Editing Lilith (section)

==== Zohar ====
References to Lilith in the Zohar include the following:{{sfnp|Patai|1990|p=233}}

<blockquote>She roams at night, and goes all about the world and makes sport with men and causes them to emit seed. In every place where a man sleeps alone in a house, she visits him and grabs him and attaches herself to him and has her desire from him, and bears from him. And she also afflicts him with sickness, and he knows it not, and all this takes place when the moon is on the wane.</blockquote>

This passage may be related to the mention of Lilith in Talmud Shabbath 151b (see above), and also to Talmud Eruvin 18b where [[nocturnal emissions]] are connected with the begettal of demons.

According to Rapahel Patai, older sources state clearly that after Lilith's Red Sea sojourn (mentioned also in [[Louis Ginzberg]]'s ''Legends of the Jews''), she returned to Adam and begat children from him by forcing herself upon him. Before doing so, she attaches herself to [[Cain]] and bears him numerous spirits and demons. In the Zohar, however, Lilith is said to have succeeded in begetting offspring from Adam even during their short-lived sexual experience. Lilith leaves Adam in Eden, as she is not a suitable helpmate for him.{{sfnp|Patai|1990|p=232}} [[Gershom Scholem]] proposes that the author of the Zohar, [[Rabbi Moses de Leon]], was aware of both the folk tradition of Lilith and another conflicting version, possibly older.<ref>Scholem, Gershom (1941) ''[[Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism]]''. p. 174.</ref>

The Zohar adds further that two female spirits instead of one, Lilith and [[Naamah (demon)|Naamah]], desired Adam and seduced him. The issue of these unions were demons and spirits called "the plagues of humankind", and the usual added explanation was that it was through Adam's own sin that Lilith overcame him against his will.{{sfnp|Patai|1990|p=232}}