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Zohar

3,895 passages indexed from Zohar (Sefaria Community) — Page 49 of 78

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Zohar, Bereshit 10:17
Further it is written, AND THE STARS. As soon as the wife has given her orders and retired with her husband, the direction of the house is left to the maidens, who remain in the house to look after all its requirements. Then when day comes the man again duly takes command.
Zohar, Yitro 11:14
for we read: “When they have a matter, he cometh unto me” (v. 16); this “he” in the singular instead of “they ” in the plural indicates that it refers to the Holy Spirit. So there was no necessity for him to use the gift of inner sight in order to find out who were the right persons: he knew at once whom to choose through the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.
Zohar, Beshalach 10:34
Said R. Hiya: ‘The expression “that they drave them heavily” (bi-kebeduth), in this verse, is a proof that man receives measure for measure. Pharaoh made his heart “heavy” (kabed), and the Holy One drave him “heavily”.’
Zohar, Beshalach 15:4
itself with its crown, and then crowned Moses with three hundred and twenty-five crowns, delivering also its keys into his hand. The letter Shin of the three Patriarchs crowned him with three holy crowns, and delivered into his keeping all the keys of the King and appointed him the faithful steward of the Household. The letter He drew nigh and crowned him with its crown.
Zohar, Bamidbar 1:5
Yet was not the lower world finally completed, nor was it firmly established until Abraham appeared, until Abraham took hold of it by the right hand as one upholds with his right hand one who is falling. Then came Isaac, who seized the world by the left hand, establishing it still more firmly. When Jacob came, he held the world by the centre of the body, uniting the two sides, whereby the world became firm and immovable.
Zohar, Pinchas 12:1
What is [the meaning of] to brighten his face with oil (Psalms 104:15)? Those are the twelve faces, four of the lion, four of the ox, and four of the eagle. And they are: Michael, who is the lion, and his four faces are [the letters of God's four-letter name vocalized with a segol and a segol]; the four faces of the ox, and that is Gabriel, and they are [the letters of God's four-letter name vocalized with a patach and a patach]; the four faces of the eagle, and that is Nuriel, and they are [the letters of God's four-letter name vocalized with a chirik and a sheva]. And they are appointed under Kindness, Fear and Truth, the levels of the three forefathers. And the rabbis concluded about this [that] the forefathers are themselves the chariot. And [their] lights add up to "rule, ruled, will rule," which are [God's names of Existing, Will Be and Mastery], the numerical count of which is 112 [Yabok].
Zohar, Vayakhel 11:7
It behoves, then, every man, after equipping himself with emblems of holiness,1Fringes and phylacteries. to attune his heart and his inner being for that act of worship and to say his prayers with devotion. For the words that he utters ascend on high, for the scrutiny of angelic supervisors.
Zohar, Beshalach 14:5
R. Hiya said: ‘Job was thinking of Pharaoh when he said, “It is all one thing, therefore I said: He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked” (Job 9, 22). The words “it is all one thing” have an esoteric meaning. They refer to a certain Crown also referred to in the verse, “My love, my undefiled is but one” (VI, 9), and when God judges by means of this Crown, then “He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked”
Zohar, Tazria 5:7
When the soul is about to descend to this world, it first goes down to the terrestrial Garden of Eden and sees there the glory of the souls of the righteous, and then it goes down to Gehinnom and sees the wicked who cry “Woe, woe”, and find no compassion.
Zohar, Noach 10:4
Tosefta: We are the high ties of the greatest of fortresses. (Ties corresponds to Nefesh, Ruach and Neshamah). Therefore, the eyes and the ears are open (Chochmah and Binah). A voice from the voices descends from above and smashes mountains and rocks. Those who see, yet do not see, and who have become hard of hearing and have difficulty seeing; who do not see, do not hear, and do not know how to understand the one located and included between the two, they are pushed out.
Zohar, Chukat 2:12
but when sinners multiplied they concealed the matter under another form, using the corner of a garment.
