Zohar, Idra Zuta -- The Death of R. Shimon

אדרא זוטא · Anonymous Zoharic authorship (Castilian circle, late 13th c.; pseudepigraphically R. Shimon bar Yochai, narrated by R. Abba). Targum machine-assisted, 2026-05-29.

canonical

Zohar, Idra Zuta -- The Death of R. Shimon

אדרא זוטא

Idra Zuta (the close)

canonical late-13c (pseudepigraphically 2c) Aramaic Anonymous Zoharic authorship (Castilian circle, late 13th c.; pseudepigraphically R. Shimon bar Yochai, narrated by R. Abba). Targum machine-assisted, 2026-05-29. tr. Hekhal Targum engine (claude-opus-4-8[session]); awaiting editor sign-off

This chunk is the Targum-translated form of zohar.idra-zuta.petirah. It was drafted by the Hekhal Targum engine on 2026-05-29 using glossary revision kabbalah-v0.2 with the idra-theosophy, pardes frame controller(s). The current status is machine-assisted; readers should treat this as a draft pending editor review until the status flips to verified.

Every term in the controlled glossary surfaces a range card in the apparatus, every doctrinally-live ambiguity is preserved with both readings, and the audit trail records the model, the prompt hash, and the retrieval set used for this rendering. The translation is open to interrogation at every step.

אמר רבי אבא, לא סיים בוצינא קדישא למימר חיים, עד דאשתככו מלוי, ואנא כתבנא, סברנא למכתב טפי, ולא שמענא. ולא זקיפנא רישא, דנהורא הוה סגי, ולא הוה יכילנא לאסתכלא. אדהכי אזדעזענא, שמענא קלא דקארי ואמר (משלי ג׳:ב׳) ארך ימים ושנות חיים וגו’. שמענא קלא אחרא, (תהילים כ״א:ה׳) חיים שאל ממך וגו’. כל ההוא יומא, לא אפסיק אשא מן ביתא, ולא הוה מאן דמטי לגביה, דלא יכילו דנהורא ואשא הוה בסוחרניה. כל ההוא יומא נפילנא על ארעא, וגעינא. בתר דאזיל אשא, חמינא לבוצינא קדישא קדש הקדשים, דאסתלק מן עלמא, אתעטף שכיב על ימיניה, ואנפוי חייכין. קם רבי אלעזר בריה, ונטיל ידוי ונשיק לון, ואנא לחיכנא עפרא דתחות רגלוי. בעו חברייא למבכי, ולא יכילו למללא. שארו חברייא בבכיה, ורבי אלעזר בריה נפיל תלת זמנין, ולא יכיל למפתח פומיה. לבתר פתח ואמר, אבא אבא. תלת הוו, חד אתחזרו. השתא תנוד חיותא, צפראן טאסין, משתקען בנוקבאן דימא רבא, וחברייא כלהו שתיין דמא. קם רבי חייא על רגלוי ואמר, עד השתא בוצינא קדישא מסתכל (ס”א משתדל) עלן. השתא לאו הוא עדן, אלא לאשתדלא ביקריה. קם רבי אלעזר ורבי אבא, נטלו ליה בטיקרא דסיקלא, מאן חמא (ס”א ערעורא וערבוביא) ערבוביא דחברייא, וכל ביתא הוה סליק ריחין סליקו ביה בפורייה, ולא אשתמש ביה, אלא רבי אלעזר ורבי אבא. אתו טריקין, ומארי תריסין דכפר צפרי וטרדאן בהו (ס”א דצפרי וטרדיא והוו) בני מרוניא, צווחין בקטירין, דחשיבו דלא יתקבר תמן. בתר דנפק פורייא, הוה סליק באוירא. ואשא הוה להיט קמיה, שמעו קלא, עולו ואתו, ואתכנשו להילולא דרבי שמעון, (ישעיהו נ״ז:ב׳) יבא שלום ינוחו על משכבותם. כד עאל למערתא שמעו קלא במערתא, זה האיש מרעיש הארץ מרגיז ממלכות, כמה פטרין ברקיעא משתככין (ס”א ולא משתכחין) ביומא דין בגינך, דנא רבי שמעון בן יוחאי, דמאריה משתבח ביה בכל יומא. זכאה חולקיה לעילא ותתא. כמה גניזין עלאין מסתמרן ליה, עליה אתמר (דניאל י״ב:י״ג) ואתה לך לקץ ותנוח ותעמוד לגורלך לקץ הימין. עד כאן האדרא קדישא זוטא
R. Abba said: The Holy Lamp had not finished saying “life” when his words were stilled; and I was writing, and I meant to write more, but I heard nothing. And I did not lift my head, for the light was great and I could not look upon it. Meanwhile I trembled. I heard a voice calling out and saying (Proverbs 3:2): “length of days, and years of life…” I heard another voice (Psalm 21:5): “He asked life of you…”

