Zohar: Genesis: Chapter LIX. The Symbolism of the Foundation Stone

This is an excerpt from the Zohar, the foundational text of Jewish Kabbalah (likely from the 13th-century composition attributed to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai), presented in its characteristic form as a dramatic dialogue between Rabbi Jehuda and an unnamed traveling merchant who proves to be a master of esoteric wisdom. The central topic is the "foundation stone" (shethiya) — the cosmic stone beneath the Jerusalem Temple — which the merchant argues is the same stone Jacob slept on at Bethel and the same "cornerstone the builders rejected" invoked by David in Psalms, making it a symbol of divine justice (tzedek) underlying creation. The dialogue also traces the three daily Jewish prayer times to the three patriarchs: Abraham instituted morning prayer, Isaac the afternoon (minchah), and Jacob the night prayer, with Jacob's act of anointing the stone representing his role in restoring cosmic justice after human wickedness had undermined it. The text's most distinctive eschatological claim — attributed to the merchant's dying father — is that the appearance of Messiah will be heralded by a rainbow of extraordinary brilliance and radiant color, in contrast to the current rainbow's faintness, at which point God will "remember the everlasting covenant" and resurrect or reincarnate King David to reign again over Israel. This passage will interest readers drawn to classical Kabbalistic biblical hermeneutics, messianic speculation, or the Zohar's method of finding layered cosmic significance in apparently minor narrative details of the Hebrew Bible.

Zohar: Genesis: Chapter LIX. The Symbolism of the Foundation Stone

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