Professional Documents
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The The: Path of Ladder
The The: Path of Ladder
the Ladder
as taught by
Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag
Elucidated by
Rabbi Avraham Mordecai Gottlieb
The Path of the Ladder:
Principles in the service of God
Elucidated by
Rabbi Avraham Mordecai Gottlieb
as he received them from his teachers
Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag
and
Rabbi Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag
Translated from the Hebrew by Yedidah Cohen
nehora press
Note: Although the masculine gender is used throughout this work, the inner
work of serving God applies to men and women equally. Linguistically it
was not possible to address this issue within the text itself. Yedidah Cohen
In order that we shall be able to fulfill the mitzvot, we were given the
especial light of the Torah, as the Sages have told us, “the light within
the Torah leads a person back to the good way.” This light is drawn
to us through studying the Torah. According to the measure that a
person puts effort into his study, so does he draw towards himself
the especial light of the Torah, through which he gains the strength
to fulfill the mitzvot (as they should be fulfilled, that is without a
reward).
We see that putting effort into our study has a great power, in that
it can transform all the evil that is in a person to good. Therefore, we
have to distinguish two aspects in the learning of Torah: 1) to learn
the rules so that we know what it is we need to do, 2) to put effort
into the study of the Torah so that we may fulfill it. Regarding this
second aspect it is not important whether we learn rules, or whether
we learn a part of Torah which does not speak at all about rules, only
we need to study Torah and put our effort into it and then the Torah
gives the person the light that is within it.
May God help us so that we may merit that light of the Torah.
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spirituality, there is no possibility for the created being to join with the
Creator and to merit the revelation of His Divinity unless he is able to
change his attributes to those of the Creator. These are the words of
the Sages on the phrase, “to walk in all His ways and to cleave to Him”
(Deuteronomy 11:22), “How may a person cleave to Him? Behold! He is a
consuming fire! But cleave to His attributes; just as He is merciful so
you be merciful, as He is compassionate so you be compassionate” (Rashi
on that verse). Likewise, the Sages of the Talmud said, “As it is written,
‘And you should walk after God’ (Deuteronomy 13:5). Can a person walk
after the Divine presence? We have already learnt in the Scripture: ‘For
the Lord God is a consuming fire’ (Deuteronomy 4:24), but one may walk
in the attributes of the holy Blessed One. Just as He clothes the naked
so you should clothe the naked. Just as He visits the sick so you should
visit the sick” (Sotah 14a).
5. The essence of good and the essence of evil
The essence of all the good that is in the world is the will to give benefit.
This is also called “the good inclination (the yetzer hatov)”, and applies to
purity, holiness, love of one’s fellow, and all other positive attributes.
Whereas the essence of all the evil in the world, is the will to receive
pleasure and joy for one’s own self. This is also referred to as “the evil
inclination, (the yetzer hara)” and refers to the shells (klipot), the “other
side” (sitra achra), egoism, selfish love and all the opprobrious attributes
such as laziness, pride, lust and others.
Therefore, the general principle of serving God does not in fact contain
many different subjects, as the world thinks, but only these two prin-
ciple ideas: 1) subduing the will to receive for oneself and 2) acquir-
ing the will to give benefit. All the other matters and natural virtues
are only branches which stem from these two main issues: the will to
receive for oneself alone, and the will to give.
Since we have mentioned the idea of the klipot, (shells), I would like
to explain what these are. In his book, Or haBahir, the Baal haSulam
defines them as such:
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The klipot are powers that rule over people, such that they don’t
search out deeply any matter until its end, but are satisfied with
only a superficial understanding. That is they are satisfied with a
very superficial understanding of the outermost peel of the wisdom
but they leave the real essence. Therefore, their human intelligence
doesn’t serve them to understand the service of God. Their iniqui-
ties govern them with the power of the sitra achra, and they do not
take sufficient interest in the Torah and the holy wisdom. Therefore
they rebel against the holy Blessed One.
We can conclude from our teacher’s words that every person certainly
has a will to receive joy and pleasure, for that is the will of God. However,
it is within a person’s ability to work to transform this from the will
to receive pleasure for oneself alone, which causes separation between
himself and the Creator, if he were to put his attention to the necessity
of so doing. But his will to receive for himself alone chases after the
lights provided by the klipot, and thus prevents the person from put-
ting his attention into the most fundamental aspects of Judaism, which
involve understanding the issues that touch on the transformation of
the human being.
So there is a tendency amongst the religious to practice Judaism as
rote, instead of searching out the way to connect to the Creator through
each and every mitzvah, and through every opportunity of learning
Torah. People tend to forget their distance from the Creator, their lack
of faith, their lack of Yirat HaShem (fear of being separate from God)
and their lack of love for God. If a person were to make a true account-
ing, he or she would see for themselves that he doesn’t conduct himself
in the way one should in the presence of the King. This follows from
lack of faith, or that his or her faith is defective and weak. So a person
doesn’t fear God adequately or love the One. Because who could delude
himself and say that he walks around in his daily life with constant
awareness and awe of God?
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appetites of eating, drinking, sleep, desire for money, honor, power, and
intelligence.
These two aspects of the will to receive are two halves of the same
nature, and they work in an integrated way within a person.
Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag used to define it thus: “It is as if there is
a vessel which goes directly from the heart to the brain and says, ‘There
is none quite as wise and clever as you…!’ ”
Over and against these two aspects of the will to receive there are two
modes of rectification (tikkunim):
1) for the mind—the work of faith
2) for the heart—the work of serving God and one’s fellow, not in
order to receive a reward
The Sage, Rabbi Baruch Shalom spoke on this (in the year 5751):
We need to work on the aspect of both the mind and the heart.
