An Evening with The Zohar

good evening and welcome our program this evening is graced by the presence of Margo and Tom Pritzker whose thoughtful and visionary support has made possible a remarkable contribution to Western and to Jewish cultural intellectual and spiritual life if the reward of the good deed is a good deed then their reward is surely remarkable for this translation and commentary that will endure and endure I also want to acknowledge the presence here tonight of Yonatan been our ocean who recently received his doctorate from Hebrew University he along with merav carmely of Australia are the two masters of the manuscripts these are the scholars who scoured the libraries and archives to track down as many available manuscripts and manuscript fragments of the Zohar preparing the variant readings for translation Thank You Jana Tonga this evening we are commemorating as we did many years ago the launch of this project we are commemorating the completion of this monumental project with us tonight to celebrate and to lend appreciation to the Zohar Pritzker addition our several scholars I will introduce them now so that we can move a pace without interruption our first speaker will be Moshe Alberto who groups professor at NYU Law School he is the author of some major works in Jewish thought including Maimonides life and thought idolatry and people of the book professor Hallberg Cowell will discuss Daniel Matt's accomplishment in translation and commentary in the context of Jewish intellectual history he will be followed by dr. Arthur green Arthur needs no introduction to any American Jewish audience interested in Jewish thought or theology he is most recently rector of the rabbinical school at the Boston Hebrew College which he founded some years ago his works in Jewish theology and Kabbalah and kasi doot are simply too numerous to list I will only mention his first published book tormented master a life of rabbi nachman of breslov Arthur and I had the pleasure in the privilege of co-chairing the academic committee for the translation of the Zohar Arthur will discuss the place of Daniel Matt's translation and commentary in the context of the development of Jewish attitudes to Kabbalah over the past several hundred years finally before we hear from Daniel Matt Joel Hecker who is professor of Jewish mysticism at the Reconstructionist rabbinical College dr. Hecker is the translator of volumes 11 and with volume 11 and with Nathan Wolski of portions of volume 12 dr. Hecker will share with us some of his experience following these three presentations we will have the delight and the privilege to listen to the Kitana Zohar last week was the rejoicing of the law one of whose honors accorded is that a notably learned person is crowned as the groom of the Torah well Daniel Matt whose accomplishment is monumental is the coton has o ha and all of us are in his debt Daniel Matt following the three presentations will teach some of his translation and commentary Thank You Marcia Halbert Tom please Thanks good evening and it's a great honor to celebrate Danny Matteson Eve meant I want to share one one experience that I have I when I began to read a translation and heard about the translation I thought what what a great contribution this will be to the english-speaking world American jewelry scholars at large and as I study it more and more reading the soil in the original I realized what a contribution it is for those who read as well in Hebrew and Aramaic and I want to say one thing about the quality of the translation which is the greatness of a translator is that the one who thinks that he's acquainted by the original gains a new insight of the original by reading the translation and I must say every passage of the azure that I read I have that experience reading your translation I want to say something else about the commentary done is added a commentary to his wonderful translation and the commentary is is a is a work of art is magnificent it's actually I think the best commentary written on the Czar in any language so really thank you for the gift you have given us it's a wonderful wonderful achievement and gift I wanna I wanna speak shortly about what I think is three major insights achievements of the ZOA as a as a corpus as a compilation and and then since the Czar is a work of art rather than a tract of theology or metaphysics I will read a passage that I think is one of the deepest in this text that will I hope exemplify the depth the quality of the of the book quality that made it a canon canon for future generations of Jewish mysticism not because a committee or an institution voted it for to be canonical not because it was accepted by a group of Rabbis with authority just because of its overwhelming quality as a as as a text so the first feature I mean the first the first overwhelming feature of the of the zone is its interpretive baldness there is a sense that the text the old biblical text in rabbinic texts are reinvigorated by bald interpretive innovative creative readings right there is a beautiful text in the soil very self-reflective of itself on the on the verse called viola tsadikim the path of the righteous and the ZOA begins its reflection about what how do we distinguish in the Hebrew between Mubeen OVA Ladera what's between a path and a road right and the Tsar says you know deadest we know what it is there is something a road is something the Hebrew that comes from lead walk two-step road is something that was stepped by many people many people many people walk there but an overhead path which is the path of the righteous is something that the righteous break through in new grounds that's an interesting idea and then he says Denny comments he makes a very interesting comment and he says when the righteous walk on a Derrick on a road that was stepped and walked by so many it has become new right this is a verse that as well a kind of slogan that the saw likes to describe its own self creativity milene attic Hadean all new words and it finishes it finishes with that the following reflection that sad Akeem often had a little owatta every place they step is they create something new that is beloved by God and God rejoice in it I must say actually that's as well a good description of your translation it's you walked on on a road that many walked and you made it new so the first element is the the interpretive Renaissance as you delivers likes to another great scholar the Tsar likes to describe its kind of reinvigorating a creative interpretive project the second one is really concerns a new or anchors a new conception of God as a self emanating multi-dimensional being which has unity but plurality in unity a very fine klore allottee fragile plurality that is hold together I think a good metaphor the Tsar is always in search for symbols so a good metaphor that all didn't have will be an ecology collage achill system that that has that it's multi-phase set but we know how important it is because it's one and every ask every action in on its own a certain segment of this system affects the whole so there is a there is a real innovative work this is anchoring a conception of God self emanating from the infinite into plurality of his dimensions and in the life the internal life of the Divine Being with the boldness and creative metaphors and symbols that accompany the the inside them the meditative insight into the divine life that's the third one is is really a new conception of humans and their role in the universe I must say from all Jewish literature that I've known it's in some ways from all word literature I don't think any work has given humans such empowered role in the cosmos I want to talk a little bit about that posing a problem a question to you to you them the panel I want to by way of just finishing my presentation I want to present what I would call a slide a picture a meditative picture from the soil where desire begins to