A Journey into the Zohar: An Introduction to the Book of Radiance

Nathan Wolski

shk 2012 · State University of New York Press

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The crowning work of medieval Kabbalah, the Zohar is unlike any other work in the Jewish canon. Written in Aramaic, the Zohar contains complex mystical exegesis as well as the story of the Companions—a group of sages who wander through second-century Israel discussing the Torah while meeting up with children, donkey drivers, and various types who have spiritual lessons for them. Nathan Wolski offers original translations of episodes involving this mystical fellowship and goes on to provide a sustained reading of each. With particular emphasis on the literary and performative dimensions of the composition, Wolski takes the reader on a journey through the central themes and motifs of the zoharic world: kabbalistic hermeneutics, the structure of divinity, the nature of the soul and above all, the experiential core of the Zohar—the desire to be saturated and intoxicated with the flowing fluids of divinity. A Journey into the Zohar opens the mysterious, wondrous and at times bewildering universe of one of the masterpieces of world mystical literature to a wider community of scholars, students, and general readers alike.

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Nathan Wolski is Lecturer in the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation at Monash University. He is the translator of Melila Hellner-Eshed's A River Flows from Eden: The Language of Mystical Experience in the Zohar.