The earth made noise as did the heavens, and the doorposts are shaking at the voice crying out that it would be wrong to publish hidden and sealed materials and to break through the fence established by the ancients who hid them in their treasure rooms and the royal store house. Since ancient days [these writings] have not been revealed. Know that in their day the Tana'im (whose hearts were enormously broad and who [compared to us mortals] were as angels) sought to hide the secrets of the Torah.... How then can anyone be so bold as to print them and to spread books about in all corners? Note what Maimonides of blessed memory said [in his "Introduction" to the Guide to the Perplexed]—that someone who explains matters in a book is as if he had spoken about them before thousands of people. The ancients were seized with horror¹ and closed the gate and locked the door, fearful to approach for the surface [of this knowledge] gives off rays. Perhaps this is what is to be understood from the metaphor of the "flame of the turning sword guarding" against anyone entering the garden, the garden of Eden being a metaphor for this knowledge as they of blessed memory said in the parable of the four who entered paradise. Granted this, how can holy jewels now be simply poured out every place? The heavens will turn dark at this, rocked by His indignation.... Now since this is the situation, that these ideas must be kept invisible and hidden (aren't they called, after all, "secrets of the Torah"?) it would seem clear that those who seek to print the secrets of the Torah have acted sinfully and will be punished. This is the question you pose.

These words which you have said frighten the intelligence, and set souls to boiling like a pot; you distance hearts from what they long for, quench desire and put out the fire that burns in men. Therefore God has waked my sprit and has placed His word on my tongue to repair what has been twisted and straighten the paths [?], to respond with pleasant words that settle in the heart and comfort those who mourn the questioner's remark that demolishes the secrets of the Torah such that they may not be revealed. I respond to your points one at a time....

And now, chosen of God, kingdom of priests and holy nation, don't remain depressed. Stand up and see the redemption God has sent you this day in revealing to you the secrets of the Torah. Then your eyes shall be opened and, like the angels on high, you shall recognize the good. Happy are you in that you will merit living honorably in your land. This is not the time to gather together the flock of blindness and the stupidity of negativity. Shall the desire for illusory acquisition always rule us? Shall true faith be forever lost from our mouths and cut off from our tongues? Will the Lord reject forever?² Behold, the seventh year, the year of shemita is approaching. When will we prepare for our future? And when will the verse be fulfilled concerning us: "And the land shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord"? If not now, when? In the seventh millennium when the world will be destroyed? Almost a third of the sixth millennium has passed by, and our souls still disdain honey, mistaking the sweet for the bitter. We treat as mouldy bread the noble bread on which the highest angels are fed. We do the commandments as an act of habit, arbitrary laws with no explanations....

As for your argument that matters which are transmitted orally are not to be written down, I shall reply as follows. If you are correct, why did R. Simeon bar Yohai write them down in the Zohar and the Tikunim? You can't say that he wrote them down and left them in the cave so that they would never leave that place and would lie in eternal darkness. Why would he work hard for nothing and labor in vain? Moreover, who allowed R. Akiva to write the Sefer Yetsirah which he called a Mishna, something which they had received up to that point orally from the time of Abraham our father, may peace be upon him?³ And then Nahmanides, the well-known great scholar came along and composed a long commentary on that work. According to you, this was a sin compounding another. And R. Nehuniah ben ha-Kanna who wrote the Sefer ha-Bahir and the Chapters of the Hekhalot of R. Ishmael—is it possible that all of these authors were drunk and misjudged? Why were thousands and myriads of these books copied out? And of the Zohar as well, there are very many copies extant in manuscript. And what is the difference between writing and printing? Is it possible that the God of Israel has not left a thousand trained warriors to fight the war of the Torah, [men whose] knees have not bent to the Baal of lucre and the foolish masses? It is to mouths which have not kissed or lusted after the vanities of this world that the no-more-than one thousand printed copies will go. If printing is forbidden, why have recent authorities permitted the printing of [the biblical commentary of R. Menahem] Recanati twice in Venice,⁴ and the Book of Musar⁵ in Turkey and the book Source of Life?⁶ From your point of view [all of] these are much more problematic than the Zohar [itself], since they reveal its secrets and open up its hidden things. [We must conclude,] rather, that [the rabbis of previous generations] did not have these concerns. We are guided by what they did [as opposed to anything they may have said]. Just as it was permitted to commit the Oral Law to writing with regard to the [practical] commandments, so also [was it permitted] with regard to the secrets of the Torah. It is just that during the times of the Sages of the Mishna, Gemara, and midrash, they permitted speaking publicly about the commandments in order to teach the children of Judah what they had to do but did not [yet] allow public preaching about the Secrets of the Torah. However they never objected to anyone passing on this wisdom to qualified people....

Pesaro, in the year [5]318 [יריע אף יצרי"ח ], Rosh Hodesh Adar.

Document 2b. Poem following the "imprimatur" by Isaac de Lattes, dated 1 Iyar, [5]318 and printed in the Zohar (Mantua: 1558).

To cheer the hearts of the intelligent ones who tremble for His word who have put their shoulders to the wheel and taken on the burden of printing it in order to give merit to the public in praise of the book and those who are publishing it. I am singing in their honor and not in my own...

[Poem in praise of those who] thirst for the word of God ... and gird their loins to publish the Zohar. Its great sacredness will be sweet to all who are cautious [about the commandments]. If you look into it while you are alive ... it will serve as a light in your coffin when you are dead.

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