In Parashat Ki Tavo, Moses prescribes a unique ritual for the Israelites (Deuteronomy 27:11–26). When they enter the promised land, the tribes will assemble on two mountains, and the Levites are instructed to make 12 proclamations cursing the transgressors of specific commandments. The entire community is to affirm each and every curse by responding “amen.”
The commandments in question mostly involve private behaviors that would be difficult for the community to enforce. For example, Deuteronomy 27:15 states: “Cursed be anyone who makes a sculptured or molten image, abhorred by God, a craftsman’s handiwork, and sets it up in secret. And all the people shall respond: amen.” This curse is directed at people who worship idols in secret, presumably to avoid the oversight and sanctions of the community. The curse acts as a deterrent and enforcer.
Centuries later, the Tikkunei Zohar reinterprets the curse on secret idolaters. In doing so, it transforms the meaning of both idolatry and secrecy.
Moses opened and said: Ezekiel the prophet, wake from your sleep to reveal to us the visions that were revealed to you. Everything that you received came both hidden and revealed. The images which you described are in the open, but through closed eyes the image of the king and queen appears. Even more hidden, many times over, is the One who has no image. Of one who forms any image of this One, it says: “Cursed be anyone who makes a sculptured or molten image … and sets it up in secret” (Deuteronomy 27:15). “In secret” refers to the utmost secret of the universe, which may not be portrayed in any image visible to the human eye, including even the images seen by the prophets.
Tikkunei Zohar, Introduction, 6b
Explore this passage in context on Sefaria.
Conversations in the Zohar are not limited by time or death. Figures from across history converse without temporal or spatial limitations. In our selection, Moses, the prophet who encountered God at Mount Sinai, is discussing the question of divine images with the prophet Ezekiel, who lived centuries later in Babylonia. In the context of idolatry and images, Ezekiel is an interesting conversation partner because he is known, among other things, for his dramatic descriptions of God’s chariot, a fiery contraption of interlocking wheels, creatures, hands, wings and eyes — all topped by a glowing throne with a humanoid rider.
Will You Help Us Answer the Call? The shofar's blast is a call to wake up and show up for what matters. My Jewish Learning answers that call all year by keeping Jewish knowledge free and open to anyone who wants it. Your gift helps us keep answering.
For the Bible, Ezekiel’s astoundingly physical description of God’s chariot is not a problem. The Bible does not hesitate to anthropomorphize God, who elsewhere enjoys the smell of sacrifices, stretches out an arm, strolls in the Garden of Eden and speaks face-to-face with Moses. But medieval Jewish philosophers largely rejected these anthropomorphisms. Maimonides, for example, dedicated the entire first part of Guide for the Perplexed to interpreting every biblical image of God as a metaphor.
The Zohar represents a return to the world of mythic imagery, but as the text before us demonstrates, it does so while incorporating the philosophical critique. Moses offers a complex presentation of Ezekiel’s visions as embodying three distinct layers.
The first level is what we see with open eyes. In a book, that is the text before us. In Ezekiel’s prophecy, it is the images of living beings with multiple faces and wheels carrying a throne with a somewhat human form upon it. In life, it is the level of existence we call reality, and everything we understand through observation. It is important not to reject this level, either in the text or in life. Any insight or understanding we have about God must be anchored in what we can observe if it is to be honest.
The second level is what we see through closed eyes. There is a difference between closing our eyes in order to see deeper into the reality before us, and closing our eyes in order to avoid what is before us. For the Zohar, seeing more deeply through closed eyes is seeing reality in terms of the dynamics of divine energies flowing through the world. In the Zohar’s language, this is called the image of the king and the queen, but it includes all our symbols and the language we use to talk about God. This is where most of the Zohar’s work happens — including its interpretations of the images in Ezekiel’s visions.
The third level is the consciousness that we live within divinity, a wholeness so great and vast that we have no words to describe it, nor forms with which to imagine it. This level is just as crucial as the first level, because it, too, reflects honesty and truth. It acknowledges that the silence that stretches out before and after our existence is the context of our existence, extending beyond anything we can comprehend. The Zohar calls this “the secret of the world” — not because anyone is hiding it, but because it is eternally unknown to us.
This is where the Tikkunei Zohar introduces the verse from Ki Tavo, which is now interpreted at all three levels. At the first level of interpretation, the most literal, a curse is applied to any person who practices idolatry by bowing down to a false god in secret, presumably believing they will therefore get away with it. But when the Tikkunei Zohar looks deeper, using the second level of interpretation, the secret idolatry it sees is not someone bowing to an idol in a darkened closet, but a person who applies images to that which is secret — that is, to God. As humans, images are helpful and useful to us, but no image or idea should be applied to divinity. And at the third level of interpretation, there are no images. There is only silence.
The Zohar, in its journeys of imagination, frequently operates at the second level — seeing God in every word of the text, in every tree beside the road, and in every conversation between friends. The stories it tells and the teachings it offers function like threads weaving through the fabric of our lives that keep us connected to the first and third levels simultaneously: the limited reality of our lives and the endless being of God are both true. The Zohar’s project is to help us sit between those truths and never forget either one.
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.
