Zohar

How much is too much when rebuking someone? Proverbs, Talmud, and Maimonides stress the importance of not humiliating the person, and stopping if they're not listening. The Zohar, however, tells a story of Rabbi Ḥiyya and Rabbi Yosi meeting a man with a skin disease on the street and publicly rebuking him. This mindset reflects the Jewish community in 13th century Spain and the institution of berurei aveirot, religious police appointed to root out evil and maintain righteousness.

Is editing and writing in the guise of Moses, Solomon, or Daniel a legitimate literary convention, justified because of the author’s inspired state? Or is this practice a form of deceit, even forgery?

“Oh, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth…” Song of Songs 1:2. Allegorical interpretation in midrash and the Zohar understand the male lover being beckoned as God, but whom is God kissing and why? And does kabbalistic interpretation leave any room for human love?

Ancient interpreters contemplated the substance of manna, a food that traverses the chasm between divine and mundane realms, falling from heaven to be consumed on earth. In kabbalistic thought, the Zohar presents manna as granting the desert generation an embodied experience of knowledge of God; such an opportunity is available to mystics in everyday eating and through birkat ha-mazon (Grace after Meals).

Traditional commentators endued certain Torah references with midrashic or esoteric purport in an effort to counteract those who mocked them. But in so doing, they were conceding the mockers’ evaluation of these texts as being, prima facie, inconsequential. Fortunately, source criticism helps us accept these texts without discomfort, obviating the compulsion to interpret them away.