The Zohar is the Jewish mystical work traditionally linked to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.
Its title means “Splendor” or “Radiance,” and the work is primarily written in an Aramaic style. The Zohar presents mystical interpretations of the Torah, discussing divine attributes, creation, the soul, commandments, and the spiritual meaning of biblical narratives.
Traditional Jewish accounts place its revelation in the second century, during the life of Shimon bar Yochai. Modern academic scholarship generally dates the main body of the text to late-thirteenth-century Spain and associates its publication with Moses de León. This difference between traditional attribution and scholarly dating is one of the work’s best-known historical issues.
The Zohar became the central classic of Kabbalah, especially after the development of Safed Kabbalah in the sixteenth century. It is not the same as the Mishnah or the Talmud, which are primarily legal and interpretive rabbinic texts.