The Zohar

1. The Zohar unveils the Torah's hidden, mystical dimensions.

The Zohar wants to take the reader inside the divine life.

Beyond literal interpretation. The Zohar doesn't dismiss the literal meaning of the Torah but insists that it's only the surface. The true subject of Scripture is God Himself, and revelation is essentially an act of divine self-disclosure. The Zohar seeks to "open" the scriptural verse itself, remove its outer shell, and find its secret meaning.

Kabbalistic secrets. The Zohar claims that the entire Torah is alive with kabbalistic secrets and veiled references to the "mystery of faith." It finds the great story of Kabbalah in verse after verse, portion after portion, of the Torah text. The Zohar's authors saw themselves as re-creating a form of discourse that would have seemed appropriate to a work originating with Rabbi Shim’on son of Yoḥai and those of his circle, who lived in the land of Israel during the second century.

Multilayered understanding. The Zohar takes its readers through multiple layers of understanding, reaching from the surface layer of "plain" meaning into ever more profound revelations. A great love of language is revealed in this process; plays on words and subtle shadings of meaning often serve as ways to a total reconfiguration of the Scripture at hand. The Zohar seeks to penetrate the inner divine world and to offer hints to the reader about the rich and complex life to be found there.

2. Kabbalah offers a complex, multifaceted view of the Divine.

“God” is the collective aggregate of these potencies and their inner relationship.

The God of the Kabbalists. The God of the kabbalists is not the powerful, passionate Leader and Lover of His people found in the Hebrew Bible, not the wise Judge and loving Father of the rabbinic aggadah, nor the enthroned King of Merkavah visionaries. The kabbalists’ God also differs sharply from the increasingly abstract notions of the deity created by Jewish philosophers in the Middle Ages.

Sefirot. The Zohar describes God as a figure of multiple mythic potencies, obscure entities eluding precise definition but described through a remarkable web of images, parables, and scriptural allusions. These entities are called sefirot, and the dynamic interplay among these forces is the essential myth of Kabbalah. The ten sefirot are Keter, Ḥokhmah, Binah, Ḥesed, Gevurah, Tif’eret, Netsaḥ, Hod, Yesod, and Malkhut.

Ein Sof. The Zohar introduces the concept of Ein Sof, the hidden source from which the ten sefirot emerge. Ein Sof refers to the endless and undefinable reservoir of divinity, the ultimate source out of which everything flows. Ein Sof is utterly transcendent in the sense that no words can describe it, no mind comprehend it. The sefirot are thus a revelation, a rendering more accessible, of that which has existed in Ein Sof all along.

3. The Zohar emphasizes the interconnectedness of the sefirotic realm.

The words that can express my appreciation to Daniel C. Matt are found on every page of his translation of the Zohar.

Interplay of forces. The Zohar insists on the full unity of the sefirotic world, even to its circularity, so that the rising of all the sefirot to be united with the highest one was a frequently articulated goal of contemplation. The sefirot are not separate entities but rather interconnected aspects of the divine Self. The Zohar emphasizes the dynamic interplay among these forces.

Circularity of the sefirot. The Zohar highlights the circularity of the sefirot, emphasizing that their end is embedded in their beginning and their beginning in their end. This circularity suggests a continuous flow of energy and influence among the sefirot, with each sefirah both influencing and being influenced by the others. The sefirot are a great circle, “their end embedded in their beginning, and their beginning in their end.”

Kavvanot. Varied patterns of inner connection in the upper worlds were reflected in the kavvanot (mystical directions) of prayers and in understandings of ritual commandments, but the ultimate goal of all of these was the full restoration of the divine unity and the rise of all to the highest rung, designated as maḥashavah or haskel (contemplation, intellect).

4. Human actions have cosmic significance, influencing the divine realm.

The inner structure of psychic life is the hidden structure of the universe; it is because of this that we can come to know God by the path of inward contemplation and true self-knowledge.

Cosmos-sustaining role. The kabbalists saw Torah and its commandments not only as playing a vital role in the ongoing spiritual life of Israel, but also as having a cosmos-sustaining role in a view of the universe that made them absolutely essential. The Zohar insists on the cosmic effects of human actions.

