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