The Path of
the Ladder
Principles in the Service of God
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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
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This booklet is an extract from the forthcoming spiritual biography of
Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag by Rabbi Avraham Mordecai Gottlieb
©Nehora Press 2012
Nehora Press: A Resource center for the work of Rabbi Yehudah Lev
Ashlag and his son Rabbi Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlag
http://www.nehorapress.com
Returning Light Meditation
The image on the cover art was created by Avraham Loewenthal, an
artist, resident in Safed Israel, whose work is inspired by the Kabbalah
of Rabbi Ashlag. His art may be found at http://www.kabbalahart.
com
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
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Contents
Introduction 7
1. God is Good and does good 9
2. The purpose of creation
9
3. The purpose of creation created the will to receive
9
4. The opposition of form that exists between the Creator and the
created being 9
5. The essence of good and the essence of evil 10
6. The rectification of the will to receive via the mind through faith,
and via the heart through service 12
7. The recognition of evil 29
8. The threefold cord: love of friends, love of the Sage, and love of
God
31
9. Service of God 36
10. The way of Torah and the way of suffering 39
11. The surrounding society tends to influence us unduly 48
12. Ascents and descents are part of our spiritual progress 49
13. The left-hand side and the right-hand side 52
14. Everything in the Torah is within us 56
Biography
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Introduction
If you will walk in My statues and keep my commandments...
(Leviticus 26:3)
The principles brought here are practical ways of serving God, which
Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag (the Baal haSulam) taught his students. At
no time did he ever teach the wisdom of the Kabbalah as technical information divorced from Torah and mitzvot, but he taught the wisdom of
the Kabbalah as a means by which a person may come to give benefit
unconditionally to his fellow man and to his Maker.
The Baal haSulam received this system of service to God from his
teachers, the holy Sages of Kaloshin, Prosov and Belz. It is a system that
he acquired through immense labour and superhuman effort during
the years of his youth, through which he came to dvekut, that is unity
with God, when the secrets of the Torah and its intimate details were
revealed to him.
It is certain that our teacher did not invent this system of inner work,
but he received it from his teachers, which they themselves received,
in an unbroken tradition stretching all the way back to our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Moses; the Prophets; the Sages of the
Talmud; the Ari; the Baal Shem Tov; the Gaon of Vilna; and Rabbi
Moshe Chayim Luzatto. Our holy Rabbi, the Baal haSulam merited to
find favour in the eyes of God and obtained permission from Above to
reveal these holy matters that concern the service of God, which he did
with tremendous clarity, and in a form that is suitable for our generation—the generation that precedes the coming of the Messiah.
The purpose of this e-book is to give us access to these principles of
the service of God within the context of our daily life: in the office, in
the supermarket, in the bank, and in the home, so we may uphold them,
not only during our periods of study, but at all times.
However, it is not our intention to present these principles as axioms
separate from the study of the Torah. On the contrary, the only chance
we have of actually succeeding in carrying them out, is through the labor
in Torah. Rabbi Baruch Ashlag writes, in a letter to one of his students:
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Introduction
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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1. God is Good and does good
The first principle is that God is Good and does good. As it is written: “He is Good and does good to both the evildoers and those who
do good.” (Hazarat haShatz Musaf Yom Kippur). He does not need to receive
pleasure at all, since He is whole and perfect in every possible way. From
whom could the One receive anything?
Thus we see that God has no need to receive joy or pleasure because
such a desire would imply that He has a lack or is imperfect, which is
not the case.
2. The purpose of creation
The second principle is that God wants to give benefit to the created
beings. The essence of this benefit is the revelation of Himself to the
created beings, because there exists no greater joy for the created being
that can be greater or more wonderful than the conscious knowledge of
the Creator, even in a limited measure.
3. The purpose of creation created the will to receive
Since He desired to give benefit to the created beings, He created in the
souls a will to receive good and joy, because only then can they receive
the good that He wants to give them, as without will or desire it is
impossible to receive the good. Likewise, in the physical world we see
that the more a person longs for something, so is the greatness of his joy
when he receives it.
4. The opposition of form that exists between the Creator and the created being
Since it is the will of the Creator to benefit the created beings only in
order to give them benefit, and He has no will to receive, and since the
desire of the created beings is to receive pleasure and joy, we find that
there exists an opposition of form between the Creator and the created
beings. This causes the created beings to become distanced from the
Creator.
As we see in the physical world: If two people have opposite attributes
and ideas then they cannot join together with each other. Likewise, in
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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 principle ideas: 1) subduing the will to receive for oneself and 2) acquiring 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 iniquities 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 putting 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 accounting, 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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And so the Talmud teaches (Masechet Nazir 23a):
Rabba the son of Bar Chana said, in the name of Rabbi Yochanan,
“What is the meaning of the Scripture, ‘For the ways of God are
straight, and the righteous shall walk in them, but the transgressors
shall stumble in them.’ (Hosea 14:10)? It is like two people who roasted
their paschal sacrifice. One eats for the sake of the mitzvah, and one
eats for the sake of enjoying the food. The one who eats for the sake
of the mitzvah is referred to in the Scripture as ‘and the righteous
shall walk in them,’ and the one who eats for the sake of the food is
referred to as, ‘and the transgressor shall stumble in them.’ ”
The commentator, the Meiri, says on this, “The righteous do their
actions for the sake of Heaven, until through their actions they apprehend the glory of their Creator; but the wicked carry out the mitzvot by
rote, without intention, and so they only gain bodily pleasure through
their actions.”
The Meiri is not talking here about people who desecrate the Sabbath
or eat food which is unfit (treifah), but he is designating as wicked those
who are not interested in considering the true essence of the practice of
the Torah and the mitzvot and what is required in keeping them according to their essence.