Zohar, Vayakhel 6:4
On the third day He made the dry land emerge from the waters and caused the waters to be gathered together into one place, forming from them the sea, and He stipulated with it that it should allow the Israelites to pass through it on dry land and then overwhelm the Egyptians. And so it happened, as it is written, “and the sea returned to its strength when the morning appeared” (Ex. 14, 27), where the term I’ethano (to its strength), by a transposition of letters, can be read litnao (to its stipulation). In addition, God stipulated with the earth that it should open its mouth on the occasion of the rebellion of Korah and swallow him up with all his company. And so it happened.
Zohar, Chayei Sara 2:2
2. He said in his utterance: a thorn, a piercing thorn from here, from the right side—teeth in their holes stand firm in their existence. The King who speaks (and they were not removed, they were found) guards the gates of the dominion. With great awe, she stands in her existence.
Zohar, Mishpatim 3:169
the one Name, without any separation, namely Elohim. For because of the exile the Mi ascended, as it were, and left the building, and consequently the building fell, and the Name that was perfect, namely the supernal great Name that was from the beginning, fell.
Zohar, Beshalach 12:11
He said: “From now let My warfare be entrusted to Thee; My weapons, My fighters! From now Thou must guard them all. From now, he who wishes to speak to Me must first make known his concerns to Thee! ” Hence “the angel of God went behind them.”
Zohar, Tazria 2:2
and he himself commenced with the verse: “A virtuous woman who can find?” (Prov. 31, 10). ‘The “virtuous woman”, he said, ‘is the Community of Israel, as we have just explained. “Who shall find”: who shall succeed in being wholly in her and always with her?
Zohar, Achrei Mot 4:7
The Matrona is called the “time” of the Zaddik, and therefore all who are fed below are fed from this place, as it is written: “The eyes of all wait on thee and thou givest them their meat in due season” (Ps. 145, 15).
Zohar, Vayishlach 2:2
R. Judah said: ‘What was Jacob’s object in saying to Esau, “I have sojourned with Laban”? What had this to do with his message to Esau? The reason was that Laban the Aramean was famous throughout the world as a master magician and sorcerer whose spell no man could escape. He was, in fact, the father of Beor, who was the father of Balaam, mentioned in Scripture as “Balaam the son of Beor, the soothsayer” (Josh. 13, 22). But for all Laban’s skill and pre-eminence in sorcery and magic, he could not prevail over Jacob, though he employed all his arts to destroy him, as it says: “An Aramean designed to destroy my father” (Deut. 26, 5).’
Zohar, Bereshit 8:6
FRUIT TREE BEARING FRUIT. One degree above another, these combining male and female. Just as “fruit tree” produced the host of “trees bearing fruit”, so the latter in turn produced “Cherubim and Pillars”. “Pillars” are those that go up in the smoke of the sacrifices and derive their strength therefrom, and hence are called “pillars of smoke”, and all of them exist permanently for the “service of man”, whereas the “grass” has no permanence, being destined to be consumed as food, as it is written: “Behold now Behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox” (Job 40, 15).
Zohar, Korach 2:1
AND THEY ROSE UP BEFORE MOSES, ETC. R. Simeon said: ‘The earthly kingdom is on the pattern of the heavenly kingdom. All those supernal Crowns to which the Holy Name is attached are summoned from a place called Holiness, and just as the higher Holiness summons them, so the lower Holiness summons its hosts to be crowned and exalted therewith.
Zohar, Pinchas 20:2
God at that time, he said, was debating how to give this covenant to Phineas, because it belonged of right to Moses, and it would be an insult to him to give it to anyone else unless he consented. God therefore commenced to speak with Moses, saying: Phineas son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest. Said Moses: Sovereign of the Universe, what of him? He replied: Thou didst risk thy life many times to save Israel from destruction, and now he has turned My wrath away from the children of Israel. Moses thereupon said: What wilt Thou of me? All is in Thy hand.
