Parashat Chukat opens with the commandment of the parah adumah, the Red Heifer, one of the most peculiar precepts in the Torah. The commandment states that to purify someone who has become ritually impure through contact with the dead, a red heifer must be slaughtered, its body burned, the ashes dissolved in water, and the mixture sprinkled on the impure person. The commandment is known as a chok, or statute, a category of commandments human beings cannot understand and which must be observed out of pure obedience to God.
In the Zohar, of course, even the comprehensible parts of the Torah are merely “garments” containing layers of hidden meaning. The drive to penetrate these hidden layers stands at the very heart of the Zoharic project. Obscure rules like the Red Heifer only intensify the motivation to learn what lies beneath them. But it turns out that in the eyes of the kabbalists, this drive to uncover the hidden strata of the Torah is far more complex than it appears.
Rabbi Shimon said: Woe to the person who says that the Torah comes merely to tell stories and ordinary words! For if this were so, even nowadays, we could compose a Torah from ordinary words, and even more beautiful ones than these… Rather, all the words of Torah are supernal words and sublime mysteries.
Come and see: of the celestial angels it is written, ‘He makes His angels spirits’ (Psalms 104:4). When they descend below, they clothe themselves in garments of this world. Were they not clothed in garments fitting this world, they could not remain here, and the world could not endure them. And if this is so with angels, then the Torah — which created them, created all the worlds, and by which they endure — all the more so! When it descended into this world, had it not clothed itself in these garments of this world, the world would not have been able to bear it. Therefore these stories of the Torah are the garment of the Torah.
Whoever thinks that this garment is the Torah itself, and not something else, may his spirit expire! May he have no share in the world that is coming! Therefore David said, ‘Open my eyes, that I may behold wonders from Your Torah’ (Psalms 119:18) — that which lies beneath the garment of the Torah.
Come and see: There is an outer garment visible to everyone. Fools, seeing a person dressed in a fine-looking garment, pay no attention beyond it. Yet the true significance of the garment lies in the body. The true significance of the body lies in the soul. So it is with Torah. It has a body — the commandments of Torah, called the bodies of Torah (gufei Torah) — and this body is clothed in garments, namely the stories of this world. The fools of the world perceive only that garment, the narrative layer of Torah, and know nothing beyond it. They fail to discern what lies beneath the garment. Those with deeper understanding do not focus on the garment but on the body hidden within it. The wise servants of the supreme King, those who stood at Mount Sinai, contemplate the soul, which is the essence and foundation of everything — the Torah itself. In the World to Come, they are destined to behold the soul of the soul of Torah.
Zohar III, 152a
Explore this passage in context on Sefaria.
The Zohar condemns those who see the Torah’s narratives as its totality. Just as angels need to don earthly garments to appear in the world, every manifestation of a spiritual entity, Torah included, requires clothing. This garment mediates the spiritual entity within, but it also conceals it. The wise reader must therefore not be content with the Torah’s garments, but must strive toward what is hidden beneath them.
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The layer that lies deeper is the body. In talmudic parlance, the bodies of Torah refers to the commandments, including those of the type of the Red Heifer. And just as a body has a soul that is hidden within it, even the commandments have something deeper within them. The soul of the Torah is the core inner meaning of the Torah that Kabbalah seeks to uncover.
Against the literary scholars who are enraptured by the garment, and against the jurists who see the Torah mainly as a legal code, the “wise servants of the King” — that is, the kabbalists — strive to grasp the heart of the Torah. In these words, one can hear a direct challenge to those who exclude themselves from the mystery, from engagement with the Torah’s inner dimension.
This call to pursue the secret treasures of the Torah is accompanied by an additional remark that bears much relevance to the commandments that have no discernable reason for them — and to kabbalistic wisdom generally. Beyond the soul of the Torah to which the wise servants are exposed, there exists an even more inner core: the soul of the soul of the Torah. This is a kernel so deep that even the most accomplished kabbalist cannot attain it. Only in the World to Come can this depth of Torah be accessed.
What is this passage trying to tell us? Is there value in searching for the innermost meaning of the Torah or is this a task beyond human capacity? The Zohar’s position here is complex. On the one hand, it urges readers to pursue the Torah’s secrets and scorns those who content themselves with literary or legal engagement alone. Yet there are limits to this pursuit. Even the study of Kabbalah does not give one access to the supreme revelation. Those who engage in the study of Kabbalah must be aware that the effort is limited and that the innermost secrets will only be revealed in another time. One must then approach the pursuit of the Torah’s secrets with a measure of humility — to engage with them carefully, with an awareness of their partiality and relativity, and perhaps even a little hesitation.
The Zohar seeks here to cultivate a kabbalistic consciousness that is ambitious yet humble — a consciousness that is not content with the garment, nor even with the bodies of Torah, but that strives toward the soul of Torah while remaining aware of its limitations. A consciousness that stands in the face of mystery, yet acknowledges that all it can attain, at least in this world, is the tip of the supreme secret. The soul of the soul of the Torah remains hidden until the World to Come.
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.