think through about words in Hebrew for a sighing groaning sighs groans pain you know in Hebrew it's ie they write vie et Chauvet aha hi with hey Oh with an Aleph these are elemental very elemental raw raw prey linguistic expressions of the of the pain and terror of the soul and the body so this it begins to reflect on that on this and we might say it's a any and desire begins to reflect on the alphabetic structure of this evocations as I say pre-linguistic they they have something primordial about them as a as a communicative mode and it says and and it begins with this is very typical to the soils interpretive engagement with the text it begins with rabbi shimon slapped his hands together and web wow if i speak and reveal the mystery whoa if i do not speak for the Companions will be the price of this is actually the the original is vibe by they right so he's actually repeating the same pain that is going to interpret and in another feature I think part of the charm of the czar is that the way all this structure is connected deeply to the elemental human experience we're talking about the most elemental you never experience that we all have desai the cry any and he says it says he's now revealing an esoteric insight into this structure and then and then the text goes on with the following insight and this is i think one of the most cancers genuine moments of the endless creativity of this death and this text and if and he says the following if you look carefully about the letters of this pain expression and inside expression they are actually all the letters of God you'd valve Hey right hi why they're also letters of God of the hey yeah right i but there is one very interesting feature of them there are actually segments of God's name as if in every pain in every expression of pain in every expression of sign in every broken heart there is the brokenness of the divine name or the divine being this by the way linguistically after you read it and this is part of the quality of this interpretive exercise you begin to think that it might be right right that there is something well I would say the following just from meditation on language we would say the most elemental human expression the raw expression that in some ways pre-linguistic actually reflects the foundational structure of all language which is the name of God and being so then and then it goes the following I mean this is an interesting an interesting meditation on different biblical different biblical expression of sighing and in pain and it begins to focus on the distinction between oil and Hawaii right those who have lived among Jews at least a certain generation know that there is a fine distinction between oil and high and but a meditative mystically and it says one very interesting thing it says if you look at the high with with the hey yud hey hey valued it's really god's name without the last a you'd have of hey which means this is the rupture of the divine dimensions from the last serie from - Rena the feminine aspect of the divine the last of the spirit in which it is expresses the fact that the disharmony the disharmony the rupture in the God's name and and the cosmos doesn't allow for the the sheriff or the bounty of that emanates from God to flow into the world as if the God contracted itself contracts itself from from within through that pain now I I want to say one thing clearly this is a and they're very fine I'm just reading the commentary I Danny I in preperation think about these texts they're honest whenever I hear a cry or a pain I come back to haunted by this inside so I reread the the finest and the elegance you're reading and so many things that I've learned from the commentary but one one interesting thing that that happens is that this rupture and here I come to the human power this rupture this this internal rupture this fragility of the divine well-being and harmony that really is about preserving the the flow back and forth from the in infinity to thee to the world and the thing that makes the world alive and prosperous and and God's own exile self-exile - in our self exile from the rest of the divine life it is caused by human action it caused by transgression and it's also caused by by the the the sense of lack of care lack of human care for the divine world I want to finish with what I think is the most concise description of what the desire his that I encounter in the history of interpretation of this law and its impact in future generation and it said it's a masha cordovero the great mystic of the 16th century in fact describes his reading of the soil and I'm talking now about the role of the Mystics and the humans and he says the following vadhaka Kharkov a Nataraj be the main intention of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai the the ascribed author of the saw Oliver Shalom bless T Bathsheba's oh ah ah ha lazily Otis Rena the SS Sheva the intimus of a nose allah wa rasuluh southla Samir Allah Habib Allah hood knock a leadership boudoir the massive Yahoo scheme Mahavira or scheme be so daughter Tasha 0m Lee hood Kucha boy who screen a lot going to ask you to translate I'll try to translate myself he says what was the main purpose of the the Cabalists to wrote the ZOA it was the knowing that the feminine dimension of God's multi-dimensional being the Shekinah is in exile from its own divine life annoying that - Rena is in such poor condition such destitute the the expelled woman the expelled wife they they were there to provide her with support and help so she can be reunified with her husband the Asad the male dimension and and that's what they cared about they cared about reuniting the divine realm now I must say I may be from all the the group of scholars here I I am I am how would I describe my relationship to the desire it's a little complicated I belong to that great family called Jewish thought I think is one of the most exciting families there is and I treat the soul as a kind of a relative very attractive mysterious relative that you cannot by any means you cannot avoid because of this overwhelming creative insight and my own I would say always struggle struggle and fascination is with the almost hubris of human power this idea on the one hand is a is is amazing empowerment of the human but but I would say other maybe other trends in Jewish thought let's take the guide of the perplex or other says the life of meets what the life of Allah all about humans attempt at shaping the human world the human world but for this this is just the surface of the meaning and power of humans it's not to shape the human world but actually to shape being in totality I mean this is a striking concept and I would say besides all the contributions is the most bolded conception of humans as God's image they're ever presented in our tradition so I will finish with this question thought and again with a great gratitude for the gift you gave us Danny so thank you very much good evening good evening wonderful to be here with you all even though you are as the Kabbalist described the divine huh ever be lonelier ah so we don't know exactly who was in our audience tonight I am here because I'm the shuttle and I'm the one who brought Danny mat and the Pritzker's together and then had the great privilege of reading the introduction to this this monumental work and an expanded version the introduction that became a guide to the Zohar which I hope some of you have read or will read on your way to diving your way into the 12 volumes about 200 years ago with Jewish car or a Germany now mostly forgotten I am Yost wrote a work subtitled Judaism in its main streams in that a help stramonium in doing so we created a new term one that had never existed before and you really have no way of saying it in Hebrew because it's so unnatural to the tradition he created the term mainstream Judaism the proclamation of a mainstream of course is there for negative reasons it wants