{"collection":"Texts of Judaism","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_jud_zdm_zdm110_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_jud_zdm_zdm110_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_jud_zdm_zdm110_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/zdm110.htm","summary":"This is an excerpt from the Zohar, the central text of Jewish Kabbalah, specifically from the section on the Torah portion *Lekh Lekha* (Genesis 12\u201317). It belongs to the genre of Kabbalistic midrash: narrative theological discourse in which sages \u2014 here Rabbi Abba, Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai, and Rabbi Jose \u2014 interpret scripture through mystical lenses while moving through story. The passage threads two concerns: a brief narrative about levirate marriage and the naming of a child, and a more sustained drama in which Rabbi Simeon rebukes Rabbi Abba for failing to share the learned discourses he witnessed at a circumcision feast. The central interpretive claim is that Abraham's circumcision was the precondition for his ability to stand erect before God \u2014 before entering the covenant, prostration was required; after it, a new dignity was conferred. The text's most distinctive tension is its paradoxical ethics of knowledge: Rabbi Simeon simultaneously rebukes Abba for *withholding* good teachings (citing Proverbs 3:27) and insists that occult doctrine must be *jealously guarded* and shared only among initiates, never divulged broadly. The section closes with a messianic promise \u2014 that a time will come when divine light breaks forth for every soul \u2014 before ending with the formal colophon \"Peace to all beings.\"","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Zohar: Genesis: Chapter CI. Rabbi Abba's Punishment","tradition":"Texts of Judaism","translated_text":null,"word_count":707}