Baal HaSulam

It is known that the desired purpose from the work in Torah and Mitzvot is to cleave unto the Creator, as it is written, “and to cleave unto Him.” We should understand what Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator means. After all, the thought has no perception of Him whatsoever. Indeed, our sages have discussed this question before me, asking about the verse, “and to cleave unto Him”: “How can one cleave unto Him? After all, He is consuming fire.”

Before I clarify this exalted matter, it is important for me to state that although all the readers seem to consider it impossible to clarify and bring such a matter closer to the human mind, except by relying on abstract, philosophical concepts, as is usually the case in such scrutinies, since the day I have discovered the wisdom of Kabbalah and dedicated myself to it, I have distanced myself from abstract philosophy and all its branches as the east from the west...

There is an allegory about friends who were lost in the desert, hungry and thirsty. One of them had found a settlement filled abundantly with every delight. He remembered his poor brothers, but he had already drawn far off from them and did not know their place. What did he do? He began to shout out loud and blow the horn; perhaps his poor hungry friends would hear his voice, approach and come to that abundant settlement filled with every delight...

There is an idiom among great sages when they come to disclose a profound matter: they begin their words with, “I am disclosing a portion and covering two portions.” Our sages took great care not to utter words needlessly, as our sages instructed, “A word is a rock; silence is two.”

The Lord will evidently show that Israel cannot exist in exile, and they will find no rest as the rest of the nations that mingled among the nations and found rest, and assimilated in them, until there was no trace left of them. Not so is the house of Israel. Still it will find no rest among the nations until the verse will be “And from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find Him for you will demand him with all your heart and all your soul.” (Deuteronomy 4, 29)...

What is Baal HaSulam telling us here? To the extent that man controls nature, the laws of nature, by correctly using them for himself, to that extent he measures his life, his essence, and his status, both in our world, as well as in the spiritual world. Meaning, he has to know where he is, the kind of laws that operate on him, how he can operate them for his own benefit. Is it really for his own benefit? Maybe it just seems that way for a short term then he discovers that it’s the opposite...

At the outset of my words, I find a great need to break an iron wall that has been separating us from the wisdom of Kabbalah since the ruin of the Temple to this generation. It lies heavily on us and arouses fear of being forgotten from Israel...

In this introduction, I would like to clarify matters that are seemingly simple. Matters that everyone fumbles with, and which much ink has been spilled over in attempting to clarify. Yet we have not reached a concrete and sufficient knowledge of them. And here are the questions: 1. What is our essence? 2. What is our role in the long chain of reality, which we are but small links of?...

It is known from books and from authors that the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah is an absolute must for any person from Israel. If one studies the entire Torah and knows the Mishnah and the Gemarah by heart; if one is also filled with virtues and good deeds more than all his contemporaries, but has not learned the wisdom of Kabbalah, he must incarnate once more into this world to study the secrets of Torah and wisdom of truth...

It is written at the end of the Mishnah (Okatzin), “The Creator did not find a receptacle that holds a blessing for Israel, but peace, as it is written, ‘The Lord will give strength unto His people; the Lord will bless his people with peace.’”...

To my students,
We need to renew our work every day, that is to say we need to forget the past. If we have not succeeded in the past, we need to begin over again. Like the merchant who opens a shop that failed--he closes that one and immediately starts another, and he is full of hope that though the old business failed, the new one is sure to succeed...

This statement of our sages demands explanation. Because the word law indicates a sum of details that when put together form the above whole. It turns out that when he says about the Mitzva of “love thy friend as thyself” that it is a great rule in the Torah, we must understand that all other 612 Mitzvot (precepts) in the Torah with all their interpretations are no more and no less than the sum of the details inserted and contained in that single Mitzva of “love thy friend as thyself”. This is quite perplexing, because you can say that regarding precepts between man and man, but how can that single precept contain within it all the precepts between man and God, which are the vast majority of the precepts?..

As a whole, science is divided into two parts: one is called “material research” and the other, “formative research.” This means that matter and form are perceived in every element of the entire reality before us...

Know, that this is what it means that the children of Israel are redeemed only after the wisdom of the hidden is revealed to a great extent, as it is written in The Zohar, “With this composition, the children of Israel are redeemed from exile.” This is because at that time there was great hope...

Everything in reality, good and bad, and even the most harmful in the world has a right to exist and should not be eradicated from the world and destroyed. We must only mend and reform it, because any observation on the work of creation is enough to teach us about the greatness and perfection of its operator and creator. Therefore, we must understand and be very careful when casting a flaw in any detail of reality, any item of creation, and say that it’s redundant and superfluous, as that would be slander about its operator...

The profoundness of the wisdom in the holy Book of Zohar is enclosed and caged behind a thousand locks, and our human tongue too poor to provide us with sufficient, reliable expressions to interpret one thing in this book to its end. Also, the interpretation that I have made is but a ladder to help the examiner rise to the height of things and examine the words of the book itself. Hence, I have found it necessary to prepare the reader, to give him a way and an inlet in reliable definitions, concerning how one should contemplate and study the book...

Rabbi Hanania ben Akashia said, “The Creator wished to reward Israel, so He gave them the Torah and the Commandments...” In Hebrew “to award” (“Lizkot”) is similar to the word “to purify” (“Lezakot”). Midrash “Bereshit Rabbah” says, “The Commandments are given only to purify Israel with their help."

