At the heart of this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, is the story of Isaac, who continues the path of his father Abraham. Yet on the margins of the story, we also find a reference to Abraham’s other offspring, the sons who the Torah calls “the sons of the concubines.” Genesis 25:5 tells us that Abraham “gave all that he had to Isaac,” and then immediately adds that to his other offspring “Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from his son Isaac, while he was still alive, eastward to the land of the East.”
What are these gifts that Abraham gave to his children who were rejected from the covenantal line? The text does not specify. But a story in the Zohar addresses this question precisely.
The protagonist is Rabbi Abba, one of the sages of the Zohar, who depicts a chance encounter with the “wisdom of the Children of the East.” According to this tradition, this is Abraham’s legacy, the gifts mentioned in Genesis. This wisdom of the Easterners fascinated the sages of the Zohar, both for its magical and, as we shall see, mystical potential. The East here refers to the Near East and likely points to the lore associated with the city of Haran in medieval times. Yet the Zohar’s words represent a broader conceptual approach that one can also apply to the cultures of the Far East, whose spiritual tendencies resemble certain aspects of Zoharic thought.
Let us therefore turn to the story of Rabbi Abba and the books of the Easterners:
Rabbi Abba said: One day I wandered into a certain town among those who were of the Children of the East. They told me some of the wisdom they had known from ancient days, and we found among them books of their wisdom.
They brought me one book, and it was written there that just as human desire is aroused in this world, so does it draw upon itself a spirit from above in accordance with that desire to which it cleaves. If one’s desire is set upon a holy supernal matter, he draws that matter from above downward upon himself. But if his desire cleaves to the Other Side and he focuses on it, he draws that matter from above downward upon himself.
And they would say that the essence of the matter depends upon words, deeds, and desire with which one cleaves. And through this, that side to which a person cleaves is drawn from above downward.
I found in that book all the works, rites of the stars and constellations, and the words required for them, and how one must attune one’s desire in them, in order to draw them toward oneself …
I said to them: “This is close to the words of Torah, but you must distance yourselves from these books, lest your hearts be drawn after these rites and all those sides mentioned here. God forbid you be led astray from the worship of the Holy One, blessed be He. For all these books have led people astray. For the Children of the East were wise, and this was the heritage of wisdom they inherited from Abraham, who gave to the sons of the concubines the “gifts,” as it is written: “To the sons of the concubines that Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them … eastward to the land of the East” (Genesis 25:6). Later, this wisdom spread to many directions.
But the seed of Isaac, the portion of Jacob, is not so. It is written: “Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac” (Genesis 25:5 — this is the holy portion of faith to which Abraham cleaved and from which he emanated … Therefore, a person must follow after the Holy Blessed One and cleave to Him constantly, as it is written (Deuteronomy 10:20): “You shall cleave to Him.”
Zohar I, 99b–100a (translation based on Daniel C. Matt)
Elsewhere, the Zohar further elaborates on the the information to which Rabbi Abba was exposed in these books, which concerns methods for drawing, channeling and attaching oneself to the Holy Spirit — or alternatively, to an impure spirit — for the sake of mystical ascent. These methods turn out to be similar to Zoharic practices (“close to the words of Torah”). The story illustrates the Zohar’s nuanced and complex attitude toward this kind of wisdom, which is not categorial. As expressed here, the Zohar neither adopts Eastern wisdom, nor does it reject it entirely.
On the one hand, Rabbi Abba declares that the content of these books is similar to the Torah. And not only that, their source, in his eyes, is Abraham’s own teaching. On the other hand, he presents a stark warning. The scientific or metaphysical validity of these teachings does not grant license to engage in them. Since the sons of the concubines directed their wisdom toward “many sides” — that is, toward the domains of impurity, idolatry and the Other Side (the Satanic realm) — involvement with them may be spiritually harmful. The pagan cultural context in which these wisdoms were practiced means that any use of them entails deep religious risk.
The Zohar’s awareness of the closeness between its own teachings and certain non-Jewish and even idolatrous systems, surprising as it may be, constitutes a foundational feature of its worldview. The Zohar is willing to acknowledge a broad common ground between its mystical world and the spiritual systems of the East, even though those systems challenge the preservation of Jewish religious identity and ultimately expand the reach of the Abrahamic tradition. It perceives Eastern religions as degraded mutations of that ancient Abrahamic faith. More than that, it allows us to evaluate the relationship between Judaism and other religions — not through a binary lens of truth versus falsehood, but along a broad spectrum of nearness or distance from the hulka kaddisha de-mehemanuta, the holy portion of faith: the Abrahamic religion of Isaac.
This piece was originally published as part of an original series produced by My Jewish Learning and Sefaria called A Year of Zohar: Kabbalah for Everyone. Sign up for the entire series here.
