12 Facts About Zohar

The Zohar contains discussions of the nature of God, the origin and structure of the universe, the nature of souls, redemption, the relationship of Ego to Darkness and "true self" to "The Light of God".

Authorship of the Zohar was questioned from the outset, due to the claim that it was discovered by one person and referred to historical events of the post-Talmudic period while purporting to be from an earlier date.

The Zohar instead declared Man to be the lord of creation, whose immortality is solely dependent upon his morality.

Believers in the authenticity of the Zohar countered that the lack of references to the work in Jewish literature was because ben Yochai did not commit his teachings to writing but transmitted them orally to his disciples over generations until finally the doctrines were embodied in the Zohar.

Scholars who continue to research the background of the Zohar include Yehuda Liebes, and Daniel C Matt, a student of Scholem's who has reconstructed a critical edition of the Zohar based on original, unpublished manuscripts.

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Academic studies of the Zohar show that many of its ideas are based in the Talmud, various works of midrash, and earlier Jewish mystical works.

Citations referring to the Zohar conventionally follow the volume and page numbers of the Mantua edition; while citations referring to Tikkunei haZohar follow the edition of Ortakoy 1719 whose text and pagination became the basis for most subsequent editions.

Some thirty years after the first edition of the Zohar was printed, the manuscripts were gathered and arranged according to the parashas of the Torah and the megillot, and were printed first in Salonika in Jewish year 5357, and then in Krakow, and afterwards in various editions.

Faithful Shepherd By far the largest "book" included in the Zohar, this is a Kabbalistic commentary on Moses' teachings revealed to ben Yochai and his friends.

Each of the seventy Tikunim of Tikunei haZohar begins by explaining the word "Bereishit", and continues by explaining other verses, mainly in parashat Bereishit, and from the rest of Tanakh.

Zohar is credited with popularizing de Leon's PaRDeS codification of biblical exegesis.

Zohar reveals himself in three archetypes, all three forming but one.