Sefer ha-Zohar and its Place in Jewish Literature

Sefer ha-Zohar (The Book of Splendor) is one of the important works of Kabbalah literature and accepted as a kind of esoteric Midrash of Tora. It appeared in the Middle Ages (13th century) through the efforts of a number of Kabbalists under the presidency of Mōshe de Leon. The book includes many of the the characteristics of that period and is attributed to the tanna Shimʿôn bar Yôhai who lived in Palestine in the 2nd century. Moreover, the Zohar is dated back to the revelation on Mount Sinai. The Zohar has gained a worth equivalent to that of the Tora and Talmud within Jewish religious literature with regard to the emphasis on its antiquity and the exegetic works on it. In the present article, the main concern is to trace the Zohar’s process of being accepted as a work equivalent to the Tora and Talmud in some Kabbalist circles, despite it being a Medieval work.