Texts of Judaism

Zohar: Genesis: Chapter I.

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This is an English translation of excerpts from the Zohar, the foundational text of Jewish Kabbalah traditionally attributed to the second-century sage Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai, rendered here with explanatory notes for a Western audience. The text offers an esoteric commentary on the opening verses of Genesis, arguing that the plain scriptural language conceals a layered cosmological system in which creation proceeds from En Soph — an infinite, utterly unknowable divine source — through a primal point of light (the *nekuda reshima* or *zohar*) that radiates into an unbounded luminous ether from which the universe crystallizes. A central distinctive claim is that Hebrew words and letters in Genesis are not merely narrative but encode the mechanics of divine emanation: for instance, "Brashith bara Alhim" is decoded as describing six directions of space, a dual generative-fructifying principle, and a 42-letter divine name simultaneously. The text also interprets the primordial chaos of *tohu* and *bohu* as successive physical and spiritual stages — frozen darkness purified by divine fire — through which matter became fit for the incarnation of pre-existing spiritual beings on an evolutionary upward spiral. Its distinctively syncretic voice weaves Neoplatonic concepts (the Logos, emanation) with Hebrew letter-mysticism and prophetic citations, positioning Kabbalistic initiates as the astronomers of spiritual truth who guide others to hidden knowledge.

Zohar: Genesis: Chapter I.

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