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\"Sefirot
<\/div><\/div>

The Zohar<\/strong> : Masterpiece of Jewish Mysticism <\/h1>
<\/div>

EITAN P. FISHBANE<\/strong><\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n


Paper by Eitan P. Fishbane<\/a><\/h3>
<\/div>

SOURCE ????<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Certain works of the human imagination reorient the culture of reading, rising as classics in the terrain of letters and interpretation. Reach\u00ading across the ages, the classic reverberates with an enduring beauty; its art\u00adistry makes a claim on each new generation, and it awakens fresh engage\u00ad ment with the mystery and authority of the past. Crafted in late-13th-century Spain, the Zohar<\/em> is one of a handful of texts in the history of Judaism that achieved such an essential impact. The unquestioned masterpiece of Jew\u00adish mysticism, the Zohar is nothing less than one of the most significant compositions produced by the Jews in more than two thousand years of creativity. From the time of its mysterious emergence in Castile, the Zohar<\/em> was regarded as a sacred text, a work whose place in the canon was only superseded by Scripture; it was perceived to hold a status comparable to the talmudic-midrashic corpora of late antiquity [mfn] On this question, see the analyses in Boaz Huss, Like the Radiance of the Sky: Chapters in the Reception History of the Zohar and the Construction of Its Symbolic Value<\/em> (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute and Bialik Institute, 2008). [\/mfn]. What is more, the Zohar was believed by its medieval receivers to be a part of that classical Jewish literature, the recovered mystical voice of the ancient tannaitic sages, a book authored by the revered master Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. It was not until modern academic scholarship on the Kabbalah that this belief was success\u00ad fully challenged-first in the 19th century by the German scholars Adolph Jellinek and Heinrich Graetz and then in detail by Gershom Scholem, the pioneer of the field as it exists today [mfn] Scholem's findings were summarized in his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism<\/em> (New York: Schocken Books, 1954), pp. 156-204 and notes. Also see the highly impor\u00adtant discussion in Isaiah Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, <\/em>trans. David Goldstein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 1:13-23. For a recent and extremely detailed history of scholarship on the zoharic authorship, see Daniel Abrams, \"The Invention of the Zohar <\/em>as a Book: On the Assumptions and Expectations of the Kabbalists and Modern Scholars;' Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts <\/em>19 (2009):7-142. [\/mfn].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly upon its initial circulation by the 13-century-kabbalist Rabbi Moshe de Leon-distributed first as selected pamphlets and passages from a supposedly larger work-the community of pious readers accepted the prominent authorship of bar Yochai, and the text was absorbed into the canon of paradigmatic and sacred works of the rabbinic tradition. The immense significance of this moment in the reception history of the Zohar <\/em>cannot be underestimated, insofar as the acceptance of tannaitic authorship had the automatic effect of constructing the cultural memory of the generations that would follow. Once we see the clear grounds for medieval author\u00adship of the Zohar <\/em>(and I will discuss that in due course), we realize the degree to which projecting authorship into the past had the radical result of trans\u00adforming perceptions of the historically real. Generations of traditional read\u00aders encountered the sages and landscape represented in the text and believed that they were sitting before a record of the rabbis of the 2nd-century Land of Israel, a historically true account of the tannaitic world [mfn] On the relationship between historical objectivity and received cultural memory in medieval Judaism, see Yosef H. Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory<\/em>(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1982), pp. 31-52. [\/mfn]. Of course, scholars of talmudic-midrashic literature may well say that the same principle holds with regard to that corpus, although I would suggest that the Zohar<\/em> reflects a more complete process of invention than the reconstructed vignettes of rab\u00adbinic literature [mfn] On this question in rabbinic literature, see Richard Kalmin, \"Saints or Sinners, Schol\u00adars or Ignoramuses? Stories about the Rabbis as Evidence for the Composite Nature of the Babylonian Talmud,\" AJS Review <\/em>15 (1990): 179-205. [\/mfn].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Zohar <\/em>is marked by two dominant genres, each of which serves, in part, to situate the text in the literary world of rabbinic antiquity. The first of these, and by far the weightier in terms of sheer volume, is the mystical\u00ad midrashic genre. Modeled on the homiletical and exegetical forms of clas\u00adsical Midrash, this is an entirely new mode of kabbalistic discourse, blend\u00ading metaphysical rumination on the inner workings of divine reality with an interpretive technique rooted in older midrashic creativity. What emerges from this fusion is an altogether different and brilliant construction of dis\u00ad course, a lyrical and playful theological imagination that works homiletically out of a bold engagement with Scripture. In contrast to the many other kab\u00adbalistic works that were produced in 13th-century Spain, the Zohar<\/em> articu\u00ad lates the theological system of the sefirot <\/em>through the voice of midrashic exegesis, a method that not only successfully represents the text as a work of antiquity but also fashions a hitherto unknown type of discourse: a midrashi\u00adcally driven exploration of mystical symbols and inner-divine dynamics. For although the midrashic method was a well-established model in Jewish let\u00ad ters, the aim of homiletical creativity in the Zohar <\/em>was to uncover a symbolic subtext about the intradivine realm, believed to be latent in the Torah. A cen\u00adtral component of this new rhetoric is also the mythology of sefirot,<\/em> a man\u00adner of reflecting on the divine dimensions that is markedly different from the rhetoric adopted in other kabbalistic texts of this period. In the Zohar, <\/em>the realm of the sefirot <\/em>assumes a powerful new dynamism-a supernal world in which the androgynous nature of Divinity is represented as a mythic drama of inner divine sexual yearning and union in which the cosmic battle of good and evil is subsumed within the divine self and wherein the perennial ema\u00adnation of divine life from the depths of infinity is articulated with a radiant poetic charge. In the Zohar, <\/em>the symbolic language of Kabbalah is opened to full