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| Tikunei Zohar, first edition, Mantua 1558 |
This article—based extensively on the research by Dr Assaf Tamari[1]—examines the Zohar’s unusual depiction of the exiled Shechina (the feminine aspect of the Godhead) as a patient requiring urgent treatment.
Note: This literature research by Tamari on the Zohar showing a possible medical context to the thirteenth-century emergence of the Zohar, is brand new and was only published recently in a peer-reviewed journal article. Had I read something like this ten years ago I would have rejected it as absolute nonsense. Now I read it with great interest and fascination.
The intertwining of religion and medicine was not an innovation of the thirteenth century when the Zohar was first published, because the two disciplines had always been interrelated since the earliest of times. Sin was traditionally associated with illness and healing with atonement (Tamari 2025:83, note 1). What was new at that time, though, was a proliferation of Jews and rabbis who had entered the medical field and were practising physicians. The number of Jewish physicians was:
“out of proportion with contemporary demographics and the place of Jews in society” (Shatzmiller 1995:1).[2]
Rationalist philosophers like Maimonides and Yehuda haLevi were well acquainted with medicine, and so were mystics like Nachmanides, Yosef Gigatilla, Yitzchak ibn Sahula and (according to Graetz) even Abulafia, who is said to have treated the Castilian queen, María de Molina.
It follows, therefore, that this trend of early rabbis being doctors and practical healers is also present in the emergent Zohar, although not many studies have yet sufficiently reflected this interface between medicine and Kabbalah:
“Medicine’s place in the history of the Kabbalah is still largely an unexplored field” (Tamari 2025:83).
Tamari, however, presents an interesting foray into this neglected area of Kabbalah research.
What is interesting is that at the same time as the Zohar emerged—around 1290 in Spain—there was a similar appearance of an extensive medical literature produced for the first time in Hebrew. This may account for the preoccupation with medicine and healing matters in the Zohar. We shall now turn to some Zoharic conceptualisations of healing an ailing Shechina. The Shechina is described as suffering from ‘lovesickness’:
Lovesick is defined as “longing for, marked by, or expressive of a desire for romantic love” (Merriam-Webster). “[S]ad because the person you love does not love you” (Cambridge Dictionary). “Lovesickness is not a clinically recognized mental health condition. Rather, it’s a biological response” (PsychCentral).
Treating the Shechina for a medical condition
The idea of the Shechina as a patient is found in two parallel Zoharic accounts in the anonymous works of Ra’aya Mehemna and Tikunei Zohar (late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries). The Shechina is described as undergoing a ‘pulse diagnosis’ for ‘lovesickness!’
The image of the Shechina, depicted as G-d’s bride, forms a central motif of the Tikunei Zohar, although it is a common theme throughout all Zoharic literature in general. The Zohar is frequently attentive to the perceived suffering and pain of the Shechina. The Zohar understands the Shechina as being dangerously under the sway of the evil side and even held captive by it. The Shechina—also identified as Keneset Yisrael (the heavenly place of origin of Jewish souls) is described as being in a state of exile. This way, the exiled Jews were able to identify with an exiled ‘component’ of the Godhead as the Shechina and her people were in a state of mutual exile, awaiting the redemption.
The compromised state and condition of the Shechina was regarded by the Zoharic Kabbalists as crucial and pivotal in determining whether, or even if, the higher divine energy would be able to flow down to the lower levels of the sefirotic scheme, and nurture humankind and the material world. For this reason, the Kabbalists were extremely concerned about the prevailing status of the Shechina, and their anxiety was often personified in the most extreme ways, as they felt responsible for the state of the Shechina. In one instance, they positively declare that they were able to assist the Shechina in some, albeit incomplete, manner:
“[G]reat is our share, that we have merited…to illuminate the Shekhinah in exile” (Zohar, R.M, III, 219a).
