The Zohar: Understanding Femininity Through the Lens of Mysticism

The Zohar is a foundational Kabbalistic text that expands on the mystical underpinnings of Judaism and Jewish thought. Attributed to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the Zohar centers around the Rabbi himself and his disciples as they interpret different aspects of the Torah in their most hidden and symbolic dimensions. Part of this exploration delves into the world and the Torah through the lens of femininity and masculinity. By interpreting these mystical aspects of the Zohar concerning gender, women are further able to tap into these mystical streams of Judaism and understand the meaning of femininity within the depths of Torah mysticism. Thus, we can delve into the sod of what it means to be a woman. 

The first instance that the Zohar focuses on gender is in Chapter 6 of the Introduction, when Rav Hamnuna investigates why the letter Bet is the first letter in the Torah. He does so by showing how the personified letters of the Alef Bet present themselves to the Borei Olam, one by one, last to first, to plead their case for being this prized first letter. When the Tzadi appears to Hashem, she says: 

“O Lord of the world, may it please Thee to create with me the world, inasmuch as I am the sign of the righteous (Tzadikim) and of You who is called righteous, as it is written, “For the Lord is righteous, he loves righteousness” (Ps. 11, 7), and hence it is right to create the world with me. The Lord answered: O Tzadi, you are Tzadi, and you signify righteousness, but you must be concealed, you may not come out in the open so much lest you give the world cause for offence. For you consist of the letter Nun surmounted by the letter Yud (representing together the male and the female principles). And this is the mystery of the creation of the first man, who was created with two faces (male and female combined). In the same way the Nun and the Yud in the Tzadi are turned back to back and not face to face, whether the Tzadi is upright or turned downwards. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to her further, I will in time divide you in two, so as to appear face to face, but you will go up in another place. She then departed.¹

Here we see the complex interactions between feminine and masculine ideals. The letter Tzadi, representing both the feminine Nun and masculine Yud, needs to be separated into those two distinct energies and letters just as Adam HaRishon needed to be separated between his male and female selves. Despite the fact that the combined form is inherently righteous (Tzaddik), they are connected in misalignment, back-to-back. Thus, the letters need to be separated so they can connect face-to-face, just as Man needs to connect female and male and “cleave to his wife.”²  By using the Hebrew letters themselves, the very building blocks of both the Torah and the worlds, Rav Hamnuna reveals the essential nature of masculinity, femininity, and the mystical integrations of both. These are the base components of what it means to form women and man–and what it means to separate and combine them. 

The mysticism of the Zohar can be difficult to understand and hard to grasp in its esotericism. These symbolic messages relate to the Borei Olam on an elevated level that can make ordinary people feel it is outside of their grasp. But by investigating the meaning of what it means to be human, we can further relate to these high-level concepts. By investigating what femininity means through the mystical origins of Torah, we are further able to grasp what it means to be women. 

While Rav Hamnuna addresses the root elements that form femininity, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai discusses the intricacies of the mystical feminine in Chapter 14 of the Introduction: here, we see that Rabbi Shimon “was sitting and studying the Torah during the night when the bride was to be joined to her husband.”³ This ‘bride’ here represents the Children of Israel, and this wedding night symbolizes the eve of Shavuot when the Jewish people wed themselves to the Creator. By inhabiting this metaphor to its fullest extent, Rabbi Shimon can explore more about these gendered relations between Hashem and his people, and between male and female ideals. For example, Rabbi Shimon later considers the discourse with “The heavens declare the glory of God, etc. (Ps. 19, 2). He said: ‘The inner meaning of this verse is as follows. When the bride awakes on the morning of her wedding day, she begins to prepare her ornaments and decorations with the aid of the companions who have rejoiced with her all that night, as she with them.”⁴ Not only does this hint to the celestial accompaniment that follows the Jewish people on the morning of Shavuot, but also hints to the pride of femininity: the ability to adorn and make beautiful. 

The Torah makes note of this feminine gift for creating beauty several times, especially when describing the washbasin in the Beit HaMikdash: “He [Betzalel] made the copper washstand and its copper base out of the mirrors of the dedicated women [ha-tzove’ot] who congregated at the entrance of the Communion Tent.”⁵ Rashi notes that women used these mirrors to beautify themselves during their hard slavery in Egypt, awakening the passionate spirit in their husbands and conceiving new life within their tents⁶. It is this vision and ability to make beautiful the mundane and adorn the ordinary that becomes a holy act, godly in its own right. In this, the Jewish people themselves embody this feminine trait and “prepare [the] adornments and decorations” on the eve of their wedding to the Borei Olam. This is how the heavens declare the glory of G-d, by mirroring the actions of holy Jewish women. 

The mysticism of the Zohar can be difficult to understand and hard to grasp in its esotericism. These symbolic messages relate to the Borei Olam on an elevated level that can make ordinary people feel it is outside of their grasp. But by investigating the meaning of what it means to be human, we can further relate to these high-level concepts. By investigating what femininity means through the mystical origins of Torah, we are further able to grasp what it means to be women. 

1. Zohar, Introduction 6:26 ↩︎
2. Bereshit 2:24 ↩︎
3. Zohar, Introduction 14:125 ↩︎
4. Zohar, Introduction 14:126 ↩︎
5. Exodus 38:8 ↩︎
6. Rashi on Exodus 38:8:1 ↩︎