Zohar

The Zohar is synonymous with Kabbalah, though elaborating an arcane divine wisdom is not the sole concern of its rich and varied contents. Traditionally ascribed to the 2nd-century Galilean Rabbi Simeon bar Yoḥai, whose exemplary deeds and wisdom are recounted in a hagiographical mode, the most representative and formative texts of the Zohar stem from the time and place in which its citations first appear; namely, in late-13th-century Castile. Its earliest compositions are the handiwork of rabbinic authors actively studying the riches of speculative knowledge sourced from writings of the Catalonian sages Ezra ben Solomon of Girona and Moses Naḥmanides written earlier in the same century. Characterized throughout by zealous allegiance to the faith of Israel, the literature of the Zohar first comes to light in an atmosphere in which Jews lived under Christian jurisdiction, with some prominent Jews, such as Ṭodros ben Joseph ha-Levi Abulafia (whose Oṣar ha-kavod cites the zoharic composition called Midrash ha-neʿlam), serving in the courts of Christian kings and preaching reforms within the community. In this context, the Judeo-Arabic writings of Maimonides had already elicited the attention of both Jewish and Christian elites in Hebrew and Latin translations, and workshops employing Christians alongside both Jewish and Muslim scholars produced the first major yield of Castilian vernacular literature: the library of writings ascribed to Alfonso X. The present reference article, which highlights English-language contributions to the research literature, covers a spectrum of denominations of the term “Zohar,” from specific to broad. That is, the term will apply to a range of material, from the first texts quoted in the 1280s by residents of Guadalajara—Isaac Ibn Abi Sahula and Moses ben Shemṭov de Léon—to the large and diverse body of compositions anthologized within the first printings of Sefer ha-Zohar in Mantua and Cremona in the 1550s and their cognates. This array of material features a nexus of identifying qualities (though some compositions do not exemplify all): biblical exegesis, exposition of rabbinic secrets, hagiography, a theology of exemplarity based on God’s archetypal attributes, the doctrine of the ten sefirot and related stratifications of divinity, angelology, purity and defilement, moral exhortation and disquisitions on repentance, eschatology, parables, psychology, rationales of the commandments, Hebrew lettrism, and composition in literary Aramaic rather than Hebrew.