![]() Glazer says the new translation makes its ideas accessible to an English speaking audience. ![]() The Zohar is a provocative book that addresses fundamental questions of existence. Thrust in a ring, not white, not black, not red, not green. From the head of infinity, a cluster of vapor forming in formlessness. A spark of impenetrable darkness flashed within the concealed of the concealed, from the head of infinity. "At the head of potency of the king, he engraved engravings in luster on high. This is a passage from the very beginning of the book: B’raishit, in the beginning: He tells congregants not to try and understand everything, but to listen and be open to whatever images come up. Each week he reads a passage from Matt’s translation, which has been released volume by volume since 2004. “But also on the bookshelf of spiritual seekers at large.”Įvery Saturday, Glazer holds Zohar study sessions-which are really more like meditations. “So the Zohar is probably one of the most magical and intricate books on the Jewish bookshelf,” said Glazer. Already, he’s brought it to the attention of his synagogue, Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco. Rabbi Aubrey Glazer is an early adopter of Daniel Matt’s new translation. Basically, if you wanted to study Zohar, you had to know Aramaic. But for a long time, there was also no good English translation. One reason is the Zohar simply dropped out of style. But for the most part, the Zohar’s teachings are unknown. Madonna also brought fame to the Kabbalah Center in Los Angeles. The Zohar is central to the Chasidic branch of ultra-orthodox Judaism. Because of this, it’s been said that at one point Kabbalists advised that only learned, married men over the age of 40 should study it. Its teachings were considered powerful and sometimes dangerous. It was a guidebook to a closer relationship with the divine, for connecting to something larger than our small human selves. For centuries, the Zohar’s mystical teachings held a central place in mainstream Judaism. Scholars and rabbis alike say the new work could help revive the Zohar’s place in Jewish life. ![]() When complete, the new work will total 12 volumes, each hundreds of pages long. That’s a long time, but the Zohar is a massive book. Berkeley scholar Daniel Matt spent almost two decades doing the translation and writing commentary that goes with it. Scholars say its poetic interpretation captures the original 13th century prose. Which is why a recently completed translation of the Zohar - the book at the bedrock of the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah - is so important. Why so many? It’s hard to capture all the nuances of meaning and style from the original. The book at the top of the charts is the Bible: more than 100 translations, and that’s just in English. If you look at western literature’s most important books, they've been translated, not once, but many times. So today, we're revisiting a story about how one scholar updated the translation of a seminal Jewish text. Monday was Yom Kippur, marking the end of a ten day period that consists of the holiest days in Judaism. This story originally aired on Septemand most recently aired in the Septemepisode of Crosscurrents.
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