Daniel Matt
When a mystical tradition meant for an elite few becomes a popular spiritual practice — what is gained and what is lost.
In this episode of Identity/Crisis, guest host Deborah Barer is joined by, scholar of Kabbalah, Daniel Matt for a conversation about the Omer and the modern turn toward mindfulness and self-improvement. Tracing the journey of the Zohar from esoteric text to widely accessible guide, they explore what is gained—and what may be lost—when contemplations of the divine are redirected inward, toward the self. Along the way, they ask how Jewish mysticism understands responsibility, ethics, and community, and what it might mean to carry “new ancient words” from the wilderness of the Omer toward revelation at Sinai.
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Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.
Deborah: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Identity/Crisis, a show from the Shalom Hartman Institute, creating better conversations about the essential issues facing Jewish life. I’m Deborah Barer, senior faculty member at the Shalom Hartman Institute, and I’ll be filling in for Yehuda as your host this week. We’re recording on Friday, May first, 2026.
I have a confession to make. I have never successfully counted the Omer. The Omer lasts for seven weeks, from Passover to Shavuot. I always start off strong, but let’s be honest, it’s not that impressive to remember the first night. After all, we start counting at the Seder, a communal meal that literally has a guidebook, the Haggadah, telling us what to do and say, and in which order.
Sometimes I remember to count all the way through the end of Pesach, but then a few days or weeks in, I inevitably fall off. Forty-nine days is a long time. As Passover recedes into the distance and Shavuot feels like it’s not even on the horizon yet, I forget. Without the structure of the holidays, I fall into the rhythm and distractions of normal time so completely that I even forget that I have forgotten until I find myself in synagogue staring at the blessing in my siddur. “Oh, right,” I think. “The Omer! What day are we on?”
This kind of forgetting is built into the structure of Jewish life. It’s a problem that our sages anticipated, not just with the Omer, but with mitzvot or commandments in general. The very first chapter of Pirkei Avot admonishes us to build a fence around the Torah, a logic designed to address the challenge of forgetting.
For example, if I do not carry my wallet on Shabbat, then I will not be able to spend money, even if I forget it’s Shabbat and that spending money is prohibited. Given this framework, it’s not surprising that Halakha anticipates the challenge of forgetting to count the Omer. The Shulchan Aruch teaches that those who miss a day can rejoin the count, but that they should omit the blessing. Even those who, like me, perennially forget are still invited to participate.
And yet, I do think part of the problem lies with me, and not just my memory. Over years of failing to count, I have never enlisted any kind of aid. I do not have an Omer counter. I did not set a reminder on my phone. I haven’t even asked my husband, who is far more reliable about these things than me, to count with me, thereby relieving the need to remember on my own.
Part of my struggle is finding an anchor within this practice. Research suggests that it takes six to nine weeks on average to form a new habit, such as exercising regularly, drinking more water, or, although this was not part of any research study that I could find, counting the Omer. Ironically, by the time the habit forms, the Omer is over. Just when I might have finally mastered the practice, it ends. So what was the purpose of counting in the first place?
One possibility is mindfulness. Counting the days to Shavuot, we reenact an aspect of the wilderness journey to Mount Sinai. Spending these weeks anticipating revelation can create a new appreciation for Torah, covenant, and our bonds as a Jewish people.
Many Jews have embraced a different kind of mindfulness practice around the Omer, using it as a time for reflection and self-cultivation. A Kabbalistic tradition connects each day and week of the Omer with a different Sefirah, a divine attribute or emanation. Contemporary guides reframe this meditation on the Sefirot through the modern language of self-improvement.
Today, for example, is the twenty-nineth day of the Omer, or Chesed She-b’Hod, kindness within either splendor or humility, depending on how Hod is understood. An Omer guide might prompt me to reflect on the ways that I lack humility and how that constricts my capacity for kindness or my ability to make space for others.
On the one hand, this self-reflection helps to deepen the practice of counting, providing an anchor point in the wilderness of distraction that can overtake these seven weeks between Egypt and Sinai. On the other hand, I have always felt wary of melding mystical theology with self-improvement. How did these esoteric ideas enter mainstream Jewish practice? What changes when a framework developed to help us contemplate the nature of God is turned inward toward the contemplation of the self?
The Omer seems designed to guide us through a period of transition in the Jewish calendar. Historically, it became a period of partial mourning, marking the deaths of Rabbi Akiva’s students in rabbinic times and many more Jewish lives lost during the Crusades. The integration of these histories seems to point us outwards to our people and our past, to Torah and to God.
