A printed edition of the Zohar was first produced in 16th-century Mantua. Its editors gave the text its modern shape by organizing handwritten kabbalistic manuscripts according to weekly Torah portions. Apparently finding nothing suitable for Parashat Devarim, they omitted it, which is why there is no Zohar for this parashah.
The Mantua edition, it should be noted, was not the only 16th-century printing. The contemporaneous Cremona edition did include material for Parashat Devarim, borrowing a passage placed under Parashat Balak in Mantua. Yet Mantua became canonical: Its pagination still governs printed and digital editions, including the Pritzker translation. The absence of Devarim is therefore not simply textual; it is a consequence of editorial history.
Your intrepid columnist did not despair, however, because additional authentic zoharic material is scattered, like hidden treasure, in later kabbalistic Torah commentaries. Some of that treasure is found in Heikhal HaBracha (The Palace of Blessing), the Torah commentary of Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Yehiel Safrin of Komarno (1806–1874), a Galician Hasidic master and an exceptionally learned kabbalist.
In the manner of so many rabbinic Bibles over the centuries, Heikhal HaBracha reprints the Torah with multiple commentaries on each page. It includes classic commentaries, like the one by Rashi, and the Komarno rebbe’s original contribution: Otzar HaChayim (The Treasure of Life), a treatment of the mitzvot in each parashah, interpreted through the lens of Zohar.
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For Parashat Devarim, Otzar HaChayim highlights two negative commandments that are rooted in Deuteronomy 1:17, which reads: “You shall not be partial in judgment (literally: ‘do not recognize faces in judgement’); hear out low and high alike. Fear no one, for judgment is God’s.” This verse gives rise to two prohibitions: First, appoint only qualified judges. Second, judges must rule justly and without fear of the litigants or the fallout. For the plain sense of these laws and the ethical stakes, the Komarno draws on Sefer HaChinuch, composed, like the Zohar, in 13th-century Spain. Seating an unfit judge, it warns, is like setting up a pillar of idolatry, and the honest judge needs the nerve to reach the truth, however dangerous the litigant. Justice demands the courage to cut through appearances and deliver the truth without fear.
With these basic ethical demands established, the Komarno pivots to “the roots of the commandment.” Here, the straightforward legal code ends and insights drawn from the Zohar begin. Unlike so much Zohar we have seen, the secrets here do not reveal the inner life of the sefirotic Divine. They turn instead to spiritual anthropology: how the self balances individuality against the collective, exposure against belonging, and what keeps us safe before God.
The Komarno goes on to interpret a well-known passage from the biblical Book of Kings. To repay the Shunamite woman for her extraordinary hospitality, the prophet Elisha offers to speak to the king on her behalf. The Shunamite demurs, saying: “I dwell among my own people” (2 Kings 4:13). The Zohar, riffing on the opening Hebrew word of this scene, hayom(“the day”), and the invocation of “the king,” determines that this exchange takes place on Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Judgment, when the King of the world judges its inhabitants. This, in turn, reveals a spiritual insight gleaned from the Shunamite’s wise refusal of Elisha’s offer: In times of judgment, one should not stand apart from the community.
The Komarno next draws on a second passage from Zohar Chadash, a collection of zoharic material that didn’t make it into the first printed editions. This one interprets the opening verses of the Book of Ruth, in which a famine drives the prominent judge Elimelech into exile in the land of Moab, where he and his sons will ultimately die. The talmudic sages cast Elimelech as a leader who fled when his people needed him, and whose death was punishment for that abandonment. The Zohar takes that verdict further: God, it imagines, mercifully tried to shelter Elimelech, which is why the opening verse of Ruth does not refer to him by name, merely as “a man.” But the accusing angel insists on naming him in the next line: “And the man’s name was Elimelech” (Ruth 1:2). For judges like Elimelech, visibility is not optional. You do not get to un-choose your visibility once you are a leader. A judge answers not only for the cases before him but for the deeds of all those he serves, and he must take responsibility for the whole picture. Trying to evade responsibility and hide behind anonymity was Elimelech’s mistake. Rather than shepherd and shield his generation, he ran away — and paid the ultimate price.
Let’s go back to Deuteronomy 1:17, and that singular phrase prohibiting unfair judgments that literally translates as, “do not recognize faces in judgment.” This is the phrase with which the Komarno rebbe brings together these zoharic perspectives on the Shunnamite and Elimelech. The private Shunamite woman is a “face not recognized” — she exemplifies the importance of being part of something larger, of identifying with the group in times of judgment. By contrast, Elimelech, the judge, must always see and be seen. What ethical tradition calls accountability, the Zohar calls being marked: The answerable self cannot take cover. Zohar Chadash rereads the opening phrase of Ruth, “in the days when the judges judged,” as “in the days when the judges were judged.” Leaders are judged for evading responsibility — for refusing to stand against danger or champion the unpopular demands of truth and justice. Humility does not release the judge from visibility; it binds the judge to the people, “as one soul,” holding even the least among them higher than himself.
For the Komarno, the common denominator in both cases is humility. The Shunamite’s approach is obviously humble; she makes herself one with all, passing on the opportunity to make a personal request of the king. But we learn from Elimelech a different kind of humility that is required of judges — one which he lacked. A true judge worthy of the position is, “bound to all Israel as one soul, holding the least among them higher than himself.” A judge’s modesty is found in holding themselves below the most disadvantaged in the collective. The Shunamite escapes exposure by never leaving the crowd. The judge has no such exit, but humility restores him to the crowd — it is the only way he can dwell within his people.
Parashat Devarim opens: “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel” (Deuteronomy 1:1). Moses, famously the humblest of humans, spoke to all Israel, the collective, intentional community within which we pray for tender mercies.
This piece was originally published as part of A Year of Zohar: Kabbalah for Everyone, an original series produced by My Jewish Learning and Sefaria. Sign up for the entire series here.