flower. The symbols and myths of earlier Kabbalah are expressed with an unprecedented dynamism and imaginative force; the inner life of God is nar\u00adrated and envisioned with a fresh and bold mythological voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second major genre of the Zohar<\/em> is the fictional narrative, the epic tale of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his disciples wandering the roads of ancient Galilee in search of mystical wisdom. Presented in a highly frag\u00admented structure, the narrated moments most often lead into and out of extended discourses of the mystical Midrash. More often than not, the fic\u00adtional scene provides an opening into -or a closure for- the kabbalistic homily of one of the companions. But these units of narration are far more than mere excuses for the exegetical discourses; they constitute an art form unto themselves, a new aesthetic of language reaching toward birth. In the narratives of the Zohar <\/em>we observe the quest for new kabbalistic insight; the construction of Rabbi Shimon as a saintly master of otherworldly power, the attempt to utilize fresh tools of rhetoric and representation. Searching for Torah on the road, the companions frequently encounter mysterious strang\u00aders who turn out to be exalted mystical masters in disguise; the narrative scenes often dramatize the power and ambivalence involved in the disclosure of secrets. The authors of the Zohar <\/em>resurrect the world of 2nd-century Gali\u00ad lee within the poetic eye of a medieval imagination presented through the veil of pseudepigraphy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kabbalistic Theology and Mythology<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Zohar<\/em> constitutes the culmination of more than a century of kabbalis\u00adtic thinking and creativity in medieval Europe and perhaps much longer, if we are to believe at least some of the Kabbalists' own claims about the oral reception of their esoteric tradition. Having developed in the writings of the earliest kabbalistic authors in southern France and then among the circle of mystics that lived in the Catalonian town of Gerona, the theological sys\u00adtem of the sefirot <\/em>came to maturation in the Zohar <\/em>and the related works of late-13th-century Castile. In this medieval kabbalistic thinking we observe a remarkably different theological conception than was established in previ\u00ad ous Jewish thought, closest perhaps in approach to the 3rd-century Neopla\u00adtonism of Plotinus and its medieval reverberations many centuries later. In the Zahar <\/em>and its antecedents, God is represented as a dynamic flow of cos\u00ad mic energy-composed of ten identifiable dimensions or stages of emana\u00adtion (the sefirot)-always in flux from a primordial source of Infinity, unfold\u00ad ing in progressively greater manifestation through these ten sefirot <\/em>until birth is given to the lower world. Ein Sof<\/em> (lit., \"without end\"; the Infinite One) is the source of all, and it is the lifeblood of all reality, circulating through Divinity and the totality of the cosmos. From the mystery of that Infinity, the Zohar<\/em> teaches, a spark flashed in the darkness -the colors of all that would be exploded in a wondrous array. From the most infinitesimal point of concentration, the containment of all future Being in complete potentiality, the rivers of divine life were opened-the concealed spring of the universe overflowed with an energy too immense to contemplate. Keter<\/em> (Crown), Hokhmah<\/em> (Wisdom), Binah<\/em> (Understanding), Hesed<\/em> (Love), Gevurah<\/em> (Sever\u00adity), Tiferet<\/em> (Beauty), Netzah<\/em> (Eternity), Hod<\/em> (Splendor), Yesod<\/em> (Foundation), Malkhut<\/em> (Kingship) -these are the ten dimensions of Divinity (the sefirot<\/em>) that flow forth in a stream of emanation from Ein Sof,<\/em> the well of Infinity. They are the ten rivers of cosmic light, the ten chambers of the inner divine self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sefirot
The Ten Sefirot <\/strong>(Pardess Rimonim<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Kabbalists never tire of emphasizing that these ten are one; they are not to be understood as separate entities, despite the considerable length to which the mystics go to explicate their individual features. It is all one. Indeed, this refrain of oneness is repeated numerous times on virtually every page of the Zohar; <\/em>the ten rungs of divine life are contained in the mystery of oneness. But it is important to underscore that the standard Hebrew ter\u00adminology I have just employed above-a vocabulary that is used extensively in the Hebrew kabbalistic literature of 13th-century Spain-is clearly avoided in the pages of the Zohar.<\/em>This avoidance, including the absence of the term sefirot <\/em>itself, is certainly part of the Zohar's <\/em>attempt to disguise its medieval origins, to separate itself from the distinctive markers of 13th-century con\u00adventions and forms. Nevertheless, the clusters of images and symbols associ\u00adated with these sefirot <\/em>are used with great liberty in the Zohar,<\/em> and the con\u00adstellation of symbolic discourse is readily apparent to the experienced reader of medieval Kabbalah [mfn] On this notion of symbolic clusters and the construction of a new religious language through sefirotic terminology, see the remarks of Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar <\/em>(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 56 [\/mfn]. For despite the fact that the Zohar <\/em>uses the word dargin <\/em>(rungs) instead of sefirot <\/em>(along with other Aramaic variations) and employs interchangeable images in place of the most recognizable sefirotic names, the subject of the text is clear, and the Zohar <\/em>presents the drama of an inner divine mythology with a dynamism and life that was not attained in earlier kabbalistic creativity. In the rhythmic Aramaic voice of the Zohar, <\/em>divinity is represented as brimming with interior struggle and yearning. Male lover (Tif'eret) <\/em>and female beloved (Shekhinah\/Malkhut) <\/em>pine for each other with poetic romance, and the actions of Jews in the lower world are thought to stimulate union or separation of those divine forces above. The life of God is represented as a dance of sexual intimacy, a drama of eros between gen\u00addered and personified dimensions of the divine realm that is most easily compared to the mythological narratives of ancient Greece. And yet the Zohar <\/em>constantly disavows these distinctions, claiming that the different, sexually charged sefirot<\/em> are nothing but faces of the one, indivisible, divine organism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The other prominent dimension of zoharic mythology is the perennial cosmic struggle between good and evil, metaphysical forces that are rooted in particular components