Kavvanot. The Zohar devotes much attention to the kavvanah, or inward meaning, of liturgical prayer. The kavvanot, or secret meanings of prayer, are interpreted in a way that insists on the cosmic effects of human actions. The special concentration on divine names played an essential part in early Kabbalah, setting in course a theme that was to be developed over many centuries of kabbalistic praxis.

Theurgy. The Zohar emphasizes the theurgic, quasi-magical effect of kabbalistic activity on the inner state of the Godhead, and its efficacy in bringing about divine unity and thus showering divine blessing upon the lower world. The Zohar sees human actions as having a direct impact on the sefirotic realm, either strengthening or weakening the divine forces.

5. The Zohar presents a dynamic interplay between good and evil.

Judgment not tempered by love brings about evil; power obsessed with itself turns demonic.

The "left-hand emanation." The Castilian kabbalists’ imagination was sparked by Rabbi Abbahu’s famous dictum: “The blessed Holy One created and destroyed worlds before He created these, saying: ‘These please me. Those did not please me.’” Out of this and other fragments of aggadic thought, Rabbi Isaac spun an elaborate mythos in which the sefirah Binah, at the dawn of time, welled forth emanations of pure din (literally “judgment,” but resulting in absolute forces of destruction, whose intensity doomed them to almost immediate annihilation).

Demonic forces. From the residue of these destructive forces rose a hierarchy of powers of unmitigated judgment. Possessing no creative potency of their own, these forces are ontologically dependent upon divinity and are energized by the power released by human transgression. The Zohar adds a parallel but antithetical realm of the demonic, serving as the source of all that is destructive in the cosmos.

Moral lessons. The Zohar teaches that judgment not tempered by love brings about evil; power obsessed with itself turns demonic. The force of evil is often referred to by the Zohar as sitra aḥra, the “other side,” indicating that it represents a parallel emanation to that of the sefirot. The demonic is born of an imbalance within the divine, flowing ultimately from the same source as all else, the single source of being.

6. The Zohar is a product of a mystical community, not solely one author.

The Zohar reflects the experience of a kabbalistic circle.

Multiple layers of creativity. Contemporary scholarship on the Zohar has parted company with Scholem on the question of single authorship. While it is tacitly accepted that De León did either write or edit long sections of the Zohar, including the main narrative (homiletical body) of the text, he is not thought to be the only writer involved. Multiple layers of literary creativity can be discerned within the text.

Havurot. The Zohar reflects the experience of a kabbalistic circle. It is one of a series of such circles of Jewish mystics, stretching back in time to Qumran, Jerusalem, Provence, and Gerona, and forward in history to Safed, Padua, Miedzybozh, Bratslav, and again to Jerusalem. The small circle of initiates gathered about a master is the way Kabbalah has always happened, and the Zohar is no exception.

Historical evidence. Historical evidence has shown that closed schools or societies (ḥavurot) for various purposes were a common organizational form within Spanish Jewry. The image of Rabbi Shim’on and his followers, encountering a series of mysterious teachers in the course of their wanderings, looks rather like a description of a real such school, meeting various mystics from outside its ranks who were then accepted by the school’s leader as legitimate teachers of secret Torah.

7. The Zohar reinterprets Jewish tradition through a mystical lens.

Kabbalah represents a radical departure from any previously known version of Judaism, especially in the realm of theology.

Rereading earlier tradition. Jewish mysticism in the Middle Ages is a rereading of earlier Jewish tradition, including both the Bible and the corpus of rabbinic literature. Kabbalah, a new sort of mystical-esoteric exegesis first appearing in the twelfth century, may be seen as another medieval rereading of the received Jewish canon.

Five elements of tradition. In order to understand the ways in which Kabbalah, and particularly the Zohar, finds its home within the earlier tradition, we need to distinguish five elements that are present in the legacy that medieval Jews had received from the Judaism of late antiquity or the Talmudic age: aggadah, halakhah, the liturgical tradition, Merkavah mysticism, and the speculative/magical tradition.

