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Brill Nv, Leiden, 2018 | Doi:10.1163/9789004386198 002 2 Introduction: Poetic Mythology for a Broken World ∵

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Brill Nv, Leiden, 2018 | Doi:10.1163/9789004386198 002 2 Introduction: Poetic Mythology for a Broken World ∵ Introduction: Poetic Mythology for a Broken World Hollow! It’s all hollow! A chasm! It’s cracking! Can you hear? There’s something – down there – that’s following us! Away! Away! Alban Berg, Wozzek (1923) … Why has the abyss remained in this world? … The reason is that each time the blessed Holy One works a great miracle, he sifts siftings from [it] … And from this raw material come into being creations that the blessed Name creates through his wonders. And this is the mystery of “the abysses were congealed in the heart of the sea” [Exodus 15:8]. Also the King Messiah has already sifted several times from it. Nathan of Gaza, Discourse on the Dragons (1666)1 … Come and see: among these evil species [demons], there are levels upon levels; the highest level of these are those suspended in the air … [In re- gards to] one who has only merited a life-force [nefesh], and this life-force wishes to receive tikun and receive a spirit [ruaḥ]: … something issues from this life force, and seeks, and does not seek, to rise – until it encoun- ters those [demons] suspended in the air and they tell him matters, some near, and some far. And by means of this rung, he goes and becomes con- nected to his dream, and acquires a spirit. Sefer Ha-Zohar2 מדוע נשאר התהום בעולם הזה?… הטעם הוא שבכל פעם שהקב"ה עושה נס גדול, בורר מסוד 1 הטהירו הזה בירורין, וגולם זה נתהוה ממנו יצירות שיוצר האל ית' ע"י נפלאותיו. וזה סוד הכתוב "קפאו תהומות בלב ים" ]שמות ט"ו:ח[. גם מלך המשיח כבר בירר כמה פעמים ממנו … Nathan of Gaza, ‘Derush Ha-Taninim’, in Scholem, Be-Ikevot Mashi’aḥ, 19. Nathan Benjamin ben Elisha HaLevi of Gaza (1643–1680) is best known as the prophet of the messianic Sabbatean movement. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. 2 Zohar III, 25a: ת"ח באינון זינין בישי אית דרגין אלין על אלין דרגא עלאה דלהון אינון דתליין באוירא … ההוא דלא זכי יתיר אלא בנפש וההוא נפש בעי לאתתקנא לקבלא רוח … נפק מה דנפקא מההוא נפש ואתפשט בעלמא ובעי לסלקא ולא בעי עד דיערע בהו באינון דאוירא ואינון מודעין ליה מלין מנהון קריבין ומנהון רחיקין יתיר ובההוא דרגא אזיל ואתקשר בחלמיה עד דקני רוח. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004386198_002 2 Introduction: Poetic Mythology for a Broken World ∵ I Otherness and Brokenness The relationship to the “Other” – ethnic, racial, sexual, religious, unconscious – is the central challenge of our time. From the bloody wars that ravage the planet to the “culture wars” of academia, from parliaments to the streets, from theological walls between religious denominations to concrete walls between countries, from divided families to divided selves, the contemporary world seems in a veritable state of hysteria about alterity. Embrace or exclude? Efface difference or respect it? Protect or crush? Celebrate or ignore? Repress or ex- press? Our world poses all these alternatives and more. We oscillate between wildly divergent responses to the confrontation of our collective and individual Selves with the Others that fill us with love, hate, de- sire, and revulsion. In a world that is painfully divided, divisions also found within our souls, we rush from one stance to another, seeking to overcome, or at least manage, that pain – propelled by a deep-rooted resistance, even if often unconscious, to this alienation from the Other, this transformation of the Other into an alien, and by our desire for harmony with the Other, indeed for the Other’s embrace. This book is about the poetic mythology of Otherness in the Zoharic tradi- tion in kabbalah. “Kabbalah” is the common appellation for a vast and hetero- geneous array of texts and practices that emerged on the historical stage in the 12th and 13th century in Provence, Catalonia, and Castile, and spread all over the Jewish world and beyond it. “The Zohar” – or “the Zoharic literature”3 – the crowning glory of the formative period of kabbalah, is an array of homiletical, mythological, and mystical texts composed primarily by mid- to late 13th cen- tury Spanish writers, largely in Aramaic. These unsigned texts articulate their teachings through the imagined discussions of a group of 2nd century sages, the “Companions,” the Ḥevraya, during their peregrinations across an imagi- nary Holy Land. These texts, gradually collected over the generations, were published in Italy in the mid-16th century as the Sefer Ha-Zohar, the “Book of I note that the translations from the Zoharic literature are my own, except where otherwise noted, but see the Prefatory Note and Bibliography for the variety of previous translations which I have often consulted in making these translations. 3 See below for a discussion of the current scholarly debate about the composition and unity of “the Zohar.”.
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