of the tenfold divine structure [mfn] The two most prominent discussions of this issue in kabbalistic mythology are Ger\u00adshom Scholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah<\/em> (New York: Schocken Books, 1991), pp. 56-87; and Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, <\/em>1:447-74, 509-12. [\/mfn]. <\/strong>The divine self, like the world of human experience, is depicted as dominated by a tense polarity between the Right Side (Hesed<\/em>-Love\/Compassion) and the Left Side (Gevurah<\/em>\/Din<\/em>-Severity\/Judgment); the ideal is the restoration of a proper harmony between these two forces of the cosmos, a harmony that is ultimately a dominance of the Right Side (Hesed)<\/em> over the Left Side, even a subsumption and reintegration of the Left into the Right [mfn] This topic has been examined at great length in the writings of Elliot Wolfson; see, for example, \"Left Contained in the Right: A Study in Zoharic Hermeneutics;' AJS Review <\/em>11 (1986): 27-52; Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism<\/em> (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 326-92; Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination<\/em> (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), pp. 142-89 and notes. [\/mfn]. In this sense, it is Hesed<\/em> that dominates when all is restored and perfect in the cosmos. The ideal and redeemed state of God and world is one of love and compas\u00adsion. This is all the more powerful given that the Left Side is believed to give birth to the demonic, havoc-wreaking forces of the cosmos; the reintegration of the Left Side of God into the Right Side is the ultimate victory over the demonic forces and an obliteration of the severe face of evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The notion that evil derives from, and is even located within, the deity is a startling conception in the history of Jewish thought. This was one of the signature ideas of Castilian Kabbalah in general and of the Zohar<\/em> in particu\u00adlar. Moreover, this divide between left and right is gendered in zoharic Kab\u00adbalah (as it is for Kabbalah more broadly). The ideal absorption of the forces of severity and evil into the forces of compassion and grace is articulated as an absorption of the female dimension of God back into the masculine. In this way, the Attribute ofJudgment (middat ha-din) <\/em>is constructed as female and subordinate to the masculine Attribute of Grace\/Compassion (middat ha-Hesed).<\/em>The perfected state of divinity is an androgynous masculine, the ultimate maleness of God thus understood to relocate femininity back into the masculine, [mfn] This insight has been powerfully argued by Elliot Wolfson; see the above-mentioned works, as well as the more detailed consideration of Wolfson's work in Hava Tirosh-Sam\u00aduelson's chapter in this volume. [\/mfn] a return to the primordial paradigm reflected in the way biblical Eve is drawn from the original body of Adam. For just as the first man was believed to reflect the upper divine image and paradigm, so, too, is the secret of divine gender indicated in the masculinity of primal man from whose body emerges the female. This theory of gender symbolism functions in some tension with the mythic drama of inner-divine courtship, marriage, and sex that the Zohar <\/em>narrates. Tif'eret <\/em>and Shekhinah <\/em>are depicted as lov\u00aders in quest of each other. Ultimately, however, the moment of sexual union enables the restoration of the original singular maleness of the deity. The female is understood to constitute a subcomponent of the unified male God [mfn] The broader subject of mythological creativity and the place of myth in the mysti\u00adcal imagination have also been explored in stimulating ways in recent scholarship. These developments have, among other things, ventured to show the ways in which kabbalistic mythology functions within an organic tradition from rabbinic antiquity, despite the fact that the specifics of theological doctrine are dramatically different. See, for example, Yehuda Liebes, Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism<\/em> (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), pp. 1-64; Elliot R. Wolfson, \"Coronation of the Sabbath Bride: Kabbalistic Myth and the Ritual of Androgynisation\" ; Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy <\/em>6 (1997): 301-44; Michael Fishbane, Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking <\/em>(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 275-92.[\/mfn].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Question Of Authorship<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The historical provenance of the Zohar <\/em>is one of the most palpable wedge issues that exist between modern academic scholars and the community of traditional readers and believers. For the faithful, it is nothing short of blas\u00adphemous to dispute the antiquity of the Zahar; <\/em>Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai's authorship of the text and its position in the classical culture of Rabbinic Judaism is sacrosanct and integral to the traditional perception of Jewish his\u00adtory and textuality. To explode this belief is to unmoor religious memory and collective understandings of the paradigmatic and sacred past. And yet it is just such an explosion that lies at the heart of 20th- (and 21st-) cen\u00adtury scholarship on this monumental text. Responding to the hypotheses and reflections of his predecessors (particularly the embittered judgments asserted by Heinrich Graetz), Gershom Scholem laid the foundation for all subsequent research into the problem of zoharic origins and authorship, in much the same way that he did for virtually every other major area of inquiry in the study of Jewish mysticism. Starting with his earliest Hebrew and Ger\u00adman articles in the 1920s and culminating in his magisterial Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism<\/em> in 1941, Scholem set out to demonstrate why the Zohar <\/em>was a medieval and not a 2nd-century work, and why, in his view, authorship of the text is solely attributable to the late 13th-century Castilian Kabbalist Rabbi Moshe de Leon. In making this bold claim, Scholem marshaled con\u00advincing evidence based on linguistic and thematic criteria. He showed, for example, that the author of the Zohar<\/em> did not have direct knowledge of the geography of the Land of Israel, a startling fact given the traditional claim that the text was authored by a sage living and wandering in that land! Scho\u00adlem points out that the characters walk absurd distances in short periods of time, that the author did not have a proper understanding of direction and proximity in the holy land. He observes that the author of the Zohar<\/em> confuses the mountains of Kurdistan with the mountains of Palestine, that the repre\u00adsentations of natural phenomena in the