6. The rectification of the will to receive via the mind through faith,
and via the heart through service
The will to receive is the basic constitution of a person and expresses
itself in the person in two ways:
1) via the mind: A person wants to know and understand the purpose
for, and the logical consequence of, every act of his. For it is through the
intelligent understanding of matters that the will to receive gets pleasure. This is not the case when a person performs an act whose purpose
or use he does not understand. This causes him suffering.
2) via the heart: This concerns the sensual will to receive, which is
part of every person’s make-up, which desires to sense and feel pleasure
and delight in the different situations in this world, through the animal
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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 benefit 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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to obligate a person to establish his life on giving benefit to his fellow, in
actual practice, without which closeness to God is impossible.
b) Faith in the reality of God as the root of all; faith that only He can
give us faith in Him; faith that His Divine Providence is present at
all times and in every detail. This faith is designated as accepting the
yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven (that is the reality of the Divine providence) in the paradigm of faith, which is higher than the paradigm of
knowledge.
A person should educate himself to behave in a way that is fitting for
one who is in the presence of the King, the King of Kings. (In the language
of the Kabbalah, this means the ultimate channel of Good). He needs to visualize
for himself how he would behave, speak, and think, if he were in the
presence of a very great man. Similarly, he needs to conduct himself in
no lesser way in the presence of the King of Kings.
Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag writes in the Book Shamati (article 209)
as follows:
A person who sits in his house is not like someone who is in the
presence of a king. A person’s faith has to be of the quality that he
should be feeling the entire day as if he is in the presence of the King.
Then he would certainly have both Yirat haShem (the fear of being
separate from God) and Ahavat haShem, (love of God) in a complete manner. So long as he or she did not reach this level of emunah
(faith) he should not rest. As we say in the daily prayers, “With everlasting Love you have loved your people the House of Israel, You
have taught us Torah and mitzvot, statutes and laws. Therefore, O
Lord our God, when we lie down and when we rise up we will meditate in Your statutes and we will rejoice in the world of Your Torah
and Your mitzvot for ever and ever. For they are our life and the
length of our days and in them we will meditate day and night, and
never remove Your love from us for ever. Blessed are You who loves
His people Israel.” (evening prayer) And if the person were to so act,
then for sure he would never wish to receive for himself alone. The
longing for faith needs to be woven into his limbs until it becomes
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second nature, according to the phrase, “when I remember Him, He
doesn’t let me sleep!”
Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag further writes (in Shamati article 211):
Whoever believes in the reality of the holy Blessed One that all the
world is filled with His glory, then he is filled both with Yirat haShem,
(fear of being separated from God) and with Ahavat haShem the love
for God. Such a person does not require any preparation of meditation, since he places God first naturally. Just like we see in the physical world: When a person truly loves his companion, then he thinks
on and longs for his friend’s benefit. He stops himself from doing
any action which would not benefit his friend. This is done naturally,
without thinking about it. One doesn’t need any great intellect for
this, because this is natural, just like the way a mother loves her child,
that all she desires is the best for her child, and she doesn’t require
any conscious preparation to love her son. Because something that
is natural does not need intellect to compel the matter, but one’s
actions come forth from our instincts. Our natural instincts themselves work to such a degree that it is in our nature that we are ready
to sacrifice ourselves for the love of something, until we achieve our
purpose, and until we fulfill our purpose our lives are not worth
living. Therefore, whoever feels for himself as if he is standing before
the King certainly will achieve perfection, that is to say perfect faith
in the Creator. Until he feels that he is standing before the King then
he doesn’t have complete faith (God forbid).
Here we need to distinguish two modalities:
1) If a person acts in order to gain a reward in this world, whether it be
money or honor or even just a good feeling, or, if he acts in order to gain
a reward in the next world, then his will to receive for himself alone
doesn’t oppose him so much. This is because his focus is not actually on
the holy Blessed One, who is the Giver, but he is only looking at what
he will receive.
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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 providence, 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 pleasure 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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Our teacher Rabbi Baruch Ashlag further said,
The process of accepting Malchut Shamayim (that is to say, the Divine
providence, that everything that happens comes from God) is through ups and
downs, like we see in the moon that waxes and wanes, and whose
spiritual root is the Sephirah Malchut. Our intellect thinks that a
person can progress from stage to stage just by going up, without
any intervening falls. But in fact this is not so. As it is written, “as
the light is seen more clearly when it comes from within the dark”
(Ecclesiastes 2:13).It is in fact impossible to see the light except from
within the dark. Just as we see in the physical world: If a person is
very thirsty and is suffering on account of his thirst, then when he
gets water he feels pleasure and gives thanks to God for the water.
The most distinct factor in actualizing one’s faith in God, that He is the
Source of all, and that all is conducted by Him, is if a person is prepared
to work without getting a reward. Just the fact of serving God is his
reward and joy.
As we see in the physical word, a person is prepared to minister to the
great Sage of the generation without receiving payment. Not only that,
but it often happens that people are prepared to pay for the privilege of
so doing. How much more so is the case in spirituality with regard to
serving God!
This is the language of the Tanna (a Sage at the time of the Mishnah) quoted
in Ethics of the Fathers: (Chapter 1 mishnah 3)
Antigonus, of Socho, received the oral law from Simon the Righteous. He used to say, “Don’t be like slaves who serve the Master for
the sake of getting a reward, but be like slaves who serve the Master,
not for the sake of getting a reward. And may the awe of Heaven be
upon you.”
