[Avodah] The Chasam Sofer on the Zohar

[Zev Sero]

On 11/5/21 8:18 pm, Prof. L. Levine via Avodah wrote, quoting R N Slifkin:
> 5. Nevertheless, Chasam Sofer was of the view that the vast majority of 
> the Zohar was not written by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, but was instead 
> written much later.
 >
 >[...]

And RYL added:
> The Chasam Sofer is in *Yoreh Deah siman 233*.


No, it is not.  As RSBA likes to quote his rebbe R Weissmandel, "Hastu 
nachgeschaut"?  A very quick Nachschauung shows that this teshuvah only 
briefly mentions the Zohar and does not even address its authorship.  It 
deals with the question of Kedushas Eretz Yisrael, and with the Chasam 
Sofer's shita on the creation of new holidays and rituals, and therefore 
with his criticism of the Lag Ba'omer practices in Meron.

AFAIK the only hint to the Ch"S's view on the authorship of the Zohar is 
in Vol 6 #59, where he praises Yaavetz's sefer Mitpachas Sofrim.


>  Rav Ovadiah Yosef said 
> <http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2010/10/rav-ovadiah-yosef-on-zohar.html> 
> that because of the serious questions that arise with attributing the 
> Zohar to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, one cannot call someone a heretic for 
> rejecting his authorship of it.

Again, a simple Nachschauung shows that this statement misrepresents its 
purported source.  Even if one takes R Yehuda Naki's recollection of 
ROY's words as accurate, he absolutely did *not* say that there are any 
serious questions about the Zohar or its authorship.  He said that the 
Darda'im "have found in it [the Zohar] all sorts of questions that *in 
their minds* show a contradiction to what is written in the Torah".  In 
other words, the Darda'im *falsely believe* that the Zohar contradicts 
the Torah, and therefore can't be blamed for rejecting it and accepting 
the Torah, and therefore in his view they do not have the formal status 
of heretics, their synagogues do not have the status of churches that 
are assur behana'ah, and they can be counted in a minyan.  This does not 
mean one cannot *call* such a person a heretic.

It is widely believed that before ROY accepted R Kafah as a legitimate 
dayan he asked him to swear that he rejected his grandfather's 
teachings. By its very nature this is obviously not written anywhere, 
one can't expect it to be, so skeptics are free to doubt it; but I am 
not aware of any actual evidence against it.


-- 
Zev Sero            Wishing everyone a healthy summer
zev at sero.name