6 - Revelation versus Concealment in the Reception History of the Zohar

Summary

Woe if I reveal and woe if I reveal not.

Zohar iii. 127b

THE TENSION between the wish to reveal and publicize the Zohar, on the one hand, and to conceal its content and limit its accessibility, on the other, has characterized the history of that book's reception from its early circulation until today. As we have seen, the zoharic literature was created as a reaction to conservative, esoteric trends that dominated the kabbalistic production field at the end of the thirteenth century. Throughout its history there have been circles that emphasized the exoteric character of the Zohar and have contributed to its circulation while others viewed it as an esoteric text and did their best to limit its proliferation. At times the two inclinations existed side by side within the same circles.

This tension stems from the economic logic inherent in cultural systems. To sustain the value of a cultural product a fine balance must be maintained between its distribution and control of its availability. In other words, value is preserved by balancing supply and demand. To quote Pierre Bourdieu, ‘all goods offered tend to lose some of their relative scarcity and their distinctive value as the number of consumers both inclined and able to appropriate them grows. Popularization devalues. Déclassé goods no longer give class.’ Therefore, although some circulation was necessary to increase the Zohar's value as a sacred and authoritative text, excessive circulation and uncontrolled access threatened to reduce its cultural worth.

Yet it was the perception of the Zohar as incomprehensible to the average human mind that enabled, to a great extent, its distribution to the general public. As I have shown in the first two chapters, the zoharic literature undermined the esoteric approach of Nahmanides’ school; Moshe Halbertal argues that ‘the Zohar presents a perfect alternative to the concept that the Kabbalah is a closed knowledge’. In the first extant testimony describing the distribution of the Zohar, R. Isaac of Acre recounts his amazement at the exoteric character of that work and at the ‘wondrous secrets, previously transmitted only orally and not meant to be set in writing, [which] are explained in this book so that they can be comprehended by anyone who is able to read a book’.