this comments thread has turned into a debate about the authenticity of the zohar (sorry anonymous contributor, your post was excellent and deserves much more praise:) however the threads have gone wild, and because of substack's structure it's really hard to sift through the conversation. a lot of the conversation turned into the details of the zohar's concepts, and i just wanted to repost a comment i made down below found only deep within, after clicking on the right seventeen "continue thread" buttons:
i'm not sure if there is any point in quibbling over the details right now. these questions are actually non-starters as you learn the language (or rather the experiences behind the language). (the only question here that isn't a non-starter is gilgulim. the rest is basically ontological.) the sefiros, higher realms, other worlds and anything related to that are concepts that are not meant for public consumption precisely because the layman will hear these concepts and hear what he only can with his limited knowledge of spirituality, while not realizing that these words only make sense once one understands/experiences what these other "worlds" actually are. they are NOT other places where other things exist like we do. we don't believe in these sorts of myths. what they do mean is similar to things like thoughts, concepts and minds which are not tangible and have absolutely no physical attributes at all. someone who has no idea what their inner self (the mind, the soul, the neshama) really is, which most people don't as the rambam laments, has no way of accessing the meaning of these things and will fill in the blanks with physicality (or worse, actual nothingness). said physical ideas are actually wrong and have no place in torah. so talking about them now has no meaning. i would say shimon is correct and we are correct. the version of these concepts in the way most of us can imagine them is factually wrong. the gr'a also denied "upper worlds" in the sense that we might picture it. what we know, however, is that people like the gr'a had access to the "world" of the mind by detaching himself from his physicality (a really hard thing to do, especially in this very materialistic world we are accustomed to) and attaching himself to the world buried deep within, the world of the mind. in that world, things that sound like words which mean one thing, mean another once one is trained to understand like that. once that is accomplished, most of these concepts are understood as they are to be, as explanations of Hashem and how he interacts with the world we live in. someone who does not get this actually has no place in the world of nistar, the world which is inherently Sod.
It is my fault that it became this way as I asked for the conversation to continue in public and I apologize.
However, I don't regret it. I think this was a very productive conversation and it would make for a nice reference on the topic, if not for the substack threads style.
"A Sefer Torah that is off by a single letter, even if that letter doesn't change the simple meaning of the text, is invalid." We don't have the exact number of letters anymore. For example, Yemeni sifrei torah don't have the same amount of letters
but idk how to write 😔 and idk how to give this topic over systematically. we could start by clarifying what the sefiros are maybe? i'd be happy to collab, i'll provide info and sources and you write it up like a mentch...
also a big issue with this topic is that not everyone is ready to hear about the non-physical. there is away to approach this topic which allows those kinds of people to be weeded out which i'll email you about, but it is very tricky.
really what people like that *should* do is defer to those greater than them and not get involved at all. but instead they have a fully formed (ignorant) de'ah and think they know better. really we should leave these people alone and let them (hopefully) grow up. but then you have a bunch of slifkins running around. it's a problem.
It is technically true that the terms פשט, רמז, דרש all appear in Chazal (does סוד appear in Chazal in relation to a דרשה?), and the term סוד appears in Ramban, who did predate the Zohar; but the idea that all psukim contain these four levels of meaning originates with R' Moshe de Leon.
About the forging of the Zohar, I saw your post, and disagree with it entirely. I am firmly in Rabbi Chareidi's camp.
I think the Ramban definitely held there is sod in every pasuk. Ramban at the beginning of Bereishis
עוד יש בידינו קבלה של אמת, כי כל התורה כולה שמותיו של הקב"ה, שהתיבות מתחלקות לשמות בענין אחד. כאילו תחשוב על דרך משל, כי פסוק בראשית יתחלק לתיבות אחרות, כגון: 'בראש יתברא אלהים', וכל התורה כן, מלבד צירופיהן וגימטריאותיהם של שמות. וכבר כתב רבינו שלמה בפירושיו בתלמוד: "ענין השם הגדול של ע"ב, באיזה ענין הוא, בשלשה פסוקים: 'ויסע', 'ויבא', 'ויט'. ומפני זה ספר תורה שטעה בו באות אחת במלא או בחסר – פסול. כי זה הענין יחייב אותנו לפסול ספר תורה שיחסר בו ו' אחד ממלות 'אותם' שבאו מהם ל"ט מלאים בתורה, או שיכתוב הו' באחד משאר החסרים, וכן כיוצא בזה, אף על פי שאינו מעלה ולא מוריד כפי העולה במחשבה.
