2 - The Zohar as an Imagined Book

Summary

The ancient book that Rabbi Shimon wrote.

Isaac of Acre, Sefer divrei hayamim

IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER I argued that the choice of R. Shimon as the protagonist of the zoharic literature, his comparison to Moses, and his alleged superiority all reflect the self-perception of the authors of the Zohar and their aspiration to subvert the dominant status of the kabbalistic circles of Nahmanides and R. Solomon ben Adret (Rashba). Initially the compilers of the zoharic literature (excepting Tikunei hazohar and Ra’aya meheimna) did not regard their work as a clearly defined literary unit, use the term Sefer hazohar (Book of the Zohar), or name R. Shimon as the author of the zoharic texts. In addition, early zoharic quotations at the end of the thirteenth century were not presented as part of a book called Zohar; nor did they contain any references to a work of supreme authority and holiness written by R. Shimon. We can assume, therefore, that the name Sefer hazohar (and others, such as ‘R. Shimon's midrash’ and Midrash hane’elam), along with the view that these names denoted an ancient kabbalistic book ascribed to R. Shimon, came into being only after most of the zoharic literature had been created and the first quotations from this literature had appeared.

How was the idea of the Zohar as a book conceived? What was the significance of the change in the way the zoharic literature was presented and distributed? Why did that change occur? In what follows I examine the initial reception of the zoharic literature, the nascence of the term Sefer hazohar, and the idea that it refers to a unified, sacred, and authoritative literary corpus. I further discuss the social forces that brought about the formation of the concept of the Zohar as a book and contributed to its spread.

Originally the zoharic literature did not emerge as a unified and structured literary corpus. In the introduction to his monumental book The Wisdom of the Zohar, Isaiah Tishby argues that the Zohar ‘is not a single unified work, but a great literary anthology consisting of sections from various sources’.