to ask what is not mainstream Judaism what is to be excluded in the mainstream and the answer was primarily that which was to be swept under the rug because it was not part of the mainstream was the Jewish mystical tradition which was a great embarrassment to the first generation of Jews to leave the ghetto who wanted to present Judaism as a kind of and and Western kind of kunti an expression of what ethical monotheism might be and the mystical tradition to them was deeply offensive it was with its esoteric doctrines about everything from the creation of the world to the mysterious nature of the Hebrew language to the unique souls of the Jewish people something that simply didn't fit the picture that the Judaism they presented in this reform version came to be known as prophetic Judaism as though the prophets of Israel were also liberal Universalist ethical monotheists and and the Kabbalah was an offense to that picture so therefore was not part of the mainstream it was to be it was to be hidden away swept under the rug not talked about not taught when I that that vision of Judaism lasted a very long time in the Western world when I was a rabbinical student at the venerable Jewish Theological Seminary half a century ago a little more than half a century ago now my great teacher Abram joshua heschel was not allowed to teach courses on hasidism as part of his regular course offerings proposed Hasidism was not mainstream Judaism that's all changed now of course in the past twenty or thirty years the Jewish people has decided on mosques that it wants to reclaim this part of the tradition that was cast aside scrambling to recover that was what that which was once so firmly rejected you look at the large number of books not all of them good books by the way they've written about Kabbalah in the past in the past several decades you look at courses offered all the rabbinical stuff schools the Joel and I are part of a larger pattern you look at courses offered in universities and the dubious edge of this recovery of course in popular phenomena where people offer to sell you the secrets of the Kabbalah if you're willing to pay the price but the event we are discovery are celebrating tonight as the is the high end of that stream the completion of the pritzker 0 must be butan that context the interests of Margaret's cave in studying the Zohar then her remarkable decision to establish a fund for this magnificent new translation and commentary the willingness of Stanford University Press to undertake such a huge and complex effort and of course the availability of a scholar who is willing to devote these nearly 20 years to do so all of this needs to be seen in the broader context of the restoration of the mystical tradition to a place of honour in the Jewish mainstream what's happening why is the Jewish people decided that the Jew that the Kabbalah which was once so firmly set aside is not really belonging to Judaism anymore should be recovered should be reclaimed to explain why this change of attitude has come about you have to go beyond the boundaries of Judaism itself most American Jews after all been as University educated since the early post-war years have been believers in science rather highly secularized seeing science rather than religion is the great source of truth they were avid supporters of the progressive vision a sense that scientific knowledge was rolling back the darkness and that humanity was moving toward a more enlightened self understanding they would surely bring us to better and more human behavior and save the world this faith in science called scientism by the experts was face down by two great challenges in the middle of the 20th century before it was faced down by very different sorts of challenges I'm afraid in the early 21st those mid century challenges work of course named Ostrogoths and Hiroshima how could Germany the needs of the nation that had all those Nobel prizes in science have given birth to Auschwitz what was it we didn't understand about the possibility of human evil and how is the United States which was called the last great hope of mankind brought us fall into the new light new era of life of the nuclear shadow how could it be these and other challenges of the past half century have have brought about a situation where many of the most penetrating seeking minds in the West have been looking to ancient esoteric traditions that were set aside in the course of the rest of modernity thinking maybe there's something there maybe there's something there in this ancient wisdom that we were too busy to look at that will keep us from killing each other that will help us to survive that will help us not to destroy the planet so kabbalah thus joins Indian mysticism Sufism Tibetan Buddhism Zen Buddhism and many our Native American traditions and many more of these of these of these objects of quest a renewed openness in this context of renewed openness to ancient and spiritual teachings updated for the modern reader that's part of what has brought this this new interest in the Jewish esoteric tradition maybe there's some ancient wisdom there that will that will teach us how to live but in the case of Kabbalah there's another more particular element that needs to be taken into account as well and that's the return to Zion the reconnection of the Jewish people to its ancient homeland inerrancy Sorrell was first undertaken by a Zionist move with it saw itself as primarily secular Jew Zionism was a response more to Jewish cultural alienation with azimuth ISM in the West than it was to a new mystical faith but as i''m ism succeeded probably succeeded beyond its own wildest dreams and the fact that it then coincided and overlapped with the terrible trauma of the Holocaust it served to reawaken some deep spiritual forces wouldn't the Jewish people as well they returned to both the Holy Land and the Holy tongue could not take place without stirring something in the Jewish soul in which the mystics have long been aware but had been denied so forcefully among all the great spokesmen of Jewish modernity Gershom Scholem the great pioneer of modern study of Kabbalah already foresaw this in the concluding lines of his of his major trends in Jewish mysticism it talks about what will happen what will happen in this era when when new forces are reawakened these two forces the universal quest for spiritual truth in the post-war world and the rebirth of Jewish intellectual creativity in the context of cultural Zionism comes together were together they assume he'll stand behind what Danny has done and behind this whole project of course we we are all dependent on the scholarship of Sholem and others who are part of that Zionist cultural cultural Zionist reclamation you think of Tisch B's mission athas or which in some ways is in the tradition of Bialik safer I gotta reclaiming these texts for the Jewish tradition illa it is in a cultural scientist context but then they prepared the way in some ways for those of us who were seekers looking for some some deeper approach to truth some deeper some deeper meaning in the tradition so the two those two forces I think have come together here the Zohar is the greatest work of Kabbalah if Kabbalah is to be retrieved the Czar will have to be in a center as it so long has been the title Zohar means radiance our shining it's a book filled with light that's all about light to use a play on words that works in English Hebrew it's a book of mystical enlightenment although purporting to be a record of conversations of rabbis wandering around the Galilee in the second century scholars now are pretty sure it was written in late 13th century Spain it weaves to get their tales of these rabbis with some conversations with one another with a remarkable series of homilies of conversations they have about biblical verses expounded in the course of their conversations ingeniously reinterpreting every word of ancient scripture