zoharic adventures are far more con\u00adsonant with the plant life of Spain than they are with that of the Middle East. Among the linguistic criteria observed by Scholem is another phenom\u00adenon that reveals the confused historical knowledge of the zoharic author, one that supports the thesis that the Zohar<\/em> was not written by a 2nd-century mystic. In a clear attempt to relocate the text in antiquity and to remove it from the literary conventions and forms of medieval Judaism, the author fashions an Aramaic that is unlike any other usage in rabbinic literature. Whereas the Kabbalists of medieval Europe wrote in a distinctive Hebrew, the Zohar <\/em>was composed in an Aramaic that attempts to replicate the lan\u00adguage of the Babylonian Talmud and the Targumim, while simultaneously creating a completely idiosyncratic and invented mode of rhetoric, one with hitherto unseen words, phrases, and syntactical constructions. But the author of the Zohar<\/em> clearly was not aware that the tannaitic mystics (most famously represented in the Merkavah<\/em>\/Hekhalot<\/em> corpora) would not (and did not) write esoteric texts in Aramaic. In that era, Aramaic was the language of the populace, the spoken vernacular of the unlettered. It was Hebrew which was the literary language of the times, and it was Hebrew that was employed by the authors of the mystical-esoteric texts from this period. A text like the Zohar,<\/em> which aims to construct a veil of concealment over its own discourse, a secrecy that covers the wisdom to be revealed, would certainly not have been composed in the language of ordinary people. To the contrary, it would seem that the author(s) thought of the Zohar's <\/em>Aramaic as a way to maintain the secrecy and the aura of mystery around the text; precisely because the texts of 13th-century Spain were primarily composed in Hebrew, the strange Aramaic form underscored the esotericism and otherness <\/em>of the text and its subject. [mfn] On the Aramaic of the Zohar,<\/em>see Ada Rapoport-Albert, \"Late Aramaic: The Liter\u00adary and Linguistic Context of the Zohar,\" Aramaic Studies <\/em>4 (2006): 5-19; Yehuda Liebes, \"Hebrew and Aramaic as Languages of the Zohar\" ibid., pp. 35-52; Charles Mopsik, \"Late Judeo-Aramaic: The Language of Theosophic Kabbalah,\" ibid., pp. 21-33 (first published in French in 1999). [\/mfn] Indeed, even apart from the matter of chronological dissimulation, the Aramaic of the Zohar <\/em>functions to instill an atmosphere of mystery. The rhythms and tones of the text cast a secretive mist over the encounters and teachings represented, and I suggest that the author(s) sought to stimulate just such a sense of mystery in the readers of the work. [mfn] See Melila Hellner-Eshed, A River Flows from Eden:The Language of Mystical Experi\u00adence in the Zohar,<\/em> trans. Nathan Wolski (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), pp. 157-88. [\/mfn] <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In making his assessment, Scholem noted still other features that point to a medieval dating of the text. Scholem observed the use of numerous philo\u00adsophical concepts and turns of phrase that did not enter into Jewish usage until the Middle Ages, syntactical and idiomatic constructions that are thinly veiled Aramaic translations of distinctive medieval Hebrew forms and expressions; traces of Arabic and Muslim influence (which would have been anach\u00adronistic in the 2nd century), as well as a few instances of zoharic expression that betray a knowledge of Spanish (Castilian). Perhaps the most convincing piece of philological evidence emphasized by Scholem is the stunning similar\u00adity between the Zohar <\/em>and the Hebrew writings of Rabbi Moshe de Leon. For despite the fact that the Zohar <\/em>achieves a lyricism and dynamism not reached in de Leon's Hebrew works, the similarities in phrasing, syntax, and theme are indeed overwhelming. For a variety of reasons spelled out by Scholem, it is clear that de Leon's works were not simply influenced by an existing zoharic text; the signature manners of the Zohar<\/em> are organic to de Leon's stylistic method in his Hebrew books. Moreover, there is no Kabbalist whose writings more closely resemble the Zohar <\/em>in thought and compositional approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of Scholem's foundational insights still hold true and have guided the development of research for subsequent generations of scholars. And yet much has changed as well. Yehuda Liebes suggested a bold new approach in his 1982 article, \"How the Zohar Was Written \"; an essay that dramati\u00adcally shifted scholarly assumptions about and approaches to the question of authorship. [mfn] Yehuda Liebes, Studies in the Zohar,<\/em> trans. Stephanie Nakache (Albany: State Univer\u00adsity of New York Press, 1993), pp. 85-138. [\/mfn] Liebes put forth the groundbreaking argument that the Zohar <\/em>was quite probably composed by a group of Kabbalists, of which Moshe de Leon was a central part. Liebes himself acknowledged the extraordinary con\u00adnection between de Leon and the Zohar, <\/em>and affirmed that de Leon should still be viewed as the author of the great majority of the zoharic composition. [mfn] On the shift in Liebes's opinion about this matter, see Abrams, \"The Invention of the Zohar<\/em> as a Book\";  p. 71. [\/mfn] But Liebes articulated convincing arguments for the hypothesis that several other Castilian Kabbalists also had a hand in this authorship-including such prominent figures as Yosef Gikatilla, Bahya ben Asher, Yosef of Hamadan, and David ben Yehuda he-Hasid. [mfn] Also see Moshe Idel, \"Kabbalistic Material from the School of R. David ben Yehuda he-Hasid\" [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought<\/em> 2 (1983): 169-207. [\/mfn] Most significant, Liebes proposed and effected the shift in scholarly emphasis from asking \"Who wrote the Zohar?\" <\/em>to \"How was the Zohar <\/em>written?\" Liebes suggested that a real-life circle of mystics stands behind the Zohar's <\/em>fictionalized group of wanderers; he even went so far as to hypothesize that Rabbi Todros Abulafia of Toledo may have been the real-world model for the figure of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the text. [mfn] Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, <\/em>pp. 135-38. [\/mfn] In shifting our attention to the \"how\" of zoharic composition, Liebes underscored the idea that the text was likely written as the collaboration of a mystical fraternity, the product of fellowship and shared spiritual purpose.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In more recent developments, Ronit Meroz has taken the conclusions of Liebes in exciting new directions. Meroz argues that the Zohar <\/em>reflects many more compositional layers than was previously assumed; she has inaugu\u00adrated a new kind of literary archeology, which utilizes the diversity of manu\u00ad script evidence to claim that different strata of the Zohar<\/em>were written over the course of many years-,-indeed, over the span of numerous generations.