The Quotidian Utopia of the Zohar
The Quotidian Utopia of the Zohar
The walking stories of the Zohar are its unique literary feature. Charting the motif suggests a consistent concern that connects various segments of the zoharic library, although recent scholarship has emphasized their separateness. This study seeks to understand the walking motif on its own terms, as a spatial practice, without depriving it of its uniqueness by subsuming it into the Zohar's other mystical concerns--concerns that privilege a sacred, vertical, space-denying axis. The abundant yet elusive quality of the motif points to the Zohar's persistent struggle to recognize the mundane space of the road, which is “nowhere” in particular, a “utopian” space. Through this motif, the Zohar engages in conversation and in polemic with surrounding non-Jewish and Jewish groups. In picturing the Companions walking on the road, the Zohar created a fitting image for its own daring independence.
Keywords: walking, motif, mundane, space, spatial practice, utopia, scholarship, vertical axis
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