Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press

author stood in the process of undressingthe textual bride. Here as
their
everywhere, the poesis of the Zohar over¯ows the banks, thwarting
almost
attempt at gradation or de®nition. It is mostly within the area of ``soul''
any
kabbalistic readings that the assembled sages reveal layer after layer, showing
or
this level of readingitself is one that contains inexhaustible riches of the
that
There is not a single mystical interpretation of a verse or passage
imagination.
is the secret in the eyes of the Zohar. ``Secret'' (sod in Hebrew; raza in
that
is rather a method, a way of readingthat contains endless individual
Aramaic)
within it.
secrets
language of se®rotic symbolism offers the Zohar limitless opportunities
The
creative interpretations of Scripture. On the one hand, the Zohar's speakers
for
authors exult in the newness and originality of this exegesis. Rabbi
and
and his disciples speak glowingly of ḥiddushei Torah, novellaeinTorah
Shim'on
and their great value. God and the angels join in rejoicing over
interpretation,
new insight. But the Zohar also seeks to deny the newness of kabbalistic
each
Not only is the work itself allegedly an ancient one; the inter-
interpretation.
craft of the Zohar goes to a higher, deeper, and hence also more
pretive
level of the text. As the highest rung within the Godhead is some-
``ancient''
called Attiqa, the elder or ``ancient one,'' so does profound interpretation
times
Torah ``back to its antiquity,'' to its original, pristine, highest state.
take
Zohar stands within the longtradition of Jewish devotion to sacred
The
as a religious act. The faithful are commanded to ``contemplate it day
study
night'' (Joshua 1:8), traditionally taken to mean that the study and elaboration
and
of Torah is ideally the full-time obligation of the entire community of
Israelites (women were exempted from the obligation to study, and only
male
were they offered more than a rudimentary education). This community
rarely
the Torah as an object of love, and an eros of Torah study is depicted in
viewed
passages in the rabbinic aggadah. Based on biblical images of feminine
many
Torah was described as the daughter and delight of God and as
wisdom,
bride. Study of Torah, especially the elaboration of its law, was de-
Israel's
by the sages as courtship and sometimes even as the shy, scholarly
scribed
act of love, the consummation of this sacred marriage. The
bridegroom's
on the Songof Songs, compiled in the sixth or seventh century,
midrash
a large part of its exegesis of that erotic text to discussing the revela-
devotes
at Sinai and the delights of both God and the sages in the study of Torah.
tion
Zohar is well aware of these precedents and expands upon them in its
The
richer and even more daringversion of amor dei intellectualis. Thelush
own
well-watered gardens of the Song of Songs are the constant dwelling place
and
the Zohar, where frequent invocation of the Canticle is the order of the day.
of
the kabbalists' literary imagination, the gardens of eros in the Song, the
In
or ``orchard'' of mystical speculation itself, and the mystical Garden of
pardes
which God wanders each night ``to take delight in the souls of the
EdenÐinto
Introduction
lix
righteous''Ðhave been thoroughly linked with one another. The description in