The aim of this translation is, on the one hand, to make the Zohar accessible to English readers, on the other hand, to afford assistance to those who struggle with its intricacies in the original. For the sake of the latter a good deal has been included which, as far as the former are concerned, might perhaps have been spared, especially if they have never studied the Hebrew Bible. The greater part, however, will probably be intelligible enough, even to those who have no knowledge of Hebrew.
As has been pointed out above, the printed editions of the Zohar contain intercalations from other, allied, works, which are paged along with the Zohar itself. These are not included in the present translation, which confines itself to what may be called the Zohar proper. Certain individual passages have also been omitted for reasons given where they occur. There are also minor omissions (indicated by the sign...) of passages containing plays upon Hebrew words and similar matter unsuitable for translation. With these qualifications, the translation may be regarded as complete for the part of the text covered by the first volume, viz. up to the end of Vayera (p. 120b).
Certain parts of the Zohar-notably the comments on the opening sections of Genesis-are highly enigmatical, and in the absence of an authentic tradition their true meaning is a matter of conjecture. An attempt has been made to give a faithful translation of these also, accounting for practically every word in the original. The result has perhaps been to reproduce only too faithfully the tenebrosity of the original, for which the reader may not be thankful. But he will know, at any rate, that he is getting the authentic Zohar and not the translators’ own ideas; and he may find assistance in an appendix and a glossary in which the translators indicate their own view of the general trend and purpose of these passages.
In printing the Biblical quotations with which the Zohar abounds, a device has been adopted which it is hoped the reader will find useful. The main text-headings, that is to say, the verses from the Pentateuch which the Zohar sets out to expound in regular order, are printed in small capitals. The subsidiary text-headings, that is to say, other verses from the Bible which are made the subject of disquisitions illustrative of the main text, are printed in italics. Repetitions of these texts, or incidental quotations, are printed in ordinary type between quotation marks. This distinction will enable the reader to see at a glance where he is and with what subject the Zohar is dealing at any point.
A further effort has been made to bring order and system into the text by careful paragraphing and by a judicious use of parentheses. (It should be remembered that in the original text not only these aids, but even punctuation marks, including full stops, are inserted very sparingly, and then not infrequently at the wrong place!) The result, it is hoped, will be to show that the Zohar is by no means such a jumble as is usually supposed, that with all its discursiveness it follows a well-defined course, and that there is a reason why most of its reflections are inserted just where they are and not somewhere else.
The Biblical references are in all cases to the Hebrew text (or to the American Jewish translation). The renderings have also been taken where possible from this version or the English Revised Version. In many cases, however, it has been necessary to give the Hebrew quite a different rendering, in order to make it accord with the lesson which the Zohar seeks to derive from it-often in lordly disregard of the context or even the rules of grammar.
The translation has been made in the main from the Mantuan text of the Zohar, but occasionally a reading has been adopted from the Amsterdam text. The paging of the Mantuan text has also been inserted.