Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press
Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press
Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press
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in readingthe text is that of masteringthe symbolic language and the<br />
dif®culty<br />
with which it was employed.<br />
subtlety<br />
may also be that the Zohar's composition in Aramaic was not entirely a<br />
It<br />
of conscious choice. Perhaps it was somethingthat ``happened,'' either<br />
matter<br />
the author's psyche or in the community of mystics where Zoharic teachings<br />
in<br />
®rst shared orally. If there was a livingcommunity of kabbalists in<br />
were<br />
in the 1280s, meetingby night in courtyards and gardens to study the<br />
Castile<br />
of the Torah, in what language did they share those secrets with one<br />
secrets<br />
How did the transition take place from discussingthe Hebrew text of<br />
another?<br />
in CastilianÐtheir only spoken languageÐback into Hebrew or Ara-<br />
Torah<br />
for transcription onto the written page? Could it be that the richly<br />
maic,<br />
sound of AramaicÐwhere each noun ends in a vowelÐbetter re¯ected<br />
vocalic<br />
sounds of their own speech than did Hebrew? Were they themselves somehow<br />
the<br />
``seduced'' by the mysterious sound of Aramaic to follow it into the<br />
realm represented by the Zohar?<br />
fantasy<br />
speculations may also be applied to the written text itself, especially if<br />
These<br />
assume that Rabbi Moses de LeoÂn is the author of large portions of the<br />
we<br />
Some twenty Hebrew treatises by De LeoÂn have survived, and several of<br />
Zohar.<br />
have now been published. Compared to the Zohar, they are relatively dull<br />
these<br />
uninspired. While the doctrinal content is very much the same, they pos-<br />
and<br />
little of the poetic muse and freedom of expression that so characterize the<br />
sess<br />
One has the impression that De LeoÂn stepped into another world when<br />
Zohar.<br />
Zohar, and the transition from Hebrew to Aramaic was one of the<br />
writingthe<br />
he marked that portal. Workingin this other, more dimly perceived lan-<br />
ways<br />
released his muse, as it were, giving him the freedom to soar to heights<br />
guage<br />
imagination and literary excess that he would not have dared attempt in<br />
of<br />
We might almost say that the use of Aramaic was some part of ``the<br />
Hebrew.<br />
Name'' by which it was said that De LeoÂn hadwrittentheZohar.<br />
Holy<br />
Aramaic of the Zohar is indeed a unique composite of dialects and features<br />
The<br />
drawn from ancient literary sources. Details of Scholem's analysis of the<br />
language can be found in his writings and need not be repeated here.<br />
Zohar's<br />
also the Translator's Introduction to this volume for further discussion of<br />
See<br />
last two centuries of Jewish life in Spain, the Zohar continued to be<br />
Duringthe<br />
and studied amongsmall groups of devotees. It competed with two<br />
copied<br />
schools of kabbalistic thought, the Catalonian and the Abula®an, for the<br />
other<br />
of those few interested in mystical pursuits. Some kabbalists seem to<br />
attention<br />
combined these various approaches, or else to have ``migrated'' in the<br />
have<br />
of their own quests from one school of mystical thought to another.<br />
course<br />
Introduction<br />
lxxi<br />
linguistic questions that have direct bearing on the translation before you.<br />
X<br />
Jewish rationalism was also very much alive in Spain through the ®fteenth