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Rabbi Chayim of Volozhyin, may his holy memory be for a blessing,
writes in his book Ruach Chayim:
Concerning a king’s servants: It is a well-known fact that whoever
is closest to the king takes a greater salary than a servant who is not
numbered amongst his favorites and who does not come into his
presence. This operates, because prior to his advancement he was
an important and honoured minister and because of his skill, his
wisdom, or his work, he increased in status until he became one
of the familiars of the court. But one who was born a peasant, and
who suddenly found favor in the sight of the king, who raised him
up, seating him first and placing him above all the other ministers,
would not consider requesting a further reward from the king for
his work. That would be wicked, since the king has already been so
gracious to him, making him his chief servant and allowing him to
stand in his presence with none higher than him.
It is a similar case regarding we human beings, who are so lowly
from our material aspect, in which we are like the primitive inhabitants of Canaan, of whom it is written, “my mother’s sons were
incensed against me,” (Song of Solomon. 1:6) yet He has elevated us to
the degree that we can serve Him and stand before Him, which is
such a great merit and sufficient reward! How could we possibly be
so brazen as to request a further reward for serving the holy Blessed
One?! And this is what it says: “Do not be like the servants who serve,
who stand before the Master and serve in His temple, yet request
more salary. But be like the lowly servants who serve the Master in
His temple, not for any gain.” Understand this deeply.
(Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag said more than once that the pupils of
the Gaon of Vilna, of whom Rabbi Chaim Volozhiyn was one, were all
Sages of great spiritual stature, who knew the matters of serving God in
depth.)
In connection with this, Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag taught that the
saying, “the reward of doing a mitzvah is another mitzvah” (Ethics of the
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Fathers chapter 4, mishnah 2), should be read, “the reward of the mitzvah is
the great merit of having been asked to do it!” The reward of those who
serve God is to merit more and more faith in the Creator as being the
Root of all, until they no longer ask anything for themselves, but the
service itself is their reward.
c) Faith that there is nothing other than God, according to the
Scripture, “You have shown us to know that the Lord is God, there is
none other than Him” (Deuteronomy 4:35). That is to say, that there is no
other reality in the world except God. A person needs to look at the
world from the perspective that all the people and the created beings
are bidden to act by God Himself and all their actions are ordained by
Him.
It follows that a person’s behavior has to be consonant with this perspective. For example, if someone hurts him, he has to consider that it
is not the person who hurt him, but it was God Himself. Therefore, if
he responds in a way that is insulting or belittling, it is as if he is belittling God Himself. Likewise, if a person tells a lie to someone, in fact he
is telling the lie to God, and so on. If someone were to act against him,
then since the person has to consider the action as coming from God,
he needs to receive the action with love and not get annoyed, because all
the actions of the Creator stem from His desire to give only benefit to
His created beings.
d) Faith that the Creator conducts the world according to His attribute that He is Good and does good. Even when a person sees that the
opposite is taking place, in his private life, in the life of the community,
or in the life of the nation as a whole, he has to believe that what he sees
is false. So long as he is given over to the governance of selfish love he
cannot see the truth that the Creator conducts the world according to
His attribute that He is Good and does good.
A person’s faith in the goodness of God needs to be expressed in practice through actions of joy and satisfaction in the way that God runs
the world. The person should not act in a way that conveys the opposite.
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In accordance with this Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag explained, “Why
was it that at the Baal haSulam’s table it was customary to drink wine
with the blessing, “He is Good and does good?” This was to remind
ourselves that this blessing is the greatest thing of all that a person can
believe, that the Creator is Good and does good.
e) Faith that God “hears the prayer of every mouth” (from the morning
prayer). The Baal haSulam said, this saying includes even the most lowly
mouth of all; that God hears prayer and God has within His power to
rescue even the lowliest person from his situation. Let not a person say
that God can only help someone who is not so down, but He has the
power to help even the lowest of the low. This faith has to be expressed
in practice, that a person should never despair of the help of God.
f ) Faith that all the spiritual descents are sent to us from Above. There
is purpose to spiritual descent. This may occur in order that a person
should gradually come to the recognition of the evil that is within him.
The evil within a person is only revealed to him from Above when he
has progressed sufficiently in his spiritual work to be able to cope with
it. The revelation of the evil within the person is in accordance with his
work. Only after the evil within the person has become completely clear
to him in its true measure can he give a prayer from the depth of his
heart that God should take him out of the pit of his exile and from the
rule of the seventy nations which lie within the heart.
A spiritual descent may also occur in order to give the person the
opportunity to serve God even when he cannot feel any taste for the
work. This means serving God unconditionally, as the Scripture says,
“Walk after me in a land that is not sown” ( Jeremiah 2:2). Faith gives the
person the power of commitment, so that he does not despair, but continues all his work in exactly the same way as he does when in a period
of spiritual ascent.
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Thus the Sage Rabbi Baruch Ashlag spoke on the anniversary of
Rabbi Yitzhak Agassi’s death:
A person needs to fulfil the mitzvah of “Love the Lord your God” in
two ways: 1)When he feels good and experiences a good feeling in
Torah and prayer, and 2) even when God takes his soul.
Because this is the way the Sages taught: (Berachot chapter 9 mishnah
5)“and with all your soul” means “even if He takes your life.” But one
needs to ask the question: if He takes the life of a person, then the
person can no longer serve Him. But one must understand this
teaching according to the service of God, that God takes from the
person the soul of Life, that is his life-force in Torah and prayer. He
takes away from him the taste of Torah and prayer. Then a person
has to work to reveal and to make manifest all his love for the Creator and to be happy even in his state of spiritual descent.
Further, the Sage, Rabbi Baruch Shalom said in the name of his father:
It is written, “All that the Master of the House tells you to do, do,
except if He tells you to leave” (Pesachim 86:). That is to say a person
needs to cleave to the Creator in such a way that everything the
Creator tells him to do he does, except if He tells him to go out of
the framework of holiness, then he mustn’t listen to Him. And this
matter is very deep and not everyone can tolerate this thought.
