In Honor of the 2nd-Century’s Greatest Scholar of Kabbalah, an Essay by the 20th Century’s

Today is the minor Jewish holiday of Lag ba-Omer, which marks the end of the period of mourning that follows Passover. In Israel it is celebrated with pilgrimages to the birthplace of Shimon bar Yoḥai, the 2nd-century sage credited with authoring the Zohar. According to legend, he composed this book, the primary text of Kabbalah, during the several years he spent hiding from the Romans in a cave—from which he emerged on this day. No scholar in modern times did more to make the Jewish mystical tradition respectable and understandable than Gershom Scholem (1897-1982). In this essay, published in Commentary in 1980, Scholem tells the story of how he came to devote his life to the study of Kabbalah: