Reading the Zohar: The Sacred Text of the Kabbalah

262 Pages·2000·17.62 MB·English

by  Pinchas Giller

Reading the Zohar
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UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Copyright © 2001 by Pinchas Giller
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Giller, Pinchas, 1953-
Reading the Zohar : the sacred text of the kabbalah
Pinchas Giller.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-511849-9
1. Zohar. 2, Cabala. I. Title.
. BM525.A59G55 2000
296.1'62—dc21 99-29413
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Ronni, Ariel, and Maya
Preface
The Zohar is the central Jewish mystical work. The strategies employed by the
Zohars main interpreters, particularly during the renaissance of the Kabbalah in
the Galilee hill town of Safed, dominated the development of the Kabbalah, form-
ing its contours to the present day. The interpretation of the Zohar is the founda-
tion of classical Jewish mysticism.
And yet the task of Zohar interpretation is a complicated one, for reading the Zohar
is different from reading other Jewish literature. The Zohars two dozen component
compositions are written in an obscure symbolic code. The exegete faces the daunt-
ing task of determining the meaning of a given passage in light of all of the implica-
tions of the Zohars deliberately numinous and evocative language. Whole theories
of language were devised to bridge the gap between the ideas of renaissance Kabbalah
and those of the Zohar, resulting in hermeneutical strategies that employed all man-
ner of misprision and subversion. Sometimes the interpretation of a text would re-
flect nothing more than the imposition of an extraneous idea onto the Zohar; other
commentaries simultaneously drew on the later tradition while correctly elucidating
the original intention of the text's nuances and internal dynamics.
The first chapter of this study will provide an overview of some general meth-
odological questions regarding the Zohars structure and archeology. I will argue
that schools of Zohar interpretation divide, ideologically, between scholastic ap-
proaches and approaches based on mystical revelation and transmission. These two
points of origin reflect two views of the kabbalistic experience.
The following chapters will present the Zohars central compositions and ana-
lyze how these texts were interpreted by subsequent kabbalists. Chapter 2 will ana-
lyze the composition Sabba de-Mishpatim. This work is particularly beloved by
kabbalists because of its romantic mise-en-scene and its bold doctrine of the soul
and reincarnation. Sabba de-Mishpatim details the descent of the soul and the tra-
vails that it endures in the course of its incarnation in the present world. The text
is filled with an overwhelming erotic pain, exploring themes of alienation and dis-
location, illegitimacy, conversion, childlessness, and divorce. During the Safed re-
naissance, attempts were made to locate the origin of the reincarnation tradition in
Sabba de-Mishpatim, although that text allows for reincarnation only in limited,
specific instances.
Chapter 3 will trace the development of the Zohars creation myth. This account
describes the engraving of the initial shape of the universe in the midst of a primordial
nothingness, or ether. The Zohars creation myth is reprised many times through-
out the entire work and forms the basis of the oral myth of Lurianic Kabbalah.
Chapter 4 presents the Idra texts. In chapters 5—7,1 will discuss the most influen-
tial texts of the Zohar, the dramatic Idrot. These texts describe convocations in which
viii Preface
various members of the Zohar's pietistic circle perish in mystical ecstasy while be-
holding the wonders of the Godhead. The Idrot were viewed as a repository of
particularly recondite, ancient traditions. The boldly anthropomorphic visions in
the Idrot provided the basis of the Lurianic system that became standard in kabbalistic
circles. Chapter 5 will examine some central themes in the Idrot and their related
literature.
The last chapter will detail the central hermeneutical strategies pursued by some
of the Safed kabbalists, who read the Idrot in such a way as to reinforce and under-
score their special myth. I will emphasize the contribution of Isaac Luria, who com-
bined the creation traditions detailed in chapter 3 with the anthropomorphism of
the Idrot, making particular use of the latter texts' allusions to a primordial catas-
trophe invoked through the Torah's mysterious allusions to the deaths of the kings