But the popular practice of meditating on the Sefirot seems to direct us inwards. Is this focus on self-improvement original to Kabbalah and its approach to the Omer, or did a shift occur when these practices of an elite group became more mainstream? What is gained and what is lost when esoteric knowledge like this becomes popularized? And does the Kabbalistic tradition itself offer any kind of guide or corrective to these shifts?
I’m excited to explore these questions with our guest today, Professor Daniel Matt. Daniel is a preeminent scholar of Kabbalah, and his work has introduced many people, including myself, to core Kabbalistic texts. His masterful translation of the Zohar, published by Stanford University Press, has been rightly hailed as a monumental contribution to Jewish thought. His most recent book, a biography of the prophet Elijah as part of the Yale series Jewish Lives, won the inaugural Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Book Prize. Daniel taught for many years at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and he currently teaches courses on the Zohar online.
Daniel, I’m so happy to have you here on the show.
Daniel: Good. Good to be with you and to prepare for the celebration of Lag BaOmer.
Deborah: Yes. I’d love to start by thinking a little bit about these Omer practices and this question of what happens when a mystical tradition like Kabbalah becomes popularized, and I think that I have sort of two parts to this question. The first has to do with how these practices became so popular in the first place, and the second has to do with how that popularization has changed them, if at all. So let’s start with the first. I’d love to hear your analysis of why these ideas seem to have such traction in the Jewish world at this particular moment in history. Why Kabbalah, and why now?
Daniel: I would say, you know, the Kabbalah is certainly an esoteric tradition, and the Zohar, for example, was written in a strange form of Aramaic that very few Jews would have understood in, in the 13th century when the Zohar first appeared. So gradually, these ideas affected wider Jewish circles and non-Jewish circles as well. The reason for that is, I think, because of the radical contribution that Kabbalah made.
I would say that there are three great contributions of the Kabbalah. One is that ultimately God is infinite, right? The name that the Kabbalah uses for God is Ein Sof, infinity. So all of the Biblical names for God, Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, Adonai, Tzevaot, Shaddai, for the Zohar, for the Kabbalah, those are somehow incomplete or inadequate. No name can capture the totality of God.
So the Kabbalah admits that God is ultimately beyond our comprehension. Now, that would not seem to make God very accessible, but what balances that is the Kabbalah’s insistence that if we’re going to talk about God, we have to balance the masculine with the feminine.
And of course, traditionally, not only in Judaism but in all Western religion, Christianity, Islam, God is so dominantly male, like Father in heaven, king, ruler, judge, and Kabbalah insists that ultimately God is beyond gender, but God is equally male and female, and that, of course, is the notion of Shekhinah. Now, the Kabbalah did not invent Shekhinah, but the Kabbalah insists that God is equally male and female, so that’s a radical innovation. You could say it’s both new and ancient.
In fact, the, the Zohar likes to call its teachings new ancient words. It’s presenting Judaism in a radically new way, but it’s drawing on ancient tradition. You might say in some ways it’s recovering the goddess. There is not a goddess in the Bible, but there was clearly a goddess in ancient Canaanite religion, and the Biblical authors are out to eliminate the goddess from any Israelite mentality. But there were some Israelites who were attracted to the goddess, who were not satisfied with simply God as male. That was defeated, that feminine nature of God, you could say, was defeated in the Bible and in the Talmud, and somehow it reemerges in Kabbalah. And I think that’s part of the secret of the Kabbalah’s appeal, both in the Middle Ages and more so in, in modern times, that it’s inadequate to describe God simply as masculine.
And the third element, you know, if the first is God is infinite, the second, beyond that, God is equally male and female, the third contribution is that God needs us. God is somehow incomplete without our active participation. You might say we have to actualize God in the world. God is potentially here, but the way that we act determines whether that divine essence really has any impact in the world.
So I think the feminine nature of the divine and the fact that covenant now means that we’re partners with God in bringing about tikkun, bringing about the transformation, the healing, the mending, I think that has an appeal to the modern ear.
In terms of how that happened, as I said, the Zohar was really written for a very small audience, in a sense, who would have understood a book in this weird Aramaic that doesn’t match the Aramaic of the Talmud, doesn’t match any form of Aramaic. But it was really two stages of later Jewish history that really translated these cryptic ideas to wider population. One was Tzfat, right? That beautiful Galilean mountain town. Safed, Tzfat, spelled so many different ways. So there, after the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, a good number of Kabbalists made their way to Tzfat. That became a vibrant, mystical community.
