Introduction
This article, based extensively on the research by Dr Jonatan Benarroch,[1] explores the question of whether Zohar, could possibly have engaged in a polemic, or religious debate, with the Chassidei Ashkenaz (the German Pietists of the Rhineland). The problem is that the Zohar is traditionally believed to have been authored by R. Shimon bar Yochai, a second-century Tanna, or Mishnaic rabbi – while Chassidei Ashkenaz was a twelfth and thirteenth-century mystical movement in Germany. This places the Zohar a thousand years before the advent of Chassidei Askenaz.
