In Parashat Behar, the Torah declares: “… the Children of Israel are servants to Me” (Leviticus 25:55). Elsewhere, the relationship is described more intimately: “You are children of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 14:1). This duality is found not just in scripture, but also in Jewish liturgy; for example, the High Holiday prayer Avinu Malkeinu, “Our Father, Our King.”
The question of what metaphor best describes (or prescribes) a Jew’s relationship to God has occupied religious thought and mystical reflection throughout the ages. It is also the subject of the following homily in the Zohar:
“For the Children of Israel are servants to Me…” (Leviticus 25:55) — this is a commandment: to serve in every kind of service in the Temple and outside the Temple, in all those forms of worship that are called service — through prayer, striving after the commandments of the Torah — for all is called service. Like a servant who attends to his master in everything required, so Israel are called servants, as it is written: “For the Children of Israel are servants to Me; they are My servants” (Leviticus 25:55). Why are they servants? Because it is written: “whom I brought out of the land of Egypt” (Exodus 20:2). Therefore it is written in the Ten Utterances, after “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,” (Exodus 20:2) that one should serve Him as a servant serves his master, who redeemed him from death and rescued him from all the evils of the world.
Israel are called in two ways in relation to the Holy One, Blessed be He: they are called servants, as it is written “they are My servants,” (Leviticus 25:55), and they are called children, as it is written: “You are children of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 14:1). When a person knows the Holy One, Blessed be He, in a general way, then he is called a servant, one who performs the commandments of his Master, and has no permission to search into His hidden treasures or the mysteries of His house. But when a person knows Him in a particular, intimate way, then he is called a beloved son, like a son who searches among the treasures and all the secrets of his father’s house. Even though he is called a son, the firstborn of the Holy One, Blessed be He, as it is said: “Israel is My firstborn son,” (Exodus 4:22) he must not remove himself from the category of a servant, to serve his Father in all forms of service that constitute the honor of his Father. Thus, a person must be, in relation to his Father, both a son, to search His hidden treasures, to know the secrets of His house, and to strive after them, and also a servant …
Happy is the portion of that son who merits to strive to know the treasures of his Father and all the secrets of His house, like an only son whom his father has appointed over all his treasures. This is the honor of one who rules over all. Whoever strives in Torah to know the Holy One, Blessed be He, and His hidden treasures, is called a son of the Holy One, Blessed be He. Among all the hosts of heaven, none can prevent him from entering before his Father. Happy is his portion in all worlds. Therefore, when he strives to know Him in a particular way, through the mystery of wisdom, then he is called a son.
Zohar 3:111b
The Zohar clearly articulates the two modes of relating to God: servant and son. For the Zohar, these are two paths, and perhaps also two religious temperaments.
Worshipping God as a servant, in the Zohar’s view, is the mode of one who knows God from a distance. The servant acknowledges religious truths and follows the commandments, but he does not “search through God’s hidden treasuries.” The servant religious style is conventional and normative, built on submission to divine authority experienced at a remove. The servant can be charged with religious fervor, but it is a specific kind of fervor — that of standing before the sublime and the hidden, which the person makes no claim to know.
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The other religious type, the son, yearns to know God intimately. This devotee is not satisfied with merely accepting God’s existence and authority, but wishes to behold God in close proximity, as a son knows his father and can recognize his features, observe the expression of his face. This is obviously the posture of the Kabbalist.
According to the Zohar, the choice of which religious temperament to adopt — whether to serve God as son or as servant — is left in a person’s own hands. But there is a clear preference: Whoever chooses to be a son, to build their relationship with God on the basis of intimate acquaintance, will be led into the inner chambers of God and merit uncovering divine secrets. And as the Zohar says: “Blessed is his portion.” Conversely, whoever has decided to stand at a distance and serve God as a servant, will never have this deep knowledge or this particular blessing.
Yet here the relationship of the Kabbalist to God is drawn carefully and with nuance, without disparaging people who choose to model their relationship with the divine on a servant. In the servant model, too, the Zohar recognizes value.
Moreover, a sensitive reading of this homily reveals that the Zohar is aware of the potential shortcomings of the Kabbalist’s path and the danger latent within it. Despite the clear hierarchy between the two approaches, it recommends that the person who chooses the son model: “must not remove himself from the category of a servant, to serve his Father in all forms of service that constitute the honor of his Father.” In choosing to be a son, the Kabbalist must not stop being a servant.
The danger is that a sense of filial closeness may undermine that person’s awe, reverence and even their sense of obligation to observe the commandments. In this homily, there is clearly an underlying concern about Kabbalists losing their traditional religious sensibility. And perhaps, too, an anxiety about kabbalistic searching becoming a self-serving project of satisfying curiosity, of “rummaging through” the Father’s hidden places. It is also possible that, in this warning, the Zohar is concerned about Kabbalists distancing themselves from the rest of the Jewish community, who generally follow the servant model of divine worship. When the Kabbalist approaches God as a son, therefore, the Zohar advises that he must continue to hold onto the identity of a servant who ministers to his master. Otherwise, the kabbalistic endeavor, while laudatory, is fraught with danger.
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.