And it was there that the ideas of the Zohar began, you could say, to be lived out communally. And there was a whole genre of literature, ethical, mystical literature, that was composed in Tzfat and as a result of the community in Tzfat, and that began to reach wider circles. You might say that that culminated in Hasidism. And Hasidism is really the popularization of Kabbalah.
In fact, it’s interesting. Some of the critiques that you hear today about pop Kabbalah, you can find very similar critiques about Hasidism. Here they’re taking these ancient teachings and, you know, spreading them to the masses. So some Kabbalists themselves were opposed to that. But it’s really Tzfat and then Hasidism that I think spread these ideas.
Deborah: I’m curious about this third piece that you talked about, that Kabbalah sort of clarifies our role in this partnership or our activity in relationship to God and bringing about things in the world, or creating some kind of tikkun, as you said, as some kind of repair.
I’m wondering about these practices of contemplation on the Omer of these different sefirot. And I consulted several different popular examples of how people might counsel that you contemplate a sefirah or these two sefirot on each day, which to me seem very directed to self-improvement, self-reflection, almost like a mussar, an ethical kind of how do I improve myself, a virtue formation.
And I’m curious about how you understand that connection in Kabbalistic thought between this contemplation of God, understanding of the divine nature, and this more ethical bent towards either a virtue-focused ethics of the self or activity out in the world.
Daniel: Yeah, that’s fascinating. You know, we often think of mysticism and ethics as opposed to one another, right? The mystic is going deep within, maybe secluding himself or herself, going off to meditate in a cave. And the ethical command is to, you know, be involved in community, to be present, to be responsive to others. But I would say that the Zohar being Jewish, it’s almost more a book of ethics than it is of mysticism.
Deborah: Interesting.
Daniel: Right? Of course, it is the masterpiece of Jewish mysticism, but very rarely in the Zohar do you find a description of mystical experience. You don’t even find much detail about mystical techniques. Certainly, the authors had deep mystical experience, but on a typical page, they’ll say, in order to have an effect on the divine, in order to marry the masculine and feminine halves of God, you have to help your neighbor. You have to better society.
So the mitzvot, including and even especially the mitzvot ben adam l’chavero, between a person and his fellow human, those become mystical techniques. So ethical action is a way to have an impact, not only on the world, but on the upper worlds. So even in the Zohar, the ethical dimension is important.
In terms of the sefirot, you’re right, you would think the sefirot are describing divine qualities, so what does that have to do with self-improvement or, you know, an ethical program? But even in the Zohar, the sefirot are simultaneously qualities of God and ethical ideals. For example, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they are seen as individuals who, they attain particular sefirot. Abraham becomes identified with the Sefirah of chesed because he was acting warmly, he was hospitable, he manifested love, he manifested lovingkindness. So he attained that rung on the ladder of the Sefirot.
Isaac had a more traumatic relationship with God because of the Akedah, because of being bound on the altar. So he somehow embodies the opposite of that Sefira of chesed, the Sefira of din, judgment. And in fact, the earlier Kabbalistic name for that Sefira is actually pachad, fear. So Isaac, you know, who was almost sacrificed by his own father, related to God out of that quality of harsh judgment or fear. He embodied that quality.
Jacob is seen as blending the two, as attaining the harmonious middle of tiferet or rachamim, compassion.
So great heroes of the Bible become models of, you could say, ethical, mystical behavior. And for the Zohar too, a human being can climb up the ladder of the Sefirot by acting virtuously, by acting ethically. So it is a kind of blend of ethics and mysticism.
You mentioned mussar, and really those books that were written in Safed, they are often called mussar Kabbalah, Kabbalistic ethics, you know, drawing out the ethical potential of the Zohar.
Deborah: You know, it’s fascinating to think about these Sefirot in relationship to virtues or particular qualities, because you said climbing the ladder of the Sefirot. And often when you see diagrams of the Sefirot or you see discussions, you know, there are lower Sefirot, there are higher Sefirot. I believe Ein Sof is usually at the top.
And when I think about virtue, and I admit to being influenced by virtue tradition that’s rooted in the thought of Aristotle, not a Jewish thinker, but brought into Jewish tradition also through the Rambam, through Maimonides, and influential in various different ways. We often think in those discussions of virtue, you work on different virtues and each individual may have a harder time. You know, humility may come more naturally or prudence may come more naturally or courage or these things.
Daniel: Mm-hmm.
Deborah: But in theory, a person sort of achieves flourishing by attaining all of the virtues at once. You can’t really have one without all of them at the same time.
Daniel: Hmm.
