{"collection":"Texts of Judaism","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_jud_zdm_zdm019_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_jud_zdm_zdm019_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_jud_zdm_zdm019_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/jud/zdm/zdm019.htm","summary":"This is an excerpt from the Zohar (or a close translation/commentary thereof), the foundational text of Jewish Kabbalah, belonging to the tradition of Jewish mystical midrash \u2014 allegorical scriptural interpretation layered onto the creation narrative of Genesis. Its central argument is that the Torah's creation account is an encoded map of Kabbalistic cosmology: figures like Adam, Eden, the four rivers, and the Tree of Knowledge are read as symbols for the Sephiroth, the divine name (YHVH), the higher and lower Shekina (divine presence), and the celestial father and mother. A distinctive and recurring claim is that \"Israel\" \u2014 not humanity generally \u2014 is the specific referent of creation: \"man\" formed in Genesis II means Israel, who bear the divine name imprinted in their very physical form (the two eyes and the nose representing the letters I-V-I, numerically equaling 26, the value of Jehovah). The destruction of the First and Second Temples is interpreted as the \"twice-repeated\" death warning of Eden and the drying of the divine river, a spiritual catastrophe whose reversal awaits Israel's return from captivity. The text closes with an esoteric account of four sages who entered Paradise (pardes), warning that mystical knowledge wrongly used becomes a curse, rightly used a source of blessing \u2014 a well-known Kabbalistic cautionary tale about the dangers of esoteric initiation.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Zohar: Genesis: Chapter X. Symbolisms of Man","tradition":"Texts of Judaism","translated_text":null,"word_count":1330}