[mfn] See Ronit Meroz, \"Der Aufbau des Buches Sohar \" : PaRDeS:Zeitschrift der Vereini\u00adgung fiir judischen Studien <\/em>11 (2005): 16-36. [\/mfn] In the research of Meroz, the supposed unity of the zoharic literature (leav\u00ading aside the major distinctions already observed by Scholem) has been chal\u00adlenged, thereby raising new questions as to how the Zohar <\/em>came to achieve its ultimate form. Indeed, as Daniel Abrams has argued, the very nature of the manuscript evidence points to the provocative notion that the Zohar <\/em>did not achieve the status of a \"closed book\"; a canonized text with the shape and borders encountered by modern readers, until it was first printed in the 16th century. [mfn] Abrams, \"The Invention of the Zohar <\/em>as a Book,\" p. 107. [\/mfn] At that pivotal moment, the printers of the Mantua and Cre\u00admona editions of the Zohar<\/em> collated a diverse set of manuscripts to fashion the book we now refer to as the Sefer ha-Zohar. <\/em>Prior to that time, Abrams argues, the work existed as a loose constellation of manuscript fragments and passages, not necessarily reflecting some underlying base text that was com\u00ad posed by the Castilian Kabbalists of the late 13th century. A disparate array of strata and sources (most of which, to be sure, were authored by those Castil\u00adian Kabbalists) existed as a non-unified literary landscape; the Mantua and Cremona editors gave new order and shape to that literature, thereby form\u00ad ing a new entity known as the Sefer ha-Zohar<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this juncture I highlight the most recent major contribution of Elliot Wolfson to the question of authorship and composition. In a fascinating new article that offers a critical edition of a hitherto neglected source, Wolfson reveals striking affinities between the Zohar <\/em>and a text known as Sha'arei ha-Zaqen <\/em>(The Gates of the Elder). [mfn] Elliot Wolfson, \"The Anonymous Chapters of the Elderly Master of Secrets: New Evidence for the Early Activity of the Zoharic Circle\": Kabbalah:Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts<\/em>19 (2009): 143-278, esp. pp. 172-83. [\/mfn] Like the narrative about Shimon bar Yochai and his wandering disciples, a story in which the drama of the text revolves around the master who reveals the secrets, the Sha'arei ha-Zaqen <\/em>centers upon such a revered figure, one that suggests the existence of a real\u00ad world circle of Kabbalists who may have been one of the primary envisioned models for the authors of the Zohar. <\/em>Furthermore, in addition to the figure of Shimon bar Yochai, the Zohar <\/em>dramatizes the persona of another elderly master of secrets, the much discussed old man of its commentary on para\u00adshat Mishpatim <\/em>(the Sabba de-Mishpatim).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Literary Approach To The Zohar<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As I have outlined above, zoharic scholarship to this point has focused on the historical question of authorship; the conceptual universe of zoharic theol\u00adogy, mythology, and symbolism; the exegetical dimensions of the text; the nature of mystical experience; and the representation of gender and sexuality with the human and the divine realms. Relative to this prodigious research, we are still in the early stages of our appreciation of the Zohar <\/em>as a work of the literary imagination, as a product of poetic and narrative artistry. [mfn] That said, however, quite a number of important advances have been made. Among an array of other works, Yehuda Liebes's groundbreaking study, \"The Messiah of the Zohar<\/em>\" (in Studies in the Zohar,<\/em> pp. 1-84 and notes) powerfully demonstrated that the representation of Shimon bar Yochai as the \"great one\" of his, and indeed all, generations was critical to the life of the text and to the depth of its reception among generations of devoted readers. Other elements of the literary approach are present in Liebes, \"Zohar and Eros\" [in Hebrew], Alpayyim <\/em>9(1994): 67-119. This last essay explores the playfulness of the narrative strata, including the use of humor in zoharic creativity. Other important contributions to the literary approach, or to the study of the narrative content, include Mati Megged, The Darkened Light : Aesthetic Values in the Zohar<\/em> [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Poalim, 1980); Mordechai Pachter, \"Between Night and Morning: A Literary Analysis of a Zoharic Text\" [in Hebrew], in The Age of the Zohar, <\/em>ed. Yosef Dan (Jerusa\u00ad Hebrew University Press, 1989), pp. 311-46; Naomi Tene, \"Constructions of the Story in the Zohar\" [in Hebrew] (Ph.D. dissertation, Bar Ilan University, 1993); Michal Oron, \"Set Me as a Seal upon Your Heart: The Poetics of the Zohar in Sabba de-Mishpatim<\/em>\" [in Hebrew], in Masu'ot : Studies in the Literature of Kabbalah and Jewish Thought Dedicated to the Memory of Prof Efrayim Gottlieb, <\/em>ed. Michal Oron and Amos. Goldreich (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1994), pp. 1-24; Eliane Amado Levy-Valensi, La Po\u00e9tique du Zohar<\/em> (Paris: Editions de l'Eclat, 1996); Pinchas Giller, \"Love and Upheaval in the Zohar's Sabba de\u00ad Mishpatim <\/em>\" :Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy<\/em> 7 (1997): 31-60; Aryeh Wineman, Mystic Tales from the Zohar <\/em>(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1997); Boaz Huss, \"A Sage Is Preferable to a Prophet: R. Shimon bar Yochai and Moses in the Zohar\" [in Hebrew], Kabbalah:Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts <\/em>4 (1999): 103-39; Ronit Meroz, \"Zoharic Narratives and Their Adaptations \"\u00a0 Hispania Judaica Bulletin <\/em>3 (2000): 3-63; Gil Anidjar, \"Our Place in al-Andalus, Kabbalah, Philosophy ,Literature in Arab Jewish Letters <\/em>(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), pp. 166-218; Eitan P. Fishbane, \"Tears of Disclosure: The Role of Weeping in Zoharic Narrative\" : Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy <\/em>11 (2002): 25\".