What do you think?
Rate this book
A Guide to the Zohar by Arthur Green
The Zohar is the great medieval compendium of Jewish esoteric and mystical teaching, and the basis of the Kabbalistic faith. It is, however, a notoriously difficult text, full of hidden codes, concealed meanings, obscure symbols, and ecstatic expression. This illuminating study, based upon the last several decades of modern Zohar scholarship, unravels the historical and intellectual origins of this rich text, and provides an excellent introduction to its themes, complex symbolism, narrative structure, and language. A Guide to the Zohar is thus an invaluable companion to the Zohar itself, as well as a useful resource for scholars and students interested in mystical literature, particularly that of the West, from the middles ages to the present.
Paperback
First published December 1, 2003
65 people are currently reading
370 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 13, 2022
Let's talk honestly about the Zohar, and then see what's left to say. The document was produced in thirteenth century Spain, and attributed to first century Eretz Yisrael. It was written in an Aramaic dialect that nobody, except possibly, and only possibly, a small circle of mystics in Spain has ever spoken. It is very difficult to read unless one is already immersed in Talmud and the full corpus of Jewish texts and commentary. No one, but no one, is going to gain any mystical insights by picking up a copy and thumbing to page 77 to see how to approach God today. If you want the goods, you're going to have to do the time, and the time involves years of study and immersion in a world of Jewish study, and, probably, of practice.
For all of these reasons, Arthur Green's Guide to the Zohar is a much better gateway to the Zohar than the Zohar itself for 99% of humanity. There is no pop spirituality here. Green is a favorite author of mine, who combines objective modern Jewish scholarship and textual analysis, with an openness to the religious meanings of a text. He takes seriously the religious and mystical aspirations and sensibilities of its authors, and in so doing it makes it possible for you and I, moderns who are likely not immersed in Jewish texts and practice to the same degree, to take them seriously too.
What do we learn?
One take away about the Zohar is the extent to which, contra-Maimonides, whose emphasis on philosophy and rationalism strongly reflects intellectual currents of his Muslim world, the Zohar seems designed for and by scholars and mystics who were surrounded by a Christian culture. To my mind it is self-evidently a Jewish exploration and sometimes even a Jewish response, to the kind of mysticism that was practiced by the surrounding Christian world. Were Christians thinking of a trinitarian God? The Zohar imagines ten seferot, or, sometimes, five countenances - a God with interiority and complexity that is knowable (while simultaneously attempting to preserve the idea of an indivisible unity.) Were Christian nuns involved in a sublimated erotic relationship with their savior? The Zohar lives in a world in which men approached God through actual erotic relationships with their spouses and symbolic erotic relationships with God. Was the Church threatened by Aristotelian rationalism? The Zohar too is a reaction to rationalism, a flight into the world of language, poetry and mystical experience. The Zohar is also, strongly, a critique of Christianity, full of disguised symbolism to prevent exacerbation of the existing persecution and hatred directed against Jews, but easy enough to discern in the text. In short, the Zohar is the product of Jewish mystics, surrounded by Christians in Castillian Spain, fearful for their lives and determined to seek God on their own terms, but deeply influenced by the intellectual and religious currents flowing through the world around them.
-------------------
Writes Green about the obscure Aramaic in which the Zohar was written:
"The Zohar's Aramaic made the text significantly, but not impossibly, more difficult for the educated Jewish reader in its day. This was probably the precise intent: to offer the reader a sense that he had come to a more profound, and therefore less penetrable, sort of teaching. With some extra effort it would reveal to him the secret universe that the Zohar sought to share, and pass on to its elite community of readers. [....] Although technically one may say with Scholem that the Zohar's Aramaic is "artificial," not reflecting any known spoken dialect, in fact one who dwells for a while in the Zohar's pages finds it very much a living language, powerful and evocative in its own right."
---------------------
We learn that the structure of the Zohar might be called a primitive novel.
"Gershom Scholem once suggested that the Zohar takes the form of a "mystical novel." This suggestion is particularly intriguing because the Zohar appeared in Spain some three hundred years before Cervantes, who is often seen as the father of the modern novel. One may see the tales of Rabbi Shim'on and his companions as a sort of a novel in formation, but it is clear that the form is quite rudimentary. When the Zohar wants to express an idea, it needs to slip back in to the more familiar form of textual hermeneutics. The novelist in the classic post-Cervantes sense is one who can develop ideas or suggest complex thought patterns by means of character development and plot, rather than by having the characters assemble and make a series of speeches to one another ( although such moments are not entirely unknown in later fiction). It might be interesting to place the Zohar in to the setting of such works as medieval troubadour romances, Chaucer's fourteenth century Canterbury Tales, or the Thousand and One Nights. All of these are narrative cycles, frameworks of story into which small units (in these cases narrative, in the Zohar's case homiletical) can be fitted. All of them too, may be seen as precursors of the novel." (p.74)
---------------------
We learn of the intimate tie between God and the erotic, and the contradictions that inhere in that conceptualization:
"Attachment to God, for the Zohar, is erotic attachment, whether referring to the Kabbalist's own attachment to God by means of Torah, to Shekhinah's link to the upper "male" sefirot as God's bride, or in the rare passages where Moses becomes the Kabbalistic hero and himself weds Shekhinah, entering the Godhead in the male role. The contemplative and erotic aspects of attachment to God are just different ways of depicting the same reality, quite wholly inseparable from one another." (p. 81.)