even every letter and every aspect of Jewish tradition as well they employ a new symbolic language that had begun to move merge the language of the Sphero that had began to emerge a century before the Tsar but their authors of the zuhr play that instrument in a way that nobody else had before and they convert that batsub that that symbolic language into a kind of vessel of great sublime poetic sensibility a poetry that emerges in the cry in the course of the most classical Jewish activity of all that of reinterpreting ancient texts the the process of interpretation lays bare a poetic medium in this poetic medium the Sabbath is no longer just a day of rests but has transformed into the mythical bride of the mysterious bride of God and Jews of the Shabbat dinner table suddenly are joined in the host of angels accompanying her to her wedding feast this makes for a very different a deeper and richer Judaism one fully engaged with how affect Raxus but diving into its meaning in a way never explored before until this new language emerged for talking about it Abraham in this language is no longer just the first of the patriarchs but the human embodiment of divine love a boundless stream of compassion that ever flows into the world and renews its life is the Abraham of any particulars of her passage a figure of the ancient Jewish past or an aspects of the divine self active in the universe the answer was always yes because there's no clear line of demarcation between the two on what level a particular passage in the zohr to me red Kennedy's of you be determined just as one can never quite know exactly in what register the Zohar means to be reading the particular Torah text that underlies it the correct answer because the ZOA is so subtle and complex in its readings Torah for the Czar is not just the commanded Word of God but a verbal incarnation of divinity itself that comes alive in the hearts and minds of those who engage with it that engagement rendered as each table Goethe as making an effort in the Zoras Aramaic is called forth where there's new way of reading it lends a depth and complexity through our text itself that has been inaccessible to prior generations the reader is thus taken along on the road as it were invited to join in this endless conversation among the wandering heroes and thus to participate fully in the excitement of constantly discovered gems of interpretive art Zora scholar Yehuda libres calls it a renaissance indeed as much as already said to us but a renaissance always casts its shadow forward as well as backward so it opens the door for future generations of creativity the soul was composed as an esoteric work it was written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew to expand the mystery deepened to increase the aura of mystery of error it's image which texts fueled the imagination of Jews who were forbidden by tradition to remember to depict they're there they're there they're there they're there their inner lives in painting or in stained glass as the Christian majority in which they lived had them all they had were the verbal arts but in some ways you have to look at the Zohar as the fullest expression of the of the imaginative world of medieval West European Jewry a world in which the images are ever fluid personal depictions of the divine realm flow into images of light and water and then sublime Gardens and lovers taken to write in them who in the next moment may turn into priests and sacrificial animals standing at the altar in the ancient temple the beauty of nature the richness of tradition the passionate dynamics of family the added that great power of Eros and subtlety of eros are all wrapped together in this ever-changing maelstrom of cabbalistic imagination that's what it's all about for centuries ordinary Jews from Rocko to the Balkans to Baghdad which chant the Zohar aloud inspired by the beauty of its language even when they barely understood what the words meant later mystics in love with the rusty mysterious language and terminology of the so her would retool its language to express their own ideas and experiences in Eastern Europe Azure inspired Costin ism the Rebbe is seeing themselves in their disciples as as we incarnations embodiments of the of the wandering scholars of the sower indeed the Peripatetic little band of disciples around their leader rabbi Shimon bar Yochai forms the marvel for the way Kabbalah was taught and disseminated throughout later generations think of the circles of capitalists in spot in the 16th century first event quart of air who was just mentioned and then around the area the circle and rabbi moshe haim with south - and Padua around rubbish album chart I'll be a Jerusalem in the 18th century around there in misery around Nashville in Bratislava all of them in some ways the river of cook in Jerusalem in a later era all of them in some ways a real life embodiments of the fantastic community of scholars masters and disciples yet there's over offers as a marvel but modern Western Jews did not know there's over at all they were deprived of it because it was not part of the mainstream the Judaism they studied and most of them rejected was the Judaism those already impoverished almost rendered sterile by the excising of the mystical tradition but all that has changed now thanks to thanks to the availability of the soil we can open the Zohar in the Pritzker Edition and read daniel Matt's commentary the zorb becomes readable for the first time in any language I would say but what are modern Jews used to do with this recovered legacy how can they use it to rekindle the fires of devotion that flickers so faintly in the American synagogue that's the essential question lies before us what should we do with the Zohar now the gates would have been thrown so wide open a generation of rabbis and seekers is working hard to begin to try to figure that out a new mystical Judaism is potentially in the midst of being born to bring it forth successfully will require a unique blend of study devotion and religious creativity the sir will have to be read and studied by people who will take the time to understand it well but also have the freedom to create a new Jewish mystical language on the basis of it essentially the job remains one of translation but in the now in the broader sense of that term the poetic language of medieval kabbalah rich and beautiful as it is will have to be transposed into a theology that works for people in the 21st century the theological underpinnings of judaism is faith in creation revelation of Torah and messianic Redemption will all need to be retooled in terms of the work for our era how to do this without losing the poetry of Kabbalah without silencing the profound echo-chamber wrought by the sense of rootedness in ancient wisdom an unbroken chain of tradition that's the real challenge but wherever we go from here we will have been enabled by the daring and bold vision of daniel met Margo Pritzker Stanford University Press and all the others who've gone so far in taking this important first step [Applause] only connects only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted and human love will be seen at its height this quote from um foresters novel Howards End serves as a helpful frame for central themes in the Zohar and from my comments tonight I'd like to frame our my remarks with this quote attending to the longing for union and connection that is a primary theme of the Zohar infusing both its myths and its understanding of Jewish ritual in the time allotted to me I attend to two related to themes that stand out for me and my work on volumes 11 and 12 of the pritzker edition of the Zohar one the redeeming power of love and two the convergence of divinity within the human being at the very very beginning of volume 11 on his first pages and the section called the madras high now alum the hidden me Josh on the Song of Songs we read a brief homily but