LIVED 1885–1954
72nd yahrtzeit 10 Tishrei, Yom Kippur
BURIED Har HaMenuchos
Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag was born in Warsaw in 1885, moved to Israel in 1921, began writing his commentary on the Zohar in the early 1940s, and passed away on Yom Kippur in 1954. He became known as the Baal HaSulam, the “Master of the Ladder,” after his monumental Perush HaSulam on the Zohar HaKadosh.
The Desire to Give
Rav Ashlag compared the Zohar to an attic filled with treasure. The treasure is there and accessible, but we need a ladder to reach it. His commentary was meant to provide that ladder.
Rav Ashlag sought to reveal a deeper understanding of the Zohar in what he described as a permitted way, through a process of “concealment for the sake of revelation.” He believed that the tragedies and spiritual darkness of his time demanded a greater revelation of the Torah’s inner light.
Writing His Works
Rav Ashlag considered himself deeply bound to the soul of the Arizal. He saw his task as organizing and clarifying the writings transmitted by the Arizal’s main student, R’ Chaim Vital, which became the foundation of his own Kabbalistic works. His Perush HaSulam was also the first complete Hebrew translation and commentary of the Zohar’s Aramaic text.
Rav Ashlag and his family lived in abject poverty. His students would bring food to his home so that his children could eat. He sometimes shortened explanations simply to conserve ink and paper. He frequently wrote for more than fifteen hours a day, at times until his hands became terribly swollen.
None of this deterred him, and his students eventually raised the money to print and disseminate his works.
Inner Work
For Rav Ashlag, the study of Pnimiyus HaTorah and the work of personal transformation were inseparable, as he saw his mission as a continuation of the students of the Baal Shem Tov, especially the Baal HaTanya.
While one approach he encountered when he arrived in Yerushalyim was rote recitation of Kabbalistic texts, he felt it was essential that the teachings had an impact on the avodah of each individual.
Rav Ashlag therefore articulated what might be called a new old path. Drawing on the Etz Chaim, he placed altruism, giving for its own sake, at the center of spiritual consciousness. Much of his writing centers on the human journey from being a receiver to becoming a giver, and the promise of spiritual pleasure for the sake of Heaven.
Like the great tzadikim of earlier generations, Rav Ashlag understood the nullification of ego as an essential part of our purpose in this world. He saw this transformation as integral to the process of geulah. He envisioned the Messianic future as a world in which humanity moves beyond self-absorption and lives for the sake of others, mirroring Hashem’s light and compassion.
Rav Ashlag’s Yartzeit
Rav Ashlag has not always received the recognition his extraordinary contribution deserves. In a certain sense, that itself is fitting for a tzadik whose teachings centered on giving without seeking anything in return. Part of the issue is that the Baal HaSulam used metaphors and different forms of language that sometimes contained a psychological focus to express the teachings of the Arizal. In truth, his teachings are a continuation and deepening of the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and the Vilna Gaon. According to Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Morgenstern shlit”a, it is the unique task of our generation to reunite the “novel” language of the Baal HaSulam with the known pathways of Chassidus and avodah.
It is also striking that Rav Ashlag passed away on Yom Kippur, the day we step away from our physical needs and stand before Hashem stripped of ordinary material existence. How fitting that a teacher who devoted his life to transcending the self left this world on the very day devoted to that movement.
Four Essential Teachings of Rav Ashlag
- Where There Is Darkness, Add Light
Living through the upheaval surrounding the two World Wars, Rav Ashlag believed that radical darkness demanded a radical revelation of light. The response to spiritual concealment was not retreat, but the uncovering of deeper dimensions of Torah.
- Authentic Pnimiyus Must Be Lived
The study of Kabbalah cannot remain an exercise in rote memorization or abstract knowledge. It is more about transformation than information, shaping how we live a more meaningful life. The teachings should continually ask what they demand of us and how they can be implemented in our daily lives.
- Transforming the Desire to Receive
Rav Ashlag taught that human beings are created with a ratzon lekabel, a desire to receive rooted in a sense of deficiency. When receiving becomes purely self-serving, it creates distance from the Divine, whose defining relationship with creation is one of giving from a place of overflowing fullness.
The goal, however, is not simply to stop receiving. Rav Ashlag describes the transformation of our desire into ratzon lehashpia, a desire to give. Ultimately, a person can become mekabel al menas lehashpia, receiving in order to give.
- You Do Not Have to Be Innovative to Have an Impact
Rav Ashlag did not see himself as coming to replace or add to Rebbe Shimon bar Yochai, the Arizal, Ramchal, or the Baal Shem Tov. His greatness lay in organizing, clarifying, and transmitting their teachings in a form that could become accessible to another generation.
There is already extraordinary wisdom in the world. If we can learn it, live it, and become a channel for it to reach others, we have accomplished something profound.
As Hashem seals the books of life this Yom Kippur, Rav Ashlag’s yartzeit gives us an opportunity to translate his teachings into something concrete. Perhaps somewhere between now and Ne’ilah, each of us can choose one person and one act of giving, done simply for that person’s sake.
In doing so, we take one small step from receiving toward giving, and from darkness toward light. Gmar Chasima Tova!
Where to Begin
A wonderful entry point into Rav Ashlag’s thought is his Introduction to the Zohar. There he brings these ideas to life by confronting some of the most fundamental questions of human existence: Why do I exist? Why am I here? What is my role in this world?
The work is now available at SHARE.Fund/Ashlag, where you can view it digitally, order the book through Koren, and access other powerful resources.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 99.
