זוהר ויקרא — דף יט ע”א

Come and see: from the cleft of the great abyss is found a female spirit, the spirit of all spirits, named Lilith, who was found first alongside Adam. At the time Adam was created and his body completed, a thousand spirits from the left side gathered around that body, each wishing to enter it, yet unable to, until the Holy One, blessed be He, rebuked them; Adam lay as a body without spirit, his color green, surrounded by all those spirits.<br />
<br />
At that moment a cloud descended and pushed away all those spirits, and then it is written, "And God said, let the earth bring forth a living soul" (Genesis 1). A female conceives from the male out of that same soul of Adam, and she brings forth that spirit to breathe it into man, composed properly of both sides — this is the meaning of "He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul": a truly living soul, in an unspecified term that includes everything.<br />
<br />
When Adam stood, his female was fixed at his side, and the holy soul within him spread to this side and that, sufficing for both. Afterward the Holy One, blessed be He, sawed Adam apart and established his female — "And the Lord God built the side [He had taken]" — and brought her to the man, adorned as a bride for the wedding canopy.<br />
<br />
When Lilith saw this, she fled, and she is found in the islands of the sea; to this day she stands ready to harm the children of the world. And when the Holy One, blessed be He, is to destroy wicked Rome forever, He will raise up this Lilith and place her within that destruction, for she is the world's destruction — "Only there shall Lilith find rest" (Isaiah 34). The books of the ancients say she fled from Adam earlier, but here it is explained that she was with him before the Holy One, blessed be He, had properly established his wife; only then did she flee to the sea.<br />
<br />
The remedy for this: at the time a man unites with his wife, he should direct his heart to the holiness of his Master and recite a formula of dismissal: "Return, return, the sea roars, its waves call you, I am bound to a holy portion and have wrapped myself in the holiness of the King" — and he should cover his head and his wife's for an hour, likewise for the three days needed for conception; and after the act, he should pour clear water around the bed, a protection for all.<br />
<br />
A woman nursing an infant should unite with her husband only while the infant sleeps, and should not nurse it immediately afterward — by this she will never fear Lilith.<br />
<br />
Fortunate are the tzadikim whom the Holy One, blessed be He, teaches the deep secrets above and below, for the sake of the Torah, for the Torah is a holy Name, and whoever engages with it is crowned by it, knows hidden ways, and never fears again.<br />
<br />
Come and see: on that day they were commanded concerning one tree and transgressed their Master's commandment; and because the woman sinned first and the serpent came upon her, it is written, "and he shall rule over you." From then on, whenever people are found wicked before the Holy One, blessed be He, those "women" of the harsh-judgment side are empowered to rule over them — "My people, their oppressors deal wantonly, and women rule over them."