They took “personal care” of the Shechina, and sometimes even identified as her “sons” and “lovers” (Tamari 2025:89). They also felt a sense of guilt for her exiled state and although they could assist to some measure, they urgently needed to restore the “bride” to her “groom,” who was G-d. How these ideas meshed with the notion of monotheism is beyond the scope of this discussion (but see Kotzk Blog: 510) L'shem Yichud: Do You Understand What You're Actually Saying?).
The radical degree of responsibility the Kabbalists felt towards the Shechina is exemplified in the Zohar by a statement where the mystic is not described just as her son or lover, but also as her physician. The Shehcina, over and above being in ‘exile,’ is also conceptualised as having an 'illness,' and only the master physician can heal her. In Tikunei Zohar, this master physician/mystic is referred to alternately as Asya Kartina or Raya Mehemna (the Faithful Shepherd = Moses). According to Amos Goldreich (1994:477-491),[3] the author of Raya Mehemna identified as Moses (Moshe Rabbeinu)!
Zoharic texts on 'lovesickness'
According to the Tikunei Zohar (105/6a):
“When the Shekhinah is in exile, it is said about her ‘I sleep, but my heart waketh’ (Song of Songs 5:2)…I sleep [on account of] my lover who has departed from me, and my heart waketh when he comes to me” (Tikunei Zohar 105a, 106a).
In other words, in the mystical imaginations of esoteric Kabbalists, there exist two entities within the Godhead—one is G-d and the other is his bride, the Shechina. When G-d (Kudesha Berich Hu), the groom, separates from his bride, she sleeps and becomes lovesick, as it were, yearning to be reunited again. The description continues that, during the time the Shechina was sick, all the doctors attempted to heal her, but to no avail. Eventually, Asya Kartinah—the master doctor—arrived, and he took her pulse:
“[This is likened to] a bride who was married to a groom, and he departed from her. She fell sick, and all the physicians gathered for her, but they were not able to determine her malady. ʾAsya Ḳarṭinah was there, who knew [how to diagnose using] the pulse […] and no one recognized her malady but him, as the other physicians gave her several drinks and fragrances of apples […] and several drinks made of pomegranate juice, but they did not help, until ʾAsya Ḳarṭinah came, looked at her pulse, and she recognized the physician” (Tikunei Zohar 105a, 106a).
The Tikunim section of the Zohar, particularly, makes frequent use of medical terminology. This indicates that the writer(s) had:
“an intimate acquaintance with contemporary medical discourse. …[And] physiology [is used] to map the Godhead and its inner dynamics” (Tamari 2025:09).
Knowledge of the workings of the human body becomes almost fundamental to understanding these Kabbalistic writings. Why was it that “medical discourse” played such an important role in the Zohar?
Knowledge of Galen’s medical theory
Galen (129-216 CE) was a Greco-Roman physician and
philosopher who influenced future medical theory and practice, extending well
into the Middle Ages and even to the seventeenth century. Galen considered the
study of anatomy, which he mastered through his intense preoccupation with
dissections of animals (as human dissections were considered taboo), to be
foundational to all medical knowledge. This led to his acquiring much
information—such
as the arteries carry blood and not air as had been previously taught—but
also to some serious mistakes when human anatomy differed from that of the
animals he studied. The cornerstone of his medical theory was that the brain,
heart and liver controlled three systems within the body. The brain
is responsible for the thinking process and for sensation. The heart and
arteries provide life-giving energy, and the liver and veins ensure nutrition
and growth.
Galen proposed that the bodily fluids, known as the four humours, are divided into blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. These humours display the four primary qualities of hot, cold, wet, and dry.
The Zoharic writer(s), particularly in the Tikunim, seem to have adopted much of Galen’s medical theory. The same is true even of later mystics, including R. Nachman of Breslov, who often spoke of black bile (mara shechora), which is a cause of depression; and mental illness, he said, came from bile in the spleen (Likutei Moharan 282:2). In the Zohar, the brain, heart and liver were connected to various Sefirot (mystical spheres) such as Tiferet (brain), Malchut = Shechina (heart) and Samael representing evil (liver).
