Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press

of rebellingagainst Talmudic authority. But by this time (and in
intention
circles), the Zohar was beingread through the lenses of such radical
these
as the Ra'aya Meheimna, the ®fteenth-century Sefer ha-Qanah,
interpreters
anonymous work Galei Razayya, and the writings of Nathan of Gaza.
the
seen as the font of this literary tradition, the Zohar could be read as a
When
radical work indeed.
very
decline of Sabbateanism in the mid-eighteenth century preceded by
The
a few decades the beginning of the Enlightenment era in western Europe
only
the admission of Jews into a more open and religiously tolerant society. As
and
numbers of Jews became eager supporters of what they could only see as
large
readings of Judaism that supported or ®t this new situation
emancipation,
widespread. One feature of this emerging post-Enlightenment Judaism,
became
in its Reform or Orthodox versions, was either an open rejection or a
whether
settingaside of Kabbalah and the Zohar in particular. Scholem wrote an
quiet
about several obscure nineteenth-century ®gures whom he designated as
essay
Last Kabbalists in Germany.'' We have already spoken of Heinrich
``The
negative views of the Zohar, a position that was widely shared by his
Graetz's
While there were a few scholars in the period of the Wis-
contemporaries.
des Judentums (Adolph Jellinek of Vienna is the most notable) who
senschaft
the Zohar, it was mostly neglected by westernized Jews throughout the
studied
and early twentieth centuries.
nineteenth
eastern Europe, the situation was quite different. Hasidism, a popular
In
revival based on Kabbalah, continued to revere the Zohar and believe
religious
its antiquity. Several signi®cant Zohar commentaries were written within
in
circles, and the authors of Hasidic works often referred to the Zohar.
Hasidic
Pinḥas of Korzec, an early Hasidic master, was said to have thanked God
Rabbi
he was born after the appearance of the Zohar, ``for the Zohar kept me a
that
Hasidic legend has it that when the Zohar was published by his sons,
Jew.''
owned the printing-works in Slawuta, they dipped the press in the mikveh
who
bath) before printingeach volume, so great was the holy task that was
(ritual
to come before it! Hasidic masters, because of this legend, went out of
about
way to acquire copies of the Slawuta edition of the Zohar and to study
their
it. The great opponent of Hasidism, Rabbi Elijah (the ``Gaon'') of Vilna
from
was also a kabbalist, and a small group within the circle of his
(1720±1797),
continued the study of Zohar for several generations.
disciples
Sephardic and Mizraḥi Jews, the reputation of the Zohar as a
Amongthe
book was particularly strong. Jews in such far-¯ung communities as
holy
Turkey, and Iraq studied it avidly. Simple Jews recited the Zohar
Morocco,
in the way that uneducated eastern European Jews recited the Psalms.
much
in the eighteenth century, Jerusalem became known as a center of
Beginning
studies, and Jews from throughout these communities went there
kabbalistic
studied works that emanated from that center. Outside of Europe, it was
and
Introduction
lxxv
primarily the Lurianic Kabbalah that held sway, and the Zohar, while revered,