Zohar, Noach 3:1
THESE ARE THE GENERATIONS OF NOAH. R. Judah discoursed on the text: The good man is gracious and lendeth, he ordereth his affairs according to justice (Ps. 112, 5). ‘“The good man” refers to the Holy One, Blessed be He, since He is called “good” (as well as “Man”), as it is written, “The Lord is good to all” (Ibid. 145, 9), as well as “The Lord is a man of war” (Exod. 15, 3). Thus God is gracious and lends to that quarter which has no possession of its own, but derives its sustenance from Him. This idea is further developed in the sentence “He ordereth his affairs according to justice”, indicating that that quarter is granted sustenance only according to justice, as it is written, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of thy throne” (Ps. 89, 15).
Zohar, Balak 6:74
hence the great honour of Israel is that they say the sanctification below by themselves.’
Zohar, Balak 15:13
“Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that hearkeneth to the voice (of) his servant”: that is to say, who is wont to hear himself called servant, the name given in honour by the Almighty, the “voice” being heard in all the firmaments that this is the servant of the Holy King.
Zohar, Toldot 1:6
We derive also another lesson from this verse. It is written “And these are the generations of Isaac” (Gen. 25, 19), and a few verses before (Ibid. 12) the text says, “And these are the generations of Ishmael”, and goes on to enumerate twelve princes. Seeing that Isaac had only two sons, we might think that in this respect Ishmael was superior to him. But in truth it is just in allusion to Isaac that Scripture exclaims: “Who can express the mighty acts of the Lord?” the term “mighty acts” being an allusion to Isaac. For Isaac begat Jacob, who in his own self excelled them all, and who further begat twelve tribes, through whom all both above and below were firmly established. Isaac was invested with the sanctity of the supernal world, whereas Ishmael was of the lower world. Hence it says: “Who can express the mighty acts of the Lord, or make the whole of his praise to be heard?” the latter clause alluding to Jacob, as much as to say: “When the sun joins the moon innumerable stars are thereby illumined.”
Zohar, Beshalach 13:11
The Holy One is such a king.
Zohar, Terumah 9:3
The evening prayer is not obligatory, and there is no fixed time for it, because the evening is influenced by the “other side”, which is dark and rules by night. The limbs and fatty portions of sacrifices used to be burnt on the altar in the evening, and from that moment numbers of groups of demons which issue and have sway by night receive their nourishment.
Zohar, Bechukotai 1:5
Balak was a greater master of magic arts than Balaam. For just as the celestial holiness can be aroused both by act and by word on our part, so can they that come from the side of uncleanness.
Zohar, Yitro 3:4
Of Jethro we read: “And Jethro… came with his sons… to Moses into the desert.” When it says “to Moses”, why add “to the desert”? Because herein lay the whole significance of his coming; the “desert” symbolized the “mountain of the Lord”, the place for the reception of proselytes; in other words, Jethro came to Moses with the intention of becoming a proselyte and entering under the wings of the Shekinah. Everyone who comes to this region called “Mountain” becomes a participant in this mystery,
Zohar, Chukat 9:10
Now when God said to Moses, “Let Aaron be gathered to his people”, he was greatly distressed, as he knew that his right hand was being broken, and he trembled greatly, until God said to him, “Take Aaron and Eleazar his son”, as if to say: “Moses, see, I have prepared for thee another right hand”. And for all that, Eleazar did not completely fill the place of his father, since the clouds of glory departed on Aaron’s death and did not return save for the merit of Moses, and not of Eleazar.
Zohar, Shmini 4:11
until the hour arrived when Nadab and Abihu rose up and spoilt the general joy, and wrath descended on the world.
Zohar, Bereshit 10:14
Thus the supernal lights radiate in that “firmament of the heaven” to fashion in the lower world the requisite shapes, as it is written, “and God set them in the firmament of the heaven… and to rule by day and by night”. It is fit and proper that two lights should rule, the greater light by day and the lesser light by night.
