Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press

y the vastness of the Zohar corpus, he found it hard to believe that all
Awed
it could have been the work of a single author. But in a series of stunningly
of
Scholem reversed himself and came to the conclusion that
convincingessays
entire Zohar had indeed been written by De LeoÂn. He supported this con-
the
by careful analysis of the Zohar's language, its knowledge of the geographclusion
of the land of Israel, its relationship to philosophy and to earlier works of
and references to speci®c historical events or dates. Most convincing
Kabbalah,
Scholem's painstakingphilological analysis. Scholem compared the Zohar's
was
(and sometimes ``mistaken'') use of Aramaic linguistic forms to characteristic
unique
patterns of language to be found (uniquely, he claimed) in De LeoÂn's
works. Here he believed he had found somethingof a literary ®ngerprint,
Hebrew
makingit ®nally clear that De LeoÂn was the author. As to the magnitude
the work and its attribution to a single individual, Scholem was consoled by
of
parallels, particularly that of Jakob Boehme, a seventeenth-century
historical
shoemaker, originally illiterate, who had composed a vast corpus of
German
under the force of mystical inspiration.
writings
the matter is by no means ended here. The fact that Scholem agreed
But
Graetz on the question of single authorship did not at all mean that he
with
in his lowly opinion of the Zohar or its author. The parallel to Boehme
shared
fact sounds rather like the writing``through the power of the Holy Name''
in
had been suggested to Isaac of Acre. Assuming that Moses de LeoÂn did
that
the entire Zohar, the question became one of understanding how this
write
be the case. Two speci®c questions here come to the fore. One concerns
might
notable differences between the Zohar's various sections. Could one person
the
written the Midrash ha-Ne'lam, with its hesitant, incomplete usage of
have
symbolism; the Idrot, where that symbolism was incorporated and
se®rotic
and the obscure Matnitin and Heikhalot, alongwith the rich narrative
surpassed;
and homilies of the main Zohar text? What can account for all these
in both literary style and symbolic content?
seemingvariations
other question has to do with the intriguing relationship between a
The
author and the many voices that speak forth from within the Zohar's
single
Is the community of mystics described here entirely a ®gment of the
pages.
creative imagination? Is there not some real experience of religious
author's
that is re¯ected in the Zohar's pages? Might it be possible, to take
community
extreme view, that each of the speakers represents an actual person, a
an
of the Castilian kabbalists' circle, here masked behind the name of
member
ancient rabbi? Or is there some other way in which the presence of multiple
an
(or participants in the group's ongoing conversations) can be detected
authors
the Zohar's pages?
within
scholarship on the Zohar (here we are indebted especially to
Contemporary
writings of Yehuda Liebes and Ronit Meroz) has parted company with
the
on the question of single authorship. While it is tacitly accepted that
Scholem
Introduction
lii
De LeoÂn did either write or edit longsections of the Zohar, includingthe main