Having begun the project of rendering the Zohar—the major work of Jewish mysticism—into English in 1997, Daniel Matt, with the help of two other scholars, is completing the eleventh volume of the most comprehensive translation of the book to date. (The twelfth and final volume will appear next year.) Ezra Glinter reviews Matt’s translation and discusses the Zohar itself, dated by tradition to the 2nd century CE but believed by most scholars to have been composed in late-13th-century Spain:

Written in the style of midrash, or rabbinic commentary on the Bible, the Zohar relates the teachings of [the talmudic sage] Rabbi Shimon and his companions as they wander through Galilee. But the Zohar also strikes out in bold new directions, describing not only the conversations of Shimon’s mystical fellowship but their adventures and exploits [as well]. On their travels, they encounter strange characters who turn out to be more than what they seem—a beggar or a donkey driver who is actually a hidden sage, a child who displays surprising wisdom. At times, some argue, it comes to resemble a kind of medieval novel. . . .

The fundamental concept underlying the Zohar—along with most of medieval Kabbalah—is that of the ten s’firot, the divine aspects or attributes through which God interacts with the world. . . .

The idea of the s’firot served an important theological purpose. Following philosophers like Maimonides, God had become an abstract, practically inconceivable entity, which made the idea of prayer and religious observance seem almost absurd. With the s’firot kabbalists preserved this notion of God as the ultimate source of being, but introduced a mechanism by which God could relate to the world. Of course, the idea of a tenfold divinity didn’t always sit well with the followers of a religion that prided itself on strict monotheism. . . .

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.