Deborah: But you were talking about sort of this ladder, like maybe a hierarchy within these, or different patriarchs being associated with one Sefira versus another. So I’m, I’m just curious, if they are describing the divine nature—God certainly would include all of these Sefirot. In the human realm, is there a hierarchy within them if we’re thinking in this self-cultivation, improvement of the self lens? Or is that not the right way to think about the relationship between them
Daniel: Yeah, it’s interesting. You know, the word middot comes to mind, right? A middah is a quality, and in fact, it’s an early kabbalistic name for the sefirot are middot. You know, you could think of middot as divine attributes, but that word appears so frequently in mussar literature too. You know, are you working on your middos? Cultivating middot. I think it depends on the person.
I think each of us, you know, has certain strengths and weaknesses. You know, it’s, do you feel you need to work on the middah of chesed? Or are you so loving that you’re pouring out your love to people who may not be able to handle it? Then you need a little more discipline. And gevurah on the left is not only power or judgment, it’s also discipline or limitation, borders, recognizing the need for borders.
So the, it’s really that triad of sefirot that I think works most powerfully in terms of psychology or improvement. Chesed, din, and a harmony of the two. And the way I see it is that I think it really comes down to balancing chesed and din, balancing a desire to reach out to people, and then being aware how much is the person able to handle.
So, you know, in, in that sense, rachamim is interested. If rachamim is the balance, what’s the difference between rachamim and chesed? They sound almost the same. But chesed would be, you know, boundless love, and maybe more love than is appropriate at a certain moment or with a certain person. Gevurah would be limiting, but that also could come to an extreme, limiting too much. So compassion, in the middle, compassion is giving the love in a way that is bearable, that is acceptable, and that balance, I think it depends on the person. You know, one person will need one more than the other.
You often do find this hierarchy, but sometimes they’re seen as concentric circles, you know, rather than hierarchical. And in that sense, it’s a path. And maybe a winding path more than it is up and down.
Deborah: Yeah, that’s fascinating, and it’s really helpful to understand how these practices of contemplating the sefirot fit within this broader framework, that it’s not just an inward turn, but also an outward turn, both ethically towards other people and also back towards God. There’s still a theological move happening in this contemplation.
Daniel: Right.
Deborah: I’m curious, as we’re approaching Lag BaOmer, which also has, I know, roots in Kabbalah or a connection to an important figure in the Kabbalistic tradition. As I think I mentioned at the top of the episode, Lag BaOmer traditionally marks or is the day that we actually celebrate the death of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. And it’s interesting that we celebrate his death. That’s not typically how one marks a death. I’m wondering if you can share a little bit about how these traditions around Lag BaOmer began and its connection to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.
Daniel: Yeah, it’s such an interesting holiday. In some ways, it’s the most intriguing of all Jewish holidays because it’s so undefined, right? We don’t know exactly when it began. It’s never mentioned, of course, in the Torah, never mentioned in the Talmud. Seems to arise in Gaonic times, you know, maybe 9th, 10th, 11th centuries. And then it becomes associated with Rabbi Shimon, right? Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the hero of the Zohar, one of the great students of Rabbi Akiva.
And of course, that links up to the Omer because according to the Talmud, right, 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva died during the Omer because they didn’t respect one another properly. Maybe some of them died as part of the Bar Kokhba rebellion. And Rabbi Shimon was one of the surviving students, right? The Talmud doesn’t say anything about Lag BaOmer, but later the tradition evolved that the plague that killed these students of Rabbi Akiva, that that ended on Lag BaOmer.
Deborah: Yes.
Daniel: So there you have a positive note of Lag BaOmer. The hero of the Zohar is Rabbi Shimon, and traditionally the Zohar is attributed to Rabbi Shimon, right? All Hasidim today, all Kabbalists, you might say almost all ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that the Zohar goes back to the second century, that it was actually composed by Rabbi Shimon or in the circle of Rabbi Shimon. Scholars now feel it’s pretty well established that the Zohar was really written 1,100 years later, or that it was mostly written in Spain in the 13th century. But still, the people who wrote it, Moses de León is probably the main author of the Zohar.
For him, Rabbi Shimon is the hero, and the Zohar is an account of Rabbi Shimon and his disciples. And the death of Rabbi Shimon was a very dramatic episode of the Zohar. It actually comes near the very end of the entire Zohar. And the reason it becomes a celebration, even in the Zohar it’s seen as a celebration. Why? Because Rabbi Shimon is going to sail off and actually become married to Shekhinah. The feminine half of God, he is going to be the partner of Shekhinah.
Deborah: I didn’t know that was an option.