He further said:
When a person is in a state of spiritual descent, he has two options:
either to concentrate on the descent itself, or to focus on the One
who gave the descent to him. The distance between these two possibilities is as the distance between east and west. For the place where
a person puts his mental focus is the place where he is in actuality.
Therefore, if a person is connecting with his thought to the state of
the descent itself, then he is connecting to a negative state of consciousness, and it is not possible from the negative to connect with
what is blessed. Therefore, if a person is connecting to the One who
gave the descent, then he is one with the Creator, May He be blessed,
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and remains totally connected, and thus, in practice. is already saved
from the descent.
g) Faith in the greatness of the eternal God; complete faith in His
perfect attributes, with the intention to rejoice in even the smallest
contact that a person merits in spirituality. For there is a general principle, that in order for a person to receive satisfaction from something
of low quality he requires a large quantity; but for a person to receive
satisfaction from something of a high quality, even a small quantity will
suffice.
The higher the quality, the smaller the quantity that suffices to give
happiness. For example, a person wishes to bring a wedding gift: If he
decides to bring gravel he would need tons for it to be a gift… . If he
brings iron he needs a smaller amount. If he were to bring gold, two
hundred grams would be enough. And if it were diamonds, fifty grams
would suffice.
In an analogous way we see that the more a person develops faith
in the greatness of God’s love and feels the importance of the Creator
within himself, the more he can be happy and the more he can value
even the smallest aspect that appertains to holiness—even the smallest
word or deed—even if he does not yet have the requisite intention.
Our holy teacher, the Baal haSulam, spoke frequently on this subject, and many times mentioned that we need to be happy and joyful,
even when we are practicing Torah “not for its own sake”. We cannot
estimate how important this work is, even regarding Torah that is
practiced “not for its own sake”. We are simply unable to estimate how
important any act of spirituality is. Rabbi Baruch Ashlag emphasized
this point on many occasions, teaching that it is a key for happiness,
and one that shows the measure of faith a person has in God. He often
said, if a person were to come to the Beit haMidrash (study hall) or to
the synagogue, but he didn’t manage to learn any Torah, nevertheless
he should still be very happy, since God gave him the merit of having
a good thought. Just imagine how many millions of people there are in
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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 disruptions 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 opposition 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 cleaving 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. However, 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 inclination comes to the person and tells him, “don’t do it, everything
comes from God,” and after performing the good deed the evil inclination 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 oneself 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, without 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 serving 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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j) Faith in the greatness of the other students. As Rabbi Ashlag writes
in his book Matan Torah:
Every student needs to regard himself as the least amongst the students, and then he will be able to acquire a feeling of the greatness of
the Sage from all of them. This is because a person who feels himself to be greater cannot receive from one who he considers to be
lesser than him, especially with regard to being moved by his words.
Only one who feels himself to be lesser, is influenced by one who
he esteems as being greater. Thus every student needs to value and
love his fellow student to the utmost, and regard him with the same
esteem as one who is the greatest teacher of the generation. (Matan
Torah: essay on the conclusion of the Zohar.)
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, according 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 selfish 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 negation 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)
(It is important to understand that here Rabbi Ashlag is relating only to
other students who are working in the same way, of wanting to nullify
their will to receive for oneself alone, in order to come closer to God.
Although love of one’s fellow-man in general, is an important principle
in Judaism, he is not advocating that one should see everyone we come
into contact with as greater than oneself, because that would cause confusion and a low self-esteem, leading the person off the way rather than
helping him on it. However, by negating his own will to that of others,
who are similarly working on themselves, enables the student to learn
ways of giving benefit that may not be obvious to him and adds great
powers of motivation and strength to persevere on the path)
k) Faith that the way to come to dvekut (affinity of form) with the
Creator is through faith in which a person goes, at every stage of his life,
against his logic, against his knowledge, against his emotional feeling.
For the rectification of the heart—the service of giving benefit to
one’s fellow
A person should take whatever he himself desires and give it to his
fellow man. This is in order to arrive at love of one’s fellow, and from
here to love of one’s teacher, and to love of God. This is according to the
commandment of “Love your neighbor as yourself ” (Leviticus 19:18). So
a person, in a systematic and orderly way would begin to consider the
needs and lacks of his companions, he would be concerned about what
bothers his friend and he should try to help him to the same extent that
he would help himself. Similarly, he should participate in the joys of his
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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 completed 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 intention 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 paragraph 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 important 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 connection 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 interested 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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7. The recognition of evil
In practice, this is the first rung on the ladder achieved through the light
that is in Torah and mitzvot. As the Sages said, (Midrash Bereishit Rabah
perush 44): “The mitzvot were only given in order to purify the created
beings.” Our teacher, the Baal haSulam writes (Matan Torah “The essence of
Religion and its Purpose”):
The practice of the mitzvot purifies the practitioner in a gradual and
slow process, in which the measure of the recognition of the evil that
is within us, marks the criterion of the stages of purification.
Explanation: When a person sets as a target for himself, that he wants
to attain dvekut, affinity of form, with the Divine, and starts to work
in a true way on the points that are explicated here, then he begins to
see just how far he is from a true faith in God. He sees that his will to
receive does not in any way agree to accept the authority of the Holy
Blessed One. He also discovers just how far he is from love of his fellow
man, and that he is addicted to his own selfish love. The more that a
person works on himself, the more it is revealed to him just how great
the power of his will to receive that is in him actually is. His will to
receive for himself alone rules over his entire life without any inhibitions, and does not allow him to cleave with everlasting love to the King,
may He be blessed. This recognition is incredibly painful and brings the
person to a deep bitterness. However it is, in itself, also the vessel for
the salvation of God.