Because if a person were solely to work on his intellectual side, only
taking on himself the yoke of faith, it is possible that he is doing so
in order to receive a reward. Therefore a person also needs to work
on his will to give benefit in an altruistic manner.
However, if the person were to work solely on the aspect of giving
benefit and love of one’s fellow, without working on his faith, that
would also be insufficient, because he would remain disconnected
from God. This is what happened in communism, which held up as
its banner love of one’s fellow man, but persecuted men of faith, and
thus, from its very outset, was doomed to failure.
For the rectification of the intellect—the work of faith
A person should not rely on his intellect, but have faith in all the ways
of the Torah. This may be broken down into different points as set out
below:
a) Faith that the way to draw near to God is only through giving ben-
efit and love to one’s fellow human. This is so, even though the body —
that is the will to receive for oneself alone—denies this. This faith needs
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2) However, if the person is acting only for the sake of God, that is to
say, he acts in order to come into affinity of form with God, according
to the measure he feels the greatness of His love and His Divine provi-
dence, then the will to receive for oneself alone opposes this action with
all its power. Because the will to receive for oneself alone does not want
to work without getting a reward for that work. Then the person’s will
to receive for oneself alone comes to him with two questions: “Who is
God that I should listen to His voice?”—a question that opposes faith,
and “What does this service mean to you?”— a question that opposes
service. (Both these questions come from the Passover Haggadah. The first one is
Pharaoh’s question, the other question is that of the wicked son, of the four sons.)
So now we can understand perfectly, that it is impossible to tread the
pathway of the service of God in the true way—which is the way of
giving, not for the sake of getting a reward—without experiencing ups
and downs. Because going against the will to receive for oneself alone is
paved with ups and downs. As it says in the Talmud (Gittin 43a) nobody
can fulfill the words of the Torah unless he stumbles in them. However,
this is not the case for those who don’t oppose their will to receive plea-
sure for themselves. They don’t suffer so many ups and downs, but they
are to be found in a state that is more or less stationary.
In connection with this we can mention here an occurrence with the
Seer of Lublin: One time a man came to him and told him that prior to
every prayer he experienced a spiritual descent. The Seer answered him:
“Before every prayer I experience four hundred descents!” Our teacher
Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag explained: “A person who experiences
a spiritual descent, that is to say a “down” has to have had a spiritual
ascent first. So if the Seer of Lublin had four hundred spiritual descents
he must have had an equivalent four hundred spiritual ascents… . But
this only occurs with someone who is truly searching for unity (dvekut)
with the Holy Blessed One and is self-critical and searches even within
his good deeds to see if his will to receive for oneself alone got involved.”
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the world who were not privileged in even their entire life to have such a
good thought as this!
h) Faith in the way of unifying the contradiction between, “If I am not
for myself who is for me?” and “if I am for myself what am I?” (From
the dictum of Hillel the Sage: “If I am not for myself who will be for
me? And if I am for myself what am I? and if not now, when? (Ethics of
the Fathers chapter 1, mishnah 14).
A person has to say about the past, “If I am for myself, what am I?”
That is to say, “I didn’t do anything, but everything comes from the
Creator.” However, regarding the present, he needs to say, “If I am not
for myself who is for me?” That is to say, if I don’t do anything, no one
will do it for me.” In such a way he is saved from all manner of disrup-
tions that tend to occur in daily life.
It is easier to take an extreme position than to walk in the middle way.
There are some who say, “If I am for myself, what am I?” therefore they
don’t want to do anything. If they are sick, they don’t want to go to the
doctor, because they say that everything comes from God, so what use
is a doctor here? If God wants them to get better then He will heal
them even without a doctor. There are others who say, “If I don’t go to
the doctor then for sure I will never get better.” But the correct way is
to go to the doctor like everybody else. After one has gone to the doctor
then one must say, “It was God who healed me, and not the doctor, and
if I wouldn’t have gone to the doctor then I still would have got better,
because that was the will of God.” But the next time he gets sick he
should again go to the doctor saying “if I am not for myself then who
is for me?” Afterwards, when he gets better he needs to say again that it
was not the doctor who healed him but it was God. This way is beyond
the understanding of the will to receive.
This applies likewise for earning one’s living. Some people say, “If God
wants to send me a living, then I will have a living even if I don’t work.”
And so they don’t work. But there are others who say the opposite, “If
I don’t work, then I certainly won’t have the means to live.” The way of
holiness is to work, and afterwards to say, “Even if I hadn’t worked, but I
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had sat at home all day, then God would have given me a living because
that is His will.” We learn that the way in holiness is always in opposi-
tion to the opinion of the will to receive, and this is the meaning of the
phrase “the way of Torah is opposite to the opinion of the householder.”
Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag wrote:
When a person is in the path of serving God then he has to believe
that he receives a reward from the Creator, and that reward is cleav-
ing to the Creator. And this is the greatest reward of all, to become
close to God. Punishment means separation from Him. And this is
within the person’s province, for this is the focus of the choice. How-
ever, once a person has made his choice, and opted for the good and
left the evil, and God has drawn him close to serve Him, then he has
to believe that everything comes from God, and that if God had not
helped him he would not have been able to prevail. So before the
action, a person needs to know that the choice is his and the prin-
ciple of, “If I am not for myself who will be for me” applies, but after
the action he has to believe that everything comes from God.
This is hard, because before doing the positive action the evil incli-
nation comes to the person and tells him, “don’t do it, everything
comes from God,” and after performing the good deed the evil incli-
nation tells the person, “you did it all yourself!” according to the
dictum, “If I am not for myself who will be for me?” as if to say, that
if the person himself had not acted nothing would have been gained.