the value of the kiss some homework rabbi rakhumai a name that could be translated as rabbi love begins with a verse from Isaiah that it was interpreted by both Jews and Christians as referring to the spirit of the Messiah the Spirit of the Lord will alight upon him spirit of wisdom and understanding spirit of counsel and power spirit of knowledge and awe of the Lord only the Messiah rabbi Rahul I says contains all four of these spirits and how do these for spirits unite through a kiss he explains that quote love's kiss occurs solely with the mouth spirit joins with spirit each comprising two spirits his spirit and his friends spirit both presence in forest spirits all the more so with a man and woman when joined four spirits together the son who proceeds from them spirit coming from for spirits to clarify robbery kumite construes a kiss as the exchange of spirit when two people kiss a z' spirit enters B B's spirit suffuses a a now contains if you will a and B prime while B comprises B and a prime these four spirits together constitute the spirit of the Messiah in this brief passage we see the redemptive power of a kiss the Messianic spirit itself comes from a spirit born of love the Zohar then has transported us from the simple meaning of the biblical text talking about a leader who will arise at a distance and time to talking about the saving power of love now instead of conjuring mythical history the Zohar invites all of us we readers of the Zohar to participate in kisses of love that bring us into contact with that salvation note too that this is not only kisses leadings procreation but even the kisses between friends it is this basic act of joining in love that leads to perfection of the world this is the redeeming power of love taking simple connection as world transforming it is the way in which we as individuals make our mark on the world and in history the second point that I wanted to treat deals with the infusion or convergence of divine energies within the human being even within his or her own body one of the main structuring elements of the Zohar narrative consists of pairs or groups of rabbis wandering around the Galilee having miraculous encounters with donkey drivers in keepers daughters children and other apparent ignoramuses miraculous because they're ignorant is only superficial upon interrogation they turn out to be brilliant kabbalists masters of discerning holiness within obscure elements of Torah and the natural world the Zohar inspires a thirst for spiritual adventure in the hearts and minds of its readers inculcating an optimism about possibilities inherent in the world seducing us to participate the second passage that I would like to consider from volume 11s large chapter called in Russian on the book of ruth involves one such narrative but a young boy around the age of my own nine year old the manuscript research that my assistants units on been arose and i determine that i that we did turned up a remarkable discovery the tale of this child donkey donkey goading behind rabbi boon addresses a detail of daily liturgical practice the recital of the Sh'ma before i relate the Zohar's treatment though let me review a couple of details about the liturgical Sh'ma as prescribed in the talmud the smart refers not only to the familiar line Schmeisser el adonai elohenu adonai echad but to a full three paragraphs from different sections in the torah these are preceded by two blessings before one blessing afterward the last line of the Shema which will be paying particular attention to reads I and the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to become your God I am the Lord your God reading in Hebrew those last three words are an e I deny hello hmmm the first word of the next blessing Ahmet truth should be said right away now let's turn to I teaching an early medieval me Josh teaches that there are 248 words in the entire schwa and that these 248 words correspond to the 248 bones of the human body now whether 248 bones as an accurate count or not I'll leave that as a question for the MDS in the crowd but surely not long after the Midrash of teaching was offered some precocious kid would have said to his Rebbe but master there are only 245 words in the schwa apparently this discrepancy didn't bother the rabbinic establishments and there are no written comments about it for hundreds of years that is until the yuccas came the German pious of the 12th to 13th centuries were very particular about things as you might imagine and the number of words in prayer of was a particular concern for them if the rabbi said that there should be 248 words in the Sh'ma practice needed to reflect that doctrine so they added three words to the beginning l mela Neiman God is a faithful King the first letters of those Hebrew words construct the word Amen so now you have a perfect solution to the dilemma 248 words a creatively construed a man after the blessing that precedes the Sh'ma and yet now as Jews who want to do the fighting began as a series of top drawer Spanish rabbis nock manatees rush by Ritva express their opposition to this interruption between blessing and recital of the Shema and most noteworthy they offered no remedy for the numerical discrepancy of 248 into 45 they understood like the rabbi's before them that there was a spiritual lesson to be learned that our declaration of God's unity the credo we added when we rise when we lie down should find a parallel in the entirety of our body that our entire beings should attest to God's uniqueness for them that lesson stands give or take three words back to our story in the Zohar our budding youthful catalysts now offers a different solution in the name of his father a great kabbalist he teaches the three words from the end should be repeated and to this day in synagogues worldwide that is the practice twice every day which three words however without getting into the technical details the printed Zohar says that we should repeat the last two words of the Shema join to the first word of the next blessing the word I met but and here's where the work came in the best manuscripts handwritten versions produced long before the Zohar was printed offered an alternative more logical version according to those versions the child said that one should repeat the last three words of the shema itself Annie I deny Elohim this way you get the requisite three words and arrive at the numerical Association of the words of SH ma testifying to God's oneness and a human body created in human image so where did the version in the standard printing originates what we Trant would i translated was this newly discovered version found in the manuscripts the version that is enacted in synagogues daily came from a dispute in the early 13th and 14th century when a time the zohar is largely competed completed and edited two different rabbinic camps emerged taking different stances regarding the question of the of which three words the Lord your God is true camp and the I am the Lord your God camp as you've now predicted the Lord your God is true camp one and that practice prevailed in our C dream our prayer books today what happened to the earlier zohar text the one that appears in the best manuscripts while history is written by the victors and politically correct or ha logically correct scribes corrected the Zohar to reflect the new practice this discovery was uncovered in the course of this project the pritzker Edition because we examined the manuscripts and they had not been seen by great historians of Jewish law who previously had covered the historical controversy my two themes then love and mystical unity are both reflected in the two texts that I considered of the thousand of spectacular moments in the Zohar so hierarchal of anarchists joins two people on a mystical level transmuting the cosmos and eliciting salvation the proper performance of reciting the small links God's oneness to our own bodies as we