Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines. 4
When God decreed our separation and you betook yourself elsewhere, these meetings aroused in me a resolution that had slackened. Your absence moved me to compose this Treatise, which I have composed for you and for those like you, however few they are.
Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar, 171
The Zohar’s Aramaic made the text significantly, but not impossibly, more difficult for the educated Jewish reader in its day. This was probably the precise intent: to offer the reader a sense that he had come to a more profound, and therefore less penetrable, sort of teaching. With some extra effort it would reveal to him the secret universe that the Zohar sought to share and pass on to its elite community of readers. Students of the Zohar come quickly to understand that the Aramaic of the Zohar was indeed a penetrable veil.
(ט) אסור לעונן אע"פ שלא עשה מעשה אלא הודיע אותן הכזבים שהכסילים מדמין שהן דברי אמת ודברי חכמים וכל העושה מפני האצטגנינות וכיון מלאכתו או הליכתו באותו העת שקבעו הוברי שמים הרי זה לוקה . . .
It is forbidden to be an “observer of times [astrologer]” even if he committed no overt act but only uttered the lies which fools imagine are words of truth and words of wisdom. Whoever is influenced in his actions by astrology and arranges his work or journey to take place at the time fixed by the astrologers, is punished with stripes...
(יא) מי שנשכו עקרב או נחש מותר ללחוש על מקום הנשיכה ואפילו בשבת כדי ליישב דעתו ולחזק לבו אע"פשאין הדבר מועיל כלום הואיל ומסוכן הוא התירו לו כדי שלא תטרף דעתו עליו.
If one was stung by a scorpion or a snake, it is permitted, even on the Sabbath, to whisper a spell over the part affected, so as to soothe the patient and give him reassurance. Although the procedure is absolutely useless, it has been permitted because of the patient’s dangerous condition, so that he should not become distraught
(טז) ודברים האלו כולן דברי שקר וכזב הן והם שהטעו בהן עובדי כוכבים הקדמונים לגוה' הארצות כדי שינהגו אחריהן ואין ראוי לישראל שהם חכמים מחוכמים להמשך בהבלים אלו ולא להעלות על לב שיש תועלת בהן . . . כל המאמין בדברים האלו וכיוצא בהן ומחשב בלבו שהן אמת ודבר חכמה אבל התורה אסרתן אינן אלא מן הסכלים ומחסרי הדעת ובכלל הנשים והקטנים שאין דעתן שלימה אבל בעלי החכמה ותמימי הדעת ידעו בראיות ברורות שכל אלו הדברים שאסרה תורה אינם דברי חכמה אלא תהו והבל שנמשכו בהן חסרי הדעת . . .
These practices are all false and deceptive, and were means employed by the ancient idolaters to deceive the peoples of various countries and induce them to become their followers. It is not proper for Israelites, who are highly intelligent, to suffer themselves to be deluded by such inanities or imagine that there is anything in them . . . Whoever believes in these and similar things and, in his heart, holds them to be true and scientific and only forbidden by the Torah, is nothing but a fool, deficient in understanding, who belongs in the same class with women and children whose intellects are immature . . .
זוהר חלק ג דף דף נז/ב - נח/א
אמר רבי שמעון, תווהנא על בני עלמא, דהא לית להו עיינין למחזי, ולבא לאשגחא, ולא ידעין, ולא שוויין לבייהו לאסתכלא ברעותא דמאריהון, היך ניימין ולא מתערי משנתייהו . . . וכרוזא כל יומא קארי עלייהו, ונשמתהון אסהידת בהון כל יומא וליליא, אורייתא ראמת קלין לכל עבר, מכרזת ואומרת, (משלי א כב) עד מתי פתאים תאהבו פתי, (שם ט ד) מי פתי יסור הנה, חסר לב אמרה לו, לכו לחמו בלחמי ושתו ביין מסכתי, ולית מאן דירכין אודניה, ולית מאן דיתער לביה.
Zohar 3:57B-58A
Rabbi Shim’on said, ‘I am amazed at the inhabitants of the world – that they have no eyes to see, no heart to ponder; they do not know or contemplate the will of their Lord. How asleep they are, not awakening from their slumber . . . Every day a herald proclaims to them: How long, fools, will you love foolishness? (Proverbs 1:22). Whoever is a fool, let him turn aside here. Come, partake of my bread . . . (Proverbs 9:4-5). Yet no one inclines his ear and no one arouses his heart’
Guide of the Perplexed, 3:51
The ruler is in his palace, and all his subjects are partly within the city and partly outside the city. Of those who are within the city and partly outside the city. Of those who are within the city, some have turned their backs upon the ruler’s habitation, their faces being turned another way. Others seek to teach the ruler’s habitation, turn toward it, and desire to enter it and to stand before him, but up to now they have not yet seen the wall of the habitation. Some of those who seek to reach it have come up to the habitation and walk around it searching for its gate. Some of them have entered the gate and walk about in the antechambers. Some of them have entered the inner court of the habitation and have come to be with the kind, in one and the same place with him, namely, in the ruler’s habitation. But their having come into the sinner part of the habitation does not mean that they see the ruler or speak to him. For after their coming into the inner part of the habitation, it is indispensable that they should make another effort, then they will be in the presence of the ruler, see him from afar or from nearby, or hear the ruler’s speech or speak to him. . . . Now I shall interpret to you this parable that I have invented. I say then: Those who are outside the city are all human individuals who have no doctrinal belief, neither one based on speculation nor one that accepts the authority of tradition . . . the status of those is like the irrational animals . . . those who are within the city, but have turned their backs upon the ruler’s habitation, are people who have opinions and are engaged in speculation, but who have adopted incorrect opinions . . . They are those concerning whom necessity at certain times impels killing them and blotting out the traces of their opinions left they should lead astray the ways of others . . . Those who seek to reach the ruler’s habitation and to enter it, but never see the ruler’s habitation, are the multitude of adherents of the Law, I refer to the ignoramuses who observe the commandments. Those who have come up to the habitation and walk around it are the jurists who believe true opinions on the basis of traditional authority and study the law concerning the practices of divine service, but do not engage in speculation concerning the fundamental principle of religion and make no inquiry whatever regarding the rectification of belief. Those who have plunged into speculation concerning the fundamental principles of religion, have entered the antechambers. People there indubitably have different ranks
Isaiah Tishby, Wisdom of the Zohar Vol. III, 1150
Israel will be put to test at the final redemption . . . those that are on the good side will withstand the trial. “But the wicked shall do wickedly”: these are they who are on the evil side, and in them shall be fulfilled the verse “they shall not enter the land of Israel” (Ezekiel 13:9), and He shall kill them. “But those who are wise” . . . It is said “they shall shine as the brightness (Zohar) of the firmament” (Daniel 12:3), through this book of yours, which is the book of brightness, from the brightness of the supernal mother, repentance . . . And since Israel will taste of the Tree of Life, which is this book of brightness, they will emerge from exile in mercy by its means