The Essential Works of Kabbalah. Bernhard Pick

The Essential Works of Kabbalah - Bernhard Pick


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treat of the Divine Throne, resting on wheels, and carried by sacred animals. Great mysteries are attached by the ancient Jews to all details of this description of the Deity and his surroundings, which in imitation of Maascy Bereshit, i. e., "the work of the hexahemeron" or "cosmogony," is also called Maascy Merkaba, "the Work of the Chariot," a kind of "theosophv."

      8 Comp. in general Beer, Leben Abraham's nach Auffassung der judlschen Sage, Leipsic, 1859; Grunbaum, N cue Beitrage zur semitischen Sagcnkunde; 1S93, pp. 89-132; Bonwetsch, Die Apokalypse Abrahams, 1897, pp. 41-55.

      Letter 2 x 1 = 2, 5 x 24 = 120

       3 x 2 = 6, 6 x 120 = 720,

       4 x 6 = 24, 7 x 720 = 5040 and so on.

      "Have you read in the Talmud of old,

      In the Legends the Rabbins have told

      Of the limitless realms of the air,

      Have you read it,--the marvelous story

      Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,

      Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?"

      In a note on page 668 (Boston and New York edition, 1893) it is stated that Longfellow marked certain passages in Stehelin's The Traditions of the Jews, which evidently furnished the material.

      CHAPTER III.

      THE ZOHAR.

       Table of Contents

      The Book of Splendor.—The titles of the Zohar vary. It is called "Midrash of Rabbi Simon ben Jochai," from its reputed author: "Midrash, Let there be Light," from the words in Gen. i. 4; more commonly "Sepher ha-Zohar," from Dan. xii. 3, where the word Zohar is used for "the brightness of the firmament." The title in full is: Sepher ha-Zohar al ha-Torah, me-ish Elohim Kodesh, hu more meod ha-tana R. Simon ben Jochai, etc., i. e., "The Book of Splendor on the Law, by the very holy and venerable man of God, the Tanaite rabbi Simon ben Jochai, of blessed memory."

      The editio princeps is the one of Mantua (3 vols., 1558-1560) and has often been reprinted. The best edition of the book of Zohar is that by Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, with Jewish commentaries (Sulzbach, 1684, fol.) to which his rare Kabbala Denudata (1677-1684) forms an ample introduction. This edition was reprinted with an additional index (Amsterdam, 1714, 1728, 1772, 1805, 3 vols.). Recent editions of the Zohar were published at Breslau (1866, 3 vols.), Livorno (1877-78, in 7 parts), and Wilna (1882, 3 vols.; 1882-83 in 10 parts, containing many commentaries and additions).

      The body of the work takes the form of a commentary of a highly mystic and allegorical character extending over the entire Pentateuch; but the Zohar is not considered complete without the addition of certain appendices attributed to the same author or to some of his personal or successional disciples.

      These supplementary portions are:

      1. Siphra di Tseniutha, i. e., "The Book of Secrets" or "Mysteries," contained in Vol. II, 176-178. It contains five chapters and is chiefly occupied with discussing the questions involved in the creation. In the second and third chapters the prophet Elijah communicates the secret which he learned in the heavenly school, that before the creation of the world God was unknown to man, but made known his essence after the creation of the world. The history of the creation is represented under the figure of a scale,


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