Description

Memoirs of Kabbalist Rav Michael Laitman, PhD on his teacher, Rabash (Rabbi Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag).

Transcript

Rabash was really the last of the Mohicans. And with every year that goes by since his passing, we see more and more that it really is so. No one of his stature has risen after him, either in scope or magnitude, and there are basically no Kabbalists at all these days. We are truly the last generation that’s fallen into a huge descent, and so out of this descent, there is just one way out: we have to ascend upward.

His father was the divine Kabbalist that founded the whole wisdom of Kabbalah for this generation. This is something that no one had ever done before him, in the entire history of Kabbalah. All the Kabbalists, up until Baal HaSulam, Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, used to write only for themselves, for those of their generation, and for those who were already in attainment of the wisdom.

In other words, hardly any Kabbalist prior to Baal HaSulam wrote Kabbalah for those who had no spiritual perception; who were not Kabbalists. Baal HaSulam was the first. He did it by writing the wisdom of Kabbalah in a language and in a particular style that anyone who is not yet at the level of higher attainment, or even knows what it’s all about, yet has only a yearning for something that is above this world—could attain spirituality with the help of his books; enter the perception of the Upper World, and draw near to the Creator, and understand what the Creator’s thoughts are.

Recently, we’ve started enlightening the academic circles in Israel regarding Baal HaSulam: who he was, and the extent of his achievements in the field of Jewish Philosophy. And they now recognize that they missed him altogether, not realizing that this was a giant, who in his books, provided explanations regarding all of human history and reality in its entirety, the creation of the worlds and our world, the whole process that humanity goes through. And with all of that, he paved a path for us for attaining the purpose of creation. And he also explained what really lies ahead for us.

Baal HaSulam’s son, the eldest son, my teacher, clarified the words of Baal HaSulam even further, especially with regard to the internal work of an individual, a man’s personal attainment within the spiritual worlds, so that each and every person—if he just has the desire, if he's interested and yearning for something that exists above our nature, above this world, feeling that this world can not fulfill him—could open the books of both Baal HaSulam and Rabash, and really fly into heaven with them.