The whole of that day, the fire did not cease from the house, and there was none who could reach him, for they could not: light and fire were round about him. The whole of that day I fell upon the ground and wailed. After the fire withdrew, I saw the Holy Lamp, the Holy of Holies, who had departed from the world, wrapped, lying on his right side, and his face was smiling.

R. Elazar his son arose, and took his hands and kissed them, and I licked the dust that was beneath his feet. The companions wished to weep and could not speak. The companions broke into weeping, and R. Elazar his son fell three times and could not open his mouth. At last he opened and said: “Abba! Abba!” There were three; one remains. Now let the living creature tremble, the birds fly, sinking into the openings of the Great Sea; and all the companions drink blood.

R. Chiya rose to his feet and said: Until now the Holy Lamp has attended to us; now it is no time for anything but to labor in his honor. R. Elazar and R. Abba arose and bore him upon a bier of stone — who has seen such confusion among the companions! And the whole house gave forth fragrances. They laid him upon his bier, and none attended to it but R. Elazar and R. Abba.

There came the men of arms of Kfar Tzippori, and the men of Meron busied themselves over him, crying out bitterly, for they feared he would not be buried there. After the bier went out, it rose into the air, and fire blazed before it. They heard a voice: “Enter and come and gather to the wedding-feast of R. Shimon. (Isaiah 57:2) ‘He shall enter into peace; they shall rest upon their couches.’”

When he entered the cave, they heard a voice in the cave: “This is the man who made the earth quake, who made kingdoms tremble. How many advocates on high are stilled this day for your sake! This is R. Shimon ben Yochai, in whom his Master glories every day. Happy is his portion, above and below! How many supernal treasures are stored up for him! Of him it is said (Daniel 12:13): ‘But you, go your way to the end; you shall rest, and shall stand up for your lot at the end of days.’” Thus far the Holy Idra Zuta.
AI-assisted draft, editor review pending
An orientation

The translation above was produced by the Targum engine against the kabbalah corpus’s controlled glossary. The active interpretive frame is idra-theosophy, pardes. Each frame controller injects the corpus’s interpretive grammar into the rendering as system context and validates the output against its own rules.

The terms surfaced as range cards in this chunk are: botzina-kadisha (rendered as the-holy-lamp), chevraya (rendered as the-companions), idra (rendered as the-assembly), abba (rendered as abba). For each, the apparatus carries the active sense set and the rationale for the selected rendering. Hover behavior on the published page exposes the sense alternatives so readers can interrogate the translation choice.

Audit trail: model claude-opus-4-8[session], glossary revision kabbalah-v0.2, frame controllers version 1.0, drafted at 2026-05-29T23:18:29Z, prompt hash sha256:65c423f0eab8843f. This information is queryable per chunk on the published site; the editorial discipline is that any rendering decision can be traced back to the model, the glossary state, and the prompt that produced it.

Apparatus
Tradition
jewish-mysticism
Language
Aramaic
Period
late-13c (pseudepigraphically 2c)
Attribution
Anonymous Zoharic authorship (Castilian circle, late 13th c.; pseudepigraphically R. Shimon bar Yochai, narrated by R. Abba). Targum machine-assisted, 2026-05-29.
Translator
Hekhal Targum engine (claude-opus-4-8[session]); awaiting editor sign-off
License
CC-BY-SA-4.0
Provenance
Generated by the Hekhal Targum engine (model=claude-opus-4-8[session], glossary=kabbalah-v0.2, frames=idra-theosophy, pardes, drafted_at=2026-05-29T23:18:29Z). Source: hekhal:source-texts/zohar-idra-zuta-petirah. Status: machine-assisted. Per Hekhal editorial law, machine-assisted drafts require editor sign-off before flipping to verified.
Cite this page

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Anonymous Zoharic authorship (Castilian circle, late 13th c.; pseudepigraphically R. Shimon bar Yochai, narrated by R. Abba). Targum machine-assisted, 2026-05-29.. "Zohar, Idra Zuta -- The Death of R. Shimon." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. Last modified May 2, 2026. https://hekhal.org/texts/zohar-idra-zuta-petirah-targum.