of Edom. Through the melding of these two traditions, Luria developed his theol-
ogy of divine withdrawal and chaos.
The Zohar was integral to all later systems of Jewish mysticism. It was the basis
of the civil religion of the Kabbalah. The Safed kabbalists, Polish Hasidim, and
scholastic exegetes of Lithuania all produced vibrant and profound schools of Zohar
commentary. The conclusions of the Zohar and the Safed kabbalists make up the
central teachings of Jewish mysticism. These teachings were widely distributed and
form the foundation of mainstream Kabbalah to this day. This study addresses these
teachings, portraying and analyzing them in a way that differs from previous stud-
ies of the Zohar. The historiographical studies of Kabbalah that have typified re-
search in the field employ a mimetic approach, which traces a given theme or phe-
nomenon across the whole history of Jewish mysticism. This study addresses the
world of one text, the Zohar, and its central transmitters. In so doing, I will exam-
ine the Zohars main concerns and show that the ideas of the Zohar formed the
central tenets of Jewish mysticism in its classical period.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Richard Judd of the Bodelian Library at Oxford University,
Benyamin Richler and Avraham David of the Center for Microfilmed Hebrew
Manuscripts of the National Library of the State of Israel, Ronit Meroz, Dorit Cohn-
Alloro, and Zeviya Rubin of the Zohar project of the Hebrew University, as well as
Dan Abrams, Iris Felix, Melilah Hellner, Boaz Huss, Menahem Kallus, Yehudah
Liebes, the late Professor Rivka Shatz-Uffenheimer, and the staff of the Gershom
Scholem Library. I would also like to thank Rabbi Meir Abitbol of the B'nei Yissaskhar
Institute for making unpublished manuscripts available to me. Rick Burke and
Rachel Perse of the Ostrow Library of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles
have been very helpful, and I am grateful to Dr. Mayer E. Rabinowitz of the Jewish
Theological Seminary Library for helping me to reproduce an image from the
manuscript collection.
At Washington University, I am grateful for the support of Henry Berger,
J. Patout Burns, Catherine Marler, Aileen Rabushka, and Marc Saperstein. The
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Washington University made funds avail-
able for me to do research in Israel in the summer of 1997; I must thank the
committee, under the direction of Dean Robert Thach, for their generosity. This
work was also made possible by a grant from the Memorial Foundation for Jew-
ish Culture, to whom I am very grateful. Parts of the second chapter have previ-
ously been published in the article "Love and Upheaval in the Zohars Sabba de-
Mishpatim" in The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy (vol. 7 [1998]:
31-60).
I am very grateful to Henry Berger, J. Patout Burns, Barbara Galli, David Hadas,
David Halperin, Boaz Huss, Randolph Pope, and Marc Saperstein for having read
early drafts of this book. Elliot Wolfson has been supportive at every turn as a col-
league and a friend. Howard Schwartz interceded on my behalf with Oxford Uni-
versity Press and connected me with Cynthia Read, the most understanding and
gracious of editors.
In the midst of this project, my family and I moved to Los Angeles, and it has
been for us an unlikely city of shelter. In this difficult period, I relied on the sup-
port of friends and mentors, particularly Robert Alter, Erica Crowell, Barbara
Galli, Sanford Jacoby, Shaul Magid, Daniel Chanan Matt, David Ruderman,
Marc Saperstein, Elliot Wolfson, Jonathan Zemke, and Laurie Zoloth. Thanks
are also due to Dr. Robert Wexler, Dr. David Lieber, and Dr. Chanan Alexander
of the University of Judaism and to Dr. Daniel Gordis of the Ziegler Rabbinical
School for their generosity of spirit. Many thanks to my colleagues Edward
x Acknowledgments
Harwitz, Aryeh Cohen, and Charlotta Fonrobert, o hevruta o mituta. My wife,
Ronni Hendel, read and commented extensively on the work and helped out in
many other ways; it is to her, and to our children, Ari and Maya, that this book
is dedicated.
Los Angeles P. G.
Adar 1999
Contents
Transliterations xiii
Abbreviations xv
A Note on the Sefirot xvii
1 The Zohar and Its Commentators 3
2 Sabba de-Mishpatim: Love and Reincarnation 35
3 Hormanuta: A Zoharic Creation Tradition 69
4 The Idrot: The Literary Tradition 89
5 The Idrot: The Doctrine of the Countenances 105
6 The Idrot: The Emanation of Divinity 125
7 Reading the Idrot 139
Appendix: Idra Texts 159
Notes 175
Bibliography 225
Index 241