Daniel: He is going to be the partner of Shekhinah in the heavenly realm. So in fact, he refers to his death as hilula. Now, hilula comes in the Talmud meaning a wedding celebration. The Zohar is the first time that the word hilula is applied to someone’s death, but that became so well-established, the Zohar became so prominent, so classical, that today you’ll find in Hasidic circles, for example, instead of using the word yahrtzeit, they’ll use the word hilula. The hilula of such and such a Rebbe—that comes right from the Zohar. So because in the Zohar, Rabbi Shimon actually says, “You are all invited to my hilula.” When he’s on his deathbed, he says, “You’re all invited to my wedding celebration,” because he feels he’s destined to wed Shekhinah. That was the role of Moses in the Zohar itself.
Moses is, you know, known as Ish Elohim. Right? Which is Man of God. You find that in the Bible about various prophets, Ish Elohim. But in the Zohar, it comes to mean husband of Shekhinah, because ish can mean husband, right? As in Ish Naomi, Naomi’s husband. And Elohim is one of the names for Shekhinah. So Ish Elohim becomes the title “Husband of Shekhinah,” and that’s Moses in the Zohar. But Rabbi Shimon is going to be the husband of Shekhinah on his passing, and that’s why it’s a celebration, a hilula.
Deborah: That is fascinating. And I have to ask because the classical today to celebrate Lag BaOmer with a bonfire, does that have roots in a wedding ceremony idea?
Daniel: I’m not sure if the fire itself, you know, so Meron and the wild celebrations that go on in Meron, it’s really a, a Zohar celebration, you know, because it’s Rashbi’s yahrtzeit. The Zohar doesn’t date Rashbi’s, you know, day of passing, but later tradition establishes it as Lag BaOmer. So Kabbalists came to see Lag BaOmer as his yahrtzeit. In the Zohar, it’s a wedding celebration of Rabbi Shimon, but not specifically linked with Lag BaOmer.
But I would say by the time we get to Lurianic Kabbalah, 16th century in Safed, Lag BaOmer is seen as the date of the hilula of, of Rashbi. I don’t think the fire itself necessarily has to do with the wedding, but it’s a celebration, and fire and light are so central to the Zohar. And of course, you know, yehi or, so light is the beginning. Light is such an amazing phenomenon. And mysticism is so vital, enlightenment and the light of God, finding your own spark, right? The spark within you, the spark within everything. So light and fire are very natural for Zohar and Kabbalah.
Deborah: Yeah. I’d love to go back actually to this attribution of the Zohar to Rabbi Shimon, even if he’s not the historical author. And I think that for many modern readers, it can seem very strange. Why would you attribute a text to somebody else who didn’t write it? And this is actually a very common practice. It’s very common throughout antiquity, but I know for myself, when I first learned about this in graduate school, I had this feeling of, are they lying to me? Why are they pretending someone else wrote this who didn’t?
Daniel: Right.
Deborah: And so I’m curious why Rabbi Shimon in particular. You know, there’s lots of stories associated with him in the Talmud. He has a certainly an unusual life.
Daniel: Right.
Deborah: But what particular sort of qualities is he seen as bringing that we would anchor these teachings in his legacy, and particularly in this fascinating idea that he would merit to, you know, wed the Shekhinah. This is a very unusual person in the mind of the Zohar. So I wonder if you can just share a little bit more about that connection with him as a figure.
Daniel: Yeah. It’s interesting that Rabbi Shimon becomes the hero. You know, it’s actually the very earliest parts of the Zohar, Rabbi Shimon isn’t the hero.
Deborah: Interesting.
Daniel: It’s someone else. It’s Eliezer ben Hyrcanus.
Deborah: Really? Another important sage.
Daniel: You know, who himself was such a colorful character. And that may be partly because of that great book of Midrash, Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer. The chapters of Rabbi Eliezer. It’s a very late Midrash. It’s probably 8th century, and the Zohar is very influenced by that. It almost seems that it’s modeling itself on that. So he was the first hero of the Zohar, Eliezer, but then at an early stage, Rabbi Shimon takes over.
So why Rabbi Shimon? And then I wanna say something about, you know, that troubling question of pseudepigraphy. Right? Falsely attributing a book to, to someone else. That itself is interesting. But why Rashbi? So I think probably one of the main reasons is the long time that Rashbi spent in seclusion.
Deborah: Mm-hmm. In the cave.
Daniel: Okay, the famous story in, in rabbinic literature and, and also specifically in Masechet Shabbat, in the Talmud, the Tractate Shabbat. Rabbi Shimon had criticized the Romans, had criticized the Roman government, and they were out to get him. Maybe this also has to do with the Bar Kokhba rebellion.
