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Zohar Bamidbar 159A [extract]

Rabbi Yehuda was walking along the way with Rabbi Aba. He said: I wish to ask you one thing. Since G-d was aware that Adam was going to commit sin in His presence and that He would sentence him to death, why did He create him?

Didn't the Torah exist 2,000 years prior to the creation of the world?

It is written : "When a man dies in a tent," (Num. 19:14) "if a man die," "and...died" and "such and such lived and died." What did G-d want from man in this world?

Even if a man studies Torah day and night he will die, and if he does not study Torah he will die. The same course applies to all except that he gets removed from the World to Come. As it is written: "As is the good, so is the sinner" (Eccl. 9:2) ?

He said to him: Why do you need to toil in the ways of your Master and the edicts of your Master? Ask about that which you have permission to know and gaze at, and about that which you have no permission to know, it is written: "Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin" (Eccl. 5:5) since we have no right to inquire about the ways of G-d and His mysteries, the utmost high secrets that He covered and hid. He said to him: If so, the entire Torah is concealed and hidden, since it is the most Holy Name and whoever studies the Torah, it is as if he deals in His Holy Name. If so, we are not permitted to inquire and gaze [at the Torah at all].

He said to him [to Rabbi Aba]: The entire Torah is both concealed and revealed and the Holy Name is both concealed and revealed, as it is written: "The secret things belong to the L-rd our G-d, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children." (Deut. 29:28) "But those things which are revealed belong to us," meaning that we have permission to inquire and observe and gaze at them to know them. However, "the secret things belong to the L-rd our G-d ": They are His and to Him they are proper, since who could know and comprehend His concealed mind, let alone even ask about it?

Come and see! The people of the world are not permitted to talk about the concealed matters and explain them, besides the holy luminary, Rabbi Shimon, since G-d acceded to him. Since his generation is distinguished above and below, the matters are therefore said through him openly. There will be no other generation like the generation that he resides in, until the coming of the Mashiach.