"The frank and uncensored use of bold sexual language for talking about the inner life of God is a major part of the Zohar's legacy and found throughout the later mystical tradition. [...] How did it happen that such unbridled eroticism was permitted to enter the domain of the sacred? How especially could this have happened in a circle that was at the same time so very cautious and extreme in its views of sexual transgression or temptation? (p. 93)
------------------
And there is much, much more, particularly detailed treatments of such topics as:
1) Creation and Origins
2) Between Worlds
3) Evil and the Demonic
4) Torah and Revelation
5) The Commandments
6) Avodah: The Life of Worship
7) The Tsaddiq and the Life of Piety
8) The Jewish People, Exile and the Messiah.
Gerschom Scholem's masterful scholarship on the Zohar is well worth reading, but for my money Arthur Green's summary is possibly a better starting point, and, at the same time, a starting point which, even though it is thoroughly objective and modern, enables the reader to find personal religious meanings to which Scholem's approach does not quite so readily lend itself. Green speaks the language of two worlds, and perhaps of many worlds.
For all of these reasons, Arthur Green's Guide to the Zohar is a much better gateway to the Zohar than the Zohar itself for 99% of humanity. There is no pop spirituality here. Green is a favorite author of mine, who combines objective modern Jewish scholarship and textual analysis, with an openness to the religious meanings of a text. He takes seriously the religious and mystical aspirations and sensibilities of its authors, and in so doing it makes it possible for you and I, moderns who are likely not immersed in Jewish texts and practice to the same degree, to take them seriously too.
What do we learn?
One take away about the Zohar is the extent to which, contra-Maimonides, whose emphasis on philosophy and rationalism strongly reflects intellectual currents of his Muslim world, the Zohar seems designed for and by scholars and mystics who were surrounded by a Christian culture. To my mind it is self-evidently a Jewish exploration and sometimes even a Jewish response, to the kind of mysticism that was practiced by the surrounding Christian world. Were Christians thinking of a trinitarian God? The Zohar imagines ten seferot, or, sometimes, five countenances - a God with interiority and complexity that is knowable (while simultaneously attempting to preserve the idea of an indivisible unity.) Were Christian nuns involved in a sublimated erotic relationship with their savior? The Zohar lives in a world in which men approached God through actual erotic relationships with their spouses and symbolic erotic relationships with God. Was the Church threatened by Aristotelian rationalism? The Zohar too is a reaction to rationalism, a flight into the world of language, poetry and mystical experience. The Zohar is also, strongly, a critique of Christianity, full of disguised symbolism to prevent exacerbation of the existing persecution and hatred directed against Jews, but easy enough to discern in the text. In short, the Zohar is the product of Jewish mystics, surrounded by Christians in Castillian Spain, fearful for their lives and determined to seek God on their own terms, but deeply influenced by the intellectual and religious currents flowing through the world around them.
-------------------
Writes Green about the obscure Aramaic in which the Zohar was written:
"The Zohar's Aramaic made the text significantly, but not impossibly, more difficult for the educated Jewish reader in its day. This was probably the precise intent: to offer the reader a sense that he had come to a more profound, and therefore less penetrable, sort of teaching. With some extra effort it would reveal to him the secret universe that the Zohar sought to share, and pass on to its elite community of readers. [....] Although technically one may say with Scholem that the Zohar's Aramaic is "artificial," not reflecting any known spoken dialect, in fact one who dwells for a while in the Zohar's pages finds it very much a living language, powerful and evocative in its own right."
---------------------
We learn that the structure of the Zohar might be called a primitive novel.
"Gershom Scholem once suggested that the Zohar takes the form of a "mystical novel." This suggestion is particularly intriguing because the Zohar appeared in Spain some three hundred years before Cervantes, who is often seen as the father of the modern novel. One may see the tales of Rabbi Shim'on and his companions as a sort of a novel in formation, but it is clear that the form is quite rudimentary. When the Zohar wants to express an idea, it needs to slip back in to the more familiar form of textual hermeneutics. The novelist in the classic post-Cervantes sense is one who can develop ideas or suggest complex thought patterns by means of character development and plot, rather than by having the characters assemble and make a series of speeches to one another ( although such moments are not entirely unknown in later fiction). It might be interesting to place the Zohar in to the setting of such works as medieval troubadour romances, Chaucer's fourteenth century Canterbury Tales, or the Thousand and One Nights. All of these are narrative cycles, frameworks of story into which small units (in these cases narrative, in the Zohar's case homiletical) can be fitted. All of them too, may be seen as precursors of the novel." (p.74)
---------------------
We learn of the intimate tie between God and the erotic, and the contradictions that inhere in that conceptualization:
"Attachment to God, for the Zohar, is erotic attachment, whether referring to the Kabbalist's own attachment to God by means of Torah, to Shekhinah's link to the upper "male" sefirot as God's bride, or in the rare passages where Moses becomes the Kabbalistic hero and himself weds Shekhinah, entering the Godhead in the male role. The contemplative and erotic aspects of attachment to God are just different ways of depicting the same reality, quite wholly inseparable from one another." (p. 81.)