utter near the beginning and you shall love the Lord your God when I first read through the entire Zohar in the early 90s a couple of personal remarks I would spend every hours every morning reading large chunks of text 10 times stuff yummy to be precise then I would take a walk down the block to Riverside Park and I discovered that I was intoxicated everything appeared differently Sun sky birds trees everything carried symbolic weight having become portals unto divinity itself years later working on this translation I was working on the Czar's treatment of the Song of Songs and after several months of immersion in the Zohar's letter mysticism I received an Aliyah at my shul I stood up and approached the Torah scroll when I was struck by the sea of letters floating on the parchments Olives and Dulles and Zions oh my all appeared within with the mystical meanings the Zohar had invested in them my relationship to those letters parchments indeed the entire text had been transformed I was filled with reverence and awe Rabia pinkness of Koretz an early classic master famously said that he was grateful for having been born after the zohar emerged for the Zohar kept him Jewish for me it was Maimonides who first kept me Jewish but it is the Zohar that makes my Jewishness Sparkle [Applause] the lighting here tonight reminds me of that beautiful phrase in the Zohar boat Sina the card Anita the lamp of darkness because we are flooded with light but none of us can can see you as art indicated I'm going to speak into the darkness but hopefully I will meet you Panama Panama what I'd like to do is to teach two passages from the Zohar let me ask for you to take in hand the sheets that you have and I want to ask if there's enough light for people to see it if not if I could ask for the lights to be turned up a little bit so that people can follow the text okay I think that's a little brighter these are two passages from the Zohar and it'll give you a chance to see what a page of the Zohar pritzker edition actually looks like the first page is a picture of the ten city Roche the ten qualities of God I don't intend to go into detail that would take us so at least the hour of midnight but I'm really just going to focus on the last of these tents if you wrote what's called here mullet Kingdom although I'll refer to her more as shifty now the feminine presence of God the goal of Judaism according to Kabbalah the goal of life is to unite the feminine and the masculine of course that means on the one hand to find a partner to find a partner in love but it means also to have an effect on God as moshe indicated the zohar is bold claim is that we have an impact on the divine realm and according to kabbalah it's up to us to unite the feminine and masculine halves of god specifically to unite molitor Shekinah with her partner to ferret that central Serie often called in the Zohar could shibori who the Holy One blessed be he a Kadosh Baruch who in Aramaic could Shabri who to unite the Holy One blessed be he or the Blessed holy one the masculine with Shekinah the feminine and a passage that we'll look at in a moment revolves around that that Union if you look at the first page of text this is a page from the first volume of the Zohar pritzker Edition and let me just explain typographically what's going on here the very top of the page it says Bereshit because the Zohar is of course a commentary on the Torah and the first several hundred pages of the Zohar in English cover the very first portion of the Torah last week's torah reading parashat Bereshit over to the left it says in brackets 153 B that refers to the traditional Aramaic pagination the Zohar has often been printed in three volumes one covering Genesis Brigitte - covering Exodus shemot three volume three covering the rest by ikura through de varela vit occurs through Deuteronomy and then a fourth volume including much of the work that Joel and Nathan Walski focused on Zohar on the Song of Songs over on Ruth that's the fourth volume of the Zohar this page has the Zohar at the top here it's just really about seven or eight lines and then in this particular page there's quite a lot of commentary that's because this particular passage demands or invites that much commentary we're going to look at the Czar's interpretation of that amazing story at the beginning of Genesis near the beginning of Genesis or Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden and the Hebrew there which is here in italics and with a couple Hebrew words he drove out Adam play Yaga resh Adam okay meaning that God expelled the human from the garden I'm translating ha Adam as Adam because of the use of the Zohar makes a bad verse but in the note below I give the literal meaning the literal meaning is he drove out the human now those of you who know Hebrew will recognize that we have their three Hebrew words via goresh meaning he drove out yet which means nothing ha a dumb the human now how can you have a word that means nothing this is very bizarre in Hebrew that you have a word at which we really can't translate can Hebrew you can't say I drink the water you have to say I drink at the water you can't say I the sky you say I see at the sky so this little word edge links the verb and the object it can't be translated but it's there as a marker grammarians call this a particle why do they call it a particle because they have to call it something so they call it a particle this is a word that can't be translated you could say it's a word that means nothing but that indicates the direct object okay now that's only if the direct object has the definite article the you can say in Hebrew I drink water you don't need it I need show Tim I am but if it's a drink of the water you need it so what is this word it's very strange it consists of only two Hebrew letters Aleph and tough but what's remarkable about those letters the first letter of the alphabet and the last letter of the olive bit so you could say you have a little word that spans the entire alphabet it spans everything but it means nothing now this is too good for a rabbi to pass up and in fact we know there were rabbis in the Talmud who devoted themselves to interpreting the word ette even though you can't translate it rabbi akiva for example most famously insisted on interpreting the interpreting the word at so much so that his colleagues came to him and said dai aha enough with you right or pisaq we said I knew enough for us they said so I'll keep enough with you and your interpretation of its because you can go crazy trying to interpret every time the word ed comes in the Torah in fact we know that David ben-gurion okay the first Prime Minister of Israel had a campaign against it he wrote letters to the editor he wrote to the Academy of the Hebrew language saying why are we spilling precious printer's ink on this word that means nothing let's get rid of it he wasn't completely successful but I think it's true that modern Hebrew uses it far less often than classical Ebru but in the Bible that word comes almost in every single verse the very first verse of the Torah has it twice in the beginning God created at the heaven and the earth so here we have that little word in this verse in Genesis chapter 3 he drove out at Adam the only the only other thing we need to know before reading what the Zohar says is that the verb to drive out lagares can also mean in Hebrew to divorce and they're already Midrash team they're already rabbinic commentaries that say it's as if God and Adam were married they were so intimate they were like a married couple but because Adam failed to fulfill the divine command God divorced Adam as it says via garresh etta Adam he drove out he divorced the human okay so that's the background the word ette and that double meaning of the Hebrew the garish to drive out to divorce so reading here on page one rabbi Elazar rabbi Elazar said we do not know who divorced whom if the Blessed