Following is a brief summary of what the Zohar has to say about Lilith. Passage reference conventions are according to an online version of the Zohar that may be found at https://www.kabbalah.com.
- Prologue: Passage 251
- Lilith is a female demon who pursues and kills the “wicked spirits” of children spawned by defiling sexual acts.
- Beresheet A: Passages 98-102, 268, 393, 408, 416, 417, 421
- Lilith is described as a klipah (“shell”) emerging from a common origin with Adam’s klipah (98). While Adam’s klipah concealed the perfect light of Jehovah, Lilith’s klipah concealed the defective light of Lucifer. Lilith is completed before Adam. After awakening, she ascends and attempts to have intercourse with the angels, but when Adam is finished, she descends to the earth to have intercourse with him. However, she sees Eve attached to Adam’s side and flees from him, attempting to have sex with the angels once more (99). God then dispatches her to the depths of the sea, where she dwelt until Adam and his wife sinned. She rules over all infants who deserve to be punished because of the sins of their fathers. She dwells at the gates of the Garden of Eden by the flaming sword, because she originated from the side of that flame (100).
- Adam had a female counterpart named Lilith before Eve existed, and Lilith conceived from Adam (416). Lilith was not to be trusted and was not suitable for Adam (417). The rib that remained to Adam symbolized Lilith, who stayed with him (416). Lilith is the mother of the mixed multitude, and her spirit is present in the nakedness left when God’s holy covering spirit is departed due to defiling sexual acts (393). Lilith was created to bring cursing to the world (393).
- Beresheet B: Passages 354, 355
- Naamah, sister of Tubal Cain, was a mother of demons who was linked with Lilith. Both killed children. Lilith empowered Naamah. Demons die like humans, but Lilith and Naamah possess some unique power that they continue to live on the earth until some future date when God shall cleanse them from the earth.
- Vayetze: Passage 23
- Samael and Lilith are intimately linked, male and female together like one being.
- Vayishlach: Passages 76, 79
- The Spirit of Defilement comes from the corrupt Serpent, which is Lilith.
- Mishpatim: Passages 43, 319, 320, 377, 452
- The souls of young children, who suckle on their mothers’ strength, are given over to the power of Lilith. Lilith is compared to the bondwoman Hagar and her son, whom Sarah cast out of the household for idolatry. The bondwoman is equated to idolatry.
- Verse 319: Lilith is the driving spirit causing the curses of the Sotah’s bitter water trial. She and the voice of the serpent are responsible for the mystical insemination of seed, and it is the spirit of Lilith that slays the defiled mystical seed. However, Lilith is overcome by the power of the innocent woman’s promised seed. There are two spirits of Lilith in the trial, Sinful Lilith and Evil Lilith. Sinful Lilith is associated with the woman’s first drinking. Evil Lilith comes if the woman is defiled and drinks again.
- Trumah: Passage 682
- Lilith is called the female of Samael.
- Safra Det’zniuta: Passage 38
- On creation day 5, Jehovah said let the waters swarm with every “living creature that moves.” This means everything swarmed at the same time, allowing the “good waters” of Jehovah to intermix with the “evil waters” of Samael. This allowed both good and evil creatures to come to exist at the same time. It was likewise with Lilith’s creation. The perfect light of Jehovah intermixed with Samael’s defective light. “The light of one spread into the other.” Adam became a good living creature and Lilith became an evil-living creature.
- Tetzaveh: Passage 120
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Whoever has not removed filth from his soul on Yom Kippur, his prayer ascends on that day and sinks into a place that is called “mud” and “clay”, which are Samael and Lilith. This provides a clear link to Lilith and Yom Kippur.
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Pekudei: Passages 207, 454, 920
- Samael is portrayed as riding his evil serpent (Lilith) to bring down Adam. The serpent is compared to a deceitful harlot. Lucifer gives power to Lilith, and she practices the art deception in the world. They cannot rule the one without the other (454). Passage 207 interprets Ge 2:23 as I do, namely that Adam declares Eve is the result of a second attempt to make a helpmate for him. Vanity in a man empowers Lilith to ensnare him (920).
