Introduction to the Book of Zohar (PDF) - Kabbalah Media Archive

I N T RO D U C T I O N T O T H E B O O K O F Z O H A R
tend to believe; hence, he wishes to make things clear regarding the authorship
of the book.
Rabbi Moshe de Leon lived in the 11 th century. He was an outstanding
Kabbalist and wrote a number of books on Kabbalah. As I wrote in
my foreword, “The Book of Zohar” was lost and later rediscovered by
chance (naturally it was no chance). From the scraps of the book a small
number of extracts and separate sheets were compiled into what we now
call “The Book of Zohar”.
Rabbi Moshe de Leon inherited it from his teacher, who in turn
had received it from his teacher. The book was initially found by a merchant
in the 7 th century A.D. It was used for wrapping spices in the Jaffo
market.
The merchant, who happened to be a Jew, had evidently known a
little of Kabbalah, because he discovered some very special writings on
the parchment folio that contained the purchased spices. He rushed to
the market place and started rummaging through the garbage and finally
found all these sheets. The entire collection was afterwards passed on to
one of his pupils, who left it to his, and so finally the texts reached the
Rabbi Moshe de Leon in the 11 th century.
The Kabbalist rewrote the book, had it beautifully bound and kept
it. He knew that it was too premature to publish the book, because the
people were not ready for it yet.
His wife did not know about all that, so when the Rabbi had passed
away, she sold the book in the hope of coping with her financial straits.
Obviously it was bought by a good business man, for he had it rewritten
and put on sale. The book was a success, because at that time there were
no similar compositions, except for “The Book of Creation” (“Sefer Yetzira”)
authored by Abraham. However, “The Book of Creation” was far
too difficult to be studied, since it contains just a number of vague hints.
So “The Zohar” was really like radiant light, splendor at that time.
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