Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press
Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press
Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press
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ago, I began to study the Torah. As my facility with the text grew,<br />
years<br />
pursued the midrashic literature of the rabbis, and the interpretations of the<br />
I<br />
medieval commentators. Eventually, I began to inquire about mystical<br />
classic<br />
on the Torah. I turned to the Zohar, seekingan English transla-<br />
commentaries<br />
of its original Aramaic. I soon learned that previous translations not only<br />
tion<br />
incomplete but also had been undertaken in the early twentieth century.<br />
were<br />
they did not re¯ect the enormous advances in scholarship since<br />
Therefore,<br />
by Gershom Scholem and his students. It was at this point that I realized<br />
made<br />
much I wanted to be able to study the Zohar from an English translation<br />
how<br />
would draw upon the research and scholarship of the past half-century. I<br />
that<br />
to sponsor such a translation; the book you hold in your hands is<br />
determined<br />
result. the<br />
its nature and purpose, the Zohar is dif®cult to penetrate. For hundreds<br />
By<br />
years it was inaccessible to all but a few. Furthermore, after the Sabbatean<br />
of<br />
of the seventeenth century, the Jewish community became concerned<br />
episode<br />
the potency of mystical ideas; leaders were anythingbut eager to pro-<br />
about<br />
the Zohar. Even with the rise of Hasidism as a mystically based movemenmulgate<br />
startingin the eighteenth century, the Zohar remained a closed book.<br />
bringing the Zohar to the English-reading public wasÐand continues<br />
Consequently,<br />
to beÐa complex, challenging task.<br />
words that can express my appreciation to Daniel C. Matt are found on<br />
The<br />
page of his translation of the Zohar. His scholarship, his artistry, and his<br />
every<br />
speak for themselves. You, the reader, are in his debt.<br />
poetry<br />
odyssey of the past nine years, which will continue for some years to<br />
The<br />
has been shepherded through a tangle of legal and administrative steps<br />
come,<br />
the able and devoted skill of Glen Miller.<br />
with<br />
Arthur Green, who co-chairs the Academic Committee for the<br />
Professor<br />
of the Zohar, has been a thoughtful and faithful counselor from the<br />
Translation<br />
of the project.<br />
inception<br />
husband Tom, while not a student of the Zohar, recognized the magni-<br />
My<br />
and the importance of this project. He has kept us ever vigilant and<br />
tude<br />
with his insightful questions and thoughts and his constant support.<br />
focused<br />
Foreword<br />
S<br />
ome<br />
vii