\"47 ; David Greenstein, ''Aimless Pilgrimage: The Quotidian Utopia of the Zohar<\/em>\" (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 2003), esp. pp. 105-44; Hellner\u00ad Eshed, A River Flows from Eden ;<\/em>Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being ,<\/em>esp. pp. 1-45, 190-260, and notes (Wolfson's work in this monograph opens up the dynamic forces of poetic imagery and contemplative imagination in the Kabbalah ; his quest to \"craft a poetics of Kabbalah\" and its relation to one of Scholem's many programmatic remarks, is articulated on pp. xi-xiv); Oded Yisraeli, The Interpretation of Secrets and the Secret of Interpretation: Midrashic and Hermeneutic Strategies in Sabba de-Mishpatim of the Zohar <\/em>[in Hebrew] (Los Angeles: Cherub, 2005), pp. 51-112; Ronit Meroz, \"The Weaving of a Myth: An Analysis of Two Stories in the Zohar<\/em>\" [in Hebrew], in Study and Knowledge in Jewish Thought, <\/em>ed. Howard Kreisel (Be'er-Sheva: Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2006), 2:167-205; Michal Oron, \"Toe Motif of the Yanuqa <\/em>and Its Meaning in the Zohar\" [in Hebrew), in Hiddushei Zohar, <\/em>ed. Ronit Meroz (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2007), pp. 129...64; joel Hecker, \"Kissing Kabbalists: Hierarchy, Reciprocity, and Equality\";\u00a0 in Love-Virtual and Real-in the Jewish Tradition, <\/em>ed. Leonard J. Greenspoon, Ronald A. Simkins, and Jean A. Cahan (Omaha, Nebr.: Creighton University Press, 2008), pp. 171-208; Nathan Wolski, \"Mystical Poetics: Narrative, Time, and Exegesis in the Zohar\" : Prooftexts <\/em>28 (2008):-28; idem, \"Don Quixote and Sancho Panza Were Walking on the Way: El Caballero Andante and the Book of Radiance (SeferHaZohar)\"<\/em> ; Shofar <\/em>27 (2009): 24-47; and Eitan P. Fishbane, \"The Scent of the Rose: Drama, Fiction, and Narrative Form in the Zohar\" ; Prooftexts <\/em>29 (2009) 324-61. [\/mfn] This is, after all, one of the central threads of zoharic textuality; the rhythm of the work is set by the alternation between the mystical Midrash and the fictional representation of Shimon bar Yochai and his band of Galilean disciples. It is to this desideratum<\/em> of scholarship that my own work is directed; I seek to develop a poetics of zoharic narration, an understanding of the narrative tapestry and the techniques whereby the authors take us into the imagined world of mystery and mystical disclosure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As intimated earlier, the fiction of the Zohar<\/em> portrays a quest for wisdom, the sojourn of a group of mystics through the ancient Galilee in search of a deeper understanding of divine truth in the cosmos. This point is essential, I believe, to an appreciation of the dynamic interplay between the Zohar's <\/em>narrative and exegetical modes. The narrated anecdotes and tales most often depict a moment of mystical discovery, an insight that is presented to the companions through an encounter of one sort or another. Frequently this takes place through an interpersonal encounter with a stranger along the road. The companions meet a figure who does not appear to be a kabbalis\u00adtic sage but turns out to be the bearer of some extraordinary level of mysti\u00adcal knowledge and teaching. In one instance, a donkey driver reveals him\u00ad self to be a great sage; in another a small child delivers a profound homily and rebukes the rabbis for their shortcomings in piety; and in yet another scene the companions are guided to safety in the desert by a man who sub\u00ad sequently delivers a stunning kabbalistic discourse. In all these cases, the moment of teaching is represented as a great surprise, a wondrous and unex\u00adpected discovery, a revelation that is greeted with intense emotional and rhetorical drama on the part of the companions. In still other instances, a few examined here, kabbalistic meaning is extracted from an experience in the natural world. The companions encounter a particular phenomenon of nature, and this moment of engagement serves as a stimulus for new associa\u00adtions in theological and cosmic meaning. In these instances, we observe the interdependent relationship between the exegetical and narrative modes, as well as the way in which the lines of discourse are drawn and bridged by a removed narrator and editor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this is mind, I turn to a paradigmatic textual case. Framed as a hom\u00adily on the opening chapter of Exodus, this pericope begins by citing the lan\u00adguage of that biblical text: \"A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph\" : We may note, first of all, that, like a great many exegetical moments in classical midrashic literature, the citation of the verse is presented in the removed voice of an editor; the interpretive voice of the specific sage whose reference is only cited as such after <\/em>the anonymously uttered biblical verse. And in keeping with earlier midrashic models, the zoharic text immediately shifts to a particular rabbinic voice, in this case, that of Rabbi Yosi, who offers a kabbalistic reading of the biblical words. Rabbi Yosi links the verse in Exo\u00addus with a seemingly unrelated formulation in Psalm 104- \"He makes His angels spirits\"; such a method of correlation between distant biblical verses was also a typical technique of the older homiletical Midrashim. It is the use of the present tense (aseh,<\/em>\"makes\") that attracts the preacher's attention, and he asserts that God is constantly creating angelic messengers to be in charge of different elements of the universe. And this, Rabbi Yosi argues, is how we should understand the statement in Exodus 1:8. Because all phenomena and happenings of the earthly realm are the mirrored reflections of the heavenly domain, the rise of a new king in Egypt reflects the moment in which a celes\u00adtial purveyor was appointed over the demonic, impure elements of the cos\u00admos, a cluster of negative forces represented by the symbolic word \"Egypt\" : For just as there is an Egypt below, so, too, is there an Egypt above. Rabbi Yosi then parses the second half of the verse, \"who did not know Joseph\" (asherlo yada et yosef): <\/em>because the purveyor of cosmic impurity comes from \"the place of Separation\" (atar de-peiruda) <\/em>or the evil Other Side of the cosmic structure, he is characterized as one who does not know Joseph, the symbolic represen\u00adtation of divine perfection, righteousness, holiness, and sexual purity, the fre\u00adquent term of choice to refer to the sefirah Yesod,<\/em> the locus of male sexuality within the divine self. As is the way of the Zohar,<\/em> the straightforward meaning (peshat) <\/em>of the biblical text, and indeed of the whole earthly world, is read as a doorway into a deeper understanding of the divine mysteries and the work\u00adings of the cosmos. In this case, the polarity between earthly Joseph and the subsequent Pharaoh of earthly Egypt reflects a heavenly polarity between the ultimate forces of Good and Evil, of purity and impurity, in the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it is to the relationship between this interpretation and the narrative that follows that I want to call our attention. Immediately upon the conclu\u00adsion of Rabbi Yosi's kabbalistic interpretation of the biblical verse, the voice of the text shifts from quoted speech to a removed narration of the journey\u00ad ing companions. Having just been the speaker of exegesis, Rabbi Yosi now becomes the subject of a fictional scene that carries the purpose of anchoring the foregoing hermeneutical assertions in the living context of the road, in an encounter with the vibrant phenomena of the natural world, the moment of discovery wherein cosmic meaning is extrapolated from the physical-sen\u00adsory experience of the companions :<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Yosi were traveling on the road, and they arose with the light to continue walking. They saw a star running from one side and another star from the other side. Rabbi Elazar said, \"The time has now arrived for the stars of morning to praise their Master. They are running out of fear and awe for their Master, to praise and to sing to Him\" :\u00a0As it is written: \"When the morning stars sang together, and all the divine beings shouted for joy\" (Job 38:7). Because they are all in one unity, they praise Him.