After many years of labor, Daniel Matt has completed his oversight of a twelve-volume English translation of the Zohar—the central work of Jewish mysticism. Matt translated and annotated the first nine volumes himself, while his collaborators produced the final three. In his laudatory review, Eitan Fishbane delves into the complex question of the Zohar’s authorship:

While nearly all other kabbalistic works of the [Middle Ages] were written in Hebrew and generally claimed by their authors, the Zohar was pseudepigraphic and written in Aramaic: it represented itself as the product of the 2nd-century Galilean sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai. . . .

For much of the 20th century, [however, the historian] Gershom Scholem’s conclusion that the Zohar was largely the work of a mystic named Rabbi Moses de León in late 13th-century Castile held sway over scholarly opinion. Scholem’s theory was compelling and far from unfounded. As Matt notes in the very first footnote to the opening passage, . . . there is a parallel passage in de León’s Sefer ha-rimmonim, and Scholem and others have noted many parallels of language and doctrine between the Zohar and de León’s works. In testimony quoted in a late 15th-century text, the kabbalist Isaac of Akko is represented as saying that de León’s widow told him that the work was entirely from her husband’s hand.

This consensus has been shattered in recent decades. First came Yehuda Liebes’s pathbreaking theory that a group of Castilian kabbalists including de León, not unlike the imagined circle of disciples around Shimon bar Yoḥai, were responsible for the composition of the Zohar. More recently, scholars have argued that there were likely several groups of authors in successive decades and even generations, each of whom edited and added to what we now know as the Zohar.

Thus, the Zohar in its present form—including Matt’s English edition—does not reflect any single manuscript but is the creation of the Italian publishers who first printed it in the 1550s.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.