Heinrich Graetz - History of the Jews, Vol. 4 (of 6)

When the Zohar or Midrash of Simon bar Yochaï was published, it aroused the greatest wonder among the Kabbalists. They seized upon it with avidity. Moses de Leon received vast multitudes of orders to send copies. The question, whence all at once had come so comprehensive a work of an old teacher of the Mishna, not a trace of which had been known till then, was thus answered: Nachmani had exhumed it in Palestine, had sent it to his son in Catalonia, by a whirlwind it had been carried to Aragon or Alicante (Valencia), where it had fallen into the hands of Moses de Leon, who alone possessed the original document. The repute of the newly discovered Kabbalistic treasure soon spread through the whole of Spain. The school of Abulafia at once gave the Zohar the tribute of its acknowledgment, and considered it indisputably genuine. Moses de Leon's wildest hopes were more than realized. There were, of course, Kabbalists who doubted that the Zohar had originated with Simon bar Yochaï and his school, but none the less did they pay homage to the book as to a pure source for Kabbalistic theories. When the Kabbalist Isaac of Accho, who had escaped the massacre that had ensued upon the capture of that city, arrived in Spain, and saw the Zohar, he was staggered, and became desirous of coming to the root of the question, whether this alleged ancient Palestinian work was really genuine, as he had been born and educated in the Holy Land, had associated with Nachmani's pupils, and yet had never heard a syllable about it. When he met Moses de Leon in Valladolid, the latter took a solemn oath that he had in his house at Avila an old copy of the book from the hand of Simon bar Yochaï, and pledged himself to submit it to Isaac of Accho for examination. But Moses de Leon became ill on his journey home, and died in Arevalo (1305). The veil around the origin of the Zohar was wrapped still closer. Two influential men of Avila, David Rafan and Joseph de Avila, had indeed discovered the simple truth from Moses de Leon's wife and daughter. Moses de Leon had never possessed the original copy, but had evolved it out of his own inner consciousness, and had written it with his own hand. His wife frankly related that she had often asked her husband why he published the productions of his own intellect under a strange name, and that he had answered that the Zohar would not, under his own name, have brought him any money, but assigned to Simon bar Yochaï it had been a lucrative source of income.

Thus wife and daughter, without being aware of the full gravity of their assuredly unassailable testimony, unmasked Moses de Leon as a forger. Nevertheless, the Zohar met with the unqualified applause of the Kabbalists, because it supplied a want which would have had to be provided for in one way or another. The Kabbalistic doctrine, which had already gained so much weight, had hitherto been without firm basis; it had no other authority than the very doubtful one of Isaac the Blind. Now the dignified figure of a teacher of the Mishna in communion with departed spirits and celestial hosts and angels confirmed the truths which were not only doubted by many at the time, but absolutely ridiculed. Should they, then, not cling to it and defend it? What Moses de Leon put into the mouth of Simon bar Yochaï, "Many will range themselves round the book Zohar, when it becomes known, and nourish their minds with it at the end of days," actually happened soon after his death. If the Zohar did not bring the Kabbalists anything essentially new, it exhibited to them what they did know in so peculiar a form and language, that they were wonderstruck. Everything in it is contrived for effect, for illusion, and for fascination. The long discussions which Simon bar Yochaï holds with his circle or with the "faithful shepherd," have dramatic power, especially the scene in which, in premonition of his speedy dissolution, he imparts once more what he so often had proclaimed. Full of effect, and, upon minds easily accessible to faith, of transporting and overwhelming influence, are the oft-recurring exclamations in the Zohar: Woe, woe to those who believe, or do not believe, or fail to respect, this and that. Sometimes short prayers are interspersed, which, being elevated and imaginative, are peculiarly fitted to fill the soul with mysterious awe. Even the characteristic terms introduced instead of the usual Kabbalistic forms are calculated to arouse interest by their double sense. The author designated God and the higher spiritual substances (Sefiroth) collectively or in their single parts and effects, as father, mother, the prototype of man, bride, matron, the white head, the large and the small face, the mirror, the higher heaven, the higher earth, lily, apple-orchard, and so on. The pious were gained over to the side of the Zohar, as it attributes to every religious custom and every practice a higher import, a higher sanctity, and a mysterious effect.

So a new text-book of religion was by stealth introduced into Judaism. It placed the Kabbala, which a century before had been unknown, on the same level as the Bible and the Talmud, and to a certain extent on a still higher level. The Zohar undoubtedly produced good, in so far as it opposed enthusiasm to the legal dry-as-dust manner of the study of the Talmud, stimulated the imagination and the feelings, and cultivated a disposition that restrained the reasoning faculty. But the ills which it has brought on Judaism outweigh the good by far. The Zohar confirmed and propagated a gloomy superstition, and strengthened in people's minds the belief in the kingdom of Satan, in evil spirits and ghosts.

Through its constant use of coarse expressions, often verging on the sensual, in contradistinction to the chaste, pure spirit pervading Jewish literature, the Zohar sowed the seeds of unclean desires, and later on produced a sect that laid aside all regard for decency. Finally, the Zohar blunted the sense for the simple and the true, and created a visionary world, in which the souls of those who zealously occupied themselves with it were lulled into a sort of half-sleep, and lost the faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong. Its quibbling interpretations of Holy Writ, adopted by the Kabbalists and others infected with this mannerism, perverted the verses and words of the Holy Book, and made the Bible the wrestling-ground of the most curious, insane notions. The Zohar even contains utterances which seem favorable to the Christian dogma of the Trinity of the Godhead. The mystics dismembered the fair form of Holy Writ, indulged in mad sport, and stupefied all sense for truth, but they were scarcely more guilty in this respect than the so-called philosophers of the time. Maimuni's attempt to bring Judaism and its religious literature into consonance with reason, to give certain too realistic verses of the Bible a philosophical, or at least a tolerable sense, and place religious precepts on the basis of an intelligible, acceptable purpose, encouraged half-learned men to explain everything and anything in the same way. Hence the allegorizing of the Scriptures, the Agada, and the rites, was carried to an incredible extreme. These pseudo-philosophers divested the stories of the creation and of the patriarchs of their historical character, and interpreted them as philosophical commonplaces, in which they sported with Aristotelian and Maimunist terms, as the Zohar with Kabbalistic terms. Abraham and Sarah, for example, denote to the allegorists matter and form, Pharaoh denotes vicious desires, Egypt the body, the land of Goshen the heart, Moses the divine spirit, and the Urim and Thummim, which the High Priest wore on his breast in the Temple, were the astrolabe of the astronomers, with which they calculated time, longitude and latitude. If there had been at that time any Jewish thinkers of the first rank, they would have made serious efforts to put a stop to this childish proceeding, whether Kabbalistic or pseudo-philosophical. But the age of Ben Adret happened to be poor in great intellects. Even the two chief representatives of the philosophy of that time, Shem-Tob Falaquera and Isaac Albalag, were not above mediocrity, and were themselves tainted with the current errors.