וזה הענין שהביאו גדולי המקרא למנות כל מלא וכל חסר וכל התורה והמקרא, ולחבר ספרים במסורת עד עזרא הסופר הנביא שנשתדל בזה, כמו שדרשו מפסוק: "ויקראו בספר בתורת האלהים מפורש ושום שכל, ויבינו במקרא". ונראה שהתורה הכתובה באש שחורה על גבי אש לבנה, בענין הזה שהזכרנו היה, שהיתה הכתיבה רצופה בלי הפסק תיבות, והיה אפשר בקריאתה שתקרא על דרך השמות, ותקרא על דרך קריאתנו בענין התורה והמצוה, ונתנה למשה רבינו על דרך קריאת המצות, ונמסר לו על פה קריאתה בשמות. וכן יכתבו השם הגדול שהזכרתי כולו רצוף, ויתחלק לתיבות של שלוש שלוש אותיות לחלוקים אחרים רבים, כפי השימוש לבעלי הקבלה.
ועתה דע וראה מה אשיב שואלי דבר בכתיבת פירוש התורה, אבל אתנהג כמנהג הראשונים להניח דעת התלמידים יגיעי הגלות והצרות, הקוראים בסדרים בשבתות ובמועדים, ולמשוך לבם בפשטים ובקצת דברים נעימים לשומעים וליודעים חן. ואל חנון יחננו ויברכנו, ונמצא חן ושכל טוב בעיני אלהים ואדם.
ואני הנני מביא בברית נאמנה, והיא הנותנת עצה הוגנת לכל מסתכל בספר הזה, לבל יסבור סברה ואל יחשוב מחשבות בדבר מכל הרמזים אשר אני כותב בסתרי התורה, כי אני מודיעו נאמנה שלא יושגו דברי ולא יודעו כלל בשום שכל ובינה, זולתי מפי מקובל חכם לאוזן מקובל מבין. והסברא בהן אולת, מחשבה מועלת, רבת הנזקין מנועת התועלת. אל יאמן בשוא נתעה, כי לא תבואהו בסברותיו רק רעה, כי ידברו אל ה' סרה, אשר לא יכלו כפרה, שנאמר: "אדם תועה מדרך השכל, בקהל רפאים ינוח", אל יהרסו אל ה' לראות (שמות יט כד), כי ה' אלוהינו אש אוכלה הוא אל קנאות. והוא יראה את רצוייו מתורתו נפלאות.
אבל יחזו בפירושינו חדושים בפשטים ובמדרשים, ויקחו מוסר מפי רבותינו הקדושים: "בגדול ממך אל תדרוש, בחזק ממך בל תחקור, במופלא ממך בל תדע, במכוסה ממך בל תשאל, במה שהורשית התבונן, ואין לך עסק בנסתרות".
If other Rishonim held this, I can't say for sure off the top of my head, but they all agree that there is pshat and drash- I don't know about every single pasuk- but I don't think post was making a claim about every single pasuk.
I also agree there is פשט and דרש. It's just that when you say (as the post does), "The tradition then is making an extraordinary claim for the Chumash, that it can be read as four different texts simultaneously, and that each text is coherent and true in its own right," that to me means every posuk has these 4 levels of meaning. And that idea originated with R' Moshe de Leon.
I didn't read that as saying that every word or posuk has all four levels of meaning. I don't know what difference it makes. The idea that the Torah has multiple layers of meaning is already clear in Chazal and the Rishonim, and that is his point. I don't really care if it is four texts or three or two or שבעים פנים לתורה. And I quoted from Ramban the idea that every pasuk could be read as Shemos Hashem, but we don't even need that.