<\/p>Zohar<\/em> 2 : 10a-10b.<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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At this point, we are still hard-pressed to discern a link between the exe\u00adgesis regarding the figure of Joseph and the narrated encounter with the sun\u00ad rise and morning stars. Here the lyrical voice of the Zohar<\/em> comes to the fore : we are drawn into the pastoral imagination of the text, into an evocation of natural rhythms of the world as a seemingly pure celebration of physi\u00adcal wonderment. The stars are personified only to the extent that they are the hyper-literal realization of Job's use of imagery; we have yet to see these natural phenomena as portals to metaphysical understanding. But that tran\u00adsition takes place almost immediately as the interpreter (presumably still in the voice of Rabbi Elazar) offers a correlated metaphysical reading of Psalm 22:6. Here we also see the association to the Joseph exegesis :<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"For the leader; on the doe of the dawn. A Psalm of David\" (Ps. 22:6)\u00ad \"Doe of the dawn'' : For when the face of the East shines and the dark\u00ad ness of night withdraws, there is one purveyor for the east side, and he draws forth a single thread of light from the south side until the sun comes and emerges and breaks through the windows of heaven and illu\u00admines the world. And that thread of light causes the darkness of night to withdraw.<\/p>Zohar<\/em> 2 : 10a-10b.<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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In these lines we still see the Zohar <\/em>in lyrical thrall to the mysterious rhythms of nature; the majestic experience of sunrise is represented as the sublime craft of heavenly officers, the unfolding threads of light a medita\u00adtion on the slow and wondrous passage from the depths of night to the rise of morning. In the instrumental role of the appointed purveyor (memanne), <\/em>we observe the rhetorical link between the foregoing exegesis regarding the \"new king who did not know Joseph'' and the lyrical representation of sun\u00ad rise prompted by the moment in the narrative in which the stars are beheld. This association is significant in that it begins to crystallize the manner in which the Zohar <\/em>moves from one thought to another, from the hermeneuti\u00adcal to the narrative-lyrical and back again. Through the powerful hand of the purveyor, the speaker evokes the drama of that radiant breaking through, the passage of increasing illumination through the \"windows\" of the firmament, the shining of the \"face\" of the East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Utilizing such metaphoric depiction endows the sunrise in the East with a quality of personified life, a living face that is aglow with awakened energy. Thus far, the Zohar<\/em> speaks within the ordinary bounds of nature; there may be heavenly officers in charge of the mundane cycle, but we have yet to pass into the realm of theosophical knowledge, of the extrapolation of inner divine mysteries from the happenings and structures of the world. But this is indeed the next step in the zoharic speaker's exegetical process; the poetic evocation of the natural realm, first fueled by the narrated encounter of the companions with the wonder of an emergent daylight, leads the Zohar <\/em>on an inexorable stream of association to the dynamics of the divine sefirot. <\/em>With this we return to the opening focus of the reflection-the \"doe of the dawn\" (ayelet ha-shahar) <\/em>and her symbolically potent emergence in the predawn light that divides the night from the day : [mfn] Compare this text to the parallel analyzed in Mordechai Pachter, \"Between Night and Morning \";\u00a0 pp. 311-46. See the parallel to the Sha'arei ha-Zaqen<\/em> (as mentioned by Moshe Cordovero) cited in Wolfson, \"The Anonymous Chapters of the Elderly Master of Secrets \" ;\u00a0 p. 147 n. 23. [\/mfn] <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the doe of the dawn [aye\/etha-shahar] <\/em>comes out, and a black light emerges in the darkness to join with the day, and the day is illuminated. And the light of day subsumes and draws that doe [ayelet]<\/em> into itself.<\/p>Zohar<\/em> 2 : 10a-10b.<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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With this depiction of the doe that comes out at the earliest moment of dawn, Rabbi Elazar has begun the interpretive move so characteristic of zoharic exegesis. The sun is a well-known symbol for the masculine sefirah Tiferet <\/em>in kabbalistic hermeneutics, and the darkness of night (further sym\u00adbolized elsewhere by the moon) and the aye\/et <\/em>are standard symbols for the Shekhinah, <\/em>the feminine dimension of Divinity, the partner of Tiferet. <\/em>The breaking through of dawn's light is the first gesture of love and eros between Tiferet <\/em>and Shekhinah; <\/em>this moment culminates in the union of male and female, here characterized as the drawing in of the female, the reabsorption and enclosure of the feminine within the masculine that is such a dominant gender paradigm in kabbalistic symbolism, despite the fact that it clearly runs counter to the workings of earthly heterosexuality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so the natural phenomenon of sunrise is understood to reflect a supernal dynamic within the divine self, the process of the two inner-divine lovers uniting as one light. But as the lovers separate, following the climactic moment of union, they immediately yearn for each other; they lament the sorrow of their parting. It is in this way that the Zohar <\/em>magnificently reflects on the meaning of Psalm 22 and the enigmatic juxtaposition of the ayelet ha-shahar<\/em> in verse 1 with the passionate call of the psalmist in verses 2 and 3, the exclamation of yearning for a God who has seemingly abandoned the individual to his crying and his anguish. The Zohar<\/em> makes this exegesis of the Psalm explicit in the lines that follow :<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it was about this doe, [about the moment] when she withdraws from the daylight that subsumed her, that David sang his song. As it is written: For the leader; on the \"doe of dawn\" :\u00a0 And what did he say? \"My God, my God, why have you abandoned me ? \"\u00a0 For the doe of dawn (ayelet ha-shahar) <\/em>has withdrawn from the light of day.