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Spiritual - Theosophy
Dictionary on
Zohar, Sepher haz-Zohar
Zohar, Sepher haz-Zohar (Hebrew) [from zohar light, splendor] Book of the light; the principal work or compendium of the Qabbalists, forming with the Book of Creation (Sepher Yetsirah) the main canon of the Qabbalah. It is written largely in Chaldean interspersed with Hebrew, and is in the main a running commentary on the Pentateuch. Interwoven are a number of highly significant sections or books scattered apparently at random through the volumes: sometimes incorporated as parallel columns to the text, at other times as separate portions. These auxiliary books, so casually appended to the text as we now have it, are considered by Qabbalists to be the chief contribution of the Zohar. The following form the bulk of the Zoharic writings outside of the commentary itself, as found in present editions, though in one or two editions a few additional fragments of minor importance are included: 1. Tosephta' (Additions or supplements); 2. Heichaloth (Mansions, Abodes) usually enumerated as seven, describing the structure of the upper and lower realms; 3. Sithrei Torah (Mysteries or Secrets of the Law [Pentateuch]) describing the evolution of the Sephiroth; 4. Midrash Han-Ne`elam (The Hidden Interpretation), deducing esoteric doctrine from the narratives in the Pentateuch; 5. Ra`ya' Meheimna' (The Faithful Shepherd), recording discussions between Moses the faithful shepherd, the prophet Elijah, and Rabbi Shim`on ben Yohai (the reputed compiler of the Zohar); 6. Razei deRazin (Secrets of Secrets), a treatise on physiognomy and higher psychology; 7. Saba' deMishpatim (The Aged in Decisions, Judgments), the Aged One or Scholar is Elijah who discourses with Yohai on the doctrine of metempsychosis; 8. Siphra' di-Tseni`utha' (The Book of the Mysteries), discourses on cosmogony and demonology; 9. Ha-'Idra' Rabba' Qaddisha' (The Great Holy Assembly), discourses of Rabbi Yohai to his disciples on the form of the deity and on pneumatology; 10. Yenoqa' (The Youth), discourses on the mysteries of ablutions by a young man of such high talent that he was thought to be of superhuman origin; 11. Ha-'Irda' Zuta' Qaddisha' (The Lesser Holy Assembly), discourses on the Sephiroth to six disciples. The Zohar was compiled by Rabbi Simeon Ben-Iochai, and completed by his son Rabbi Eleazar, and his secretary Rabbi Abba. "But voluminous as is the work, and containing as it does the main points of the secret and oral tradition, it still does not embrace it all. It is well known that this venerable kabalist [Simeon] never imparted the most important points of his doctrine otherwise than orally, and to a very limited number of friends and disciples, including his only son. Therefore, without the final initiation into the Mercaba the study of the Kabala will be ever incomplete, . . . Since the death of Simeon Ben-Iochai this hidden doctrine has remained an inviolate secret for the outside worlds" (IU 2:348-9). The Zohar contains the universal wisdom or theosophy of the ages. Nevertheless it "teaches practical occultism more than any other work on that subject; not as it is translated though, and commented upon by its various critics, but with the secret signs on its margins. These signs contain the hidden instructions, apart form the metaphysical interpretations and apparent absurdities . . ." (IU 2:350). The present "approximation of the Zohar was written by Moses de Leon in the 13th century. "Mistaken is he who accepts the Kabalistic works of to-day, and the interpretations of the Zohar by the Rabbis, for the genuine Kabalistic lore of old! For no more to-day than in the day of Frederick von Schelling does the Kabala accessible to Europe and America, contain much more than 'ruins and fragments, much distorted remnants still of that primitive system which is the key to all religious systems' . . . The oldest system and the Chaldean Kabala were identical. The latest renderings of the Zohar are those of the Synagogue in the early centuries -- i.e., the Thorah, dogmatic and uncompromising" (SD 2:461-2). The Zohar has been widely studied by European mystical and other scholars for centuries past, and many speculations have been made by these scholars as to its age, some affirming with perfect truth that the roots or origins of the Qabbalah go back into the very night of time and are probably to be traced to now unknown originals in ancient Chaldea, while others points out that in several places the Zohar mentions facts of history that have taken place in Europe after the beginning of the Christian era, such as the Crusades, and the mentioning of the Massoretic vowel points which came into use at the time of the Rabbi Mocha, 570 AD, the mention of a comet which can be proved by the context to have appeared in 1264, etc. Moses de Leon was probably the first to edit or give to the world the volume of the Zohar as we now have it considered as a whole. We thus have a work of progressive compilation, the form in which it has reached our hands showing the labor of several, if not many, minds since the beginning of the Christian era, but which nevertheless in its typically Chaldean thought and manner of envisioning religious and philosophical principles prove it to have come down from an unknown time in Chaldean history.
(See also: Zohar, Sepher haz-Zohar , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary,
Body mind and Soul)
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