A person needs to fight against this thought.
i) Faith in the greatness of the Sage. Since the work of a person with
respect to his Sage necessarily involves nullifying one’s own will, it is of
utmost importance that the teacher with whom we work in this way is
a teacher of integrity. The Sage must embody humility and truth. He
wishes only to serve others and has no desire for students or others to
serve him. He keeps Torah and mitzvot completely and has knowledge
of the innermost aspects of the Torah. In his presence we feel an earnest
desire to reach dvekut with the Holy Blessed One. Through our work
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with him we come to nullify and transform our will to receive for one-
self alone. Only such a person is worthy to be considered a Sage.
The following discussion only refers to the way of working with the
great Sages, the Baal haSulam and his son, Rabbi Baruch Shalom
Ashlag and others of their stature.
The more that a person believes in the greatness of the Sage then the
greater the motivation he has to give unconditionally to the Sage, with-
out considering his will to receive at all. As the Sages stated (Berachot 7b)
“The service of Torah is greater than its learning, as we learn from the
book of Kings (2 Kings 3:11) ‘and Jehoshaphat questioned the servants
of the King of Israel saying, “Is there no prophet of God that we may
inquire of the Lord by him?” and one of the servants of the King of
Israel answered, and said, “Here is Elisha the son of Shefat who poured
water on the hands of Elijah.” ’ The Scripture does not write that Elisha
learned from Elijah but that he served him. From this we learn that serv-
ing Torah is greater than learning Torah.”
This work is very practical, because a person can measure every day
the degree to which he is prepared to sacrifice himself in order to give to
his teacher. And one can add to this daily.
Now this work is a preparatory work to the work carried out between
a person and the Creator, because the service we give to the teacher has
precisely the same nature as the work one needs to do towards God,
may the One be blessed. However, regarding the Creator, there is an
extreme difficulty, in that He is completely concealed; likewise society
does not have a tangible opinion as regarding His greatness, unlike the
students and the disciples regarding their teacher. Nonetheless, when a
student has eventually acquired the attribute of giving unconditionally
to his teacher, then he can transfer this attitude towards God, relatively
easily.
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Further, the more a person has faith in the worth of his fellow, the more
he will have motivation to work for the sake of love of his fellow, accord-
ing to the Scripture, “Love your fellow as yourself ” (Leviticus 19:18).
Rabbi Baruch Shalom writes:
The human being is created with a vessel that is designated as self-
ish love, so that if he cannot see that from a certain action he will
get gain for his own benefit, then he has no motivation to put in any
effort to make even the smallest move. Therefore, without the nega-
tion of this selfish love it is impossible to come to dvekut with God,
which is called ‘affinity of form’.
Since this is against our nature, we need a community that can
form a great force against this selfish love in that we all work together
to nullify our will to receive for ourselves alone. This will to receive
for oneself alone is designated as being evil, because it prevents us
from arriving at dvekut, which is the purpose for which the human
being was created.
Therefore, the community needs to be made up of individuals, all
of whom are of the same opinion that we need to arrive at dvekut
with God. Then all the individuals together can make one strong
force that the individual can use against his own selfish love, because
all are included in each other. We see that every person can then
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base himself on this great will that all share, in order to arrive at the
purpose for which we are all created.
However, in order that we should be able to include each other
in the creation of this force, everyone needs to negate himself with
respect to his fellow. That is, everyone should be able to see the
worth of his friend and not his lack. But whoever thinks he is of a
higher level than his companions will not be able to join with them.
(Sefer haMa’amarim part 1 essay 1)
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friend and participate in his celebrations as if they were his own. This is
daily work against the natural desire of the body.
A person should endeavor to do actions of giving benefit regarding
his fellow, and actions of giving benefit regarding the Creator, not for
the sake of receiving anything, just for love. After a person has com-
pleted this work to its very end, that is to say he has completely nullified
his will to receive for himself alone, and his only purpose in life is to give
benefit to the Creator, or to his fellow man, then he arrives at the second
stage, wherein a person can receive joy and pleasure, but not for the sake
of receiving for himself, but only because he knows that it is the will of
the Creator to give to him. By allowing the Creator to give to Him he is
in effect giving to the Creator. Similarly, with regard to his fellow man.
We see that in our daily life there are many people who do give benefit
to others but they may be doing this in order to receive some reward.
However such giving would be considered as receiving and not as giving
at all. Here we are talking about a person who is endeavoring to give
benefit, not because he hopes for any reward. He is acting to give benefit
because he values the other person, and therefore considers it an honor
to be allowed to give to him, even if he were not to receive any reward
at all.
There are many people who occupy themselves with giving and doing
acts of loving kindness. However, not all who do so are acting in order to
arrive at dvekut with God, or because of their faith in God, but because
their humanitarian conscience obligates them to so act. They have
mercy on their fellow man and they understand that a rectified human
community should be of that nature, or they don’t feel at ease with their
conscience if they do not help their fellow man. But though one must
not negate such help towards one fellow man, because through such
help there is an improvement in human civilization, such an approach
has two main deficits:
1) This approach does not require faith in God or any connection
with the Creator, and so the person does not need to have any inten-
tion to come to dvekut with the Creator. As the Creator is far from His
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created beings so is such giving far from true giving. And our teacher
Rabbi Ashlag wrote on this: (Introduction to Panim Meirot uMasbirot para-
graph 6) “The purpose of the donkey is not to serve all the other donkeys
in the world that are of his own age. Likewise, it is not the purpose of
the human being to serve all the other human bodies who are the same
age as his human body. But the donkey’s purpose is to serve the human,
who is higher than him. Similarly, the purpose of the human is to serve
the Creator, and to perfect His intention in the purpose of Creation,
as Rabbi Shimon Ben Elazar said, ‘these were only created in order to
serve me, and my purpose is to serve the Creator.’ ” (Kiddushin chapter 4
mishnah 14).