The Zohar tells that the children of Israel were not redeemed from
Egypt until they had reached the forty-ninth level of uncleanness (Zohar
Hadash Yitro Perush haSulam paragraph 3). This implies that they had reached
the greatest recognition of the evil within them that exists in reality. We
see that when a person starts to work in order to come to the service of
God he expects to progress from stage to stage, to reach the heights of
holiness. But actually the opposite happens. He first treads on a hard
and painful path of discovering the truth about himself. Only subsequently can he get his full tikkun.
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As Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag said:
“When a person arrives at the recognition of the evil within him, one
can discern two stages: 1) that he is in distress 2) that he is happy
now that God has revealed to him the evil that is within him. These
are two opposite states that occur in one subject, but the person
experiences them at different times. First, a person is in distress and
prays to God from the depth of his heart. After that he needs to
be in wholeness and happiness. Then he can receive the answer to
his prayer from God. And this is the inner meaning of the words,
“Make me wise through my enemies” (Psalm 119:98), that through this
a person knows and recognizes that he has enemies within him.
Already, this is a big step forward, because now he is able to fight
them. This is the inner meaning of the teaching of the Holy Baal
Shem Tov, that a man needs the service of the heart, because the
service of the heart brings a person to feel that he is in a low place.
Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag explained the phrase, “Everyone who pursues glory, glory will escape him” (after Eruvin 13b):
Whoever pursues the glory of Heaven and wants to feel the glory of
the King, then such glory will escape him. Because if previously he
felt distant from God at a measure of say ten percent, now he feels
even further away. Therefore, the Sages said that a man should not
be alarmed if the glory of heaven escapes him, because God wants
him to come to the stage of the recognition of the evil within him.
The harder a person works, the more he comes to know that he is
worse than everybody else. But even though he sees his own lowliness he needs to believe that the salvation of God is like a twinkling of the eye. And a man should not say, “I am so despicable and
lowly that even the Holy Blessed One could not, or would not, want
to help me.” This is completely false. It is as if to say that the Holy
Blessed One only has it within His power to help people with skills
and who have powers of prevailing over their will to receive, but for
low and base people God doesn’t have power to help?! (written in the
year 5749)
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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 oncea-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 disciples 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 fullest 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 justify 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 situation 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 connection 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 ultimate 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 mitzvah 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 greatness 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 continually 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 allegory 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 commensurate 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 gratitude 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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Between a person and his or her fellow
“A person should judge every person favorably.” This saying of the Sages,
(Rashi on Leviticus 19:15) teaches
us that we should also work to give benefit to every person and not just to our companions or to our fellow
students. Certainly this is true. Sometimes God provides us with the
opportunity to act kindly or give charity. If that happens, of course we
should seize such an opportunity with both hands.
However, the acts that a person initiates from his part, should focus
primarily on those who are trying, like himself, to work on leaving their
selfish love.
9. Service of God
In general we can discern four stages that take place with regard to a
person’s service to God.
Receiving for the sake of receiving
This means that a person desires to receive pleasure and joy according to
the nature that God gave him. He naturally wants to fill his lacks with
pleasuring his own self. This is hinted at in the verse “Man was born as
a wild ass,” ( Job 11:12) implying that a person was born in affinity of form
with the animal. Just as an animal wants to fulfil its appetites, so does
the human when he is in this stage, which is designated as klipah (a light
which sustains the evil) and uncleanness. However, this type of receiving is limited, because the satisfaction gained extinguishes the joy, and
thus limits it, and also because of the shame that is at the root of this
type of receiving.
Giving for the sake of receiving
This stage is an intermediary stage between holiness and uncleanness,
and it is designated in the language of the Sages as “the practice of
Torah that is conducted not for its own sake.” That is, a person gives to
his fellow or gives to God but he is not actually acting out of love for his
fellow man or out of love for God, but he is giving because he wants to
gain some reward. Therefore his actions at this stage are still considered
as those which are being performed for his own self-benefit.
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Giving benefit for the sake of giving benefit
This stage is designated as being completely holy. It is called in the language of the Sages, “actions that are done for the sake of Heaven”. It is
within the power of the human being to act in order to give benefit to
his fellow man, or to give to God, solely out of love for his fellow human
or out of love for God. At this stage he is acting out of pure concern for
the other and does not desire to receive anything for his trouble neither
in this world nor in the next world.
Concerning this our teacher, the holy Baal haSulam said:
A man needs to work, like an ox to the yoke and as a donkey to the
burden. The donkey and the ox work, and their masters gain from
their work, but the ox and the donkey do not share in the gain. In
like manner so should a person not desire to share in any gain that
comes through his service to the Creator, may the Name of the One
be Blessed.
The Rambam wrote: (Laws of Repentance, Law 5)
One who engages in Torah in order to earn a reward or to avoid
punishment, is doing so for an ulterior motive. But one who doesn’t
engage in Torah out of fear, or in order to earn a reward, but as a
consequence of his love for the Lord of the universe, who so commanded him, is doing so for its own sake. Nevertheless, as the Sages
said, “Always practice the Torah, even if its not for its own sake, for
from the practice of ‘not for its own sake’ will come the practice of
Torah for its own sake.” (Pesachim 50b). And so when one instructs children, women, or illiterates, he should train them to serve God out
of fear of being separated from God or to serve God for a reward
until they become more knowledgeable and grow wiser. And then
he should expose them to the secret of practising Torah for its own
sake very, very slowly, and accustom them to it patiently, until they
can grasp and understand it, and serve God out of love.
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Rabbi Baruch Ashlag explained this statement of the Rambam as
follows:
Children, women, and illiterates, are different aspects found within
a person, and this phrase is not meant to be taken literally but these
are aspects within every person who is still governed by his will to
receive for himself alone.