Dynamic mix. Kabbalah must be seen as a dynamic mix of these five elements, sometimes with one dominating, sometimes adding the mix of another. It was especially the first and last listed, the aggadic/mythic element and the abstract/speculative/magical tradition that seemed to vie for the leading role in forging the emerging kabbalistic way of thought.

8. The Zohar uses symbolic language to express ineffable truths.

Mysticism strives to penetrate a realm beyond distinctions, but this mystical masterpiece demands constant decision making, challenging the reader or translator to navigate between conflicting meanings and determine the appropriate one—or sometimes to discover how differing meanings pertain simultaneously.

Poetic prose. The Zohar’s prose is poetic, overflowing with multiple connotations, composed in such a way that you often cannot pin down the precise meaning of a phrase. The language befits the subject matter, which is mysterious, elusive, and ineffable; words can merely suggest and hint. An unfathomable process may be stated, then immediately denied.

Neologisms. Especially puzzling, though charming, are the neologisms strewn throughout the Zohar, intended to bewilder and astound the reader. Some derive from rare Talmudic terms, which the author refashions by intentionally misspelling or by inverting letters; some derive from Greek, Latin, or Castilian; some appear to be pure inventions.

Linguistic search. The frequent dilemmas of interpretation suggest that in exploring the Zohar, linguistic search and spiritual search go hand in hand. The Zohar demands constant decision making, challenging the reader or translator to navigate between conflicting meanings and determine the appropriate one—or sometimes to discover how differing meanings pertain simultaneously.

9. The Zohar offers a defense of Judaism in the face of external pressures.

In this context, the Zohar may be viewed as a grand defense of Judaism, a poetic demonstration of the truth and superiority of Jewish faith.

Christian Spain. The Zohar was composed in the Castile of the late thirteenth century, a period that marked the near completion of the Reconquista and something of a golden age of enlightenment in the history of Christian Spain. In this context, the Zohar may be viewed as a grand defense of Judaism, a poetic demonstration of the truth and superiority of Jewish faith.

Complex attitude toward Christianity. The kabbalists’ attitude toward the religion of their Christian neighbors is a complex one, and it also has come down to us through a veil of self-censorship. The Zohar is filled with disdain and sometimes even outright hatred for the gentile world. But the kabbalists also found themselves impressed by, and perhaps even attracted to, certain aspects of the Christian story and the religious lives of the large and powerful monastic communities that were so prominent in Christian Spain.

Counterweight to conversion. Much that is to be found in the Zohar was intended to serve as a counterweight to the potential attractiveness of Christianity to Jews, and perhaps even to the kabbalists themselves. The Zohar’s unstated but clearly present view of Christianity as sorcery is a mirror reflection of the image of Judaism that was gaining acceptance, with much more dangerous consequences, throughout the Christian world.

10. The Zohar emphasizes the erotic dimension of the divine and human relationship.

The Zohar is also a lush garden of sacred eros, filled to overflowing with luxurious plantings of love between master and disciples, among the mystical companions themselves, between the souls of Israel and Shekhinah—God’s lovely bride—but most of all between the male and female elements that together make up the Godhead.

Sacred eros. The Zohar is a lush garden of sacred eros, filled to overflowing with luxurious plantings of love between master and disciples, among the mystical companions themselves, between the souls of Israel and Shekhinah—God’s lovely bride—but most of all between the male and female elements that together make up the Godhead. The Zohar is devoted to the full range of religious obligations that the Torah places upon the community of Israel.

Sexual mysteries. The uniting of the male sixth/ninth sefirot with the female tenth became the chief and in some places almost unique object of concern and way of explaining the religious life as a whole. This mysterium coniunctionis or zivvuga qaddisha lies at the very heart of Zoharic teaching.

Erotic metaphor. The Zohar is devoted to the full range of religious obligations that the Torah places upon the community of Israel. The mysteries of the commandments and the rhythms of the sacred year very much occupy its pages. The Zohar’s best readers, both traditional and modern, are those who share its endless fascination with the mystery of words, including both their aural and graphic (or “spoken” and “written”) manifestations.

Last updated: March 6, 2025