2) The purpose of helping one’s fellow man is to come to love of one’s
fellow man. It is clear that a person is not able to come to love of one’s
fellow man if he doesn’t create a connection on the basis of equality.
Therefore, although actions of loving-kindness are beautiful and impor-
tant in themselves, they cannot bring a person to love of one’s fellow
man. For example, when a person gives charity to the poor, or he looks
after an elderly or sick person, but then goes home and has no connec-
tion with the needy person, even if he fulfilled his duty from the per-
spective of loving-kindness, nevertheless, from the perspective of love,
he did not accomplish that which is necessary.
When a person does acts of giving from the desire to nullify his selfish
love completely, then the will to receive bothers him at every step of the
way. It sees a threat to its existence, so it opposes him with all its power.
Therefore, the will to receive tries to subvert the basis of the person’s
faith and asks, “Who is God that I should listen to His voice? It also
asks “What is this service to you?” (These are the questions of Pharoah and of
the wicked son, from the Passover Haggadah). But for people who are not inter-
ested in nullifying their selfish love, not only does their will to receive
for themselves alone not ask such questions and doesn’t bother them,
but it even helps such people do their acts of giving benefit, because
these acts build up their ego.
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8. The threefold cord: love of friends, love of the Sage, and love of
God
Love of friends
The Baal haSulam instituted the practice that all his disciples should
meet together at a certain fixed time—at first this was fixed as a once-
a-month meeting, later they convened once a week. At this gathering
the friends were to discuss matters relating to the principle of the love
of one’s fellow man and matters concerning the service of God. The dis-
ciples were also to discuss issues which would bring them to a closer
understanding of each other, and each one was to endeavor to consider
the merit of his companions and not their lacks, in order to bring the
love and importance of the friends into the heart of every person.
Besides the gathering of the friends, which included everyone, and
which was made up of ten or fifteen disciples, it was incumbent on each
one to chose for himself two or three out of the general group with
whom he was especially close, and to direct his effort of love of one’s
fellow towards these companions in particular. This involved striving
to implement the dictum, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” in the full-
est possible way. The aim is to get to a stage wherein the student feels
the same love for his fellow as he feels for himself. It is not possible to
achieve this level of love at the outset, with regard to the whole world;
neither is it possible to achieve initially with an entire community, but
a person can certainly strive to achieve this love of one’s fellow with the
people who are closest to his heart, as with them success is more likely.
From there the person can widen the circle, until finally he reaches the
desired stage wherein he loves every created being as himself.
Actually the real effort in this work occurs when one’s fellow does
not act in a fitting manner—at least so it seems—then the person has
to nullify himself and his own wishes, and behave towards his friend
exactly as he would behave towards himself. That is to say, just as a
person justifies his own actions when he stumbles, and he can find one
hundred reasons to explain why he was right, so a person needs to jus-
tify his fellow. Why is this so difficult? The general rule is: “Love covers
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all sins”, and since a person loves himself, therefore he naturally covers
up his own sins. Justifying the other person’s acts is therefore harder, as
this natural love is absent.
Love of the Sage
The love that a person feels for his Sage is certainly a springboard for
the love of God, for his Sage represents the perfection of the virtues and
the attributes that a human being can aspire to, (according to the situ-
ation of every generation). And this the Sage did not acquire through
inborn abilities, but through hard and intense work on himself. And
this is not through any charisma, because what, after all, has a human
being to offer? But the greatness of the Sage comes from his connec-
tion with God, and through this he merited to such perfection. We see
that in truth, one who gives up his own wishes with respect to his Sage
(Rav), is as if he is nullifying himself before God himself, for it is within
the innermost aspect of the Sage that God is manifest but hidden. This
is in fact the inner meaning of the perfection of his Sage, because the
revelation of God, even if it be in the smallest possible way, is the ulti-
mate in perfection.
The love of one’s Rav comes directly from the belief in the greatness of
the Rav. Because God gave us the nature that a lesser person naturally
has awe of a greater person. So a person has to first work on himself or
herself to believe that the Rav has true greatness of spirit, and then he is
able to give up his own views in favour of his Sage’s views and he loves
him.
The work of faith starts with education: That is to say that a person
has to act blindly like an ox to the yoke and the ass to the burden. A
person has to spend time every day on the thought of how he would
act and behave in the presence of his Sage if he knew for certain that
his Sage was the most important person in the whole world. And then
he needs to act upon his conclusions even if he doesn’t in fact feel this.
Therefore such work is called “faith” because it does not happen all at
once but one has to train oneself gradually, in a way similar to the way
one trains a small child.
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The more a person negates his own views with respect to the Sages,
the more he merits to apprehend the way of service of God through his
Sage. He gains the thoughts, desires for God, and manifestation of God
that the Sage has, and then the disciple can ascend to the spiritual level
of the Sage in actuality, and acquires the strength to progress in the love
of God.
Love of God
It is of daily benefit to a person to contemplate the greatness of God,
may the One be Blessed. He may look at all that surrounds him: the
inanimate, the plant life, the animal life, and the human world, and
understand that the inner essence of everything, the power that gives
life to all, is God himself. A person may educate himself to live in tune
with this truth, that is, to endeavor to think in terms of this reality.
Likewise, before a person learns, or prays, or does a good deed, he
should concentrate his thought on what he wants to apprehend through
this mitzvah. The desirable aim is to apprehend the greatness of God’s
love, and that only God can give him faith in Him. Through the mitz-
vah he wants to appreciate the reality of God in every detail of life, and
relate to God’s providence in the aspect that He is Good and does good.
