The Sifra di-Zeniuta

Le Siphra di-Tzeniutha, December 1930.

Mr. Paul Vulliaud has just given, as a beginning for a series on the 'fun-damental texts of the Kabbalah,' a translation of the Sifra di-Zeniuta, pre-ceded by a long introduction, which is much longer than the translation itself, and even then there are two translations, because there are, in this volume, two successive versions of the text, one that is literal and the other that is paraphrased. This introduction seems destined above all to show that, even after the Zohar of Jean de Pauly, such a work is far from useless; most of it is devoted to a detailed history of the stated French translation of the Zohar, a historical record containing as it seems, almost all that is possible to know of the life of the translator, who is a truly enigmatic character and whose origins are still not finally clear. All of the history is very intriguing, and it is not indifferent in explaining the shortcomings and imperfections of the work, to know in what conditions it was made and the strange difficulties the editor had with the unfortu-nate Jean de Pauly, who was somewhat affected by a persecution com-plex. However, we will allow ourselves to find that these details hold too large of a place here; upon reading them, it is regrettable that Mr. Vul-liaud had not devoted himself to what may be called the little details of history, for he certainly would have brought with it an unusual elo-quence; but the Kabbalistic studies would have greatly suffered. On the present state of these studies, the same introduction contains some general considerations on the course of which Mr. Vulliaud attacks, as only he is capable, the ‘Doctors,' that is, the ‘officials,' which lay claims to hard truths in Jewish Kabbalah, then he criticizes a Jesuit Father, Fa-ther Bonsirven, whom some, it seems, are trying to present as an incom-parable authority on matters of Judaism. This discussion is an occasion to give a number of very interesting remarks, notably on the Kabbalists' processes and path, considered as 'stupefying' by the critics, of which they only quote the scriptural texts; and Mr. Vulliaud adds in this link: "Contemporary exegesis has been unable to analyze properly the 'quota-tions' of the Gospels, because it has been resolved to ignore the processes of the Jewish hermeneutics; it is necessary to move to Palestine, since the evangelical work was elaborated in this country." This seems to fit, at least as a trend, with the work of another Jesuit Father, Father Mercel Jousse; it is a pity that this is not mentioned, because it would have been biting to have put him in front of his colleague. On the other hand, Mr. Vulliaud rightly points out that the Catholics who make a mockery of the so-called magic formulas, contained within Kabbalistic works, and who hasten to call them 'superstitious,' should be cautious, for their own rituals are filled with things of the same type. The same applies to accu- sation of 'erotism' and 'obscenity' against a certain type of symbolism: "The critics who belong to Catholicism should think before joining their voices with the Jews and the rationalist Protestants, Catholic theology is likely, just as Kabbalah is, to be easily ridiculed with what we are dealing with." It is good that these things are said by a writer who has taken Catholicism as a profession; and, especially, some anti-Jewish and anti- Masonic fanatics should make good use of this excellent lesson. There are many more things to note in the introduction, especially on the Christian interpretation of the Zohar: Mr. Vulliaud has reservations about some of the rather forced rapprochements established by Drach and accepted by Jean de Pauly. He also returns to the question of the Zohar's antiquity, that the opponents of Kabbalah strive to challenge with very bad reasoning. But there is something else we are glad to em- phasize: Mr. Vulliaud declares that, “in order to translate certain essential passages properly, it is necessary to be initiated into the mysteries of Jewish esoterism,” and that, “de Pauly has approached the translation of the Zohar without possession this initiation;" further on, he notes that the Gospel of Saint John, as well as of the Apocalypse, "was addressed to initiates;" and we can note other such similar sentences. There is, there- fore, a certain change of attitude in Mr. Vulliaud, of which we can only congratulate him for, previously he seemed to have an odd qualm with pronouncing the word 'initiation,' or at least if he did it was only to mock certain 'initiates' that he should have, to avoid any unpleasant confusion, qualified rather as 'pseudo-initiates.' What he is writing now is the exact truth: it is a matter of 'initiation' that it is, in the proper sense of the word, with regard to Kabbalah as well as any other form of esoterism that is worth the name; and we must add that it goes much further than deciphering a type of cryptography, which is what Mr. Vulliaud seems to have in mind when he has previously spoken on the topic. Without a doubt, this also exists but this is only a question of external form, which is far from being negligible, since we must pass through this to arrive at an understanding of the doctrine; but we must not confuse the means with the end, nor put them on the same plane. Be that as it may, it is quite certain that Kabbalists can, more often than not, speak in reality of something else than what they openly speak about; and these processes are not unique to them, far from it, because it is also found in the Western Middle Ages; we have had the opportunity to see this subject when relating to Dante and the 'Fedeli d'Amore,' and we indicated then that the main causes for this, are not all of simple pru- dence as the 'profane' can be tempted to assume. The same exists in Is- lamic esoterism, and it is developed to a point that no one, we believe, can suspect in the Western world; the Arabic language, as well as the Hebrew language, can be admired in this respect. Here, we do not find only the usual symbolism which Mr. Luigi Valli, in his work, has shown to be common to both the Sufis and the ‘Fedeli d'Amore;' there is still much better to be seen: is it inconceivable, for Western minds, that a simple treatise on grammar, or geography, or even commerce, has at the same time another meaning which is also a far-reaching initiatic work? These are examples that really exist and that we currently have in our possession.

This leads us to make a slight criticsm with regards to the translation that Mr. Vulliaud has given to the very title of the Sifra di-Zeniuta: he names it as the ‘Secret Book,' and not ‘Book of the Secret,' and the rea- sons that he gives seems inconclusive. It is certainly juvenile to imagine, as some have done, that “this title recalls the flight of Simeon bar Yochai, during which time the Rabbi secretly composed this short work;" but this is not what the 'Book of the Secret' means, which in reality has a much higher and deeper meaning than that of the ‘Secret Book.' We mean here to allude to the important role played in certain initiatic traditions, the very ones that concern us presently, the notion of a 'secret' (sod in He- brew, sirr in Arabic) which has nothing to do with discretion or conceal- ment, but what is the very nature of things; should we recall in this con- nection that the early Christian church itself had a 'secret discipline,' and that the word 'mystery' in its original sense refers properly to the inex- pressible?

As for the translation itself, we said that there were two versions, and they are not duplicates, because the literal version, which is so useful for those who wish to refer to the text and follow it closely, is often unintel- ligible. It is always so, as we have said on many other occasions, when it comes to Sacred Books or other traditional writings, if a translation must necessarily be 'word for word' according the school and university meth- odology, we should declare them truly untranslatable. In reality, for those of us who have a completely different point of view from that of linguists, it is the paraphrased and commented version which constitutes the meaning of the text and which makes it possible to understand it, where the literal version sometimes makes the effect of a kind of 'logo- griph,' as Mr. Vulliaud puts it, or incoherent rambling. We only regret that the commentary is not more extensive and more explicit; the notes, although numerous and very interesting, are not always sufficiently 'en-lightening,' so to speak, and it is to be feared that they cannot be under-stood by those who do not already have more than an elementary under-standing of Kabbalah; but no doubt it is necessary to wait for the contin-uation of these 'fundamental texts,' which, hopefully will happily com-plete this first volume. Mr. Vulliaud owes us, and himself, to now provide a similar work in regards to the Idra Rabba and the Idra Zuta, who, along-side the Sifra di-Zeniuta, as he states, are far from simply “annexes or appendages" of the Zohar, but “are, on the contrary, the central parts," those which contain in some way, in the most concentrated form, all the essentials of the doctrine.