Shimon, your comments only reveal that you dont understand the subject. The legitimacy of the Zohar is not predicated upon the authentic provenance of every word written down. Matters of סוד are not secrets because many people don't know them (many people don't know Bava Kamma either), but rather, these are concepts that cannot be transmitted in words, only through the hearts and minds of the diligent, wise and sincere student. It is the ideas that are correct and true, and the Vilna Gaon revealed long ago that indeed, nearly every verse in Torah has levels of פרדס .
Hello Harav RKZ, I apologize for asking you in this thread, I just don't want it to be on the front page. I saw some people asserting that in the past, in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, when there was a cap of 800 פטורים of בני ישיבה a year, most chareidim (which were the rest of them) did full service in the army, and this only changed because of Begin and Rav Shach. In particular, I saw this assertion made be Menachem Keren-Kratz: https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/theology/15656/black-hats-green-fatigues/. Do you know if this true?
Very well written! I loved every word of it.
this comments thread has turned into a debate about the authenticity of the zohar (sorry anonymous contributor, your post was excellent and deserves much more praise:) however the threads have gone wild, and because of substack's structure it's really hard to sift through the conversation. a lot of the conversation turned into the details of the zohar's concepts, and i just wanted to repost a comment i made down below found only deep within, after clicking on the right seventeen "continue thread" buttons:
i'm not sure if there is any point in quibbling over the details right now. these questions are actually non-starters as you learn the language (or rather the experiences behind the language). (the only question here that isn't a non-starter is gilgulim. the rest is basically ontological.) the sefiros, higher realms, other worlds and anything related to that are concepts that are not meant for public consumption precisely because the layman will hear these concepts and hear what he only can with his limited knowledge of spirituality, while not realizing that these words only make sense once one understands/experiences what these other "worlds" actually are. they are NOT other places where other things exist like we do. we don't believe in these sorts of myths. what they do mean is similar to things like thoughts, concepts and minds which are not tangible and have absolutely no physical attributes at all. someone who has no idea what their inner self (the mind, the soul, the neshama) really is, which most people don't as the rambam laments, has no way of accessing the meaning of these things and will fill in the blanks with physicality (or worse, actual nothingness). said physical ideas are actually wrong and have no place in torah. so talking about them now has no meaning. i would say shimon is correct and we are correct. the version of these concepts in the way most of us can imagine them is factually wrong. the gr'a also denied "upper worlds" in the sense that we might picture it. what we know, however, is that people like the gr'a had access to the "world" of the mind by detaching himself from his physicality (a really hard thing to do, especially in this very materialistic world we are accustomed to) and attaching himself to the world buried deep within, the world of the mind. in that world, things that sound like words which mean one thing, mean another once one is trained to understand like that. once that is accomplished, most of these concepts are understood as they are to be, as explanations of Hashem and how he interacts with the world we live in. someone who does not get this actually has no place in the world of nistar, the world which is inherently Sod.
It is my fault that it became this way as I asked for the conversation to continue in public and I apologize.
However, I don't regret it. I think this was a very productive conversation and it would make for a nice reference on the topic, if not for the substack threads style.
Very nice post.
"A Sefer Torah that is off by a single letter, even if that letter doesn't change the simple meaning of the text, is invalid." We don't have the exact number of letters anymore. For example, Yemeni sifrei torah don't have the same amount of letters
You're probably right, but Teimani sifrei torah aren't proof, maybe they have the mistake and we don't.
The gemara says in Kiddushin 30a that they at that time already(Chazal) are not experts in defective and plene spelling.
Yes, that's a better proof. אין אנו בקיעים בחסירות ויתירות.
The פרד״ס idea (פשט, רמז,דרש, סוד) originated with R’ Moshe de Leon, who also forged the Zohar.
