The Zohar (1:11a)

An ongo­ing series

[I recently pur­chased the new, Eng­lish trans­la­tion of the Zohar, the book that laid the foun­da­tion for Jew­ish mys­ti­cal thought and the Kab­balah. It is the most impor­tant book in Judaism after the Bible and the Tal­mud. As I go through the Zohar, I will be pub­lish­ing excerpts here for any read­ers who may be inter­ested in addi­tion to my series of com­men­taries on each week’s Torah portion.]

Haq­damat Sefer HaZo­har (1:11a)

Rabbi Shim’on opened, say­ing, “Who­ever rejoices on the fes­ti­vals with­out giv­ing the blessed Holy One His share — that stingy one, evil-eyed Satan, Arch­en­emy, appears and accuses him, removes him from the world. How much com­pounded suf­fer­ing he brings upon him!

“The share of the blessed Holy One con­sists in glad­den­ing the poor as best as one can. For on these days the blessed Holy One comes to see those bro­ken ves­sels of His. Enter­ing their com­pany and see­ing they have noth­ing to cel­e­brate, He weeps over them — and then ascends to destroy the world!

“Many mem­bers of the Acad­emy come before Him and plead: ‘Mas­ter of the uni­verse! You are called Com­pas­sion­ate and Gra­cious. May your com­pas­sion be aroused for your children!’

“He answers them, ‘Don’t the inhab­i­tants of the world that I based the world solely on love? As is writ­ten:  I said, “The world shall be built on love” (Psalms 89:3). By this the world endures.’

“The angels on high declare before Him, ‘Mas­ter of the Uni­verse! Look at so-and-so who is eat­ing and drink­ing his fill. He could be gen­er­ous with the poor, but he gives them nothing!’

“The Accuser comes, claims per­mis­sion, and sets out in pur­suit of that human being.

“Who in the world was greater than Abra­ham, who acted kindly to all crea­tures? What is writ­ten con­cern­ing the day he pre­pared a feast? The child grew and was weaned, and Abra­ham held a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned (Gen­e­sis 21:8). He made a feast, invit­ing all the dig­ni­taries of his generation.

“We have learned: When­ever there is a joy­ous meal, the Accuser comes to observe. If the host has first pro­vided for the poor or invited them into his home, then the Accuser departs from the house with­out enter­ing. If not, he enters and wit­nesses the chaos of rev­elry, with­out any poor,without prior gen­eros­ity toward the poor. Then he ascends, accus­ing the host.

“As Abra­ham wel­comed the dig­ni­taries, the Accuser descended and stood at the door, dis­guised as a poor man. No one paid him any atten­tion. Abra­ham was wait­ing on those kings and princes. Sarah was suck­ling all their babies because they did not believe that she had given birth; they said, ‘It is a foundling from off the streets!’ So when they brought along their babies, Sarah took them and suck­led them in front of every­one, as is writ­ten: Who would have said to Abra­ham: Sarah will suckle chil­dren? (Gen­e­sis 21:7). Chil­dren, lit­er­ally!

“Mean­while the Accuser was still at the door. She said, ‘God has made a laugh­ing stock out of me’ (Gen­e­sis 21:6).

“At once, the Accuser rose to face the blessed Holy One. He exclaimed, ‘Mas­ter of the Uni­verse! You called Abra­ham My beloved (Isa­iah 41:8)? He held a feast and gave me noth­ing, and noth­ing to the poor. To You, he didn’t offer a sin­gle dove! Fur­ther­more, Sarah said that You made fun of her!’

“The blessed Holy One replied, ‘Who in the world is like Abraham?’

“But he held his ground until he ruined all that joy, and the blessed Holy One com­manded that Isaac be offered as a sac­ri­fice, and it was decreed that Sarah die in anguish over her son’s ordeal. All that suf­fer­ing came about because he gave noth­ing to the poor.”

—

Rabbi Shim’on opened, say­ing, “What is the mean­ing of the verse: Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to God (Isa­iah 38:2)? Come and see how potent is the power of Torah, how supreme above all! For who­ever engages in Torah has no fear of those above and those below, nor of any grave sick­ness in the world, since he grasps the Tree of Life and learns from it every day. For Torah teaches a per­son to fol­low the true path, advises him how to return to his Lord, nul­li­fy­ing that decree. Even if it has been ordained that the decree not be nul­li­fied, it is annulled imme­di­ately and removed from him, loom­ing over him no longer in this world. So one should engage in Torah day and night, never depart­ing from her, as is writ­ten: Med­i­tate on it day and night (Joshua 1:8). If one departs from Torah or sep­a­rates from her, it is like sep­a­rat­ing one­self from the Tree of Life.

“Come and see this advice: When one climbs into bed at night, he should accept upon him­self whole­heart­edly the King­dom on high and in advance deliver to Him the pledge of his soul. At once he is pro­tected from any grave ill­ness or malef­i­cent spirit, which are pow­er­less against him.

“In the morn­ing, upon ris­ing from bed, one should bless his Lord, enter His house, bow down in great awe before His sanc­tu­ary, and then offer his prayer. He should seek advice from the holy Patri­archs, as is writ­ten: As for me, through Your abun­dant love, I will enter Your house; I will bow down at Your holy sanc­tu­ary in awe of You (Psalms 5:8). So they have estab­lished: A per­son should not enter the syn­a­gogue with­out first con­sult­ing Abra­ham, Isaac, and Jacob, for they inno­vated prayer to the blessed Holy One, as is writ­ten: As for me, through Your abun­dant love, I will enter Your house — Abra­ham; I will bow down at Your holy sanc­tu­ary — Issac; in awe of You — Jacob. One should embrace them first, then enter the syn­a­gogue and offer one’s prayer. So it is writ­ten: He said to me, ‘You are My ser­vant, Israel, in whom I will be glo­ri­fied’ (Isa­iah 49:3).”

—

Rabbi Pin­chas used to fre­quent Rabbi Rechu­mai by the shore of Lake Gin­nosar. He was dis­tin­guished, advanced in years, and his eyes had tran­scended seeing.

He said to Rabbi Pin­chas, “Truly I have heard that our Com­pan­ion Yochai has a pearl, a pre­cious stone. I gazed at the light of that pearl, issu­ing like the radi­ance of the sun from its sheath, illu­mi­nat­ing the entire world. That light extends from heaven to earth, illu­min­ing the entire world until the Ancient of Days comes and sits fit­tingly upon the throne. That light is con­tained totally in your house, and from the light con­tained in your house emanates a fine, thread­like ray, radi­at­ing, illu­min­ing the entire world. Happy is your share! Go, my son, go out after that pearl illu­min­ing the wrld, for the time is ripe.”

He left him and was about to board a boat along with two other men, when he saw two birds come fly­ing over the lake. He shouted to them, “Birds, birds, fly­ing over the lake! Have you seen the site of the son of Yochai?”

He paused a while, and then said, “Birds, birds, go and bring me a reply!” They flew off.

They embarked, set­ting off across the lake. Before he had dis­em­barked, those birds returned, and in the mouth of one of them was a note on which was writ­ten: “The son of Yochai has emerged from the cave along with his son Rabbi El’azar.”

He went to him and found him trans­fig­ured, his body full of moldy sores. He wept together with him and said, “Alas, that I see you so!”

He replied, “Happy is my share that you see me so, for had you not seen me so, I would not be so.”