Zohar: Genesis: Chapter XIII.

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This is a passage of Kabbalistic biblical commentary in the tradition of the Zohar, offering esoteric interpretations of the Genesis fall narrative alongside other Hebrew scriptures. Its central argument is that Adam and Eve's transgression, Israel's subsequent failures, and even Moses's exclusion from the Promised Land were all caused by the corrupting influence of a "mixed multitude" — the spiritually alien peoples who intermingled with Israel and whose true origin traces back to the serpent of Eden. The text reads biblical episodes (nakedness, fig-leaf coverings, the voice in the garden, the striking of the rock) as allegories for Israel's varying states of awareness or ignorance of the "secret doctrine," i.e., Kabbalah itself. Distinctively, it identifies the serpent with the demonic figure Samael, claims Moses will reincarnate to restore the Shekhinah to Israel, and decodes individual Hebrew letters and word-shapes (notably the letter Beth and the gematria linking Job's word "shameh" to the name Moses) as vehicles of hidden meaning. The later sections shift to cosmogony, describing Ain Soph (the boundless divine) emanating light that pervades creation, with the union of celestial and terrestrial kingdoms — higher and lower self — as the ultimate eschatological goal. Readers interested in medieval Jewish mysticism, allegorical scriptural exegesis, or the Zohar's interpretive method will find this representative of that tradition, though its ethnic-theological framing of the "mixed multitude" reflects a polemical strand that modern readers will want to approach critically.

Zohar: Genesis: Chapter XIII.

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