Before performing holy acts a person needs to consider the great-
ness of the One, who is giving the opportunity to perform the act, in
the sense of, “Know before whom you are standing” (Ethics of the Fathers:
chapter 3, mishnah 1). For example, before a person says Grace After Meals
he needs to think, “To Whom am I giving thanks?” If he makes this
his practice before undertaking any mitzvah, he will slowly but surely
advance in affinity of form with God.
Actually, he can also make this his practice prior to any action that he
does, whether it is a meeting of the friends, or a meal on the Sabbath or
on a festival. In any action a person can center himself and concentrate
on the perfection of the attributes of the King, may the One be Blessed.
This is the language of the Rambam:
Let not a person say, “Behold I am doing a mitzvah of the Torah, and
occupying myself with its wisdom in order that I should receive all
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the blessings that are written in the Torah, or in order that I should
merit the life of the world to come.”
Likewise he should not say, “I will separate myself from the sins
that the Torah warns against, in order that I should be saved from
the curses that are written in the Torah, or in order that I won’t be
cut off from the life of the world to come.”
It is not fitting to serve God in this way, because one who serves in
this way serves from fear for himself, (that is for his will to receive
for himself alone) and this is not the way in which the prophets and
our Sages served.” (From the Laws of Repentance chapter 10 law 1)
The Rambam further said:
And what constitutes the love of God as it is fitting? That a person
should love God with an overwhelmingly great and strong love, until
his soul is connected to the love of God, and he meditates on his
love for God like one who is love-sick for the love of a woman and
cannot think of anything else. Thus he meditates on God continu-
ally whatever he is doing. As it is written, “Love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”
(Deuteronomy 6:5). King Solomon expressed this figuratively, saying, “I
am lovesick” (Song of Songs 2:5). The entire Song of Songs is an alle-
gory portraying one’s burning love for God.
The Rambam further wrote: (Law 6)
It is well-known that a person’s heart will not be turned to love God
unless he constantly meditates on Him as is fitting, and he should
leave aside other physical pleasures in the world. As it is written,
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Your love for God is com-
mensurate with your knowledge of Him; the more you know Him,
the more you love Him. If you know Him a little, you will love him
a little. If you know Him well, you will love Him more ardently.
Therefore, a person must dedicate himself to become wise and to
achieve fluent knowledge and understanding of his Creator, as much
as is humanly possible.
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We may further add here the words of our teacher Rabbi Baruch
Shalom Ashlag (Sefer haMa’amarim 5751):
Why is it so important for a person to thank God for every single
point he gains in spirituality? It is because there is a rule that grati-
tude leads to love. Through the Torah a person may look at the
greatness of the gift that the Giver is giving him. And this naturally
arouses one to love the Giver. Through the love for God that the
person acquires, he may arrive at dvekut and unity with God. It is a
well known fact, that a person wants to speak with and to join with
someone he loves, and he desires to be close to him continually. And
we have already learnt that the greatness of a gift is not dependant
on the size of the gift, but on the stature of the Giver. The greater
the person holds the Giver to be, the greater importance the gift has,
even if what He gives, is of itself, small.
Beyond these three central issues of which we have already spoken, a
person should also take responsibility for his relationships in other
aspects of his life:
Between a man and his wife
Also in this relationship a person needs to step outside his selfish love.
Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag said, that a person should check himself
daily to see if he indeed he fulfils the command of the Sages (Yebamot
62:) that a man is obliged to respect his wife more that himself. That is
to say it is incumbent on the husband to truly respect her and to act
towards her as one acts towards an honored personage. He needs to be
concerned that his wife is satisfied and happy and should take steps if
he sees she is upset or sad.
Likewise a woman needs to respect the will of her husband. On her
part this involves her in a lot of inner work until she can act towards
him in accordance with the scriptural verse: “Love your neighbor as
yourself ” (Leviticus 19:18).
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that the love of God is burning within him and that is more precious to
him than anything else. Then it is clear beyond any doubt, that if such a
person should receive the pleasure and joy that God wants to bestow on
him, he will receive it for the love of God alone.
10. The way of Torah and the way of suffering
God prepared for us these two ways that ensure we progress in
spirituality:
The way of Torah
When we follow this path, we cleave to our holy books that deal with
the question of how to cleave to God. All of our Sages: the prophets,
the Sages of the oral Law, and all who came after them, left us their
writings so that we will be able ascend the holy path to the House of
God. Furthermore, a person should join in companionship with others
who serve God, who put this path into actual practice. And through the
fact that the person connects himself to such a good environment, both
in terms of the holy books and in terms of his companions, he becomes
drawn to the path in which the pleasantness of Torah shines, and his
soul is enlightened with the greatness and perfection of God. To the
extent that he recognizes the beauty of the destination, so he also recog-
nizes how awful separation from God feels.
The way of suffering
When a person or the society is not mature enough to connect with
the books of wisdom and their authors, then, from Heaven, suffering is
invited as a wake-up call, so that the person or the society will see the
lack of substance in materialism and its achievements, and appreciate
the beauty of spirituality and all it contains.
The Talmud teaches (Sanhedrin 97:):
Rabbi Eliezer said, “If Israel would repent they will be redeemed, but
if not, they will not be redeemed.”
Rabbi Joshua said to him, “How can it be possible that if they
do not repent of their own accord they will not be redeemed?! But
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the Holy Blessed One will put a king over them, whose decrees are
worse than Haman’s, (and this is the way of suffering) and will thus
compel them to repent and come to the good way.
The Talmud further writes (Sanhedrin 98.):
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi says [referring to the redemption], “It is writ-
ten in the Scripture, (Isaiah 60:22) ‘In its due time, I will hasten it’.