The Kabbalists, perhaps surprisingly, exhibited an extensive grasp of the contemporaneous medical knowledge.
“Often, this [Kabbalistic] physiological discourse appears in the context of discussions of the struggle between the side of holiness and the forces of evil, as well as the contaminating danger of the demonic, whether in the upper realms or in the human body. Throughout the Tiḳunim, medical language is completely assimilated into theosophical discussions of the Godhead” (Tamari 2025:90).
Tamari explains that in the minds of the Kabalists, this medieval medical language and physiology is never metaphorical but always taken as a given and a truth. There is often a direct crossover between medicine and Kabbalah. The divine is precisely reflected in, and paralleled to, the body, thus matching the prevailing and cultural physiological knowledge. This in and of itself is not theologically problematic because, biblically, man reflects the image of G-d. The question, of course, is what happens to G-d’s unchangeable image when medical knowledge changes, evolves and develops more deeply and accurately?
Asya Kartina examines the Shechina’s pulse
Medical theorists of the Middle Ages divided the pulse into ten categories, and this was well-known by all who pursued the discipline of medicine. Coincidentally or not, the Tikunim also has Asya Kartina, the greatest of physicians, show tremendous interest in the pulse. He understands its ten classifications, and implements his knowledge of the pulse on the ailing Shechina. In the Zohar, these ten different pulse types were said to correspond to the ten basic types of Psalms. This was already expressed in the Talmud (b. Pesachim 117a), which talks about ten expressions of praise relating to the Psalms.[4] The Zohar further associated this to ten categories of music, which it explained corresponded to the ten strings on David’s harp:
“The pulse is like the voice that ascends in song. Against the ten pulses that the physician examines in the pulse, David fashioned ten types of melodies in the Psalms” (Tikunei Zohar 105a).
The Zohar has Asya Kartina attempt to heal the
sick Shechina by working on her pulse. Interesting, while this may sound
very mystical and exclusively Kabalistic, the idea of a pulse as music
was common during the Middle Ages as well (Siraisi 1975).[5]
Galen examines the pulse of a Roman aristocrat’s wife
The Zoharic story of the greatest physician, Asya Kartina, who diagnosed the pulse of the Shechina, bears an uncanny resemblance to a story told by Galen. In his work On Prognosis, Galen describes how he diagnoses the wife of Justus, a Roman aristocrat. His wife was ill, suffering from insomnia, and she did not speak. Galen examines the aristocrat's wife and writes that she was:
“suffering from…depression caused by black bile or from some worry she was unwilling to confess” (Galen, On Prognosis).[6]
Galen conducted a pulse test, noting under what conditions her pulse became irregular, and determined that she had a secret romance with the Imperial Roman dancer named Pylades, who later went on to write a treatise on dancing. This was all recorded by Galen, who referred to this as a test case relating to lovesickness. Galen’s case became a well-known motif, trope and symbol for an intense form of all-consuming passion or lovesickness. Fascinatingly, Galen writes that only he was able to heal the aristocrat’s wife after “earlier doctors who examined the aforesaid woman” had tried but had failed (Galen, On Prognosis, 105).
It is noteworthy, to say the least, that the Zohar reflects an almost exact version of Galen’s story, except attributing it to Asya Kartina, who successfully diagnoses the Shechina. Asya literally means a doctor or physician.
The story of conducting a pulse diagnosis on the Shechina is not only recorded in the Tikunei Zohar, but also in another section of the Zohar, Raya Mehemna. In the Raya Mehemna version, the story begins with the opening verse “שֶׁחוֹלַ֥ת אַהֲבָ֖ה אָֽנִי, for I am sick in love” (Shir haShirim 5:8). This “clearly frames the scene within the medieval discourse of lovesickness” (Tamari 2025:93).