So Rabbi Shimon and his son, Rabbi Elazar, they hide in a cave for 12 years. At the end of 12 years, Eliyahu appears at the mouth of the cave. He doesn’t have any direct contact with Rabbi Shimon. He just says, “Who will tell Rabbi Shimon that the Roman emperor has died?” In other words, “Now you’re free to come out.” So Rabbi Shimon and, and his son come out, but they end up spending another year in the cave. We don’t have to go through the entire story. So Rabbi Shimon spent 12 years, 12 or 13 years secluded in a cave. That seemed to, you know, invite the notion, well, maybe he was meditating, maybe he was studying.
And it’s interesting, when the Zohar retells that story, the Zohar retells that Talmudic story and it changes something. It doesn’t have Eliyahu show up at the end of 12 years. It has Eliyahu come every day and teach Rabbi Shimon and his son.
Deborah: Interesting
Daniel: And that really turned into the legend of how the Zohar was written. So the Zohar is really being inspired by Eliyahu. You know, Eliyahu is fascinating himself. As you mentioned, I wrote a biography of Eliyahu. In fact, I wanted to have the subtitle, “The Man Without a Yahrzeit.” Right? So Rabbi Shimon had an amazing yahrzeit, but Eliyahu never had a yahrzeit, according to tradition.
So Eliyahu really becomes the embodiment of Ruach HaKodesh. If a Kabbalist is inspired, he’ll say, “I heard it from Eliyahu. Eliyahu came to me.” So the Zohar is describing Eliyahu as coming and inspiring Rabbi Shimon. That turned into the legend of Rabbi Shimon composing the Zohar or being the, the fountainhead of, of the Zohar.
But there are important connections between the real Rabbi Shimon and the Zohar. For example, I would say one of the main themes of the Zohar, this comes back to Shekhinah, right? Shekhinah is really the main character in the Zohar, I would say, the main non-human character. Almost every page there’s something about Shekhinah and her passion to unite with the Holy One, Blessed be He.
In fact, you know, it’s traditional to recite a formula before you count the Omer, right? And really before performing any mitzvah, I am doing this action in order to unify the Holy One, Blessed be He, and His Shekhinah. To unite the masculine and feminine. So that motif of Kabbalah becomes linked with every mitzvah. Every mitzvah is a way to unite the divine couple. I’d like to say every mitzvah turns into an aphrodisiac for the divine romance, right? If, if you act in a holy way below, you’re stimulating that, that union above, which I think is really a way to say you’re actualizing the divine potential in the world.
So in any case, Shekhinah is the main character in the Zohar in many ways, and the theme of Galut HaShekhinah is central. Right? This beautiful statement in the Talmud, “Wherever Israel goes in exile, Shekhinah is with them.” Who was the author of that statement? Rabbi Akiva. And Rabbi Shimon. Rabbi Shimon being his disciple. Rabbi Shimon is credited with teaching that based on, on his own teacher, Rabbi Akiva.
So that theme, Galut HaShekhinah, it’s only mentioned a few times in the Talmud. In the Zohar, it comes hundreds and hundreds of times. Why? Because the author is writing not in the second century Palestine, but in 13th century Spain, and Jews are very much aware of being in exile. The Zohar is trying to encourage Jews not to give up hope. Shekhinah is with us. You think that God has abandoned us? No, Shekhinah is sharing our exile. So it’s the Rabbi Shimon who says that again and again and the original Rabbi Shimon also said it.
Deborah: Fascinating.
Daniel: I’ll mention one other teaching of Rabbi Shimon that’s very significant for the Zohar. You know, one of the most radical ideas in the Zohar is, as I mentioned, God needs us. God is somehow incomplete without our awareness of God, without our commitment to mitzvot.
So in rabbinic literature, Rabbi Shimon says, he quotes a verse from Isaiah, “Atem edai,” you are my witnesses, says God, says, Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, “and I am God.” “You are my witnesses, and I am God.” Rabbi Shimon says, “What does this mean? If you are my witnesses, I am God.”
Deborah: Hmm. It’s conditional.
Daniel: If you’re not my witnesses, k’viyakhol, as if it were possible, I’m not God. Okay, that important, right, disclaimer, k’viyakhol, as if it were possible. You could say in the Zohar, the k’viyakhol drops out. For the Zohar, if, if you don’t believe in God, in a sense, God is not there. God’s not active in your life if you’re not aware of him. So the real original Rabbi Shimon apparently said that, and that too becomes a central theme in the Zohar.
