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THE KABBALAH DECODED
Cbmpanion v01ume
by
George Sassoon&Rodnw Dale
THE MANNA― MACHINE
Ck&JaCkSOn)
(Sidg
THE KABBALAH
DECODED
A new translation of the
'Ancient of Days' texts
of the Zoh,ar
by
George Sassoon
edited by
Rodney Dale
Duckworth
First published in 1978 by
Gerald Duckworth & C,o. Ltd
The Old Piano Factory
43 Gloucester Crescent, London NWr
@ t978 by George T. Sassoon & Rodney A. M. Dale
All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherlr/ise, without
the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN o 7$6 tzSg r
PRINTEE)IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY EBENEZER BAYLIS AND SON LTD
THE TRINITY PRESS, WORCESTER, AND LONDON
Contents
Editor's foreword
・
Introduction 駆
¨
Conventions
The Greater Holy Assembly ．
The Lesser Holy Assembly 町
The Book of the Mystery 事
The Assembly of the Tabernacle 智
妬
Afterword
朔
Select list of works consulted
Index of Biblical quotations 響
葱
Index
To Moses of Leon
who showed us the way
19----
'There is no doubt that scholarly research into the
zohar has only just
lH[r.r,
Gershom schorem
'Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem'
- William of Occam (attributed)
'The story began somewhat oddlS but then the
Bible always seemed a bit odd'
- Alice Thomas Ellis
The Sin Eater
We would like to thankJoyce Wrighson
and Jacqueline Neale for their help in
typing the texts.
Editor's foreword
We realised that when our work became known we were bound to be asked
how two engineers with no exhaustive training in Semitic languages, and
lacking a lifetime of Jewish scholarship, could dare to embark on a trans-
lation and interpretation of a thirteenth-century Jewish text.
I will tell you. Apart from being an engineer, George Sassoon, who czrried
out the translation, is no mean linguist. He has travelled extensively and
picks up foreign languages as others amass cabinets full of photographic
slides. Moreover, he has been employed as a technical translator, a task
which, by and large, entails a straightforward substitution of words in one
language for those in another.
Our thesis is that the texts with which we are dealing are essentially
technical descriptions. In addition, they are written in a simple form of a
simple language. The facts that they are written in an unfamiliar script, that
they are very old, and that they have hitherto been treated as mystical and
religious can all, quite erroneouslS trap the unwary into jumping to the
conclusion that no-one without special training should attempt the task of
studying them.
One of our contentions is that the special training, valuable as it may be,
imbues the exegetist with a set way of regarding the texts, and prevents his
considering their treatment in a straightforward manner. We have found in
the original a simplicity and down-teearthness which we have tried to con-
vey in our English. We have dictionaries, we have paradigms, we have time
and patience. What more is needed?
The other conciern, as I said above, was our lack of specifically Jewish
scholarship. Again, such training can be a double-edged sword. We may
have failed to $asp some references, and we may have missed allusions
which to others are obvious, but such failures may themselves have served
to keep us on our path. A loss in complexity is a gain in simplicity.
We are not blind to the fact that we are as steeped in our technological
interpretations as others are in their mystico-religious interpretations. But
at least our work satisfies Occam's Razor: 'It is vain to do with more what
can be done with less'.
I should point out that this is the first generally available English transla-
tion of these texts which does not cloud the original words with interspersed
comment. Certainly, we comment, but what we say is clearly separate from
viii
Editor's foreoord
the texts. Thus the reader who seeks a straightforward translation, but does
not necessarily accept our interpretation, will find what he needs here.
wherewe feel it helpful, we have included a transliteration of the original
in parentheses, so that anyone with the appropriate dictionary may cleck
our choice of words.
It will be seen from the standard Zohar folio numbers that we have
rearranged the order of the four books. We have put the fullest exposition
first, then the secondary exposition, then the much more obscure,check-list'
and finally a supplementary book of interest. This seems the logical order
for our purpose.
There may be places where our comments are not wholly clear in the
context of the present book; however, reference to Tlu Manna-lllachine
should clarifr any obscurities.
One final point. Throughout this book we assume that the texts with
which we are dealing are technical descriptions. We have spent some years
on this work, and find it difficult to dismiss that assumption. Neverthiless,
our scientific integnty would be lacking if we did not admit of the possibility
that we could be wrong. However, it would be tedious were we to preface
.Ii
each assertion with such phrases as 'fn our view', 'In our opinion', seems
likely' and so on. We would therefore ask our readers to bear in mind that
such qualifications are implicitly attached to our statements. We are con-
fident that the texts themselves will demonstrate the high probability of our
being right.
Rodney Dale
