Sefer HaBahir or Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKana, as it is attributed to him, is a profound and wondrous book of Kabbalah, and it is held in great esteem among Kabbalists like Sefer HaZohar. The Raavya (19th chapter) wrote that originally it was called Midrash Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKana (and so it is referred to by the Ramban and the Tzioni), after its opening "Said Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKana" (even though his name is not mentioned a second time in this book), and afterwards there was uncertainty whether he authored it, so they called it Sefer HaBahir, from the verse it opens with "Pure it is in the skies" (Job 37:21). The Chida, in the name of the great rabbis (part 2, entry "Bahir"), writes in the name of Rabbi Avraham Rovigo that he found in an ancient Zohar that Sefer HaBahir was authored by Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKana, and he was the head of the Kabbalists, followed by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, because Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKana lived in the generation of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai (and is mentioned in Avot 4:2). Now, even if we believe the tradition that Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKana wrote the main part of Sefer HaBahir, we must admit that many things were added to it by later copyists from later midrashim. Many things were also omitted from it that Bachya and Recanati quote in their commentaries on the Torah in the name of Sefer HaBahir. Modern scholars conjecture that the author of Sefer HaBahir was Rabbi Yitzchak Sagi Nahor son of the Raavad in the 13th century. Their mistake comes from finding in the commentary Or HaGanuz on Sefer HaBahir of one of the students of the Rashba, who writes in his introduction: "Therefore I set my heart to reveal the glory of God according to what I received and prepared from my teachers Rabbi Yehoshua ben Shuaiv and from Rabbi Shlomo of Barcelona who received from the Ramban, and he received from the Baal HaRokeach, and he received from Rabbi Yitzchak Sagi Nahor, and he received from Elijah the prophet." These scholars brought proof for their words from the first verse it starts with "And now they do not see light, it is pure in the skies," and they interpreted it as referring to Sagi Nahor. But in truth they did not understand the intention hidden within it, for it is connected to the verse after it "For darkness hides it, and cloud and dense fog surround it," and the third verse decides: "Even darkness does not darken in the night, but day shines like darkness lights up." Guttlavber shows that several ideas from Sefer HaBahir are found in the commentary on Song of Songs attributed to Rabbi Azriel or Ezra, teacher of the Ramban. (Kabbalah and Hasidism at the end) In Sefer HaBahir there are expositions on the letters, vowels and cantillation notes, and it gives symbolic reasons for them in Aramaic even though the whole book is in Hebrew. Bachya in Shemot brings from it another passage in Aramaic that begins "This point in the Torah is like the soul in the body." From kabbalistic topics it mentions the 32 wondrous paths of wisdom with which the world was created, as in Sefer Yetzirah, and counts seven sefirot (that is, after the breaking of the vessels which are the first three sefirot as is known to those who know wisdom). It also counts ten sefirot with which heaven and earth were sealed. And it explains the word sefirot from the verse "The heavens recount the glory of God." It mentions there a name of 12 and a name of 72 corresponding to the 72 languages brought out from the verses "He journeyed and encamped and pitched" (see Otzar Yisrael, Shemot entry "Shemot"). It also hints to 36 righteous people, and Rabbi Berechya asked "What is lulav?", he said to him: "To it give your heart" etc. Sefer HaBahir was printed in Amsterdam 1711, Berlin 1746, Korets 1784, Shklov 1784, and with commentary Or HaGanuz and notes of the Gra, Vilna 1893. It is also found in Sefer HaZohar. See also Otzar Yisrael, entry "Bahir".