However, the stage of ‘giving for the sake of giving’ is not the final destination. Although ‘giving for the sake of giving’ is the stage in which the
person reaches dvekut with God, because this stage is in affinity of form
with God, this does not fulfil the purpose of creation. The Creator’s
purpose in the creation is to give the created beings all the good and joy,
which they should receive, and therefore we find that one further stage
is required.
Receiving with the intention of giving benefit
This stage of service to God is the stage in which all the conditions are
met for the purpose of creation to be fulfilled. The person receives from
God according to His will to give. The person does not receive for himself alone, but only receives from Him, because by doing so he is giving
to God the pleasure of fulfilling His purpose. In this way the person is
in complete dvekut with God, even whilst, and because, he is receiving
pleasure and joy.
At this stage the person receives because he wants to give pleasure to
God. Now there is no limit to the amount he can receive, for a person
cannot say, “I have already given enough to God,” and since the medium
with which he can give pleasure to God is through the fact that he
receives pleasure and joy from Him according to His will, we see that
there is, in fact, no end to such receiving.
The true test as to whether a person is receiving for the love of God,
and not in order to supply his own self-love, occurs when a person is
serving God with all his heart, putting his utmost into it just from the
love of God, while from his part he is quite prepared, if God wills it,
that all the reward goes to someone else. From this, one can really see
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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 recognizes 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 written 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 inevitably 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 similarity 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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which is based on experiential knowledge acquired by critical analysis of situations that arise in practice. This ethical law is in essence a
summary of the damage that has become obvious to us and which
is caused by the core of egoism within us. These experiences came
to us seemingly by chance, without our intending them or choosing
them. However, they are sure in their purpose, because the character that evil takes becomes clearer to our senses. According to the
measure that we recognize the damage the evil causes, we remove
ourselves from it and thus arrive at a higher rung on the ladder.
The second force pulls us consciously, that is through the power
of our own choice. This force pulls us forward from ahead. We have
designated this force as being the path of Torah and mitzvot for the
sake of giving benefit. For through the practice of the mitzvot and the
work of giving satisfaction to the Creator we find that there develops
within us, with marvellous rapidity, the same sense of recognition
of the evil. We thereby profit in two ways: Firstly, we do not have
to wait for the vicissitudes of life to push us from behind, for the
incentive they give rise to is measured only by the amount of pain
and destruction they cause us, which comes upon us through the
presence of the evil within us. Through the path of service to God,
may the One be blessed, the same recognition of the evil within us
develops without any prior suffering or destruction. On the contrary,
through the pleasantness and refinement that we feel at the time of
our pure service to God, which we do only in order to give satisfaction to Him, there develops within us a relative ability to recognize
the baseness of the sparks of light that we gain through selfish love,
that hinder us on our j ourney towards receiving this refined taste of
serving the One unconditionally. This gradual sense of the recognition of the evil increases and develops within us through the periods
of delight and great tranquility we receive periodically, consequent
on our service to God, may the One be blessed, and from our experiencing the pleasantness and refinement that comes to us consequent
on our affinity of form with our Creator. Secondly, we save time, as
this process functions with our intent, and we have it within our
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ability to increase our practice of Torah and mitzvot, and so hurry up
the time our healing takes as much as we wish.
Suffering is something all human beings undergo, and we all wonder
why, and when it comes upon us we try to find a way to deal with it.
It deserves the fullest possible explanation in order that a person may
understand how to consider it and how to respond to it.
The Baal haSulam writes as follows in the Introduction to the Zohar:
All these sufferings prevail only over our shell of a body, which, from
its creation, was destined only for death and burial. This teaches
us that the will to receive for oneself alone that is in the body was
likewise only created in order for us to blot it out, remove it from
the world, and transform it into the will to give. The sufferings that
we undergo are simply disclosures that reveal to us the futility and
damage that overlies the will to receive for oneself alone.
Let us see what it will be like when all humanity agrees unanimously to nullify and completely remove the will to receive for themselves alone that is within them, and they will then have no will
other than that of giving benefit to their companions. Then all our
worries, and all that is injurious to us, will vanish from the earth, and
all beings will be certain of healthy and full lives, since each one of
us will have a whole world looking out for us and fulfilling our needs.
It is from the fact that all are chasing after their own will to receive
for themselves that all the sufferings and the wars, the slaughters and
the holocausts, from which we have no refuge, originate. Our bodies
become weakened with all kinds of illnesses and pains. Yet all the
sufferings of our world are only warning lights to push us into doing
this work of nullifying the evil shell of the body and receiving the
perfected form of the will to give. As we have said, the way of suffering itself has the capacity to bring us to the desired form of the body.
Rabbi Ashlag further writes: (Perush haSulam Zohar Bereishit B paragraph 103)
For the Sages have said, “There was no joy before Him like unto the
day that the heaven and the earth were created.” This means that all
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the created beings of the world exist in their complete perfection, to
such an extent that there was no joy before Him like unto the day
the heavens and the earth were created. However, it is impossible for
a human being to participate in God’s great joy until he has come to
the complete teshuvah (transformation) from love. (He has achieved
the stage of the will to receive with the intention of giving benefit.)
Before this he can neither rejoice in himself nor in the created beings
of the world. On the contrary, the person feels the world, with which
he is confronted, to be full of suffering and pain, until he says, (as in
Job 9:24), “the land is given over to the wicked.” Both bodily pain and
emotional pain, which are caused by the sins that people do, come to
them because they are going along a path that is contrary to the purpose of creation. For the world was created according to the inner
intention of giving unconditionally, that is for us to practise Torah
and good deeds in order to give pleasure to the Creator, and not for
pleasuring ourselves, as it is written, “All that God creates is for His
sake” (Proverbs 15:4), that is to say, in order that the created beings
should give Him pleasure.
