The Zohar

Main Topics from Scholem, Major Trends Lecture #6

Reasons for the Zohar's Popularity

in comparison with ecstatic or systematic schools of Kabblah
• Non-elitist (compared to Abulafia, Maimonides, etc.).
• Focus on issues of popular concern
• Homiletical format: linked to Scripture and traditional midrashic literature
• Non-systematic.

The Zohar's doctrines as "Theosophy"

• What does this imply?
• How does "theosophy" differ from:
  • philosophy?
  • theology?

Redirection of focus from Chariot to Sefirot

• = From experiential to theoretical?

Kabbalistic "symbol" vs.philosophical allegory

• Lower world as metaphor for celestial reality, rather than the reverse.
• Contrast with philosphical approach to religious/scriptural language ("Discourse about God is nothing more than a compromise with the limits of human perception, but says nothing meaningful about God").

Relationship between the Ein-Sof and the Sefirot

• In the Zohar, the unfolding of the Sefirot takes place within God--not as emanations from God.
  Not all Kabbalistic systems agree on that point.
• Sefirot are to the Ein-Sofas flames to a coal.

The Zohar's hermeneutical system

• Concept of four levels of interpretation, with the Kabbalistic as the ultimate.
• To what extent does the Zohar acknowledge the legitimacy of the other Jewish hermeneutical systems--literal, midrashic and philosophical?

The Zohar's view of the Ten Sefirot

• Balance between presenting them as a single totality and depicting their individual identities.
• Principal types of Sefirot imagery:
  • Human: as Primordial Man (Adam Qadmon).
  • Tree (cf. Gnostic symbolism).
  • Divine names (and letters of Tetragrammaton).
  • "Pronouns".
  • Biblical persons.
  • etc...
• "One God in ten Sefirot" -- open to charges of polytheism.

New Interpretation of "Creatio ex Nihilo"

• Physical creation (cosmogony) reflects emanation of Sefirot (theogony)
• Doctrines of different levels of existence (as unbroken chain):
  • Ein-Sof->
  • Chariot->
  • Angels->
  • Heavens->
  • Physical world of the four elements
• Our "world of separation" was not an original part of the Creation, but was the result of the Fall.

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