Episode Details

The Zohar (meaning "Splendor" or "Radiance") is the foundational and most important text of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. [1, 2, 3]

What is Inside the Zohar?

• Torah Commentary: It is structured as an esoteric, mystical commentary on the weekly portions of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). [1, 2, 3]
• Deep Themes: It explores the nature of God, the structure of the universe, the role of the human soul, good and evil, and redemption. [1]
• The Sefirot: It explains how God interacts with the physical world through ten divine attributes or emanations known as the sefirot. [1, 2]
• Style: It is written mostly in a cryptic form of Aramaic as a collection of stories, homilies, and conversations featuring the 2nd-century sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his disciples traveling in ancient Israel. [1, 2, 3]

Authorship and History

• Traditional View: Jewish tradition attributes the authorship of the Zohar to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the 2nd century CE.
• Historical View: Modern academic scholarship indicates that the text actually emerged in 13th-century Spain, compiled and written largely by the Spanish kabbalist Moses de León. [1, 2, 3, 4]

If you would like, I can explain:

• What the ten sefirot are
• How the Zohar approaches the hidden meaning of the Torah
• The difference between Kabbalah and traditional Jewish law