This appears to be a contradiction in terms! [But it means] if they
are worthy [for redemption through the way of Torah] then “I will
hasten it”; if they are not worthy [then the redemption will come] “in
its due time” [through the way of suffering].
Rabbi Baruch Shalom explains these two paths in the following analogy:
If you want to catch fish, you have two possibilities: You can either
take the fish out of the water, or you can drain the water from the
fish.
Moral: If a person wants to stop using his or her selfish love, then
he can take himself away from material enjoyment, and cleave to
Torah. However, if the person does not do this himself, then he inev-
itably receives the path of suffering; the Holy Blessed One will take
the joys and satisfaction out of the material world for him, and he is
left with complete emptiness. Then he is forced to go and search out
a new source of sustenance because of the suffering caused by the
emptiness.
In his book Matan Torah Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag writes as follows:
Know that there are two forces given to us from Above that push
us to climb up and ascend the rungs of the spiritual ladder until we
reach the heavenly top that is our destination—namely, our similar-
ity of form with our Creator, may the One be blessed.
The first of these forces pushes us without our intent, which is to
say, without our personal choice. This force pushes us from behind.
We have defined it as ‘the way of suffering’, or ‘the way of nature’.
From it stems the philosophy of moral conduct that is called ‘ethics’,
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to the measure of the Scripture, “All that God has worked is for His
sake.” And then God will open the person’s eyes, and he will see
before him a full world, perfectly whole, which has no lack. Then he
will be able to partake in the joy that God had when the One created
the world. And this is what the Sages have said: “One who merits,
has tilted the balance of himself and the whole world to the side of
merit.” For wherever he looks he only sees goodness and perfection,
and he does not see any deficiencies in God’s work, but he sees that
everything is meritorious.
There are two ways by which one may consider the suffering,
both physical and spiritual, that the person suffers before he or she
repented, (before reaching affinity of form with the Creator):
Firstly, all that the Merciful One does is to benefit. For now the
person sees with his own eyes that if it were not for the dreadful pain
that he suffered, because he was sunk in receiving for himself alone,
he would never have merited that repentance, and so he blesses the
evil in exactly the same way as he blesses the good. So we see that
everything that God does, He does in order to do good. That is to
say, in order to give rise to the good.
Secondly, there is the aspect of: “This is also good.” That is,
not only do the evil acts give rise to good, but the evil acts them-
selves are transformed and become good in themselves. That
is, the Creator, may the One be blessed, through the means
of very great light, illuminates all these evil acts until they are
transformed into good acts. This applies to both physical suffering
and to emotional suffering, which are sins. In this way all the sins
transform and receive the form of merit.
In the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sephirot (paragraphs 42-44) Rabbi
Ashlag writes:
You need to know that the distance that we feel ourselves as being
so far away from God that makes us so liable to sin, has only one
single cause. It is the source of all the pains and sufferings we expe-
rience, and is the source of all our arrogant acts and mistakes over
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suffering. We see this clearly with regard to food for example; taking
more than what is really required causes many illness. This rule is also
true for other appetites. However, when a person lives only on the basis
that he wishes to be in affinity of form with the Creator, and nothing
else is really important to him, then he uses all his faculties only in the
best and most appropriate way.
Being sunk in our will to receive for ourselves causes all the mischief
that occurs between ourselves and our fellow humans. From the con-
stant demands of our selfish love to which we are enslaved, we tend to
enslave and take advantage of our fellow. We don’t take note of the dif-
ficulty of our fellow but put our focus on our own egoistic desires. But
in the end this attitude boomerangs back upon us, injuring us terribly.
However, if we lived our life in the way of giving help and benefit to
our fellows then we would certainly be living a life of happiness and
tranquillity. For when everyone is concerned about the welfare of his
companion then the Scriptural promise that the land will no longer
have poor and downtrodden will be fulfilled, as it is written, “But there
will no longer be poor among you, for the Lord will surely bless you in
the land which the Lord your God is giving to you as an inheritance, to
possess”(Deuteronomy 15:4).
True joy comes to the person from the connection between himself
and God. While a person is enslaved to his will to receive for himself
alone, this connection is not possible, because there is no affinity of
form between him and God—God having no will to receive, only the
will to give benefit. Thus a person, sunk in his selfish love, is denied the
experience of true happiness.
All our sufferings are only given to us by God in order to show us
the intrinsic lack of worth of the will to receive for ourselves alone in
order that we should understand that the will to give benefit is a won-
derful and amazing value in our lives, and we need to put forward all
our best efforts in order to attain it. When we acquire the will to give
benefit and the ability to love our fellow human, then we have gained
on two counts: We come into affinity and connection with the Supreme
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spiritual work, because his will to receive doesn’t oppose his work at all.
However, one who is working against his will to receive, and yearns only
to serve God, not for any gain, then his will to receive opposes him with
all its strength and power. It portrays the Torah in a negative light to the
person. Thus the person suffers many falls.
Our teacher, Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag, said, “Descents are given
only to those to whom ascents are also appropriate.” In other words,
Heaven only sends the downs to those who serve, in order to help them
advance, when they will merit to receive an ascent.
When a person is in a state of “down”, even though it is a bitter time,
nevertheless it is a time of test for him. On this state it is stated, “the
righteous will walk in them, but the wicked will stumble.” For then the
person has to say that in truth the down was caused by God himself
in order to help the person. It is only through these descents that the
person comes to be aware of the evil that is within him, and then he can
pray to God from the depth of his heart that God should help him.
Without these periods of descent the person is unable to see the evil
that is within him clearly and then he cannot pray from the depths of
his heart. Our teacher wrote on the virtue of such “downs” that it is just
in the dark time that the person has the strongest connection with the
Creator, because then he needs God with all his being. No-one can truly
assess the importance of the connection with God. During the time of
the “up” the person does not feel his need for God to this extent.