This is not true, all these things are mentioned by earlier Rishonim and Chazal, as mentioned in this post. About the "forging" of the Zohar, we published a post about it here https://irrationalistmodoxism.substack.com/p/response-to-rabbi-chareidis-attack
maybe you should write more about this topic being that it is a big deal in the rationalist mystic divide
I volunteer your services! You know a lot more about kabbalah than I do.
but idk how to write 😔 and idk how to give this topic over systematically. we could start by clarifying what the sefiros are maybe? i'd be happy to collab, i'll provide info and sources and you write it up like a mentch...
also a big issue with this topic is that not everyone is ready to hear about the non-physical. there is away to approach this topic which allows those kinds of people to be weeded out which i'll email you about, but it is very tricky.
really what people like that *should* do is defer to those greater than them and not get involved at all. but instead they have a fully formed (ignorant) de'ah and think they know better. really we should leave these people alone and let them (hopefully) grow up. but then you have a bunch of slifkins running around. it's a problem.
It is technically true that the terms פשט, רמז, דרש all appear in Chazal (does סוד appear in Chazal in relation to a דרשה?), and the term סוד appears in Ramban, who did predate the Zohar; but the idea that all psukim contain these four levels of meaning originates with R' Moshe de Leon.
About the forging of the Zohar, I saw your post, and disagree with it entirely. I am firmly in Rabbi Chareidi's camp.
I think the Ramban definitely held there is sod in every pasuk. Ramban at the beginning of Bereishis
עוד יש בידינו קבלה של אמת, כי כל התורה כולה שמותיו של הקב"ה, שהתיבות מתחלקות לשמות בענין אחד. כאילו תחשוב על דרך משל, כי פסוק בראשית יתחלק לתיבות אחרות, כגון: 'בראש יתברא אלהים', וכל התורה כן, מלבד צירופיהן וגימטריאותיהם של שמות. וכבר כתב רבינו שלמה בפירושיו בתלמוד: "ענין השם הגדול של ע"ב, באיזה ענין הוא, בשלשה פסוקים: 'ויסע', 'ויבא', 'ויט'. ומפני זה ספר תורה שטעה בו באות אחת במלא או בחסר – פסול. כי זה הענין יחייב אותנו לפסול ספר תורה שיחסר בו ו' אחד ממלות 'אותם' שבאו מהם ל"ט מלאים בתורה, או שיכתוב הו' באחד משאר החסרים, וכן כיוצא בזה, אף על פי שאינו מעלה ולא מוריד כפי העולה במחשבה.
וזה הענין שהביאו גדולי המקרא למנות כל מלא וכל חסר וכל התורה והמקרא, ולחבר ספרים במסורת עד עזרא הסופר הנביא שנשתדל בזה, כמו שדרשו מפסוק: "ויקראו בספר בתורת האלהים מפורש ושום שכל, ויבינו במקרא". ונראה שהתורה הכתובה באש שחורה על גבי אש לבנה, בענין הזה שהזכרנו היה, שהיתה הכתיבה רצופה בלי הפסק תיבות, והיה אפשר בקריאתה שתקרא על דרך השמות, ותקרא על דרך קריאתנו בענין התורה והמצוה, ונתנה למשה רבינו על דרך קריאת המצות, ונמסר לו על פה קריאתה בשמות. וכן יכתבו השם הגדול שהזכרתי כולו רצוף, ויתחלק לתיבות של שלוש שלוש אותיות לחלוקים אחרים רבים, כפי השימוש לבעלי הקבלה.
ועתה דע וראה מה אשיב שואלי דבר בכתיבת פירוש התורה, אבל אתנהג כמנהג הראשונים להניח דעת התלמידים יגיעי הגלות והצרות, הקוראים בסדרים בשבתות ובמועדים, ולמשוך לבם בפשטים ובקצת דברים נעימים לשומעים וליודעים חן. ואל חנון יחננו ויברכנו, ונמצא חן ושכל טוב בעיני אלהים ואדם.
ואני הנני מביא בברית נאמנה, והיא הנותנת עצה הוגנת לכל מסתכל בספר הזה, לבל יסבור סברה ואל יחשוב מחשבות בדבר מכל הרמזים אשר אני כותב בסתרי התורה, כי אני מודיעו נאמנה שלא יושגו דברי ולא יודעו כלל בשום שכל ובינה, זולתי מפי מקובל חכם לאוזן מקובל מבין. והסברא בהן אולת, מחשבה מועלת, רבת הנזקין מנועת התועלת. אל יאמן בשוא נתעה, כי לא תבואהו בסברותיו רק רעה, כי ידברו אל ה' סרה, אשר לא יכלו כפרה, שנאמר: "אדם תועה מדרך השכל, בקהל רפאים ינוח", אל יהרסו אל ה' לראות (שמות יט כד), כי ה' אלוהינו אש אוכלה הוא אל קנאות. והוא יראה את רצוייו מתורתו נפלאות.
