Admiration and Disgust: The Ambivalent Re-Canonization of the ...

The Ambivalent Re-Canonization of the Zohar in the Modern Period
David Heiman Joel, in reaction to Franck's book, wrote his Midrash
ha-Zohar: Die Religionsphilosophie des Sohar und ihr Verhäeltnis zur
allgemeinen jüedischen Theologie; Zugleich eine Kritische Beleuchtung
der Franck'schen 'Kabbalah' (Leipzig, 1849), in which he refuted
Franck's claim regarding foreign influences upon the Kabbalah and
argued that the Zohar expresses the authentic Jewish theology of the
Middle Ages. 13 Adolph Jellinek, who had translated Franck's work
into German, devoted his own book, Moses ben Schemtob de Leon
und sein Verhältnis zum Sohar (1851), to proving Moses de Leon's
authorship of the Zohar. Notwithstanding the fact that Jellinek's research
strengthened the critics of the Zohar and his studies served as the basis
for Graetz's harsh attack on the Zohar, his own approach to Kabbalah
and to Zohar was far more positive. The intention of his research was,
as phrased in his own words:
… to arouse more interest in an area of great importance for the
history of philosophy and theology … Among the Kabbalists
are people who, in terms of the depth of their thought and the
consequences of their ideas, are far superior to the chorus of
rationalists who emerged from the school of Maimonides. 14
The historian Isaac Marcus Jost, a member of the Society for the
Culture and Science of Judaism, who in his first book (Berlin, 1820-
1828), expressed a negative, 'Enlightenment' approach towards the
Kabbalah rejecting the antiquity of the Zohar, changed his mind towards
the end of his life. In his later work, Geschichte des Judentums und
seiner Sekten (Leipzig, 1857-1859), Jost described the appearance of
the Zohar as 'an important event in the history of religion'. While Jost
did not accept the antiquity of the Zohar, he nevertheless argued that
13 See Tishby, ibid., p. 47 n. 217; Fenton, 'La cabbale et l'academie', pp. 211-222.
A second edition of Joel's book was published in 1918.
14 'Überhaupt beabsichtige ich mit diesen "Beiträgen" mehr Interesse für ein Gebiet
hervorzurufen, das für die Geschichte der Philosophie und der Theologie von
höchster Bedeutung ist … Die Kabbalisten zählen Manner in ihren Reihen, die
was Tiefe des Gedankens und Consequenz der Ideen betrifft, jene grosse Schar
Rationalisten überragt, die aus der Schule Mose ben Maimon's hervorgegangen
sind'; see A. Jellinek, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kabbalah, Leipzig 1852, pp.
v-vi; and cf. Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, p. 49.
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