Nearly 2,000 years have passed since the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and over 2,600 since the destruction of the first. We mark both with mourning on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, known as Tisha B’Av. Mourning such an ancient loss is not simple. Some people who observe Tisha B’Av avoid this difficulty by focusing on tragedies that occurred within living memory such as the Holocaust or, more recently, the massacre of October 7, 2023. Still, there is tremendous power in cultivating a feeling of identification with a loss that our ancestors have been mourning for generations, though it is so far removed from our own experience.
To do this requires an act of ritual imagination. We are called to imagine the world as it was before the destruction in such a way that we actually, in some measure, connect with and feel the loss for ourselves. Over the generations, this challenge led to many different stories, all meant to answer the question: What did we lose when the Temple was destroyed? One such story is told by the Zohar.
This story of loss appears in a conversation about the primordial light. Tradition (Chagigah 12a) tells that the light created on the very first day was different from the light of the sun and the moon, which were not created until the fourth day. This first-day, primordial light was special. It facilitated vision without boundaries, imbuing the world with absolute transparency, honesty and love. But when the Creator reflected on the impact of such transparency in concert with the human capacity for evil, She decided to hide this light and preserve it for a future World-to-Come, in which all would be righteous.
This is where the Zohar’s discussion picks up:
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It might occur to you that this (primordial light) will only be accessible in the World-to-Come. Actually, it is present every single day. Without this light the world would not exist, as it says, “The world is founded on love” (Psalms 89:3).
This light is planted by the Holy Blessed One, row by row, in Her garden of delights.
This is done by the Tzaddik (the righteous one) who is the gardener of this garden. The gardener takes this light, a seed of truth, and plants it. She plants rows upon rows in the garden, where the seeds sprout, grow and give fruit. The entire world is sustained by this fruit.
This is alluded to in the verses, “a light planted by the righteous” (Psalms 97:11), and, “like a garden in which the seeds can grow” (Isaiah 61:11). What are this garden’s seeds? They are the seeds of the primordial light. They are constantly being planted. Even while they sprout and give fruit, they are planted all over again. Before the world consumes this fruit, the seed is already sprouting and bringing forth (new) fruit — it never ceases. Thus, all worlds are sustained by what this gardener, who is known as the Tzaddik, provides. It never diminishes and never stops.
Zohar 2:166b–167a
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In the Zohar’s imagination, the primordial light is indeed hidden away, buried in the ground. But it is not like a treasure chest, buried for someone to reclaim in the future. Instead, it is buried like a seed, so that it can grow and bear fruit.
This act of planting is done by a figure identified as the Tzaddik, the righteous one. From elsewhere in the Zohar we know that this title refers to the aspect of God through which vitality and good flow into the world, and also to the living righteous people who are the embodiment of that aspect of divinity. The Zohar offers a striking image of God as a gardener tending to the world, which is described as Her “garden of delights.” While human life may entail struggle and a mix of good and evil, the divine Gardener and Her human helpers plant little seeds of absolute truth and love in the world. This absolute truth may not be able to exist in the world, but its fruit — meaning people’s trust in the significance of truth, and the ways they envision life in relation to it — is what enables the world’s survival.
Until the Gardener stops planting…
Unless the people of Israel are in exile.
You might think: Since the time of exile is described as “the waters of the sea fail, and the river dries up and is parched” (Job 14:11), how is it possible for anything to grow in the garden?
How can it say “a light is planted,” meaning it is continuously planted, when the gardener has not entered the garden since the day the river dried up?
The light is indeed continuously planted and it always makes fruit. It is self-seeding, so it continues like before and never stops. It is like any garden in which the seeds that fall under the plants create new offspring on their own, continuing like it was.
You might think that these plants and fruits are no different than what grew when the gardener was there. That is not the case, but still, the planting never ceases.
Zohar 2:166b–167a
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The Zohar describes exile, the world after the destruction of the Temple, as a garden without a gardener. This text does not address why the gardener left; it focuses only on describing this new situation. The seeds of God’s primordial light do not disappear along with the gardener’s care. But the world in which they are planted is no longer a garden. It has begun transitioning into a wild meadow, in which the seeds of God’s light and love compete with every other form of flora and fauna. The seeds continue to germinate, grow and give fruit, but, as the Zohar says, it is not the same.
When the Zohar imagines the world of the Temple, more than a thousand years before its time, it imagines a world oriented toward the presence of God’s life and love. It may be picking up on the hints from biblical and early rabbinic literature that point towards an indigenous consciousness, a world where nature, the people and their relationship with God are part of one seamlessly woven tapestry. This does not mean there is no struggle between good and evil, nor that the world sees no suffering, loss and death. But within this ordered world, everything has its place, and the sense that “there is a master to this palace” or, in the Zohar’s imagery, a gardener of this garden, anchors life and existence.
But that is not the world the Zohar knows. Its authors know that divine truth, light and love can be found in the world — indeed, they could not exist without them. But they no longer sense the presence of a gardener. There is no longer any guarantee the seeds of Truth will flourish.
That is the wild world in which they live, work and create. And the absence of the gardener is the loss that they mourn — and that we might remember on Tisha B’Av.
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.
