Zohar Annotated & Explained

a review by John Gilbert

The Zohar is the largest of the books considered to be part of the Qabala. It's also one of the most difficult to understand. This is partly true because of the lack of good annotation and explanation. It's also partly due to the fact the Zohar is a novel. It's a story about people doing the things they do but with a secret message pertaining to the Tree of Life.

Zohar (ISBN 1-893361-51-9) translated and annotated by Daniel C. Matt and published by SkyLight Paths Publishing remedies this sad situation. The author is to be congratulated on a difficult job well done. He makes it easy to understand this beautiful but difficult book. He makes our studies easier and more fruitful.

This book was first published as Sefer ha-Zohar at least seven hundred years ago. Sefer ha-Zohar translates roughly into Book of Radiance and it's a commentary on the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. It covers much of the same ground as the Sefer Yetzirah but in an entirely different manner. The Sefer Yetzirah describes the Tree of Life and defines each part in detail. The Zohar discusses these aspects in the light of human experience.

The first thirty pages of this book are devoted to the Foreword, Preface, and introduction to the history of the Zohar, notes by the author and a description of the translation and annotation process. It's easy for the reader to conclude the Zohar is much older than we might suspect. The main character of this story is a Rabbi living in the second century. The debate can be followed step by step over more than two thousand years. Maybe ha-Zohar really was written by a wise and learned Rabbi in the late twelve hundreds as the author says. Then again, maybe the spoken word of ten centuries was finally written down. We'll probably never know the true age of the Zohar nor the name of the original author, but with Matt's translation and commentary we can understand it.

The author has chosen to discuss seventeen short stories within the Zohar and each story is a chapter in this book. The first chapter is a parable about a wheat farmer who went to town and tasted all the baked bread, cake and wheat delicacies offered there. In the final analysis the old wheat farmer learned nothing from the experience because he already understood all there was to know about wheat. In the commentary, Matt suggests the Rabbi who knows all about the Torah will not be enticed to explore deeper levels of meaning. The student who thinks he or she knows the Qabala will not continue studying it on deeper and deeper levels.

The second short story starts out:

Rabbi Shim'on said, Woe to the human being who says that Torah presents mere stories and ordinary words.

Obviously such a person will never take the time to study the essence behind the words. Traditionally, rabbis maintain each and every word in the Torah contains numerous secret meanings on many levels. It's through the study of these secret meanings one begins to understand the Creator and the Creation, the Unmanifest and the Manifest. The author plants seeds in his commentary to help you fathom these secrets.

My favorite chapter is Chapter Three - The Creation of the Divine. Every time I read this passage, and I've read it many times over the past forty-some years, I gain further insight into the Beginning. There was a time before the beginning when the Divine was the Divine and there was no creation. In my mind it's this state we all eventually seek as we travel a spiritual path of returning to our primal essence.

Then there was a time when the Divine began the Beginning. This beginning of the creation is the moment when unmanifest became manifest. Out of this beginning arose all the planets, all the galaxies, all the people, all the things that exist in our world and all worlds today. What a wonderful story rests between today and this ancient beginning. What wonderful fruit for contemplation and meditation.

I like the author's comments regarding The Creation of the Divine. He helps me move back to this ancient time in my meditations, to the moment when the Divine first began to manifest, to the Beginning of all that is. This beginning of the creation is repeated by us every time we start to create anything. It's a moment of history filled with every emotion, thought and intention we can muster within ourselves. I wonder if this is how it was for the Divine.

If you're tempted to read the Zohar, download any one of several versions available for free over the Internet. Here's a list of places that currently offer free downloads of at least portions of the Zohar:

Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai

Work of the Chariot - Books number 3, 4 and 5

Bnei Baruch World Center - Look for Zohar at to bottom of the page

If you need a little assistance understanding what you read, and most of us do, I suggest you pick up a copy of Daniel C. Matt's book Zohar from your local bookseller or directly from the publisher.

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