Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press

two decades, I taught Jewish mysticism in Berkeley at the Graduate
For
Union (GTU), a school where Jews, Christians, and Buddhists
Theological
side by side, stimulatingone another. I learned much there from my
study
and students; I want to thank, in particular, David Winston and
colleagues
Biale for their friendship and for the depth of their learning.
David
had been at the GTU for many years already when, one afternoon in
I
1995, Art Green called me on the phone and told me about a
September
from Chicago named Margot Pritzker. She had been studying the
woman
with Rabbi Yehiel Poupko, but the dated English translation they were
Zohar
proved inadequate. Margot had decided to commission a new
readinghad
said Art, and she was invitingme to undertake the task! I was
translation,
and told my friend that I needed a few days to consider this.
astounded,
days turned into weeks, which turned into months, as I kept wrestling
The
the thrilling, terrifying offer. I decided to translate a short section of the
with
to see how it felt, but I poured myself into the experiment so intensely,
Zohar
after day, that I was left drained, exhausted, discouraged. How could I keep
day
up for years and years? I reluctantly resolved to decline the offer, but Art
this
me to at least meet this woman and her rabbi; so the followingMay,
convinced
four of us gathered at the O'Hare Hyatt. I expressed my hesitation to them,
the
told Margot that the project could take twelve to ®fteen yearsÐto which
and
responded, ``You're not scaringme!'' I was won over by her genuine desire
she
penetrate the Zohar and make it accessible to English readers. A year or so
to
over Independence Day weekend 1997, the Zohar project formally began
later,
a two-day conference outside Chicago attended by the leading academic
with
of Kabbalah. They were invited not just to participate in this conference
scholars
but to constitute the Academic Committee for the Translation of the
which was intended to guide and support this translation. (The members
Zohar,
of the committee are listed at the front of this volume.) Over the past six
I have bene®ted immensely from their feedback and encouragement. I
years,
all of them, especially Moshe Idel, Yehuda Liebes, Ronit Meroz, and
thank
Wolfson. Time and again, Yehuda generously shared insights drawn from
Elliot
vast, intimate knowledge of the Zohar. I smile, recallingthe many times we
his
over the mystifyingAramaic, deepeningour understandingof the text
wrestled
our friendship.
and
spent the second year of the project (1998±99) at the Institute for Advanced
I
Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on a program entitled
Zohar,'' directed by Yehuda Liebes. Here seven fellows and seven
``Studyingthe
visitingscholars (all fourteen of us, members of the Academic Commit-
other
engaged in research on various aspects of the text. Our weekly seminars
tee)
devoted to a close readingof Zohar passagesÐoften those that I was cur-
were
translating. Here I presented a draft of my translation and bene®ted
rently
the responses of my colleagues. I am grateful to all of them, as well as to
from
Acknowledgments
xxii
the staff of the Institute, who provided an ideal settingfor our research. When