We arrive at the core conclusion of the Zohar: the great collective task of the faithful is to rouse Shekhinah to a state of love in order to re-establish the union of the divine.10 But how is this to be done? We are instructed to enter into the divine life via the portals of the truth of the Torah, the cosmos, and even our own soul.11 Sacred study is a religious act or as Joshua 1:8 tells us: “Contemplate it day and night.” We facilitate the divine union via an amor Dei intellectualis, but we benefit as well. “To dwell in mystical exegesis is to sit in the shade of God’s creation.”12 The Torah then is reconceived as the living divine presence; facilitating a reciprocal relationship between the reader and God, that is, mutual love.
“The true subject matter [of the Torah]… is the heiros gamos itself, the mystical union of the divine male and female – the eros that underlies and transforms Torah, making it into a symbolic textbook on the inner erotic life of God.”13 Our goal must cleave to God in a spiritual analogy of cleaving to one’s spouse, until we achieve, at last, unio mystica. “The kabbalist speaking in the sefirotic vision is laying bare the innermost structure of reality as he both understands and experiences it.”14 But that image is also reflected in the inner religious experience of humankind.
If we tap into the flow of energy from God, which is the constant renewing of divine presence felt in the daily renewal of nature, we can align with this flow to receive its bounty and further stimulate the flow.15 The final inspiration is the night sky with its shooting stars projected against the Milky Way, the symbol of what happens in the mystics heart and which is reflected in the face shining (tsaddiq); the mystic as conveyor of divine light. The Zohar seeks to arouse constant longing for such “enlightenment.”16
So it turns out the Zohar offers a different – and yet not so different – path to participation in ultimate reality as compared with science, philosophy, and orthodox religion. It proceeds through the love of God and of His revealed scripture, of Nature and indeed, of another human being as well. Constant study, love, and ultra-moral behavior is the path to enlightenment, happiness, and immortality. The inner experience and life of the divine is mirrored in the inner life and mind of man. When the two are joined through profound love, the Zohar tells us, we approach the summit of human possibilities.
(third continuation next post)
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10Matt, Daniel C. (translator)., The Zohar – Pritzker Edition. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 2004. ISBN 0-8047-4747-4, page lxii.
11Ibid.
12Ibid., page lxiv.
13Ibid., page lxv.
14Ibid., page lxix.
15Ibid., page lxxi.
16Ibid., page lxxii.
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