Zohar, Beshalach 6:3
They are like the dove in the story which took refuge from a hawk in the cleft of a rock and found a serpent there. They drew nigh unto the sea; but when they beheld how stormy it was, and how its waves roared and broke, fear overtook them. Then they looked back, and lo! there was Pharaoh with all his hosts and their manifold weapons! Their fear increased at this sight, and their terror knew no bounds. Then “they cried”. Thus they came near to their heavenly Father, whose aid they invoked; and of this Pharaoh was indirectly the cause.’
Zohar, Mishpatim 3:123
Old man, old man! As thou hast started to sail on the wide sea, go on boldly in all directions and breast its waves! I have now to reveal something more. I said that the “redeemer”, when he enters into the “vessel”, lets his spirit cleave to that “vessel”, so that nothing is lost, not even the breath of the mouth. This is quite correct. Old man, old man! If thou art to reveal mysteries, speak out without fear!
Zohar, Mishpatim 3:229
A great and deep mystery is contained in these words. In all His other acts and deeds it may be noted that God made first that which is external and then that which is within; but with regard to the sanctuary the very reverse is the case. Although, for instance, He designed the brain first in thought, yet in fact the cranium comes first. For the shell in all cases emanates from the “other side”, and what is of the “other side” always appears first; the husk is there to guard the fruit and then it is thrown away, as it says, “The wicked prepareth and the righteous shall put it on” (Job 27, 17): the husk is thrown away and a blessing is uttered on the Righteous One.
Zohar, Beshalach 13:17
Said R. Simeon: ‘There is a certain hind on earth for which the Holy One, blessed be He, does many things: when she cries He hearkens to her afflictions and delivers her. When the world is in need of mercy, of water, she cries aloud and the Holy One answers her prayer. This is signified by the verse: “As the hind panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God” (Ps. 42, 2).
Zohar, Vaera 5:6
Thus the ultimate and whole duty of man is to know the Holy One, blessed be He, in a general and in a particular way. The verse, “I am the first, and I am the last” (Isa. 44, 7) has a symbolic reference to this twofold mode of knowledge; “I am the first,” to the general apprehension of Him, and “I am the last,” to the particular, and these two are one. As a result of a proper knowledge of God as Creator and Lord, the two hundred and forty-eight organs of the human body become organs of the two hundred and forty-eight positive commandments of the Law, and man’s life becomes something complete and harmonious,
Zohar, Pinchas 6:3
As R. Eleazar and R. Jose were once walking in the wilderness, R. Jose said: ‘When it says of Phineas, “Behold I give him my covenant of peace”, it means peace from the Angel of Death, so that he should never have power over him and that he should not suffer his chastisements. As for the tradition that Phineas did not die, the truth is that he did not die like other men, and he outlived all his generation, because he kept hold of this supernal covenant, and when he departed from the world it was with celestial yearning and beauteous attachment.’
Zohar, Mishpatim 3:236
The inner meaning is as follows. In the beginning the Holy One, blessed be He, created the Leviathan according to the two kinds, male and female;.but whenever they moved the earth shook, and had the Holy One not castrated the male and cooled the sexual instincts of the female, they would eventually have brought the whole world into chaos and destruction. So, because of this, these monsters did not engender; therefore a man who does likewise-that is, who does not engender-if “he comes be-gapo, with one wing”, is brought under the domination of that wing of the castrated Leviathan, and he “shall go out be-gapo״: that is to say, he will be thrust out from the other world and never enter within the curtain.
Zohar, Vayera 14:5
Then a voice ascends from below and mingles with them, and the combined cry keeps on ascending and clamouring for justice, until at last the Holy One appears to investigate the accusation.
