Sefer Zohar was published in Mantua in 1558
You can come to study Zohar and Kabbalah in different ways. One of the ways is to understand that both talk about the disclosure of a hidden reality.
The reference to reality as having two layers, hidden and revealed, exists not only in Zohar and Kabbalah literature, but in mystical literature of its kind. But it is especially prominent in Hasidism and the Zohar book.
The Zohar sees the revealed world as a shell covering the real world. And the real world is the secret. But it is not a secret that is completely closed, and that is not attainable from being such. The Zohar refers to the secret as a dynamic layer within reality, which is the basis, essence and core of the world. As it is written: “The world only stands on the secret”. (Zohar, H.N. Adra Raba, Kakah AA).
The Zohar sees the world as a world where closed and open are mixed together. And the seeker of truth must penetrate through the visible, to discover the hidden. And the visible is not just a shell, but a source of problems and troubles, which if they don’t penetrate through, they take over the person, as it is written in the Zohar, 21, Sad 12: “We have learned, the Almighty is closed and visible. Visible is a court below. A closed place is a place where all blessings are lined up, and all that are in the open – the same place of the court is lined up over it because it is an open place, and the one called ‘evil eye’ rules over it, and everything is top secret as above.”
The world of Kabbalah represents an approach that holds that the universe around us consists of two layers, two realities; The visible and the hidden. Paradoxically, the visible reality is a tiny part of that universe and in addition, this reality is a result of the hidden universe – the real reality. And it is the hidden universe that affects us, not the visible universe.
The Zohar, the most important book of the Kabbalah stream, deals with the Torah, but gives it interpretations that present it in a different light. And just as the Zohar brings out the inner light from the Torah and thus allows it to shine, so is consciousness in relation to life; She is the one who makes the inner life a car.
Living life is a life of consciousness – it means living with a bright meaning to life.
. The secret theory of Kabbalah holds that there is a gap between our knowledge and the truth. The main task of the secret theory is to understand the difference between our perception and the truth, and to reveal the true reality.
The human perception creates an illusion of disconnection from the world. We do not see the real reality.
The illusory reality is an ‘impure land’ because of its distance from God. The real reality is the ‘Holy Land and the Land of Israel’.
The Zohar sees the Torah as a sermon and the role of the Kabbal, as the revealer of the secret. The outer plot in the Torah is the ‘little story’, while the inner plot is the ‘big secret’. “‘The great story’ is hidden in the hidden depths of the words of the Torah and its stories or is found on the lips of these words waiting for the kiss of the accepted to come out of the interior from the hidden to the revealed. The disclosure of the secret is not an act of public disclosure, since public disclosure would be the destruction of the betrothed, a flaw in its essence and a cheapening of it. The revelation of the secret in the Zohar is like the intimate revelation between the lovers, and therefore the Zohar emphasizes that the revelation of the secrets is intended for the community of Torah observants, to whom the revelation is directed and through whom it bears fruit.”
Melila Halner Ashad, ‘And a river comes out of Eden’, with Oved and Alma, 2005, p. 206
The whole glamor actually revolves around revealing the secret. The Zohar world itself is between two poles in relation to the secret. One pole is complete oblivion of the hidden dimension. This is a state of being unaware or ignoring it, a state in which most of the world is. This pole is the reversal of the hidden dimension into the visible. In this situation there is no longer a secret. It is a kind of counting of angels. The highest level that the human state of consciousness can reach. Between these two lies the secret and the state of the secret consists of a dance between disclosure and cover-up. This state carries with it a tension of contrasts that intensify the state of consciousness to the maximum. Because every hint and every chip of a signal can point to the hidden dimension.
And yet, the Zohar obliges its students and those interested in the Torah of the Secret, to devote themselves to its discovery. And he also goes against those who dedicate their lives to masks and hiding the truth. A warning actually curses the one who hides his secrets to himself in a situation where it actually needs to be revealed.
The Zohar also makes an interesting parallel between the discovery of the secret and awakening, and between being unaware of the existence of the secret and the idea of sleep. A person who is not awake to a secret is a sleeping person. A world from which the secret is absent is an old world. Then there is no revival of reality by the secret. The secret is like living water that animates the dry ground of reality. And the Zohar is quite rigid and severe about this, it doesn’t see it just as lack of awareness, but as ignoring and even denying their duty to wake up to reality. (Zohar 11, Kebeb 11, Eaz 11).
And so the Zohar even scolds the sleepers and informs them that bitter will be their fate if they do not begin to reveal the secret hidden in the apparent reality. (Zohar, 13, Nez 12.)
The same goes for the old ones. The Zohar also ‘considers’ the educated and the wise, who are supposed to know something about the secret layer and deny it. He calls them: stutterers. And it seems that the Zohar expects them to be part of the brother-in-law of those who discover the truth and not those who help her to be in hiding. (Zohar, 11, Ravad 12).
That is, according to the Zohar, the secret is not only for mystics who excluded themselves from the rule, but they are obligatory for every educated and wise person (nowadays: intellectual).
And what is interesting about the Zohar is not only the very reference to the secret, but also and especially the way in which the Zohar reveals it. There is no diving and getting lost in it. Constantly maintaining a connecting thread between the level of the visible and the level of the hidden. They don’t run away from the simple, through the hype and demand, towards the secret. Rather, the previous level is used as a stepping stone to the next level. As it is said in the Zohar: “Degree upon degra closed will be revealed”. That is: step by step, closed and open. The visible level is not something superfluous to the main thing, but is its beginning. And the power of revealing the secret derives from the constant comparison between the initial place of the cover-up and the final place of discovery. In the transition between the two, a tension of contrasts is created that charges the secret finders with a glow of charge and elation that they set on fire.
And yet the one who succeeds in entering the level of the secret, like the one who has a precious stone in his hands, should not give it to someone who is not worthy, who is not at the right level. He must not reveal the secret, only he cannot keep it close to him any longer. And on the other hand is imposed
Gabriel