- Vayikra: Passages 316, 319, 320, 321, 323
- Lilith was created just before Adam, when one thousand spirits attempted to enter Adam, but were rebuked by God. A husband and wife must take special precautions during sex to protect themselves from Lilith. A wife should not suckle her child and have intercourse near the same location.
- Acharei Mot: Passages 362, 363, 364, 365, 366
- Male demon seed of Naamah appears to women in their dreams and inseminates them with seed. These seed then proceed to Lilith, whom rears them. If a person is not holy, but draws a spirit of defilement, then Lilith comes and plays with the child. If she kills him, she clings to the child’s spirit and never lets go. However, if there is no defilement, Lilith can still come and slay the child, but its spirit is taken away by three holy spirits who take him to God.
- Emor: Passage 39
- Israel must send their goat sacrifice to Jehovah on Yom Kippur by an unblemished man. This is in contrast to the goat to Azazel, which is sent by a blemished man. This blemished man is compared to a major fault of heathen families. “In this way most heathen households are defective in respect to their wife, who is a ruin, Lilith, blemished, etc.”
- Naso: Passage 92
- The unclean mix multitudes of the world are called the children of “Lilith, who is a woman in menstruation, a maidservant, a gentile woman and a prostitute.”
- Pinchas: Passages 168, 270, 327, 331, 353, 362, 364, 375, 376, 408, 409, 410, 424
- Passage 327: Lilith is a wicked bondwoman that is insolent, has no humility and no modesty, and she is the mother of a mixed multitude. Solomon refers to her when he said, “A virtuous woman is a diadem to her husband, but she that acts shamefully is as rottenness in his bones” (Mishlei 12:4). Furthermore, Lilith has neither humility nor modesty before God. Her children are similar, being a mixed multitude. In the future God will remove her and her children from the world, for they are bastards, born of the nine attributes, as described by the sages. The nine attributes for which children are considered bastards by the Torah are: 1) A wife raped by her husband; 2) A wife hated; 3) A woman menstruating at the time of intercourse; 4) A wife whose husband at the time of intercourse thought she was someone else or his other wife; 5) A wife who is rebellious (at the time of intercourse); 6) A husband drunk at the time of intercourse; 7) Having intercourse with a wife divorced in her heart; 8) A wife who is insolent; 9) A wife who had relations immediately prior to her marriage.
- Passage 331: Lilith is a wicked bondwoman whose children “are as a serpent before whom is the whole land, as it is written: ‘and dust shall be the serpent’s food’” (Yeshayah 65:25). He fears eating the dust until he is full, for he is afraid that there will not be enough for him.”
- Passage 353: Satan and his female Lilith are concerned about the sanctity of Jehovah’s name.
- Passages 362-364: Samael is compared to the liver and Lilith to the appendix, which emerges from the liver. This is because from the liver emerges the gall, which is the sword of the Angel of Death, from which come bitter drops to kill human beings. It is written: “Her end is bitter (Heb. marah, also meaning ‘gall’) as wormwood” (Mishlei 5:4). Lilith is called a woman of harlotry, who comes out and emerges from Samael to mislead the world and denounce them. She leaves the male to practice prostitution. After making her adulterous union, she rises above him. She has “a harlot’s forehead” (Yirmeyah 3:3) and subdues her husband, who is Samael, with the anger of the gall, being a quarrelsome and anger-prone wife who rules over her male. Lilith is also compared to the spleen.
- Ki Tetze: Passages 39, 113, 123
- Samael and his female Lilith were servants to God, but later made themselves into deities. God will remove them out of the world and wipe them away (39). Lilith is called filthy refuse, because she is excrement mixed with different types of filth and vermin into which dead dogs (the uncircumcised) are buried. She is a grave for idolatry. She is the reason the dead dogs (the uncircumcised) and vermin become a bad smell.