If, during the time of the descent the person believes in God and con-
ducts himself accordingly, then he is in the category of “the righteous
shall walk in them,” and he will continue to progress on his path. But
if he is unable to accept that the descent comes from God, from His
desire to give good to all the created beings, then he can fall into bitter-
ness and despair and he sinks down. Then he falls into the category of
“the wicked shall stumble in them,” until, Heaven is merciful to him, and
again he is given a push, so he can, once again, walk on the right path.
It was said in the name of the Sage, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of
Kotzk, “I am standing with one foot in the seventh heaven, but with the
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other foot in the lowest of all hells.” This saying defines the very deli-
cate balance in which those who are trying to come to affinity of form
with God find themselves. If they are able to walk in the paradigm of
faith, which is above the paradigm of knowledge, and oppose their will
to receive for themselves alone, then they are in the seventh heaven. But
if their will to receive for themselves alone were to prevail, then they fall
to the lowest of hells, because they then fall to the worst possible state,
which is separation and denial of God.
Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag said:
My father, of blessed memory, likened the ascents and descents that
a person goes through to a nut on a bolt. The nut travels up or down
on the thread of the screw. Every time it turns, it gets closer to the
head of the screw. Likewise, concerning a person’s work, even though
it appears to him that he is going round and around at the same
level, this is not in fact the case, because no day is like the previ-
ous day, and no situation is like the previous situation. Each time he
is actually rectifying something else. Furthermore, it is through the
descents that all the progress of the human being takes place. This is
because when a person feels he is in a “down” he is not satisfied with
this feeling, and so we find that his desire to rectify himself grows
stronger.
When a person feels that he has an ascent in spirituality then his ten-
dency is to feel that spirituality is natural to him, and to some extent he
feels surprised at the other people of the world, who busy themselves
with material things. He gets a glimpse of the beauty, joy and tranquil-
lity that God’s light gives. At this point, it is very important that he not
take this state for granted—a mistake which tends to happen because it
feels natural—but he should remember where he came from, and give
great thanks and praises to God, that God saw fit to grant him such a
blessing. To the extent that he suffered the separation from God when
he was down, that is the extent of the thanks and praise he is able to
give God when he is up.
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Furthermore, the work of the left hand side and the work of the right-
hand side as described in the next section, exists at every stage, as Rabbi
Baruch Shalom Ashlag explains:
When a person receives an ascent, then he needs to think about the
descent. That is, he needs to think, what thoughts did I have whilst I
was down, and what thoughts do I have now I am up? And when he
sees what his thoughts consisted of when he was down, he can really
appreciate and value the time of the ascent. Likewise he can feel and
understand more correctly what is designated as “evil”.
From this we see that one is in fact able to make use of the time of
the descent in exactly the same way that one uses the time of ascent.
That is the reason we eat bitter herbs on Seder night, when we have
already gone out into freedom. The halachah ( Jewish Law) states
that one who did not eat the bitter herbs didn’t go free, because one
actually needs to feel the bitterness of the evil during the time of the
ascent, in order not to forget all the bitterness that he was in during
the time of descent, and thus he sweetens the bitterness.
This is not in order to feel sad or upset when one has a feeling of ascent;
on the contrary, the purpose of remembering the left-hand side is to
enhance the feeling of gratitude, similarly to the way that the light is
enhanced when it emerges from the dark.
13. The left-hand side and the right-hand side
In general, the inner work of a person needs to be divided into two
aspects: day and night. “Day” is the aspect of the right-hand side, and
is the consciousness in which the person occupies most of his time in
the service of God. During this time, he should not examine himself in
order to see what he did or did not achieve in his tikkun, but he should
only consider the greatness of the Holy Blessed One. The more a person
lives and breathes from this consciousness and ponders the greatness of
God, the more that he finds that he is happy, because he is one with
the King of the universe. Nothing else in a person’s life causes him as
much happiness as being one with God. In this state of consciousness, a
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person can be happy from even the smallest degree of holiness, because
he does not regard the size of the gift as being important, but he focuses
on the greatness of the Giver. This aspect of inner work is referred to as
“the right-hand brings close,” as it says in the Talmud, “The right-hand
brings close, and the left-hand pushes away” (Sotah 47a). It is through this
aspect of consciousness that the person yearns to become close to God.
An example of the right-hand side of consciousness may be: A person
has spent the entire day cut off from thoughts of God, and was occu-
pied entirely with material things, when he suddenly remembers that
there is a Creator of the world. If he looks on the greatness of God and
the perfection of His providence, then he straightway gives thanks to
God that He gave him the privilege of coming close to Him.
A person needs to believe that every thought that comes to him comes
directly from God. Since a person’s nature, which is that of receiving, is
considered as lowly when compared with the Creator—who is desig-
nated as the Giver, and therefore felt to be inestimably high—a person
needs to rejoice in even the slightest portion of holiness that God gives
him. He really needs to appreciate that it is a gift and he should not take
it for granted.
Often, however, instead of a person being happy with the fact that
God woke him up out of his dream, he feels sad, because his will to
receive for himself alone asks him, “And where were you all day? Weren’t
you thinking only of materialism? Now, suddenly, you remember that
there is a Creator of the world?” and the person feels ashamed. Since
there is a general principle that a person is where his thought is, we see
that in this feeling of sadness he is uniting with the negative and even
with the material. Therefore, a person has to be on his guard against
this response of his to this situation.
So we see that the essence of the inner work done on the right-hand
side consists of work that a person does against his rationale, against his
will to receive for himself. He needs to be happy that he merits even the
slightest contact with holiness; he should rejoice in every mitzvah that
he has the opportunity to do, and in every thought that relates to God.
