Shimon bar Yochai

Shimon bar Yochai (flourished 2nd century ce) was a Galilean tanna (i.e., one of a select group of Palestinian rabbinic teachers), one of the most eminent disciples of the martyred rabbi Akiva ben Yosef and, traditionally, author of the Zohar (see Sefer ha-zohar), the most important work of Jewish mysticism. Little is known of Shimon’s life, and what is recorded of it in the Talmud is enmeshed with legend.

Of the pupils at Akiva’s academy, Shimon was second in esteem only to the saintly rabbi Meïr. After Akiva was martyred by the Romans, Shimon also publicly opposed them and was forced to conceal himself. According to a number of legends, he and his son Eleazar hid in a cave for 13 years, subsisting on dates and the fruit of a carob tree. After they emerged, Shimon established an academy where his pupils included Judah ha-Nasi, later the redactor of the Mishna, in which many of Shimon’s aphorisms are recorded. Shimon was sent by the Sanhedrin as an emissary to Rome, where he succeeded in having a number of restrictions upon Jewish observances removed.

Shimon advocated total devotion to the study of the Torah. In the development of Jewish Law, in both its ritual and civil aspects, he stressed the importance of seeking the spirit in which laws were written, which could modify their application.

It was probably because of his reputation as a miracle worker and ascetic that the Zohar came to be attributed to him. Modern critical scholarship, however, ascribes the Zohar primarily to Moses de León, a 13th-century mystic.

Simeon’s grave at Meron, near Safed in Galilee, became a shrine for Mizrahi Jews and the mystical Hasidim; the traditional anniversary of Shimon’s death (on Lag ba-ʿOmer) is observed with joyful ceremony at the site of his tomb.