"The frank and uncensored use of bold sexual language for talking about the inner life of God is a major part of the Zohar's legacy and found throughout the later mystical tradition. [...] How did it happen that such unbridled eroticism was permitted to enter the domain of the sacred? How especially could this have happened in a circle that was at the same time so very cautious and extreme in its views of sexual transgression or temptation? (p. 93)
------------------
And there is much, much more, particularly detailed treatments of such topics as:
1) Creation and Origins
2) Between Worlds
3) Evil and the Demonic
4) Torah and Revelation
5) The Commandments
6) Avodah: The Life of Worship
7) The Tsaddiq and the Life of Piety
8) The Jewish People, Exile and the Messiah.
Gerschom Scholem's masterful scholarship on the Zohar is well worth reading, but for my money Arthur Green's summary is possibly a better starting point, and, at the same time, a starting point which, even though it is thoroughly objective and modern, enables the reader to find personal religious meanings to which Scholem's approach does not quite so readily lend itself. Green speaks the language of two worlds, and perhaps of many worlds.
December 2, 2023
This is a great introduction not just to Zohar, but also to kabbalah in general - at least pre-Zohar kabbalah and kabbalah of the Zohar’s period (look elsewhere for Luria and what followed). It’s highly readable and straightforward. I recommend this to anyone who wants to read the Zohar, of course, but also to anyone looking for an intro to kabbalah that’s newer than Scholem’s work.
February 12, 2017
This was an excellent read in preparation for tackling the Zohar. The text was dense but full of relevant material.
February 21, 2016
Comprehensive overview of the Zohar, not just specific passages but also historicity/authorship, language, and different printings. Green is a masterful teacher-writer who is not afraid to delve into really controversial themes (Medieval Marian influences, overt homoerotic sexuality, and many more), while at the same time maintaining an approachable yet academic tone that also clearly shows his reverence for the text. Huge fan of this one, and recommend it for anyone who is beginning Zohar studies.
October 2, 2021
I always have a hard time understanding the Neoplatonist concept of divine emanations. This book helped clarify the trend and its tension with pantheism. It’s a warm feeling to know the divine is not necessarily entirely separate from matter, but lives as sparks in all of creation.
On a separate note, it is also interesting to read this alongside Philip Pullman and the concept of Dust, though it was defined there as “consciousness” and matter’s ability to think about itself.
I also liked the overview of the historical climate that surrounded the Zohar’s composition.
On a separate note, it is also interesting to read this alongside Philip Pullman and the concept of Dust, though it was defined there as “consciousness” and matter’s ability to think about itself.
I also liked the overview of the historical climate that surrounded the Zohar’s composition.
October 9, 2021
The tone of this book is drier than Green’s usual writing, but it’s extremely helpful for the ways it contextualizes the Zohar through what was going on philosophically, literarily, and politically at the time it was written, how that informs both the style and the content of this key mystical text. For example: he talks about how the physicality and sensuality of the divine in the Zohar is a reaction to Maimonides’s focus on a non-embodied God with no emotions, and how elements of medieval Spanish culture such as the cult of the Virgin Mary and the focus on cultivating gardens informed the imagery of the Shekhina and Pardes. I recommend reading it in small bites to fully absorb it, but if you’re at all interested in Kabbalah, this introduction is very much worth reading.
February 4, 2023
Replete with shocking errors. An unambitious book, seeking mostly to introduce novices to the work of greater scholars, but fails to accurately summarize those at every turn. The final chapters on the history and language of the Zohar's text are particularly useless, the average claim within having about the accuracy of a coin flip.
October 9, 2021
dense and important work
July 12, 2025
Comprehensive, extremely well-researched, and yet still approachable. A fantastic introduction to the Zohar, including both its content and context.
June 5, 2007
This is an excellent introduction to the Zohar and pop-star-free kabbalah. It was produced as a companion volume to the Pritzker Edition of the Zohar being published by Stanford University Press. It puts the text in historical context, covers the basic philosophical doctrines, discusses some of the current scholarly treatments on the transmission of the document (at a superficial level for lay people), and discusses its relevance for today's Jews.
April 18, 2009
The ten sephirot provide a pretty amazing paradigm for interpreting and expressing virtue and divinity. While this book is largely academic, it could be useful to someone looking for a practical approach as well.
August 25, 2016
Short, but great introduction, contextualizing the Zohar, outlining certain core-themes and giving an overview over editorial and linguistic matters.
April 29, 2024
Absolutely essential for approaching the Zohar. Great book for anyone looking to learn more about this text even if they never plan to read the primary source.
May 3, 2015
Informative background to reading the Pritzker Zohar.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews