rabbis in the west (1000– 1500 ce) 349
concerning them [that they were espousing] the way of the prophets
which [embraces] abstinence and contentedness .. .’.^50
Such, then, was the Jewish background to the Zohar when it first
began to circulate at the end of the thirteenth century at around the
same time that the teachings of the great Sufi mystic ibn Arabi began to
circulate among Spanish Muslims. The Zohar is a curious amalgam of
different sorts of material, crammed with mythological imagery, poetry
and echoes of Neoplatonic and Aristotelian philosophy, alongside pop-
ular superstition, theurgy and mystical psychology:
The ‘soul’ is the lowest stirring. It supports the body and nourishes it. The
body is bound intimately to the ‘soul’ and the ‘soul’ to the body. When the
‘soul’ has been perfected it becomes a throne on which the ‘spirit’ may rest,
when the ‘soul’ that is joined to the body is aroused, as Scripture says: ‘Till
the spirit be poured on us from on high’. When ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ have per-
fected themselves, they become worthy to receive the ‘ super- soul’, for the
‘spirit’ acts as a throne on which the ‘ super- soul’ resides. This ‘ super- soul’
stands highest of all, hidden and utterly mysterious. So we find that there is
a throne supporting a throne, and a throne for the highest which is over all.
When you study these grades of soul you will discover therein the secret of
divine Wisdom, for it is always wise to investigate hidden mysteries in this
way. Observe that the soul, the lowest stirring, cleaves to the body, just as in
a candle flame the dark light at the bottom clings to the wick, from which it
cannot be separated and without which it could never be kindled. But when
it has been fully kindled on the wick it becomes a throne for the white light
above which resides upon that dark light. When both the dark and the white
light have been fully kindled, the white light in its turn becomes a throne for
a hidden light, for what it is that reposes on that white light can neither be
seen nor known. Thus the light is fully formed. And so it is with the man
who attains complete perfection, and, as a result, is called ‘holy’.The Zohar insists on the correspondence between the lower and upper
worlds, so that actions and prayers by humans have cosmic significance.
There is always a danger that evil caused by human sins (including
improper thought) may thus cause a disjunction in the sefirot, the ten
stages of the upper world through which God descends from the Infinite
(Ein Sof ) to the divine manifestation in the Shekhinah, which is both
the last of the sefirot and the image in heaven of the community of
Israel. What matters is harmonious balance in the union of Shekhinah
(conceived as female) with the male aspects of the divine, such as the
sefirah of judgement.^51