Holy One divorced Adam or not okay that little innocent phrase or not what does that mean what's the alternative did God divorce Adam or Adam divorced God the ZOA is not going to say something that outrageous this over just says or not but it makes the reader come up with this radical almost shocking almost heretical alternative who through whom out of the garden did God throw Adam out or not and you can't help thinking of what's the alternative Adam through God out of course it's very clear that the Hebrews says via karesh at Adam he drove out the human he drove out Adam but look what the Zohar does but the word is transposed which I think really means the whole verse is turned on its head he drove out it in other words don't rush to complete the sentence don't read it he drove out at the human stop after the word ette put the period after the word heed he drove out at precise we now in the Zohar it becomes a code name for Shekinah why is she called at look back for a moment at that chart of attendants if he wrote she is the last of the tents fie wrote and she includes all the preceding ones and in fact the first sphere octet are the crown on the divine head is often symbolized by Aleph so you would imagine maybe Shekinah being the last is symbolized by tough but no she is olive to tough because each of these tents if II wrote each of these qualities includes the preceding qualities so Shekinah is given the symbolic name at she is a twosie she is the Alpha to the Omega she is olive to tough and she is called it the Zohar doesn't come out and tell us here that ant is a name for Shanna about fifty pages later the Zohar says by the way ant is a name for Shekinah but that's the style of the Zohar written cryptically but really rabbi Elazar is saying when he says precisely that means referring to one of the divine qualities namely shana so what is the verse now mean he drove out Shekinah he divorced Shekinah who drove out at who drove out Shekinah now we continue with the next word Adam so you see how he's reading the verse it's not he drove out at Adam it's he drove out at he drove out the Shekinah who drove out the Shekinah Adam Adam actually drove out at consequently it's written you'd hey Vevey eloheem expelled him from the Garden of Eden he's quoting now the preceding verse in other words the Zohar does not deny that God expelled Adam her Adam and Eve but the point is why did he expel him why did God expel Adam because Adam drove out ette as we have explained I love that as we have explained first of all he didn't explain it second of all when did he say anything about it just two lines previously but now it's become a tradition this is what I would call instant tradition the Zohar loves to invent new traditions and relate to them as if they've always been there as part of the rabbinic tradition so the sounds intriguing the sounds very bold almost a kind of hubris as Masha implied Adam actually split the divine that's probably what's meant here by divorced Adam should have focused on uniting the masculine and the feminine halves of God but instead he split Shekinah off from her partner maybe he worshiped her on his own or maybe it means that he split himself off from God Adam became aware of his own separate self he became self-aware he became fascinated by his own ego so he split himself off from the oneness and really you could say that the Zohar is implying that we're really still in the garden but we don't realize it because we've expelled God from the garden we've lost touch with the divine dimension of reality we've become alienated because we've limited our own awareness to our our ego this is typical the Zohar you don't know exactly what it's saying but it's saying something very puzzling and very intriguing and leaves the reader a lot of room to to interpret I want to conclude with another passage and I think because the time is growing short we're going to skip page three and go right to page four on page three just look at the line there that says the old man opened and that's enough for us we're going to continue on page four this is a beautiful story in the Zohar in a section called Sava de Mishpatim the old man of Torah portion Mishpatim it's an extended narrative in the Zohar about two rabbis who meet one night at an inn I believe it sat at a Hyatt Hotel and one of them says to the other I'm so glad to meet you because my whole way here I was pestered by an idiotic donkey driver who ruined my whole trip here because he kept asking me stupid riddles he ruined my time if I had only been with you oh my colleague rebellious says to her by Yosi if I had been with you we could have studied Torah but I was bothered by this idiotic donkey driver and it ruined my whole trip now I'm glad that we can sit down and study Torah burro biosis is a bio she says wait a minute that old man you know maybe we should find out more about him the old man shows up at the inn and of course it turns out that this isn't an idiotic donkey driver it's really a great sage in disguise and he proceeds to enlighten the rabbis and we're gonna pick up the story on page 4 the second paragraph the old man said go down a couple lines inhabitants of the world everyone have that those of you who can see page for a second paragraph line three middle of the line this is the old man speaking to the rabbi's inhabitants of the world are so confused in their minds they do not see the path of truth in Torah Torah calls to them every day cooing if they do not want to turn their heads although I said that a word of Torah emerges from her sheath is seen for a moment then quickly hides away certainly so but when she reveals herself from her sheaf and quickly hides she does so only for those who know her and recognize her cateura here of course is feminine and now he tells a parable to explain this may be compared to a beloved maiden beautiful in form and appearance concealed secretly in her palace she has a single lover unknown to anyone except to her conceal idli out of the love that he feels for her this lover passes by her gate constantly lifting his eyes to every side knowing that her lover is constantly circling her gate what does she do she opens a little window in that secret Palace where she is reveals her face to her lover and quickly withdraws concealing herself none of those near the lover sees or notices only the lover and his inner being and heart and soul follow her he knows that out of love for him she revealed herself for a moment to arouse him can be a beautiful medieval tale that reminds you of the the princess in the castle the knight who's in love with a princess circling the castle hoping that she'll peek out for a moment so the Zohar brings this tale really he knows that his readers are familiar with those kind of stories those medieval tales of love but for the Zohar this becomes a parable explaining the passion between the disciple of taurah and taurah herself continue on page 5 so it is with the word of torah she reveals herself only to her lover torah knows that one who is wise of heart circles her gate every day what does she do she reveals her face to him from the palace and beckons him with a hint then swiftly withdraws to her place hiding away none of those there knows or notices he alone does and his inner being in heart and soul follow her the Torah reveals and conceals herself approaching her lover lovingly to arouse love with him come and see this is the way of Torah at first when she begins to reveal herself to a person she beckons him momentarily with a hint if he perceives if not she sends for him calling him simple tell that simple one to come closer so I can talk with him as is written whoever is simple let him turn here he who lacks understanding as he approaches she begins to speak with him from behind a curtain she has drawn words suitable for him until he reflects little by little this is Dara Chou okay what we were to call Midrash remember