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ries of the Torah, the prophets, or the writings, and they appear to him
as historical stories and nothing else, God forbid.
In this context the Zohar writes (Parshat Beha’alosecha (paragraphs 13-15):
Rabbi Elazar opened his discourse, and said, “It is written, “And
the ark rested in the seventh month on the seventeenth day of the
month on the mountains of Ararat” (Genesis 8:4). How delightful are
the words of the Torah! Every word has high, inner meanings, and
the whole Torah is called “high”.
We learn in the beraita of Rabbi Ishmael the thirteen principles
by which the Torah is propounded: “A particular (example) that
embodies a general principle, and is taken from a general principle in
order to teach, does not teach only about itself, but was brought to
teach about the whole.”
Since the Torah is the generality of the most High light, even
though it may be telling one simple story, it certainly does not intend
to demonstrate that particular story alone, but it intends to show
higher and concealed matters, and was not brought only to teach
about itself. Even though the example emerged from the general-
ity of the Torah it did not emerge just to teach about itself, but it
emerged in order to tell about the generality of the Torah.
As it is written, “And the ark rested on the seventeenth day of the
month on the mountains of Ararat.” Certainly this scripture emerges
from the generality of the Torah as a simple story. One asks, What
do we care if it rested on this mountain or that mountain? After all
it had to come to rest somewhere! Answer: it does not come to tell
about itself, but to elucidate some general principle of the Torah.
Happy are Israel to whom was given the highest Torah, the Torah
of truth. And whoever says that a story of the Torah only comes to
tell that particular story is not in his right mind. Because if that were
the case, the Torah would not be a Torah of truth. But certainly this
highest, most holy Torah, is a Torah of truth,
Come and see, regarding a King of flesh and blood: It is not
according to his honor that he should speak in the language of the
ordinary person, or even more so that he should write in such a
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fashion. Would it even occur to you, that the Highest of all Kings,
the Holy Blessed One, had nothing holy to write in the Torah but he
collected together all sort of lowly stories like the words of (wicked
people such as) Esau, and of Hagar, and of Laban against Jacob, and
of Balaam’s donkey, and of Balaam, and the words of Balak, and of
Zimri, and put these together with all the other stories and made
the Torah from these?
If so, why would it be called the Torah of Emet, (Truth)? But “the
Torah of God is whole…, the testimony of God is faithful…, the
commands of God are straight…, the mitzvot of God are clear…, the
fear of God is pure…, the ordinances of God are true….” and it is
written, “they are more pleasant than gold or much spun gold” (Psalm
19, 8-11). Such are the words of the Torah.
Certainly the highest, holy Torah is a Torah of truth. It is a whole
Torah of God and every single word comes to show the highest mat-
ters, because the matter that is told in the story does not come to
show the story alone, but teaches about the generality of the Torah,
as we have learned.
So we see the warning of the Holy Zohar, that we should not consider
even one incident described in the Torah as an event in itself, but it is
composed of the highest and deepest inner meanings of the revelation
of God. In this way we should relate to the Torah, believing that in every
word hides the revelation of God. In every word the Torah is teaching
us how to walk, in order that we may come to affinity of form with the
Creator.
2) Learning the Torah as a single entity. That is to say we learn the
Torah as if all the events of the Torah are occurring within each indi-
vidual person. This means that Jacob and Esau are two aspects that are
to be found within each person and they fight with each other for the
domination of the person. As it is written, “Two peoples will come from
your womb and they will strive with each other” (Genesis 25:23).
Likewise, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob come to show different aspects
and stages in the service of God that a person should try to emulate.
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Similarly, Israel and Egypt are two aspects within the same person, such
that the Egyptian aspect within the person enslaves the Israelite aspect
within the person, but God redeems him. And so on and so forth.
Actually, this is the true way in which a person should learn the Torah,
because in this way he doesn’t learn matters that have no connection
with himself but every letter of the Torah is connected with him and
speaks to him.
We need to emphasize what our teacher Rabbi Baruch Shalom
Ashlag said, “If a person divides himself into two then he can deal with
the other side of himself. But if a person doesn’t do this then he cannot
give battle.” Explanation: If a person understands that there are two ele-
ments within him that are in conflict with each other, one of which is
composed of the appetites and thoughts of the will to receive for him-
self alone, and the other is the holy point within the heart, then he is
able to give battle in a more objective way against powers within him
that don’t in fact really belong to him. But if he identifies with them as if
they are his own desires, then how can he fight against himself?
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Biography
Rabbi Avraham Mordecai Gottlieb heads the Beit haMidrash, Or
Baruch Shalom situated in the Judean hills outside Jerusalem in Kiryat
Yearim. From his youth he was close to his teacher, Rabbi Baruch
Shalom HaLevi Ashlag z’l, whose tradition and teaching he carries on
today. His teaches and writes in Hebrew.
The Beit haMidrash Or Baruch Shalom maintains a very active
(Hebrew language) website at http://obshalom.org and book store at
http://www.kabbalah-sefer.co.il/
Yedidah Cohen has translated writings of Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag
z’l into English from the Hebrew.
Her published books in English are:
A Tapestry for the Soul: The Introduction to the Zohar by Rabbi
Yehudah Lev Ashlag explained using excerpts from his other writings,
and
In the Shadow of the Ladder: Introductions to the Kabbalah by
Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag with additional explanatory chapters by
Yedidah and Mark Cohen z’l
She runs an active website in English, Nehora Press, on which she pub-
lishes short talks on the relationship of the Kabbalah with our daily
life and facitlitates small groups learning the work of Rabbi Ashlag in
English over the internet. She may be contacted via the website.