by Eliyahu Teitz

In May 1985, Eliyahu Teitz — a physician and scholar at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York — posted a brief but memorable parable to net.religion.jewish in response to a discussion about the Zohar. Some on the group had dismissed the Zohar as obscure mystical nonsense unworthy of the serious student; others had dismissed it without having read it.

Teitz answered with a story. The story comes from the tradition of his grandfather (unnamed), and it offers something both the dismissers and the over-eager ought to hear: the greatest knowledge is sometimes hidden precisely so that only those who are truly ready to find it will do so — and those who cannot see it should not mistake their blindness for the text's emptiness. The same principle, he argues, governs the Aggadot (rabbinic parables and stories) throughout the Talmud.

This is a piece of the oral tradition caught mid-transmission, on a computer network, in 1985.

My grandfather tells a story about a man who had three sons. One of his sons used to take care of him while the other two generally ignored him. When the man was on his death bed he wanted to give his money to the son who cared for him and to exclude the others. He didn't want to give the money outright, so as not to generate any hatred among the brothers. Rather, he devised a plan. He would put his money under a rose bush in his garden. The son who cared for him would realize that the father hated roses, and realize there must be some significance to the rose bush.

The father died. The first son, after the funeral, passed the rose bush and said "What nice flowers," smelled them and went off. The second son passed the roses and got caught on a thorn. He scowled, and walked on. The third son saw the roses, and knowing that his father disliked roses, dug them up and found the money.

The same is true with Zohar, and Aggadot in the Gemara. The rabbis had to leave their knowledge of how they saw the world work written for everyone to read. However, they didn't want to write it in a way that each and every reader would understand. So they wrote it in the form of stories. Some people read these stories and say "Why are there dumb stories in the Gemara? There should only be halacha. Why waste time on stories?" Other people say "My, what nice stories." But they, too, don't see the significance of the stories. Only the son who is familiar with the ways of the father — in our case, a student familiar with the ways of the Talmud — will see the stories, realize that there are secrets in the stories, and delve deeper to understand what is said.

One last point. If you don't understand something, don't go abusing it. The Zohar is not written for every scholar, let alone the layman. Kabbalah is not for everyone. So if you don't see what the point of the Zohar is, don't make fun of it publicly.

Colophon

Written by Eliyahu Teitz ([email protected]), Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. Posted to net.religion.jewish on Tuesday, May 14, 1985. Message-ID: [email protected].

Eliyahu Teitz was a regular contributor to net.religion.jewish during 1984–1985, often writing on questions of halacha, theology, and Jewish mysticism. He is a physician and rabbi; this parable was passed down from his grandfather and illustrates the traditional hermeneutic of hiddenness (nistar) that governs Kabbalistic literature. The Zohar, attributed to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (2nd century CE) but more likely composed by Moses de León in 13th-century Spain, is the foundational text of Jewish mysticism; the Aggadot are the non-legal narrative and homiletic portions of the Talmud.

Preserved from the Usenet archive (UTZOO collection, batch b45) for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].

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