Deborah: You know, I think it’s fascinating because I’m familiar with the Talmudic story of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his first departure from the cave, and he’s not actually ready to reengage with the world at that moment, and he gets sent back in in this dramatic story.
Daniel: Yeah. Right.
Deborah: But I think actually in the heart of that story, of his emergence and then kind of having to go back in for an additional period of time, for me has always been sort of the heart of this question of, how does mysticism fit in with the day-to-day world? Because I think in many ways, his sojourn in the cave matches maybe a popular and perhaps misguided understanding of what mysticism is, which is this retreat from the world, this contemplation, this real isolation in some ways.
And I think that’s part of what I was sort of struggling with as I encountered these Omer practices, of how does that sort of withdrawal and that deep sort of diving into a different world on some level through mystical contemplation, how do you then reintegrate that into the world? And is something lost in trying to reintegrate those?
But part of what I’m hearing from you with the vision of Rabbi Shimon in the Zohar is that actually that’s a false dichotomy because all of our actions in the world, at least with the proper intention, as you were saying, this idea I’m doing this mitzvah in order to unite these different parts of God, to unite the masculine and the feminine, that actually there’s a version of a mystical practice or a mindfulness that’s actually directly integrating action in the world. And so there’s sort of a transformation in some ways, at least from my reading of the Talmudic story of the Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai of antiquity, and the way his story is taken up in the Zohar.
Daniel: Yeah. You might say, you know, mysticism is very dangerous. And that helps us understand why you have all these restrictions, right? You can’t study Kabbalah until you’ve reached a certain age, until you’ve mastered rabbinic literature, right? Even Maimonides says you have to fill your belly with meat and potatoes, you know, with meat and bread.
Deborah: To be grounded.
Daniel: To be grounded before you can taste the delicacies, and I think there’s real wisdom in that. So what is the danger of mysticism? I think there’s a social danger and a psychological danger. The psychological danger is that you might feel, I now have my path to God. I am one with God. Anything I say is true. Anything I feel is holy, so there are no restrictions because I’m in touch with the ultimate reality. And that leads, of course, to the social danger. You might say, well, who needs the rabbi? Who needs Halakha? I have a connection with God. What I do is holy. I don’t need all these do’s and don’ts.
So that’s why you have in the Mishnah, you know, restrictions on mystical study. That’s why the Kabbalah was so guarded and, and esoteric. That’s why even the Kabbalists were upset with Hasidism, ’cause it was spreading these teachings to the masses. So you’re right. The real challenge is, you know, what do you do with this insight? How do you live it? How do you make it livable? How do you make sure you’ll be there at 3:00 to pick up your kid or your grandkid and not be, you know, off in the stratosphere meditating?
It’s almost that, you know, the mystical experience is just the first stage, and it’s not really successful unless you learn how to integrate it. You know, there’s a beautiful teaching in the Zohar about… I’m sure many of you are familiar with this acronym, PARDES. Right? PARDES are the four levels of meaning: peshat, remez, derash, sod. The simple meaning, then you could say it really progresses to midrash, then an allegorical or philosophical meaning, finally some mystical meaning.
But when the Zohar describes that, it actually says the mystical is not the ultimate. It’s not that you go from the simple through the midrash to some philosophical insight to some mystical enlightenment. The mystical enlightenment isn’t the ultimate. It’s the penultimate. What’s the ultimate? To come back to the peshat, to come back to the simple meaning, but now that simple meaning is filled with all new possibilities that you’ve discovered.
And that too, I think the concern is, you know, don’t be lost in your own private enlightenment, even if it is enlightenment. You have to reconnect to the word on the page, to the people in your family, in, in your community. So that sense of al tifrosh min ha-tzibur, don’t separate yourself from the community, that’s vital in Jewish mysticism, unlike some other forms of mysticism.
Deborah: Yeah, you know, it’s fascinating that idea of PARDES as the four levels of interpretation, in some ways, what you’ve been talking about, about the dangers of mysticism and those levels also correspond to the Talmudic story about the four who enter the pardes, the four sages who go into paradise through some type of mystical contemplation. And they go off the rails in exactly the ways you’ve described, right? One goes crazy, one becomes a heretic, one dies, and only Rabbi Akiva emerges and teaches, right? Is able to kind of go through the journey and come back maybe in what you’ve just said to a sense that is shareable, if not the plain sense, with the rest of the community.
Daniel: Right.
Deborah: And that story illustrates the challenges and dangers of mysticism, but also sort of exactly that movement you’ve talked about.
