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(2:10) of paradiseÐ`à river goes forth from Eden to water the garden, Genesis it divides into four streams''Ðand certain key verses of the CanticleÐ whence springamid the gardens, a well of livingwaters, ¯owingfrom Lebanon'' `à and othersÐare quoted endlessly to invoke the sense that to dwell in (4:15) exegesis is to sit in the shade of God's garden. Even more: the mystical mystical comes to understand that all of these gardens are but re¯ections of the exegete inner divine garden, the world of the se®rot, whichSefer ha-Bahir had true described as lush with trees, springs, and ponds of water. already Zohar is devoted to the full range of religious obligations that the The places upon the community of Israel. The mysteries of the command- Torah and the rhythms of the sacred year very much occupy its pages, even if ments discount the somewhat later Ra'aya Meheimna (Faithful Shepherd) section, we is almost wholly devoted to the meaningof the commandments. Both which and the ancient Temple ritual, the classic Jewish forms of devotion, are prayer lofty kabbalistic interpretations, and the ®gure of the priest in particular given very central to the Zoharic imagination. Still, it is fair to say that the central is act for the Zohar is the very one in which its heroes are engaged as religious throughout its pages, and that is the act of study and interpretation described Torah. Again and again Rabbi Shim'on waxes eloquent in praise of those of study Torah, especially those who do so after midnight. They indeed take who place of the priests and Levites of old, ``who stand in the house of the Lord the night.'' Those who awaken nightly to study the secrets of Torah become the by attendants of the divine bride, usheringHer into the chamber where earthly will unite at dawn with Her heavenly spouse. This somewhat modest She of the mystic devotee's role in the hieros gamos or sacred marriage depiction that stands at the center of the kabbalistic imagination does not exclude a rite of emotional/mystical reality in which the kabbalist himself is also the level of that bride and a full participant in, rather than merely an attendant to, lover act of union. the in the Zohar is not conceived as a text, as an object, or as material, Torah as a livingdivine presence, engaged in a mutual relationship with the but who studies her. More than that, in the Zoharic consciousness Torah is person to a beloved who carries on with her lovers a mutual and dynamic compared The Zohar on the portion Mishpatim contains, within the literary courtship. known as Sava de-Mishpatim, a description of a maiden in a palace. Here unit way of the Torah's lover is compared to the way of a man with a maiden. the within Torah is like an endless courtingof the beloved: constant Arousal the gates of her palace, an increasingpassion to read her letters, walkingabout desire to see the beloved's face, to reveal her, and to be joined with her. The the in the nexus of this relationship is entirely active. She sends signals of beloved interest to her lover, she intensi®es his passionate desire for her by games her revealingand hiding. She discloses secrets that stir his curiosity. She desires of Introduction lx to be loved. The beloved is disclosed in an erotic progression before her lover
of a desire to reveal secrets that have been forever hidden within her. The out between Torah and her lover, like that of man and maiden in this relationship is dynamic, romantic, and erotic. This interpretive axiom of the parable, which the relationship between student and that studied workÐaccordingto not one of subject and object but of subject and subject, even an erotic is of lover and belovedÐopens a great number of new possibilities. 4 relationship act of Torah study as the most highly praised form of devotional Seeingthe places the Zohar squarely within the Talmudic tradition and at the activity time provides a settingin which to go far beyond it. Here, unlike in the same sources, the content of the exegesis as well as the process is erotic in rabbinic Formerly it was the ancient rabbis' intense devotion to the text and character. the process of Torah study that had been so aptly described by the erotic to The laws derived in the course of this passionate immersion in the metaphor. were then celebrated as resultingfrom the embrace of Torah, even when text dealt with heave-offerings and tithes or ritual de®lement and ablutions. they Talmudic rabbi AkivaÐthe greatest hero of the rabbinic romance with (The textÐwas inspired by his great love of Torah to derive ``heaps and heaps of the from the crowns on each of the letters.'' That indeed had been the genius laws Rabbi Akiva's school of thought: all of Torah, even the seemingly most of belonged to the great mystical moment of Sinai, the day when God mundane, Torah to Israel and proclaimed His love for her in the Song of Songs.) But gave authors of the Zohar crave more than this. The content as well as the process the to reveal the great secret of unity, not merely the small secrets of one law has another. In the Zohar, the true subject matter that the kabbalist ®nds in or the Zohar is not only a book of Torah interpretation. It is also very much But story of a particular group of students of the Torah, a peripatetic band of the gathered around their master Rabbi Shim'on son of Yoḥai. In the disciples body of the Zohar, there appear nine such disciples: Rabbi El'azar (the main of Rabbi Shim'on), Rabbi Abba, Rabbi Yehudah, Rabbi Yitsḥak, Rabbi son Rabbi Ḥiyya, Rabbi Yose, Rabbi Yeisa, and Rabbi Aḥa. A very sig- Ḥizkiyah, part of the Zohar text is devoted to tales of their wanderings and adventuresni®cant proclamations of their great love for one another, accounts of their to their master, and echoes of the great pleasure he takes in hearing devotion teachings. While on the road, wandering about from place to place in the their Melila Hellner-Eshed, ``The Language of Mystical Experience in the Zohar: The 4. through Its Own Eyes'' (in Hebrew) (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew <strong>University</strong>, 2000), 19. Zohar Introduction lxi verse is the hieros gamos itself, the mystical union of the divine male and every eros that underlies and transforms Torah, makingit into a sym- femaleÐthe bolic textbook on the inner erotic life of God. VII
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