<\/p>Zohar<\/em> 2 : 10a-10b.<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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The cry over divine absence in Psalm 22:2-3 is understood to be a direct response to the symbolic meaning of verse 1. The doe that emerged at dawn's light, that was enveloped and subsumed in the radiance of the rising sun, has returned to her hiding place. In the symbolism of the Zohar,<\/em> the Shekhinah <\/em>who had been united in love with Tiferet<\/em> has now withdrawn from the fully risen sun, and her lover, Tiferet,<\/em>cries out in anguished yearning, \"My God, my God, why have You abandoned me ? \"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though somewhat marginal to my specific literary concerns here, it certainly behooves us to recall the centrality of this Psalm to Chris\u00adtian thinking about the Passion of Christ. In Matthew 27, Jesus utters a blended Hebrew and Aramaic version of these words on the cross at the height of his suffering, and Christian exegetes have long understood Psalm 22 to be a prefiguration of the crucifixion. Seen through the lens of later Christian theology, the language of Psalm 22 and Matthew 27 reflects an inner<\/em> divine cry-a calling out of yearning from the divine Son to the divine Father. It is in this respect that there exists a striking parallel between the zoharic exegesis and the Christian model. In the passage from the Zohar <\/em>it is also an inner <\/em>divine cry that takes place-one sefirotic dimension of Divinity cries out in anguish over the absence of his lover; it is Tiferet <\/em>who utters an exclamatory lament for the withdrawn Shekhinah. <\/em>A veiled correlation, to be sure, though one wonders whether this exegesis may reflect some measure of response to Christian think\u00ad ing, especially in light of our growing appreciation for the likelihood that the Christian majority culture in medieval Spain may have influenced the zoharic literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, the voice of the text shifts again from Rabbi Elazar's homiletical monologue back to a voice that seemingly stands outside the text or, at the very least, outside the interior of narrative action. This third-person voice serves to enclose the exegesis of Rabbi Elazar, and indeed returns us to the original context within which the teaching about the ayelet ha-shahar <\/em>was articulated :<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As they were walking, the day became light, and the time for [morning] prayer arrived. Rabbi Elazar said, \"Let us pray and then walk on\" : They sat and prayed. Afterward, they stood up and [continued] walking.<\/p>Zohar<\/em> 2 : 10a-10b.<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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As we find rather frequently in the Zohar,<\/em>the narrated action here is conveyed in a simple staccato rhythm; unlike the many instances in which the authors apply their considerable poetic artistry (as we have just observed in the Zohar's <\/em>depiction of the sunrise and its correlated metaphysical drama), the narrator here seems merely interested in seal\u00ad ing up one piece of discourse and opening another. The intentional act of sitting to pray functions here as a gesture of pause and focus in the narrative rhythm, and it evokes its own intrigue. One would assume that the companions would have needed to stand for parts of the morning service (as is stipulated by rabbinic law) before rising again to continue walking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the moment of prayer and the act of sitting [mfn] See the parallel to Sha'arei ha-Zaqen <\/em>(as mentioned by Moshe Cordovero) cites in Wolfson, \"The Anonymous Chapters of the Elderly Master of Secrets\", p. 147 n.23 [\/mfn] are most notable for our purposes insofar as they function to complete the pericope; after the com\u00ad panions stand and continue walking, Rabbi Elazar launches into an unre\u00adlated metaphysical discourse. The interrelated acts of sitting and praying mark the rise of the sun to full daylight; it is clearly the recognition of that light that prompts Rabbi Elazar's suggestion that they pray before walking further. In this way the act of morning prayer seals and brings to dramatic conclusion the discourse that it follows. For having first beheld the rushing stars of dawn within the context of the fictional tale, Rabbi Elazar's kabbalis\u00adtic teaching was a theological-metaphysical reflection on the gradual emer\u00adgence of daylight, a mystical rumination stimulated by an experience in the natural world. Returning to the third-person voice (for we recall that the encounter with the morning stars was first narrated in the third-person), the completion of sunrise is acknowledged and responded to with ritual gesture and speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, I have set out here to examine the contours and borders of zoharic discourse through consideration of one paradigmatic pericope. I have sought to show the manner in which the Zohar <\/em>is crafted as a tapes\u00ad try of exegesis, narrative, and lyricism-how the narrative dramatizes the energy and process of mystical discovery. The fictional dimension of the Zohar<\/em>is by no means incidental to the creative power of the text ; instead, it is within the shapes and wonders of worldly exploration that the divine mysteries are revealed-the narrative of journey and the lyrical representa\u00adtion of the natural realm serve to lead the kabbalistic exegete into the dis\u00adcovery of metaphysical associations. Through this lens of analysis, which has been remarkably underdeveloped in zoharic scholarship, we see the workings of an organic and protean literary aesthetic, a textual weave that still awaits appreciation as one of the pivotal masterworks in the broad his\u00adtory of religious literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sefer Yetzirah<\/a>
Sefer<\/span> Yetzirah<\/span> Title page of an edition of the Sefer<\/span> Yetzirah<\/span> published in Mantua in 1562. The Sefer<\/span> Yetzirah<\/span> (Hebrew: \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05d9\u05e6\u05d9\u05e8\u05d4 \"Book of Creation\"<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Kabbalah<\/a>
between the 4th century and the 8th century. The Book of Creation ( Sefer<\/span> Yetzirah<\/span> ), the oldest written text of Kabbalah attributed to the Patriarch Abraham<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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