The Zohar is the central text of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. Written mostly in Aramaic, it is not a single treatise but a collection of books, the largest part of which is a running mystical commentary on the Torah. Across its sections it discusses the nature of God, the structure of the divine world through the ten sefirot, the descent of the Ein Sof (the infinite) into creation, the origin and journey of the soul, and the hidden meanings beneath the biblical text. It is framed as a record of the conversations of the second-century sage Shimon bar Yochai and his circle as they travel and expound scripture.
The Zohar first appeared in Castile, in what is now Spain, in the late thirteenth century. It was circulated by Rabbi Moses de León, who presented it as an ancient manuscript by Shimon bar Yochai. Most modern scholars, following Gershom Scholem, conclude that de León himself wrote the bulk of it between roughly 1280 and 1286, pointing to its medieval Aramaic, its Spanish and Arabic turns of phrase, and its unfamiliarity with the geography of ancient Israel. This edition presents Daniel Chanan Matt's selected translation with commentary, published by Paulist Press in the Classics of Western Spirituality series, which renders a portion of the much larger work into English for general readers.
Reception
The Zohar is regarded as the most important work of Kabbalah and one of the central texts of Jewish mysticism, held by later kabbalists in esteem alongside the Torah and the Talmud. Its influence runs through the Safed kabbalists of the sixteenth century, into Hasidism, and on into modern Jewish thought, and its imagery has been studied well beyond Judaism. Its authorship has been debated for centuries: the traditional attribution to Shimon bar Yochai was questioned as early as the fifteenth century and is rejected by modern academic scholarship, which credits Moses de León. Readers commonly find the text difficult, since it is non-linear, allusive, and assumes deep familiarity with the Torah and rabbinic literature, and the available English versions vary widely. Daniel Matt's selection is generally regarded as a readable and carefully annotated entry point, while his later multi-volume Pritzker Edition is treated as the standard scholarly translation.
Frequently asked
What is the Zohar?
It is the foundational text of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. Written mostly in Aramaic, it is a collection of books built around a mystical commentary on the Torah, dealing with the nature of God, the ten sefirot, the soul, and the hidden meaning of scripture. It is framed as the teachings of the second-century sage Shimon bar Yochai and his circle.
Who wrote the Zohar?
It was traditionally attributed to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the second century. Most modern scholars instead credit Rabbi Moses de León, a Spanish kabbalist who circulated the text in Castile in the 1280s and presented it as an ancient manuscript. The traditional attribution is still held in parts of the religious world, while academic scholarship treats de León as the author.
What are the sefirot?
The sefirot are the ten attributes or emanations through which the Zohar and later Kabbalah describe how the infinite and unknowable God, the Ein Sof, relates to and sustains creation. Much of the Zohar's commentary reads the events and language of the Torah as descriptions of the interaction of these divine powers.