SmallTalk: Introduction to the Zohar (with Rabbi Joey Rosenfeld)

“The content of the book has revealed to me the greatness of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. The content of the book proves the greatness of the author. And it’s the content of this book that proves Rashbi’s greatness.” That is how Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag—the Baal HaSulam—dismissed the entire academic debate over who wrote the Zohar. He didn’t care. The book speaks for itself. If it turned out Moshe de Leon wrote it, then Moshe de Leon was greater than all the Tannaim. That is the spirit of the man whose English translation of his Introduction to the Zohar is the subject of this episode of Seforimchatter’s SmallTalk series, with host Naki Weinstein and guest Rabbi Joey Rosenfeld.

The Baal HaSulam as a Transitionary Figure

Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag (1885–1954) is one of the most enigmatic and controversial figures in modern Kabbalah. He arrived in Jerusalem from Warsaw and found that the self-proclaimed Kabbalists of the day—both Sephardic and Ashkenazic—could describe the mechanics of Lurianic metaphysics but were “devoid of the inner philosophical kernel that was meant to transform human experience.” The Baal HaSulam believed his soul had come down specifically to revitalize the study of the Arizal’s Kabbalah.