I’m curious, you, I would say, have done more than anyone in recent years to make Kabbalah accessible through this incredible translation work you’ve done of the Zohar, which is really a monumental task.
And I’m curious, being cognizant of those concerns and knowing that someone could pick the Zohar up off the shelf with no background, with no training, with no meat and bread in their belly or, you know, all of these different guardrails that the tradition has prescribed before you learn the Zohar. How do you navigate that as someone who’s both a scholar but also someone who’s really dedicated a lot of your work to making these texts accessible to a broader audience?
Daniel: Yeah. It is full of pitfalls, opening the Zohar. In some ways, I think you should not study the Zohar until you’ve at least have some familiarity, basically, I would say, with Torah and with Midrash. If you delved immediately into the Zohar, you’re going to be lost. It doesn’t matter where you start with the Zohar, page one or the end, it’s diving into this ocean. I think you need some basic knowledge of Torah, and even going from Torah to Zohar is too much of a leap. The link is really Midrash.
Because what is Midrash? Midrash is literally searching, right? Darash is to search. Searching for some deeper meaning. You might say Judaism isn’t so much the Torah. Judaism is the Torah that’s gone through the process of Midrash. The rabbis turned the Torah into Judaism by applying Midrash, expanding the meaning, right, deepening the meaning, sometimes changing the meaning.
You know, the clearest example, of course, is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The Torah seems to mean that literally. The rabbis felt God could not have intended that kind of vengeful justice. It must mean monetary compensation in, in various forms. So Midrash transforms the Torah, and the Zohar is really a Midrash. It’s really a mystical Midrash. Its first name, it’s one of its oldest names, is Midrash HaNe’elam. The concealed Midrash, or maybe it means the Midrash of the concealed. Or maybe it means the midrash that disappeared.
Deborah: Interesting.
Daniel: Cause that’s Moses de León’s claim. This is an ancient midrash. It disappeared. I’m not writing it, I’m just copying it out. And that brings me to, you know, something you mentioned before. Let me just turn to that for a moment. Why does Moses de León attribute this to Rabbi Shimon? You know, most authors are very proud of what they’ve written. You know, I was so happy you mentioned my books. And, you know, people want to spread the knowledge of what they’ve written. I know you’ve written a wonderful book on Lifnim Mishurat Hadin. It’s wonderful to celebrate your work.
Here, he’s writing the masterpiece of Kabbalah, one of the great classics of Judaism, and he never admits he’s the author. Why? I think because he wanted to transform Judaism. If he had said, “I have an idea, God is a woman”—might not have gone over so well. But now he’s saying Rabbi Shimon, the ancient Rabbi Shimon and his colleagues are telling us about Shekhinah and her romance with the Holy One, blessed be He, and how we can simulate their union. So he puts himself aside and attributes it to Rabbi Shimon.
Now, is that a falsehood? You know, the great scholar Heinrich Graetz, the great Jewish historian, said the Zohar is a forgery. You could make that claim. Here he’s writing this, and to Graetz, the mystical ideas were ridiculous. He’s trying to foist these mystical idiocies onto Jewish people by pretending that they’re ancient.
As I said, the Zohar is simultaneously new and ancient. Why does it call teachings new ancient words? Because they’re brand new, they’re being written right now, in 13th century Spain, but he’s attributing to Rabbi Shimon, they’re recovering this ancient mythical theme of the goddess and somehow, you know, making the goddess kosher. Or as Gershom Scholem says, this represents the revenge of myth, right? That myth which had almost been entirely eliminated now comes back with a vengeance.
But you could say that Moses de León, like any great creative artist, felt that it was not him. He was not composing this. It was somehow coming through him, right? A great poet, a musician, a sculptor, a dancer, they’ll often say, “It’s not me, it’s the muse. The muse is coming through me.” So it didn’t really matter if it’s Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Eliezer to whom he’s attributing it, he’s saying, “This is something beyond my normal state of consciousness.” So I think that that creative impulse has something to do with attributing it to an ancient author also.
Deborah: You know, I think that idea of new ancient words is such a beautiful idea to take with us as we move throughout the rest of the Omer and as we approach the holiday of Shavuot in a few weeks. This idea of giving the Torah again, that the Zohar can provide a model for us in what you’ve offered here of what it looks like to reinterpret and re-enliven ancient words and make them new again in different ways.
I love this idea of the Zohar as a midrash. I’m going to be sitting with that for a long time. Thank you so much, Daniel. What a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Daniel: Wonderful. Great to explore this with you.
