Decoding the Language of the Zohar: Lexicons to Kabbalah in Early Modernity

Abstract

This article examines various attempts in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries that sought to repackage and reorganize kabbalistic knowledge through the compilation of lexicons to one of the most sacred texts in the Jewish mystical canon, the Zohar. By considering the Zoharic lexicon ʾImrei binah, written by Yissakhar Baer ben Petaḥyah Moshe, printed in Prague in 1610, in diachronic and synchronic contexts, the article exposes competing strategies adopted by Jewish mystics to transmit the linguistic and theosophical layers of the Zohar. I will place and discuss lexicons to the Zohar within broader questions of cultural transmission and textuality, revealing the modalities through which these works generated meaning for Jewish and non-Jewish readers. As Kabbalah came to occupy an important role in the intellectual exchange between Jews and Christians in this period, Zoharic lexicons and other study guides played a major role as cultural mediators.