Zohar, Vayigash 7:7
R. Jesse expounded the verse as alluding to the time when the Holy One, blessed be He, will raise up the Community of Israel from the dust and will take vengeance on the idolatrous nations. Of that occasion it is thus written: “And of the peoples there was no man with me” (Is. 63, 3), which is analogous in phrasing to the passage “and there stood no man with him when Joseph made himself known to his brethren”, and further: “and he bare them and carried them all the days of old” (Ibid. 9).
Zohar, Achrei Mot 6:3
And because this incense is bound up with the supernal ointment more closely it is more esteemed by the Almighty Holy One, blessed be He, than all offerings and sacrifices. The verse continues: “Draw me, we will run after thee”. Therefore the Community of Israel says: “I am like incense and thou art like oil, draw me after thee, and we shall run, I and all my hosts.”
Zohar, Yitro 14:4
I then asked him: “If that is so, why then does the Targum translate the word ‘nora‘ (terrible) with ‘fear’ (d’hilu), and not with ‘complete’ (sh’lim)?” His answer was that there is no true fear and awe except in a place where there is completeness, as it is written “O fear the Lord, ye his saints, for there is no deficiency (mahsor) to them that fear him” (Ps. 34, 10), and in the sphere where there is no deficiency, there is completeness.’
Zohar, Chukat 9:4
Such a one is called “dead” because he has had a taste of death, and although he is in this world he is dead and has returned from the dead; whereas “the living who are still alive” have not yet had a taste of death, and have not received their punishment and do not know if they will be worthy of the other world or not.
Zohar, Toldot 5:7
In the name of the Rav, Rabbi Yehuda said that in the future, the Holy One, blessed be He, will rejoice with the righteous, and will let His Shechinah dwell among them. Everybody will rejoice in that joy, as it is written, "let Hashem rejoice in His works" (Tehilim 104:31). Rabbi Yehuda said that at that time the righteous will create worlds and raise the dead. Rabbi Yosi said to him: We have learned that "there is nothing new under the sun" (Kohelet 1:9). Rabbi Yehuda responded, Come and hearken. While the wicked are in the world and multiply, the whole world does not endure, but when the Righteous are in the world, it does endure. And in the future they will raise the dead, as it is written, "Old men and old women shall yet again dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for every age" (Zecharyah 8:4).
Zohar, Nasso 13:1
SPEAK UNTO AARON AND UNTO HIS SONS, SAYING: ON THIS WISE YE SHALL BLESS, ETC. R. Isaac quoted here the verse: “But the grace (hesed) of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children” (Ps. 102, 17). ‘How great’, he said, ‘is the virtue of fear in the esteem of the Almighty, inasmuch as fear embraces humility, and humility embraces a state of grace (h’siduth) Hence, whoever is possessed of fear of sin is possessed of all those virtues; but whoever does not fear Heaven possesses neither humility nor the state of grace.
Zohar, Introduction 14:24
In the heavenly Academy, however, the words ish middah (man of dimension) were explained as “one whose dimensions extended from one end of the world to the other”, which were the dimensions of the first man, Adam. Those “five cubits”, then, must have been such as to extend from one end of the world to the other.
Zohar, Bereshit 4:9
Tohu is under the aegis of the name Shaddai; Bohu, under that of Zebaoth; Darkness, under that of Elohim; Spirit, under that of Tetragrammaton.
Zohar, Miketz 9:29
It is thus written: WE ARE ALL ONE MAN’S SONS, where the word for “we” (anahnu) is written defectively nahnu, without the letter aleph. The aleph is the image of the male principle as against the beth, which is the image of the female principle; and since the brothers did not exhibit the symbolism of the covenant, the aleph was removed from them and they were left, as it were, of the female aspect in the company of the Shekinah.
Zohar, Vayigash 3:4
R. Judah said: ‘There is in this verse a recondite doctrine of faith, to wit, that when God is pleased with Israel and their union is crowned, then two worlds meet together in union, the one opening its store-house, and the other gathering in the contents. Thus, “lo, the kings assembled themselves”, to wit, the two holy worlds, the upper world and the lower world.’