But the story in the Zohar also goes one step further because after Asya Kartina (=Raya Mehemna = Moses) examines the Shechina’s pulse, it states that:
“she [the Shechina] recognized the physician, and said ‘it is the voice of my beloved that knocks’ [Song 5:2], and he said ‘Open to me’” (Tikunei Zohar 106a).
This is how the Zohar explained the ability of Asya Kartina, the Rofeh Shalem or Great Physician, to restore the pulse of the Shechina. It is an astonishing piece of Zoharic literature in both its uncanny resemblance to Galen’s medical theory and the additional imagery presented after the Shechina recognised the physician.
Preoccupation with lovesickness
During the Middle Ages, there was a distinct preoccupation with lovesickness. It fell under the rubric of somatic disorders, which are related to diseases that were driven by psychological and not physiological factors. Relating to our study, it is significant that from around the thirteenth century—which is precisely when the Zohar appeared for the first time—Europe’s leading physicians, like Arnau de Vilanova or Bernard of Gordon, expressed their profound interest in the “disease of love” (Wack 1990).[7]
“The story became more available, and indeed fashionable, among physicians exactly at this historical moment…The Tiḳunim may thus be seen as reflecting the latest trends in learned medicine, suggesting that it was authored by a practicing physician expected to have expertise in the relevant fields” (Tamari 2025:95).
Conclusion
This study may shed light on a neglected aspect of Zoharic
history. It suggests that the Zohar, besides being a great mystical
work, may have reflected common themes that occupied the minds of the
physicians of that time. Furthermore, it exposes the possibility that the
writer may not only have been a great mystic, but an accomplished physician as
well—expressing
knowledge of some of the latest developments in the world of thirteenth-century
medicine.
[1]
Tamari, A., 2025, ‘ʾAsya Ḳarṭinah’s Book of Medicines and the Shekhinah’s
Lovesickness: Notes on Medicine and Kabbalah in Zoharic Literature’, Journal
of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, no. 33, 82-109.
[2]
Shatzmiller, J., 1995, Jews, Medicine, and Medieval Society, University
of California Press, Berkeley.
[3]
Goldreich, A., 1994, ‘On the Self-image of the Author of Tiqqunei ha-Zohar’, in
Massuot, Edited by Amos Goldreich
and M. Oron, Bialik Institute, Jerusalem, 459–496 [Hebrew].
[4][4] These
are: nitzuach, nigun, maskil, mizmor, shir, ashrei,
tehila, tefila, hoda’a, and hallelu-ya.
[5]
Nancy G. Siraisi, 1975, ‘The Music of Pulse in the Writings of Italian Academic
Physicians (Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries)’, Speculum 50, no. 4,
689–710.
[6]
Nutton, V. (Editor), 1979, Galen, On Prognosis, Corpus Medicorum Graecorum,
vol. 8, no. 1, Akademie Verlag, Berlin, 100–105, 194–198.
[7]
Wack, M.F., 1990, Lovesickness in the Middle Ages: The Viaticum and Its
Commentaries, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.
I thank Dr Avi Harel for these additional sources
ביטי רואי, אהבת השכינה: מיסטיקה ופואטיקה בתיקוני הזוהר,
רמת-גן: הוצאת אוני' בר-אילן, תשע"ז
יהודה ליבס, 'הזוהר והתיקונים – מרנסאנס למהפכה', בתוך
חידושי זוהר: מחקרים חדשים בספרות הזוהר, אוניברסיטת תל אביב, תשס"ז
עמוס גולדרייך, 'בירורים בראייתו העצמית של בעל תיקוני
זוהר', בתוך משואות: מחקרים בספרות הקבלה ובמחשבת ישראל מוקדשים לזכרו של פרופ'
אפרים גוטליב ז"ל ירושלים תשנ"ד, עמ' 496-459
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