiah rejoiced with great
joy, and went and prophesied to Israel: "For unto us a child
is born, unto us a son is given".
It is taught: Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva said: "Why is the
Blessed Holiness called Shaddai? From the verse 'nursing at the
breasts (sheddei) of my mother' {Song of Songs 8:1; Shaddai has
the same letters as sheddei}. Just as a nursing child is more
beautiful in his mother's eyes than all the world, so the Blessed
Holiness is glorious and beautiful in our eyes, as it is written,
'Bow down to the Eternal in the beauty of holiness' {Psalm 29:2}.
Just as the mother loves the nursing child beyond all bounds,
so we love the Blessed Holiness, as it is written, 'And thou shalt
love the Eternal thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy
soul' {Deuteronomy 6:5}. Just as the mother is responsible for
her child, so we are responsible for God. As our Sages have said
{Talmud Shavuot 39a}, kol Yisrael areivim zeh bazeh, 'all Jews
are responsible for each other' -- literally, 'all Jews are responsible,
this for this' -- and 'this' can only refer to the Blessed Holiness,
as it is written, 'This is my God, and I will prepare Him a habitation'
{Exodus 15:2}. Just as the baby needs his mother and cannot exist
without her, so the Blessed Holiness needs Israel. Our Sages
have spoken of the needs of the everyday and the needs of the
exalted, and who is exalted but the Blessed Holiness, God most
High? Just as everything that belongs to the baby is in the hands
of the mother, so are we with the Blessed Holiness: all of His
world is in our hands, to do with it good or bad."
Rabbi Shim'on bar Yochai taught: "That is why it is especially
when we are fulfilling commandments that we call the Blessed Holiness
'son'. How so? We say, 'Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu melech ha-olam,
asher...' and asher can only mean a son, as it is written, 'Zilpah
Leah's maid bore a son... and she called his name Asher' {Genesis
30:12-13}."
Rabbi El'azar his son said: "And afterwards we say 'kidshanu',
and kid means 'child' in the language of the barbarians of Britain."
So too all the righteous of former days called the Blessed Holiness
"son".
Eve, mother of all the living, called Him "son". It is written,
kaniti ish et Adonai, "I have gotten a man with the Eternal" {Genesis
4:1}, and Beruriah says: "Eve said: 'As it were, I have given
birth to Cain and I have given birth to the Eternal along with
him.'" Ima Shalom says: "These words do not speak of Cain at
all. 'A man' is the Blessed Holiness -- 'The Eternal is a man
of war' {Exodus 15:3}. Et, as in most of Scripture, does not
mean 'with' but points to what is coming: 'I have gotten a man
-- the Eternal.'"
Seth son of Adam and all his generation called the Blessed Holiness
'son'. It is written, "And to Seth also was born a son, and he
called his name Enosh; then they began to call upon the name of
the Eternal" {Genesis 4:26}. Let us learn from the parallel between
"called" and "call", "his name" and "the name": just as Seth
called the name of Enosh and called him 'my son', so for the Eternal:
they called His name, and they called Him 'our son.'
Rabbi Ephraim said: "Noah, too, father of all who come into the
world -- the Blessed Holiness was a son to him. As it is written,
'These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man...'
What is the meaning of 'generations'? A son, as in 'These are
the generations of Jacob: Joseph...' {Genesis 37:2}. But who
is the son? The one named is God: as the verse concludes: 'Noah
walked with God' {Genesis 6:9}."
RESOURCES FOR FURTHER STUDY
I hope that you will continue learning about Kabbalah and Zohar.
This is a task to be undertaken carefully. There are a lot of
classes, books and Internet resources available on Zohar and Kabbalah
available, but they teach from a variety of perspectives. When
you consider taking a course, or open a book or website, try to
discern what its outlook is, whether that outlook is suitable
for you, and (if you do take the class or read the text) how that
outlook has influenced the presentation of the material.
Some perspectives you are likely to encounter are:
-- Orthodox Jewish. Many resources on Kabbalah present a view
limited by one or another contemporary set of Orthodox norms.
Often, the information on Kabbalah is there as bait to lure the
reader into further involvement with Orthodoxy.
-- Kabbalah Saves. Many courses on Kabbalah depict it as a kind
of science which has healing power and can change your life dramatically.
It is wise to be cautious about such claims, especially when
money is involved. Often, such courses may offer very little
actual study of the sources and indeed de-emphasize text study
and individual thinking.
-- Occultist. Many non-Jewish, and some Jewish, works on Kabbalah
(also spelled Qabalah especially in books of this type) see it
as a source of magic power or secret information. They often
neglect its potential to open your heart and connect you with
your soul. They also mix Kabbalah with a lot of other systems
(Greek myths, Tarot, etc.), sometimes carelessly.
