Mystical systems
Shimon bar Yochai
Direct answer
Shimon bar Yochai was a rabbi of second-century Galilee, a pupil of Rabbi Akiva, whom kabbalistic tradition reveres as the teacher and author of the Zohar.
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At a glance
- Also called
- rashbi, simeon bar yochai
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Zohar, Moses de León, Kabbalah, Lurianic Kabbalah
Shimon bar Yochai was a rabbi of second-century Galilee, a pupil of Rabbi Akiva, whom kabbalistic tradition reveres as the teacher and author of the Zohar.
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Who was Shimon bar Yochai?
Shimon bar Yochai, known by the acronym Rashbi, is two figures in one. The first is historical: a sage of the generation after the failed revolt against Rome, quoted hundreds of times in the Mishnah and Talmud, strict, sharp-tongued and devoted to study above all else. The Talmud tells that he spoke against the Romans, was condemned to death and hid with his son Eleazar in a cave for twelve years, fed by a carob tree and a spring.
The second is the hero of the Zohar. There he wanders Galilee with a band of companions, expounding the hidden sense of the Torah, and his death is the book's climax, a day on which he reveals what he had held back. For traditional kabbalists the two are the same man. Historians date the Zohar to thirteenth-century Spain and treat its Rabbi Shimon as a literary creation built on the Talmudic sage.
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What sets Shimon bar Yochai apart
The Talmud's Rabbi Shimon makes an odd patron for a book of love and radiance. He is the scholar who comes out of the cave so fierce against ordinary life that his gaze burns up the fields, and a heavenly voice orders him back for another year. The Zohar keeps the cave and the companionship of father and son and softens the rest, surrounding him with friends who kiss his hands and weep at his words. Each generation of kabbalists has since seen in him the model of the master with his circle.
- Period: middle of the second century CE, after the Bar Kokhba revolt
- Teacher: Rabbi Akiva
- Acronym: Rashbi, from Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai
- Cave story: Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 33b: twelve years, then one year more
- Tomb: Meron, in Upper Galilee
- Day of pilgrimage: Lag BaOmer, the thirty-third day of the Omer count
Often mistaken for something else: Rabbi Akiva, his teacher, is the Talmud's model of the mystic who entered the orchard and came out in peace; Rabbi Shimon is the figure the Zohar chose as its own voice.
The story behind Shimon bar Yochai
He lived in the middle of the second century CE and is said to have studied under Akiva for thirteen years. The cave story is in the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Shabbat. The Zohar began to circulate under his name in Castile about 1280. His tomb is shown at Meron in Upper Galilee, and since the sixteenth century, when the kabbalists of Safed made pilgrimage there, the minor festival of Lag BaOmer has been kept as the anniversary of his death, with bonfires and crowds.
Why Shimon bar Yochai matters
The authority of the Zohar, and so of most later Kabbalah, was founded on his name, which is why the question of authorship carries such weight.
How to read Shimon bar Yochai
Believers invoke him as the source of the Kabbalah and a saint. Scholars use the name for the character in the Zohar and for the Talmudic rabbi behind it.
Shimon bar Yochai in practice: an example
A traditional edition of the Zohar names Rabbi Shimon as its author on the title page, while a university course lists the same book under medieval Spain.
Where readings of Shimon bar Yochai go wrong
No writing from his own time links him to the teachings of the Zohar. The connection rests on the book's own claim and on tradition.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- rabbi shimon bar yochai, rashbi, simeon bar yochai, shimon bar yochai zohar, shimon bar yochai cave
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
Who was Shimon bar Yochai?
He was a leading rabbi of the second century CE in the land of Israel, a disciple of Rabbi Akiva. Later tradition made him the central figure of the Zohar and the founding teacher of the Kabbalah.
Did Shimon bar Yochai write the Zohar?
Tradition says so. Academic scholars hold that the Zohar was composed in Spain in the late thirteenth century, chiefly by Moses de León, and written in Rabbi Shimon's name.
Why is Lag BaOmer connected with Shimon bar Yochai?
Kabbalistic custom, attested from sixteenth-century Safed, holds that he died on that day and asked for it to be kept with joy. Great numbers of pilgrims gather at his tomb at Meron each year.
