Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press

se®rotic universe as a representation of inner religious experience may
The
described in more speci®c ways as well, though these are surely not ex-
be
The ``descent'' of the se®rot, beginning with Keter, issaidtodescribe
haustive.
emergence of God from hiddenness to revelation. Both the creation of the
the
and the giving of Torah are this-worldly extensions of that inner divine
world
On a more realistic plane, however, so too is the mystic's own inner
process.
Se®rotic symbolism provides a language for describing the mystic's own
life.
from an experience of absorption in the ``nothingness'' of God and
return
reintegration into the framework of full human personality, the reemergence
gradual
of conscious selfhood. It should be emphasized that the Zohar never
such a claim. In general the kabbalists were loathe to speak too openly
makes
the experiential aspects of their teaching. Especially when it came to the
about
triad of the se®rotic world, to speak in terms that claimed direct
highest
was considered far beyond the bounds of propriety. But one who
experience
the kabbalists with an eye to comparative and phenomenological descriptions
reads
of mysticism cannot but suspect that such experience underlies the
The accounts of a mysterious energy that ¯ows from unde®ned endlessness,
sources.
through a primal arousal of will, into a single point that is the start of
being, and thence into the womb-palace where the self (divine or human) is
all
sound familiarly like descriptions of the rebirth of personality that
born,
the contemplative mystical experience. Even though the Zohar depicts
follows
chie¯y as the original journey of God, we understand that the mystical life
it
that divine process. In fact, it is out of their own experience that the
repeats
know what they do of the original journey on which theirs is patterned.
mystics
one can go even a step further to claim that the constant movement
Perhaps
the se®rotic world, includingboth the ¯ow of energy ``downward'' from
within
and the risingup of Malkhut and the lower worlds into the divine heights,
Keter
the dynamic inner life of the mystic and the spiritual motion that
represents
animates his soul. It is these nuances of inner movement that constitute
ever
``real'' subject of a very large part of the Zohar and the world it creates. To
the
fully appreciate the Zohar as a mystical text is to understand these
most
as reverberations within the mystic's soul of events as they tran-
movements
within the se®rotic cosmos that constitutes the divine reality.
spire
the Zohar does speak of mystical experience, it is largely through use
When
the term devequt, ``attachment'' or ``cleaving '' to God, and its Aramaic
of
Ever since the early rabbinic discussions of Deuteronomy 4:4 (``You
cognates.
cleave to YHVH your God are all alive today'') and 10:20 (``Fear YHVH your
who
cleave to Him and serve Him''), devequt has played a central role in the
God,
life of pious Jews. But the Zohar is also quick to associate this term
devotional
its ®rst biblical usage in Genesis 2:24, where man ``cleaves to his wife and
with
become one ¯esh.'' Attachment to God, for the Zohar, is erotic attachment,
they
whether referringto the kabbalist's own attachment to God by means of
Introduction
lxvi
Torah, to Shekhinah's link to the upper ``male'' se®rot as God's bride, or in the