אבל יחזו בפירושינו חדושים בפשטים ובמדרשים, ויקחו מוסר מפי רבותינו הקדושים: "בגדול ממך אל תדרוש, בחזק ממך בל תחקור, במופלא ממך בל תדע, במכוסה ממך בל תשאל, במה שהורשית התבונן, ואין לך עסק בנסתרות".
If other Rishonim held this, I can't say for sure off the top of my head, but they all agree that there is pshat and drash- I don't know about every single pasuk- but I don't think post was making a claim about every single pasuk.
https://forum.otzar.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=48232
I also agree there is פשט and דרש. It's just that when you say (as the post does), "The tradition then is making an extraordinary claim for the Chumash, that it can be read as four different texts simultaneously, and that each text is coherent and true in its own right," that to me means every posuk has these 4 levels of meaning. And that idea originated with R' Moshe de Leon.
I didn't read that as saying that every word or posuk has all four levels of meaning. I don't know what difference it makes. The idea that the Torah has multiple layers of meaning is already clear in Chazal and the Rishonim, and that is his point. I don't really care if it is four texts or three or two or שבעים פנים לתורה. And I quoted from Ramban the idea that every pasuk could be read as Shemos Hashem, but we don't even need that.
Shimon, your comments only reveal that you dont understand the subject. The legitimacy of the Zohar is not predicated upon the authentic provenance of every word written down. Matters of סוד are not secrets because many people don't know them (many people don't know Bava Kamma either), but rather, these are concepts that cannot be transmitted in words, only through the hearts and minds of the diligent, wise and sincere student. It is the ideas that are correct and true, and the Vilna Gaon revealed long ago that indeed, nearly every verse in Torah has levels of פרדס .
Beautifully written:)
You're probably ignorant about anything the Zohar means
You're probably less informed than the gr'a, that's for sure
Quite the opposite. I can see that the Zohar is meaningless.
Understanding Hashem is meaningless?
Chas vesholom, I never said that! But you don’t come to an understanding of Hashem through the Zohar. The Zohar is not part of Torah.
There is no doubt that at least some of the Zohar is not from Rashbi. Not less than the Nodeh B'yehudah says so, in the uncensored versions.
The fact that 'all these things' are 'mentioned" in earlier Rishonim and chazal says nothing about some of it being forged or not.
That's not what the discussion was about.
Happy
Jan 29
Author
This is not true, all these things are mentioned by earlier Rishonim and Chazal, as mentioned in this post. About the "forging" of the Zohar, we published a post about it here https://irrationalistmodoxism.substack.com/p/response-to-rabbi-chareidis-attack
You misunderstood what I was saying. See the comment I was responding to.
https://forum.otzar.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=17957&hilit=%D7%AA%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%91%D7%94+%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%94%D7%91%D7%94
Hello Harav RKZ, I apologize for asking you in this thread, I just don't want it to be on the front page. I saw some people asserting that in the past, in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, when there was a cap of 800 פטורים of בני ישיבה a year, most chareidim (which were the rest of them) did full service in the army, and this only changed because of Begin and Rav Shach. In particular, I saw this assertion made be Menachem Keren-Kratz: https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/theology/15656/black-hats-green-fatigues/. Do you know if this true?
Also see this (And the entire thread before and after), written by people far more know
http://forum.otzar.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&p=830677&sid=49d298a2fe52b1f479a735e004b48c39#p830664
thank you
I'm not sure. I once thought to check this out with historical records, but it's a very complicated issue to check for sure.
I do know that actual בחורי ישיבות and אברכים did not go the army, but those who started to work did, but I don't know exact numbers.
Another one of those, eh?
can't wait to read that! hopefully i'll have time tomorrow