A Guide to the Zohar - Paperback

by Arthur Green (Author)

Please see the Zohar Home Page for ancillary materials, including the publication schedule, press release, Aramaic text, questions, and answers.

Front Jacket

The Zohar is the great medieval compendium of Jewish esoteric and mystical teaching, and the basis of the kabbalistic faith. It is, however, a notoriously difficult text, full of hidden codes, concealed meanings, obscure symbols, and ecstatic expression. This illuminating study, based upon the last several decades of modern Zohar scholarship, unravels the historical and intellectual origins of this rich text and provides an excellent introduction to its themes, complex symbolism, narrative structure, and language. A Guide to the Zohar is thus an invaluable companion to the Zohar itself, as well as a useful resource for scholars and students interested in mystical literature, particularly that of the west, from the Middle Ages to the present.

Back Jacket

This is more than a useful corrective for the pop-Kabbalah fantasies that have become fashionable among some spiritual seekers--it is also a serious aid to anyone seeking a serious encounter with Jewish spirituality.--Tikkun
..".[Arthur Green's] 191-page introduction [to the Zohar] is so lucid and thorough that one almost does not notice how capably it has synthesized and presented the material."--The Forward

Author Biography

Arthur Green is the Philip W. Lown Professor of Jewish Thought at Brandeis University. A historian of Judaism and also a theologian, Professor Green is the author of a number of works on Jewish mysticism and Jewish spirituality.