-- Critical Academic. Many scholarly works on Kabbalah contain
accurate information and are intellectually honest, but take a
critical stance toward the topic which can make it hard to find
anything personally or spiritually useful in it.
-- Cheating. Since the word "Kabbalah" sells books there are
now quite a few books with Kabbalah in the title (along the lines
of The Kabbalah of Cooking for Singles) that have little to do
with Kabbalah at all.
By contrast, the following recommendations will support a liberal
approach to the Zohar similar to the one offered in this course.
Besides these resources, feel free, of course, to contact me directly.
-- Professor Eliezer Segal's excellent website at the University
of Calgary has a map of the Sefirot, various essays, and cool
background music and visuals: <http://www.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Rels463/Rels463_index.html>http://www.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Rels463/Rels463_index.html
The two texts from which I would recommend studying Zohar until
you're ready for the whole thing are:
-- Daniel Chanan Matt. Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment. New
York: Paulist Press (Classics of Western Spirituality), 1983.
-- Isaiah Tishby and Yeruham Fishel Lachower, translated by David
Goldstein. The Wisdom of the Zohar. Oxford University Press,
1989.
Another book with good Zohar selections and comments is:
-- Aryeh Wineman. Mystic Tales from the Zohar. Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society, 1995.
Kolel's own Kabbalah teacher Rabbi Lawrence Englander has published
a translation and commentary on an early portion of the Zohar:
-- Lawrence A. Englander. The Mystical Study of Ruth: Midrash
HaNe'elam of the Zohar to the Book of Ruth. Atlanta, Georgia:
Scholars Press, 1993.
I mentioned Rebbe Nachman of Breslov's stories as an example of
new Zohar. The edition with the most extensive commentary, showing
Rebbe Nachman's immersion in Scripture, Midrash and Kabbalah is:
-- Nachman of Breslov, translated by Aryeh Kaplan. Rabbi Nachman's
Stories. Jerusalem: Breslov Research Institute, 1983.
There are other Kabbalistic texts besides the Zohar available
in translation. I highly recommend the following two. The Palm
Tree of Deborah is an ethical work on embodying the Sefirot.
Gates of Light, by one of the possible authors of the Zohar, is
a how-to guide for Kabbalistic Torah study based on correlating
the names of God with the Sefirot:
-- Moses Cordovero, translated by Louis Jacobs. The Palm Tree
of Deborah. New York: Hermon Press, 1974.
Another translation, with English and Hebrew text:
-- Moshe Cordovero, translated by Moshe Miller. The Palm Tree
of Devorah. Jerusalem: Targum/Feldheim, 1993.
-- Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla, translated by Avi Weinstein.
Gates of Light (Sha'are Orah). San Francisco: HarperCollins,
1994.
For background on Kabbalah, I would cautiously recommend the following
book. Some of Kaplan's conclusions are dubious from a scholarly
point of view, but the texts are authentic and I think his overall
approach is right:
-- Aryeh Kaplan. Meditation and Kabbalah. York Beach, Maine:
Samuel Weiser, 1976.
Another book that brings alive the background of Kabbalah is:
-- Louis Jacobs, editor. Jewish Mystical Testimonies (also published
as The Schocken Book of Jewish Mystical Testimonies). New York:
Schocken, 1997.
Gershom Scholem basically invented the academic study of Jewish
mysticism. This book, based on a lecture series, is his easiest
work on the subject to read. Many of his specific conclusions
have been challenged by his students and their students, the leading
scholars today; this book is still worth reading as a great pioneer's
overview of the territory. At least read Lecture Six, "The Theosophic
Doctrine of the Zohar":
-- Gershom G. Scholem. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New
York: Schocken, 1954.
An in-depth study of one stirring aspect of the Zohar's teachings
is:
-- Elliot K. Ginsburg. The Sabbath in the Classical Kabbalah.
State University of New York, 1989.
These are two recent books which I have not seen yet but which
could be very useful. Giller is a good scholar. Rosenberg's
book is a selection of challenging imagery from the Zohar and
other texts; it should be taken with a grain of salt because Rosenberg
is not known for scrupulously accurate translation:
-- Pinchas Giller. Reading the Zohar: The Sacred Text of the
Kabbalah. Oxford University Press, 2001.
-- David Rosenberg. Dreams of Being Eaten Alive: The Literary
Core of the Kabbalah. New York: Harmony Books, 2000.
In French, I highly recommend:
-- Charles Mopsik. Le Zohar (slowly being published, volume by
volume). Paris: Verdier, 1981-.
Enjoy your further explorations, and unfasten your seatbelt when
you're ready to fly the plane!