Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press

authorities bowed to the Zohar, andtheuseofte®llin on those days
halakhic
rejected throughout the Sephardic (and later Hasidic) communities.
was
to the in¯uence of the Safed revival of mystical studies, Kabbalah
Thanks
widely known amongeastern European Jews in the seventeenth cen-
became
The works of Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz, a Prague kabbalist who later settled
tury.
Jerusalem, carried the teachings of Ibn Gabbai and Cordovero, among
in
to preachers throughout the Ashkenazic communities. Here, too, the
others,
was very widely quoted. Prayer books with kabbalistic commentaries,
Zohar
by both Cordovero and Horowitz, brought kabbalistic thinking
includingthose
the realm of actual synagogue practice. The highly mythical Kabbalah of
into
Bacharach, seventeenth-century German author of Emeq ha-Melekh
Naftali
of the King), is primarily in¯uenced by the language and imagery of
(Valley
Zohar. the
area of the growing canonicity of the Zohar is re¯ected in its use in
Another
contexts and its appearance in digests of daily religious practice.
liturgical
kabbalistic Tiqqunim or ``Orders'' were published throughout the seven-
Various
and eighteenth centuries. These include many collections of Zohar passageteenth
to be recited during the vigils of Shavu'ot and Hosha'na Rabbah, atthe
table, and on various other occasions. It came to be understood in this
Sabbath
that oral recitation of the Zohar was ef®cacious even for those who did
period
understand its meaning. In the nineteenth century, vocalized editions of
not
Zohar were printed to allow for this situation, and to assure that the
the
would nevertheless be performed with some degree of accuracy.
recitation
were also various digests produced for daily study/recitation, especially
There
the eighteenth century. The most widespread of these was called Ḥoq le-
in
(Cairo, 1740), includingpassages to be recited each day from the Torah,
Yisra'el
Hagiographa, Mishnah, Talmud, Zohar, ethical guides, and legal
Prophets,
The Ḥemdat Yamim , an anonymous compendium of kabbalistic praxis
digests.
1731/32), prescribes readings from the Zohar for nearly every conceivable
(Izmir,
occasion in the Jewish liturgical year. In both of these compendia, we see
Zohar at the apex of its acceptance and integration into the daily regimen
the
Jewish spiritual life.
of
the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the messianic movement
In
around Sabbatai Tsevi (1626±1676) swept through the Jewish commu-
In the more radical forms of Sabbateanism, the Zohar carried even
nities.
weight as the authority of Talmudic law came to be questioned. The
greater
system of Nathan of Gaza (1643/4±1680), the great prophet of
kabbalistic
is based on the imagery of the Zohar; and devotion to the Zohar
Sabbateanism,
touted loudly throughout the history of Sabbateanism. Some of the later
was
SabbateansÐfollowers of Jacob FrankÐcame to refer to themselves
Ashkenazic
``Zoharites,'' Jews who followed the authority of the Zohar while rejecting
as
of the Talmud and the rabbis. This, of course, would be a spurious claim
that
Introduction
lxxiv
had the authors of the Zohar been asked their opinion, since they had no