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
Babylonian Talmud, another – “The Book of Zohar”. In other words,
Rabbi Akiva was the embodiment of a vast amount of wisdom about the
universe that filled many sacred books.
However, Rabbi Akiva could not write a composition like “The
Book of Zohar” because before the destruction of the Temple such a
great, exalted power was not necessary. There was still nothing to correct.
When the Temple ceased to be, his last disciple Rabbi Shimon wrote
“The Book of Zohar”. Naturally, the book could not have been written
by any other man born after the destruction of the Temple.
This happened in around the 2 nd Century A.D., and there have
been no such Kabbalists ever since. Only in the 16 th Century did the
Ari’s special soul descend to our world and elevate Kabbalah to a new
level. In the 20 th Century the soul of Baal HaSulam appeared.
This is what the great Kabbalists writes:
From the very day that I merited the light of the Creator and saw
what was written in the Book of Zohar, I have not had any need
to research the facts about its authorship. This is due to the simple
reason that the content of the book raised the prominence of Rabbi
Shimon to the unattainable height above all other Kabbalists in my
heart.
However, if I had found that the author of the book is someone
else, for example, Rabbi Moses de Leon, the greatness of this Kabbalist
would rise in me more than for all the rest, including Rabbi
Shimon.
Honestly speaking, according to the depth of wisdom in this book, had
I learned that its author was one of the 48 prophets (the Kabbalists
who attained a high spiritual level called prophecy), my heart
would rather agree with this than with the fact that Rabbi Shimon
Bar-Yochai wrote this book (for R. Shimon was only a Tana, i.e.,
a Kabbalist who lived after the destruction of the Temple). If
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