But in the beginning, “A human being is born as a wild ass” ( Job
11:12), which means that the only thing that interests a person is to
pleasure himself and he has no desire to give benefit to another at all.
Thus the person maintains, “Everything that God made, He made
for me and my self-enjoyment,” and therefore he wants to swallow
the world, and all that is in it, for his own good and his own purpose.
Therefore, the Creator implanted harsh and bitter suffering to be
inherent in the matter of receiving for oneself alone, which is the
nature a human being has from birth, including both physical and
emotional suffering. If he were to occupy himself with Torah and
mitzvot, even for his own pleasure, through the light that is in them
he would, at least, perceive the paucity and the dreadful destructive
nature of the will to receive for oneself alone. Then the person may
give his heart over to the issue of separating himself from the nature
of this type of receiving, and dedicate himself completely to working,
solely with the intention of giving pleasure to the Creator, according
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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 themselves 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 experience, and is the source of all our arrogant acts and mistakes over
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which we stumble. It is obvious that if we were able to remove this
one single cause, then we would instantly be free of all our suffering,
and we would immediately merit to cleave to God with all our heart,
soul and might. I say to you that this root cause is none other than
the minimal understanding that we possess of the way that God
involves Himself in the life of His creatures, which is termed His
Divine Providence. We do not understand Him as is fitting.
Let us imagine how the world would be were God to relate to us
in a completely open way. Suppose, for example, a Jew ate something
that was not kosher. It would cause him or her to choke immediately on the spot. Equally, anyone who performed a mitzvah would
straight away experience the most wondrous ecstasy equivalent to
the best possible delights of this physical world. Of course, under
these circumstances, no Jew would contemplate even tasting something that was not kosher if he or she knew for certain that it would
cause them to lose their life. One would no more think of doing such
a thing than one would of jumping into a fire! In the same way, who
would miss an opportunity of running to perform a mitzvah as fast
as they could? It would be just like a person, who, when offered a
great material delight, cannot refrain or hesitate, but runs to accept
it with all the alacrity he or she can muster. Therefore, if the Divine
Providence were to be openly manifest, everyone in the world would
be a complete tzaddik.
So you can see, then, that in our world, all we lack is that Divine
Providence should be revealed. If the Divine Providence were
revealed, then all human beings would be complete tzaddikim. All
would cleave to God in total love. It would be considered the greatest honor for each one of us to be friends with God and to love Him
with all our heart and soul, cleaving to Him continually, never missing a moment.
However, this is not the case. There is a basic principle in Jewish
thought that we do not see the reward of mitzvot in this world. Similarly, we do not witness the punishment of sinners. God appears to
have great patience with them. Sometimes it even seems to us that
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we see exactly the opposite, just as the Psalmist observed, “Behold
these are the wicked. Always at ease, they increase in riches” (Psalms
73:12).
The consequence of this is that not everyone who wants to profess
a true relationship with God is able to do so. We stumble over every
step, to the extent that the sages, commenting on, “I have found
one man out of a thousand” (Ecclesiastes 7:28), said that if a thousand
people enter to learn, only one will emerge as fit for instruction. The
right understanding of God’s relationship to His creation is the
source of all good, and its wrong understanding, the root cause of
all evil. So we find that this understanding is the still point around
which all people revolve, attracting to themselves either correction or
kindness.
In his Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sephirot, Rabbi Ashlag asks:
“Why does the Holy Blessed One hide himself?” That is to say why does
He not reveal Himself immediately to the created beings? Why is He
concealed from us at first?
The reason is, that there is no way for the created beings to merit the
light of God if He did not first behave towards us in the modality of
concealment. We see that God conceals Himself so that the person who
is suffering will search and wonder, Why do I not feel all the goodness
and the joy that I should be feeling, since God is Good and does good to
His creatures? When he searches within, he will discover that he cannot
feel the joy and the good, because he is not putting his intention for the
sake of Heaven, but all his actions are motivated by selfish love.
Summary: the suffering and pain that we feel in this world come
about because we are sunk in our own selfish love. The rule of such love
is, “Whoever has one portion will want two hundred!” We see that a
person lives continually in a state of lack of satisfaction and emptiness
and his desire is never fulfilled. However if he lives in order to give benefit to his fellow human being then he has joy and satisfaction.
When a person lives on the basis of selfish love we find that he always
takes more than his capacity to receive really is, and this causes him
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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 constant 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 difficulty 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 wonderful 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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King of Kings, (the ultimate channel of Good) according to the dictum
from the Talmud (Sotah 14a), “How can one cleave to Him, behold He is
a flaming fire? As He is merciful and compassionate, so you be merciful
and compassionate,” and we gain true joy. Now we are able to receive
all the good and joy that God prepared for us. We cannot receive the
good and the joy in order to fulfill our selfish love. We may only receive
them for the sake of giving Him the pleasure of fulfilling His purpose
of Creation.
If we believe that all these sufferings are for our own benefit, then we
can accept them all with love, and are saved tremendous pain.
11. The surrounding society tends to influence us unduly
A person is a social creature. Therefore, he is influenced by the society
around him. However, those who check their actions, their speech and
their thoughts, sifting them, concerned as to whether their behavior is in
affinity of form with God or not, need to be careful about the influence
of the prevailing society. Generally speaking, the default consciousness
of the prevailing society is that of the will to receive for oneself alone.
Unfortunately, it is easy to get off the path of the inner work, since a
person’s will to receive (including his physical body) opposes the way of
giving unconditionally, and a person does not find it easy to overcome it.
Undue and pervasive influence from the surrounding society, if it is following an opposite path, is thus detrimental, and a person needs to take
appropriate steps not to identify with a society that pursues opposite
aims than his own.
12. Ascents and descents are part of our spiritual progress
The human being, unlike the animal, suffers from “ups” and “downs”.