the Zohar certain and Aramaic into Russia is equivalent to Midrash then she converses with him from behind a delicate sheet words of riddle and this is Haggadah now we of course think of Haggadah as the passover haggadah but here Haggadah means something different it means allegory an allegorical reading of Scripture okay the medieval philosophers and the Mystics often employed this technique for example the Bible talks about the love of Abraham for Sarah that's really a way to teach us a philosophical truth about the relationship between form and matter if Abraham marries Sarah that's reminding us that form is United with matter if the Bible says don't eat a pig that means don't act like a pig so that allegorical reading of Scripture was sometimes called Haggadah now the Torah is spelling it herself out more she's revealing more of her deeper meaning first just a hint on the page that's the the maiden still behind the wall of the palace then Midrash where she's speaking from behind a curtain drawing closer to the disciple and then just the fine delicate sheet words of allegory Haggadah but that's not the ultimate once he has grown accustomed to her she reveals herself to him face to face and tells him all her hidden secrets and all the hidden ways concealed in her heart since primordial days then he is a complete man husband of Torah master of the house for all her secrets she has revealed to him concealing nothing she says to him do you see the hinting word with which I beckoned you at first these are the secrets this is what it is then he sees that one should not add to these words or diminish them then shot of the verse just like it is one should not add or delete even a single letter so human beings must become alert pursuing Torah to become her lover as has been said it is very strange that the Zohar ends with the pre-shot as many of you know per shot means the simple sense and you would assume that the Zohar begins with a shot and then moves to Midrash the rabbinic imaginative commentary and then the allegory and then the ultimate deep mystical secret but for the Zohar it's interesting and really significant the ultimate is not the mystical Kain most mystical systems the ultimate is the mystical insight for the Zohar that's the penultimate you proceed from the Torah text itself to a deeper reading to a deeper reading to the mystical meaning but the final step is to reconnect with the shot to come back to the simple meaning on the page why because the Zohar doesn't want us to be stranded up there in the mystical stratosphere we shouldn't lose ourselves in the depths or the heights of our own enlightenment we have to come back to earth come back to community come back to family come back to the simple meaning and that allows us to pass it on to the next generation right the worst thing you can tell your chart you're child is this is the ultimate meaning what you want is for the child to find her own ultimate meaning so the Zohar honors that technique by saying don't get lost in the spiritual reconnect whatever your deepest insight is to the per shot and then the spiritual journey can begin again the romance can start again thank you [Applause] given the hour I think we will go directly to questions from the audience could the ushers please bring me a few and while we're waiting for those questions I want to acknowledge the presence here tonight of Daniel Matt's mother Justine Matt and and the enduring presence of his late father one of the great rabbis of the 20th century rabbi Herschel Matt Justine you both did a good job I'm gonna read for questions and I'm going to decide which of the panelists will answer them for Arthur green who wrote the Zohar and when Daniel traditionally the Zohar is attributed to Rabbi Shimon the son of yokai and scholars are pretty much agreed now that it was written maybe a thousand years after over Shimon bar Yohai eleven hundred years after Rashmi Rashmi lived in the second century in the Land of Israel most of the Zohar was probably composed in Spain in the 13th century there are some scholars who claim that it goes back a couple centuries earlier but I think I think most of us on the panel and I'd say the consensus of of academic scholars in Israel in America today is that the bulk of the Zohar was written in Spain in the 13th century and Papa probably a large part of his ohhohh by Moses de Lyonne most Shevin Shem Tov de Leon who lived in the 13th century Moshe de Lyon never in mitad that he wrote the Czar he claimed he was copping from an ancient manuscript this may have been because he really felt he was in touch with Rabbi Shimon maybe that he was channeling rubbish woman's words it may also have been somewhat of a marketing technique because then if things were more ancient they seemed more significant now we like the newest model of the iPhone right but then people respected things that were older the older the better and that that's how I I see it pretty much the next question is obviously for you Daniel how did you approach the translation of adora raba araba is a very dense part of the Zohar it's a convocation of gathering of Rabbi Shimon and his closest disciples trying to delve deeply into the divine realm trying to explore what's happening within the sphere oh and at the very highest levels of the sphere Oh what I did was to to pass the age or ABBA through Google Translate and then and then and then correct a little bit here and there no you know it's interesting there are some traditional editions of the Zohar that have a Zohar in Aramaic and in Hebrew and when they come to the edge or Abba they leave out the Hebrew they have only the Aramaic I was it's better not to translate it and that may be the best approach but that wasn't an option here I just tried to move very very slowly and to to meditate to take breaks and meditate to take walks in the Berkeley Hills to go swimming to you know try to try to put everything aside and let let some of the the primal energy of the Zohar course through me and try to respect the the power and and a danger of working through that material according to the Zohar three of the companions actually died as a result of the of that gathering and I really kept that in mind of how one should tread carefully thank you last night we celebrated the completion of the Zohar Pritzker edition by daniel mad at the Divinity School at the University of Chicago Daniel Matt may come from Berkeley but the Pritzker family comes from Chicago and is deeply attached to the University next week we go to Jerusalem where we have a great collection of scholars of the Zohar who serve on the academic committee for the translation of the Zohar it is important to note that the Zohar pritzker edition by daniel matt with volumes 10 through 12 by joe ecker and nathan Walski is really four books the translation the remarkable commentary a critical edition of the aramaic from which our translators worked which is found on the website of Stanford University Press and the fourth book consists of all the variant readings of all the manuscripts which will be posted by this time next year on the website of Stanford University Press when a book is finished a book is finished and we know that with the completion of this project the life of this book really begins only now and for generations to come they will know and they will realize what has been accomplished Thank You Daniel Matt and thank you all for coming tonight good night [Applause]

Channel: 92nd Street Y

Views: 116,727

Rating: 4.4797201 out of 5

Keywords: 92Y, 92nd Street Y, The Zohar, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, Judaism, Jewish, Jewish mystical tradition, Daniel C. Matt, Arthur Green, Joel Hecker, Moshe Halbertal, Rabbi Yehiel Poupko, Kabbalah, Jewish Philosophy, Jewish Religion, Religion, faith, Jewish Mysticism

Id: N-JNwot2RDY

Length: 81min 57sec (4917 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 06 2017