Thoughts while reading the Zohar
There is a certain pungency to the avodah that works from the bottom up. A bittersweet smell, that comes from the flames of desire that is situated upon the lack of wholeness. Of satiety. The movement and play within the space of shadows where the light and dark move together creates the novel act. The heroic. The giving over of oneself. The sacrifice. Getting closer to the source devours the attachments of distance. The laughter is more of a smile. The sense of superiority over the flow of time in all of its absurdity. To act through distance, from concealment, is to show that the distance and concealment is nothing but the veil that conceals the light.
Yaakov didn’t know if he should say Baruch Shem out loud. Because it has a pungent odor, a pleasing smell that elicits the emotions, the inner rage of love. Strong waters may never assuage, satisfy, complete, fulfill, fix, finish, end , the flames of love, compassionate painful love that sees the pain of the other.
This is the light that reverberates from within the darkness that had extinguished it. This is the echo of a past voice. This is the laughter that arises from the depths. This is the water that cries out. This is the desire that stands to be fulfilled. This is the lost, the forlorn and the orphan. This is the doubt, the question and the return. This is the shattered , the broken and the hate. This is the mundane, the banal, the everyday. This is the mournful watch that is joyous in its heart. This the light that is concealed, never known, the distant shadow of a light that is not yet. This is the transformation of darkness into light, the transforming of bitter into sweet, the turning the flipping the reversal. The face of the deer as it’s running away. The union of distance and the closeness of far. The Zohar, motzei shabbos, exile and longing. Desiring. Empty and full.
The Zohar has secrets of the Sugya of death. Moshe stole the secret of death. Deaths secret. The TZimtzum teaches us that the “death of god ” is only the starting point. Creation is death and death is creation. The tzimtzum as death, void חלל, a dead body. כביוכל. This is the question of death. Death awareness. Curse of death. Deferred death of kayin. In a sense adam never woke up, in a sense yitzchak was dead. קץ חי. Living death. Living beyond death. Being after death.
אלהים חיים
The Zohar is in Aramaic because it is a dream. The dream of adam. The creation of the feminine. The revelation of the חלל. חליל. Empty air creates . אוירפנוי. חלל פנוי
At one level it is a חלל פנוי. But from another it is an אויר פנוי.
Light and darkness. Empty and full.
The Zohar is the dream, the מראה לילה.
היינו כחולמים.
The author is hidden, concealed. The author of the Zohar is the concealment of the name. Rashbi. Rashbi. Rashbi.
