Reddit mentions of Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment (Classics of Western Spirituality (Paperback)) (English and Aramaic Edition)

You probably saw the Pritzker edition of the Zohar. It’s a multi-volume text translated by Daniel C. Matt. Matt is a well respected scholar of Jewish mysticism. The text isn’t really for beginners. It’s a critical edition of the Zohar for more academic study.

However, Matt has published some small collections of passages from the Zohar which he thinks can be understood by beginners and are of interest. Here is Matt’s book The Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment. Matt has also published some selections from the Zohar along with some annotation, which can be found here. For a general introduction to Kabbalah, I’d recommend Matt’s text The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism which can be found here. The Essential Kabbalah is a collection of different passages from a variety of Kabbalistic texts which Matt has selected in order to explain some different concepts in Kabbalah. Thus by reading The Essential Kabbalah you are able to learn about Kabbalah from the primary sources themselves. All of these books are, of course, beautifully and engagingly translated by Matt himself. Feel free to start with those books.

The Zohar dates to about 13th century Spain, so it's not "authentic" in the sense of being contemporaneous with the Hebrew Bible. To understand it you'll need a decent background in the Hebrew Bible. A basic understanding of Neo-Platonism is helpful , but not necessary. If you decide to read it, be prepared, it can be tough.

Here's link a good resource https://www.amazon.com/Zohar-Enlightenment-Classics-Spirituality-Paperback/dp/0809123878/ref=sr\_1\_fkmr0\_1?keywords=zohar+classic+if+western+spirituality&qid=1562598202&s=books&sr=1-1-fkmr0

Elaine Pagels is a great contemporary scholar of Christian religion, and particularly textual and historical explication. Her The Origin of Satan is fascinating, and The Gnostic Gospels is a solid survey of some of the lost branches of early Christian tradition.

Gershom Scholem is one of the last century's great explicators of Judaism and mysticism, particularly the Kabbalah. I doubt there's a book he's written that isn't worth reading, but the best place to start may be his book On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, particularly the chapter on the relation of mystical experience to community norms.

Speaking of Kabbalah, it's recent popularity speaks poorly of what is an otherwise venerable and serious tradition of symbolism and ethical concern. If you're interested in spiritual literature, it's probably not a bad idea to take a stab at the Zohar. There's an abridged translation by Scholem out in paperback, but you're probably better off with this edition.

That comes, incidentally, from a series of books issued by a Catholic publisher, Paulist Press, under the name Classics of Western Spirituality, which is generally excellent. So far as I know, it's the only press currently printing some truly classic historical texts, so their catalog is worth browsing. They're particularly good, as you might suspect, on early Christian texts -- I don't know where else you'd go for something like Carthusian Spirituality -- but they also have Sufist, Judaic and non-mainline texts. In particular, I'd say pick up the Pseudo Dionysus.

While we're on the subject of early Christian writers, there's The Desert Fathers, The Cloud of Unknowing, Revelations of Divine Love -- the last of which is a notable early example of feminine Christian spirituality.

On the more modern end, there's Simone Weil, the tragic Marxist-cum-Catholic. I'd recommend either Waiting for God or Letters to a Priest]. While we're talking about modern Christian theology, we should note three of the most important names of the 20th century: Paul Tillich, Rudolf Otto, and Tielhard de Chardin. The books to start with, respectively, are Dynamics of Faith, The Idea of the Holy, and The Divine Milieu.

Shifting away from Christianity, another major name in 20th century theology is Martin Buber, the Jewish German mystic. His I and Thou is the most generally applicable and was widely influential in existential circles, but he also wrote widely on issues of Jewish identity.

More in the mainstream of Jewish tradition, there's the Talmud, although the sheer size of the writings that full under that name are the sort of thing that scholars give their lives over to. For our purposes, something like Abraham Cohen's Everyman's Talmud will generally suffice.

And finally, I just recently bought The Three Pillars of Zen, which is widely held to be the best practical introduction to the topic available in English. There are a bewildering amount of books on the subject, but without some sort of framework for understanding their relation to the historical traditions, it can be nearly impossible to sort out which are worth while.

EDIT: Forgot linking by reference isn't working; fixed with inline links.