Kabbalah and the Zohar — An Overview

The small layer: a five-minute orientation for the curious newcomer.

What "Kabbalah" means

Kabbalah (Hebrew QBLH) is the esoteric doctrine of Judaism. The word derives from the root QBL, "to receive": knowledge handed down by oral transmission, "nearly allied to tradition."1 In its own self-understanding it is not an invention but the received inner meaning of the Hebrew Bible — a way of reading Scripture that finds, behind the literal narrative, a living map of God, creation, and the soul.

One misconception cleared at once: the Zohar is not a grimoire. Those expecting "a storehouse of magic" will be corrected by the text itself; the magical books borrowing Hebrew names are "a depravation at a very far distance" of kabbalistic notions, with "no doctrine attached to them."2 Kabbalah is theosophy — discourse about God — not spellcraft.

The Zohar: the Book of Splendour

Zohar means "Brightness" or "Splendour," from Daniel 12:3 — "they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament."3 It is, in Joshua Abelson's phrase, "par excellence, the text book of Jewish mediaeval mysticism" — written partly in Aramaic and partly in Hebrew — purporting to be a commentary on the Pentateuch, in reality "quite an independent compendium of Kabbalistic theosophy."3

Its dramatic frame: the discourses of Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai, a 2nd-century sage of Galilee, to his disciples. It opens with the master taking as his text the Song of Songs — "As a lily amongst the thorns" — and unfolding from that one image the congregation of Israel and the mystery of the divine name.4 Everything in the Zohar works this way: a verse of Scripture becomes a doorway, and behind the doorway, immense vistas.

The sefirot: the map of ten

The heart of the doctrine is the ten sefirot — "numerical emanations," the abstract forms of the numbers one through ten, through which the Deity unfolds from hiddenness into manifestation.1 "He made ten lights spring forth from His midst," says a Zoharic passage, "lights which shine with the form which they have borrowed from Him."3

Behind the ten stands Ein Sof, the Limitless — approached through three veils of "negative existence": Ain (Negativity), Ain Soph (the Limitless), Ain Soph Aur (the Limitless Light), concentrated in the first sefirah, Kether.1 The ten in their order: Kether (Crown) · Chokmah (Wisdom, the Father) · Binah (Understanding, the great Mother) · Chesed (Mercy, Love) · Geburah (Strength, Justice) · Tiphereth (Beauty, the King) · Netzach (Victory) · Hod (Splendour) · Yesod (Foundation) · Malkuth (Kingdom — the Queen, the Bride, the Shekinah).1

Two ideas hold the map together. The first is equilibrium: the Book of Concealed Mystery opens, "The Book of Concealed Mystery is the book of the equilibrium of balance" — in each triad, two opposite potencies (masculine and feminine, mercy and severity) are harmonized by a third.1 The second is interpenetration: "Kether is in Malkuth, and Malkuth is in Kether."1 In later systematization the ten unfold through four worlds — Atziloth (Emanation), Briah (Creation), Yetzirah (Formation), Asiah (Action).1

Shekinah: the indwelling presence

No theme runs through the Zohar more constantly than the Shekinah — the feminine, indwelling glory of God, identified with Malkuth. "The Secret Doctrine of the Zohar must be said to centre in that mystery... which lies behind the wonder and glory of Shekinah — a recurring, and speaking literally, incessant subject of reference in adoring honour throughout the great text."2 Where theology stresses God's transcendence, the Zohar insists on God's nearness: the divine presence goes into exile with Israel and dwells among the people.

An honest note on history

Hold two accounts at once. The traditional account, which the Zohar speaks in its own voice, attributes the work to Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai in 2nd-century Galilee; Adolphe Franck defended this view, arguing the Zohar's foundation was laid by Simeon ben Yohai, its ideas appear in writers centuries before the 1200s, and Moses de Leon — its medieval publisher — could not himself have authored it.5

The critical account, held by scholars such as Christian Ginsburg, is that the Zohar "made its first appearance in Spain in the 13th century."3 Ginsburg recounts the famous investigation: pressed by Isaac of Acre to produce the ancient manuscript he claimed to own, Moses de Leon died before he could — and his widow and daughter afterwards declared "that he composed the Zohar from his own head, and wrote it with his own hand."6 Both positions are recorded without an imposed verdict; the deeper layers lay out the evidence.

Where to go next

• Deep (deep.md): eight lessons — pre-Zoharic roots, the Zohar's voice, the sefirot, Shekinah and the soul, the Safed renewal, the art of reading.
• Ultra-deep (ultra-deep.md): the full treatise — history, the authorship debate, the sefirot in depth, Lurianic cosmology, Christian Kabbalah, annotated bibliography.

Sources

• 1 — S. L. MacGregor Mathers, Kabbala Denudata: The Kabbalah Unveiled (1887), from Knorr von Rosenroth's Latin.
• 4 — Nurho de Manhar, The Sepher Ha-Zohar (1914).
• 6 — Christian D. Ginsburg, The Kabbalah (1920; 1st ed. 1865).
• 3 — Joshua Abelson, Jewish Mysticism (1913).
• 2 — Arthur Edward Waite, The Secret Doctrine in Israel (1913).
• 5 — Adolphe Franck, The Kabbalah, trans. I. Sossnitz (1926; French original 1843).