Rabbi Hizkiah sees a lily trapped among thorns, and he sees Israel.
In the opening of the Zohar, he reads "as a lily among thorns" (Song of Songs 2:2) as an image of Knesset Yisrael, the Community of Israel. The flower is beautiful, but it is not safe. It grows inside a ring of sharpness. It carries red and white together, judgment and mercy, wound and radiance.
The number matters. The lily has thirteen leaves, and the Zohar hears in them the thirteen measures of divine compassion. Israel stands among powers that can tear it, but mercy surrounds it before the thorns can finish their work.
The image is small enough to hold in the hand and large enough to hold exile. Israel is not imagined as an army here, or a kingdom, or a tower. Israel is a flower. It survives by receiving hidden care while the world around it remains dangerous.
This is why the Zohar begins with beauty under pressure. The Community of Israel is not untouched holiness. It is holiness growing where it can be scratched. The thorns are real, but so are the leaves of mercy folded around the bloom.