According to tradition, the Zohar—the major canonical work of Jewish mysticism—was written by the 2nd-century sage Simon bar Yohai (the anniversary of whose death will be celebrated on May 26), and the well-guarded manuscript was discovered and revealed to the world in 13th-century Castille by Moses de Leon. In the 19th and 20th centuries, academics applied modern scholarly methods to the text and determined that it was in fact composed in Medieval Spain by Moses de Leon himself—a conclusion still rejected by the pious. Or, at least, that’s the most common version of the story of what we know about the Zohar.

In truth, as Tamar Marvin explains, both the traditional tale of the Zohar’s origins and the latest academic consensus are more complicated than that. Take the latter first:

Like many other works that we think of as “books”—discrete objects with clear boundaries that we interact with intellectually and also physically—the Zohar was in many respects the creation of early modern printers. This does not mean, of course, that the Zohar didn’t exist prior to the mid-16th century, when the first two editions of it were printed, in Mantua and Cremona. Rather, the Zohar didn’t exist as a unitary, closed text. Instead it circulated in many manuscripts, containing some two or three dozen texts (depending on how you delineate them), and many variants. The fixed text established by the printers, each of whose editors used multiple, though limited, manuscripts, became, by virtue of mass production, unusually powerful.

Pious rabbis who believe in the Zohar’s antiquity and divinity provide even stranger stories, befitting the strangeness of the book itself. Marvin turns to the layered narrative recorded by Rabbi Abraham Zacuto (ca. 1452–1515), which cites an account given to another rabbi by a third, David of Corfu:

The situation described by Rabbi David—we’re now three layers of story deep—is indeed astounding. He describes a situation in which, after gaining great wealth, Moses de León left his wife and daughter in dire poverty. When David went to Arévalo to investigate, he found the wealthy Rabbi Joseph de Ávila and hatched a plan to determine the true nature of the Zohar.

David tells Joseph that he can finally get the precious manuscript that had eluded him, if he follows David’s plan: Joseph is to dispatch his wife to meet the widow of Moses [de Leon] in Ávila to ask for her daughter’s hand in marriage to Joseph’s son. Since Joseph is wealthy, the widow and daughter’s bitter financial situation would be forevermore happily resolved. In return, Joseph wife is to request just one thing from Moses’ wife: the manuscript of the Zohar. She is, moreover, to make the pitch to the widow and the daughter separately, so as to test the alignment of their responses.

This story, with its tales within tales, comic romance, lost manuscripts, and Castilian setting should be entirely familiar to anyone who’s read that great work of post-expulsion Spanish literature, Don Quixote.

In his inauguration speech, Donald Trump put forth ambitious goals for his first days in office. An additional item that should be on the agenda of his administration, and also that of the 119th Congress, should be defunding, and ideally dismantling, UNRWA. The UN Relief and Works Organization for Palestine Refugees—to give its full name—is deeply enmeshed with Hamas in Gaza, has inculcated generations of young Palestinians with anti-Semitism, and exists primarily to perpetuate the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Robert Satloff explains what must be done.

[T]here is an inherent contradiction in support for UNRWA (given its anti-resettlement posture) and support for a two-state solution (or any negotiated resolution) to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Providing relief to millions of Palestinians based on the argument that their legitimate, rightful home lies inside Israel is deeply counterproductive to the search for peace.

Last October, the Israeli parliament voted overwhelmingly to pass two laws that will come into effect January 30: a ban on UNRWA operations in Israeli sovereign territory and the severing of all Israeli ties with the agency. This includes cancellation of a post-1967 agreement that allowed UNRWA to operate freely in what was then newly occupied territory.

A more ambitious U.S. approach could score a win-win achievement that advances American interests in Middle East peace while saving millions of taxpayer dollars. Namely, Washington could take advantage of Israel’s new laws to create an alternative support mechanism that eases UNRWA out of Gaza. This would entail raising the stakes with other specialized UN agencies operating in the area. Instead of politely asking them if they can assume UNRWA’s job in Gaza, the Trump administration should put them on notice that continued U.S. funding of their own global operations is contingent on their taking over those tasks. Only such a dramatic step is likely to produce results.