The name “Adam”, the human being, connotes one who tries to become
like His Creator, in the inner meaning of, “Just as He is merciful and
compassionate, so you be merciful and compassionate.” (Talmud Sotah 14a)
But if the person’s effort in Torah and mitzvot is based on his selfish
love, that is, it is based on receiving a reward in this world, or a reward
in the next world, then he doesn’t suffer these “ups and downs” in the
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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 conducts 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 bitterness 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 delicate 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 previous 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 tendency 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 tranquillity 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 righthand 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 occupied 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 designated 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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Thus the main part of a person’s work is that he should endeavor to
be happy before God, on the basis that his happiness is established
through affinity of form with God, and that he merited, in some way, to
come close to the Creator.
The second part of the person’s service should only occupy a small portion of his time, and is referred to as “night” or the left-hand side. This is
the time in which a person needs to look at himself and see how much
he has progressed in all the points which are important in the service
of God: the love of friends, the issue of faith, the issue of the fear of
being in separation from God, the love of God and so forth, as we have
learnt above. When a person sees that his situation is not good then he
can ask God for help. Therefore, this side is designated as the left-hand
side because the left-hand side denotes an aspect that requires correction, that is to say, tikkun.
The Sages asked, “Why do we place the tefillin on the left-hand side?”
(Talmud Menahot 36:) The Scripture says, “it should be for a sign on your
hand,” (Exodus 13:16) which, according to a hint in the text the Sages
understood as referring to the weaker hand. So we see that the left-hand
side symbolizes weakness. Also, as we learn from the Talmud, (Sotah 47)
the right hand brings close and the left hand pushes away, because the
criticism that the person makes when working on his left-hand side
shows him how far away he is from holiness.
Therefore, it is important for a person to walk according to these two
aspects of inner work. It is also important that the person learns to keep
them completely separate from each other. He should spend most of his
day practising the work of the right-hand side, not allowing himself at
all to think thoughts that belong to the left-hand side. If such thoughts
arise within him spontaneously, he should push them aside until the
time that he specified in advance for his work on the left-hand side. This
practice follows what King David said, “I will awaken the dawn” (Psalm
57), on which the Sages taught (Yerushalmi: Berachot 5a) “I will awaken the
dawn, but the dawn will not wake me.”
Our teacher, Rabbi Baruch Ashlag, explained this saying as follows:
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The word “dawn” (shahar) refers to darkness (shahor), which hints at
a person’s self-criticism of himself. Therefore a person needs to say,
“I will awaken the criticism at the times that I have set, and the criticism shall not come just when it wants,” according to the teaching of
the Sages, “I will awaken the dawn and the dawn will not awaken me.”
Through walking on these two paths of the left-hand side and the righthand side a person merits to advance in spirituality and connect with
God. The Talmud describes these two paths using the metaphor of
birth, “The father provides the white (the right-hand side) the mother
provides the red (the left-hand side) and the Holy Blessed One provides the holy soul” (Niddah 31a).
We also find these aspects alluded to in the sabbath song, “The righthand side and the left-hand side and the Bride between them.” That is
to say the holy Shechinah is found between these two lines, as is revealed
to whoever walks on both these paths.
Rabbi Baruch Ashlag asked, Why do we need the right-hand side and
the left-hand side?
We need them both, because a person cannot live from the negative.
From criticism and negativity a person could get to despair and sadness and finally come to a full stop in his service of God. So we need
to work primarily on the right-hand side. However, we also need the
work of the left-hand side, because a person needs to value the service of God, and if a person is satisfied with simply having a small
connection with God and is happy with that, then he does not lack
anything and will no longer try to progress.
But since the purpose of Creation states that God wishes to give
pleasure to the created beings, and therefore He desires that they
should receive from Him—and receiving is only possible if there is
a lack—we see that the attribute of being happy with one’s lot is not
sufficient to come to our ultimate purpose.
However, from negativity alone we cannot come to our ultimate
purpose, because from a consciousness that only consists of lack
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there is no motive to progress.
Rabbi Baruch Ashlag further said,
The right-hand side magnifies the left-hand side, and the left-hand
side magnifies the right-hand side. In the consciousness of the righthand side the person portrays for himself the great love of God and
how God gives him faith, and when he subsequently passes over to
the left-hand side he is able to look at himself accurately according
to the measure that he appreciates the greatness of God. He sees
that his own behavior really isn’t appropriate in the face of God’s
beneficence. And this increases his feeling of lack.
However, on the other hand, the more his feeling of inadequacy
grows, the more he needs to magnify his faith in the greatness of
God, as in the consciousness of the right-hand side, and this provides him with the motivation for his work. In this way, each line
fertilizes the other line.
We see that whoever walks on just one line, feels as if he is doing the
Creator a favour with every mitzvah he does and he wants a reward for
each action. He sees himself as important and the Creator as less so.
Walking on the two lines in harmony implies that the person attains the
greatness of the Creator and his own insignificance.
14. Everything in the Torah is within us
We have to divide the learning of the Torah into two modalities. 1) the
Torah of the many and 2) the Torah of the individual.
The “Torah of the many”, refers to the way of learning the Torah as if it
is talking about two separate people. For example, when the Torah talks
about Jacob and Esau, then this would imply that it is speaking about
two separate individuals, Jacob and Esau, who quarrelled. Or when it
is discussing the Children of Israel in Egypt, then it is talking about
two separate nations, the people of Israel, and the Egyptian people who
enslaved the Children of Israel. Most of the world learns the Torah in
this way. However, this approach often leads to difficulties, in that a
person finds it hard to feel any connection between himself and the stoPage 57
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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 generality 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 matters, 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 individual 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 elements 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 himself 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 publishes 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.
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