Among the books and manuscripts that my Rabbi would study from, there was one particular notebook titled Shamati (What I Heard). That notebook would go with him wherever he went and time after time he would delve into it. On his deathbed, in the wee hours of the night, he suddenly handed me that notebook and said: "Take this notebook and study it." Early next morning, with me by his side, his pure soul climbed into the heavens. The notebook holds a collection of essays written word for word from the mouth of Kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), my Rabbi's father, immediately after they were spoken. Because of their uniqueness, we've kept them in their original style of language, which my Rabbi so eagerly absorbed and upon which he based his schoolings. For our English readers we've translated some of the essays and will continue to do so until the work is done. May these essays promote you on your spiritual path.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD

Explains the issue of Tzimtzum Aleph, when Ohr Ein Sof became restricted in order to emanate the Ne’etzalim and create the creatures; containing five issues...

Every person is obliged to attain the root of his soul. This means that the aspired-for purpose of the created being is Dvekut (adhesion) with His qualities, “As He is merciful, etc..” His qualities are the Holy Sefirot, and this is the acting mind that guides His world and by which it allots them His benevolence and abundance...

This is to speak of the bond when all of Israel became responsible for one another. Because the Torah was not given to them before each of them was asked if he would take upon himself the Mitzva (precept) of loving others in the full measure expressed in the words: “Love thy friend as thyself”. That means that each and every one in Israel took upon himself to care and work for each member of the nation and satisfy their every need; no less than the amount imprinted in him to care for his own needs...

The Book of Zohar is an age-old source of wisdom and the basis of much of Kabbalistic literature. Throughout the centuries it was the primary and often the only book used by Kabbalists and now it is accessible to contemporary man.

Double Concealment (concealment inside concealment)

In this state the person does not even feel the opposite side of the Creator, cannot perceive anything as coming from Him. He feels that the Creator abandoned him, disregards him completely. He attributes suffering to destiny and blind nature. Being confused by the Creator’s attitude to him, man loses faith.

In this article I would like to resolve three issues: A. What is the essence of religion? B. Whether its essence is attained in this world, or to the next world? C. Whether its purpose is to benefit the Creator, or the creatures?

At first glance, the reader might be surprised by my words, and will not understand these three questions that I have set before me as the topic of this essay. For whom is it who does not know what religion is, and especially its rewards and punishments, which are destined to come primarily in the afterlife? And we need not mention the third issue, for everyone knows that it is to benefit the creatures and to guide them to delight and happiness, and what else need we add to that?..

Before I go about elucidating the history of the wisdom of Kabbalah, conversed upon by many, I find it necessary to begin with a thorough clarification of the essence of this wisdom, which I believe so few know. And naturally, it is impossible to speak of the history of some thing before we know the thing itself.

Although this knowledge is wider and deeper than the ocean, I will make an utmost effort, with all the strength and knowledge I have acquired in this field, to clarify and illuminate it from all angles, enough for any soul to draw the right conclusions, as they truly are, leaving no room for error, as is often the case in such matters...

These words need to be clarified. Because how is the matter of reception of the Torah related to one’s freedom from death? Furthermore, once they have attained an eternal body that cannot die, through the reception of the Torah, how did they lose it again, can the eternal become absent?

The basis for all my explanations is the desire to receive, which is imprinted in every creature, which is the difference in form from the Creator. Therefore, the soul has been separated from it, like an organ which has been separated from a body. Since a difference in form in spirituality is like an ax which cuts things apart in corporeal life.

The above statement, although it is one of the most famous and cited sayings, it is still unexplained to everyone with all its vastness. That is because the word rule (or collective) indicates a sum of details that relates to the above rule, that each and every detail carries a part within it in a way that the gathering of all the details together creates that rule (or collective)...

But since I am not an enthusiast of formative philosophy, as I dislike studies that are theoretically based, and it is well known that most of my contemporaries agree with me, for we are too experienced with such foundations and know them to be rickety, and when the foundation fluctuates, the whole construction tumbles down. Therefore, I have come here to speak only through critique of empiric reason, starting from the simple recognition no one disagrees with, through proving analytically, until we come to determining the uppermost topic. And it will be tested synthetically by seeing how His work is confirmed and reaffirmed by simple recognition from the practical aspect...

The wisdom of Kabbalah concerns the revelation of Godliness, arranged on its path in all its aspects—those that have emerged in the worlds and those that are destined to be revealed, and in all the manners that can ever appear in the worlds, to the end of time...

Philosophy has gone through a great deal of trouble to prove that corporeality is the offspring of spirituality and that the soul begets the body. Still, their words are not acceptable to the heart in any manner. Their primary mistake is their erroneous perception of spirituality, that spirituality fathered corporeality, which is certainly a fib...

Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before, meaning the revelation and concealment of the face of the Creator, for indeed “His kingdom ruleth over all,” and everything will return to its root because there is no place vacant of him. But the difference is in present tense or future tense, because he who connects the two worlds, discovers in the present His clothing: that everything that is done is a clothing for the revelation of divinity...

For a long time now my conscience has burdened me with a demand to come out and compose a fundamental composition regarding the essence of Judaism, religion, and the wisdom of Kabbalah, and spread it among the nation, so people will come to know and properly understand these exalted matters in their true meaning...