Mitpachat Sfarim מטפחת ספרים
Rabbi Yaakov Emden goes through the Zohar page by page and points out passages which, by his reckoning, were not written in the days of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. The book does not reject the Zohar: it separates the ancient in it from the later.
Printed at Altona in 1768, in the author's lifetime.
What is in it. Emden lists passages that do not fit the age of Rabbi Shimon: words from late Aramaic, mentions of later things, translators' turns of phrase. His conclusion is restrained and is often reported wrongly: he does not say the Zohar is a forgery—he says that the Zohar as it has reached us has layers, and that it must be studied in that knowledge.
Why it matters. Before Emden the age of the Zohar was disputed rarely and cautiously; after him the dispute was open, and the Mitpachat Sfarim was cited by every side, including those who disagreed with it.
Who the author was. Rabbi Yaakov Emden, son of the Chacham Tzvi, is the man whose dispute with Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz over amulets split the communities of Germany. Both disputes of his life are about one thing: what stands behind words that are taken on faith.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Mitpachat Sfarim, Altona 1768 — what the book examines and with what reservation
Scholarship
- Reference works on the dispute over the age of the Zohar — the place of the book in the dispute
Basis: documents and evidence.