Review of "In the Shadow of the Ladder" by Aryeh Segal, student of Rabbi Ashlag, Efrat, Israel
Everybody knows that Kabbalah cannot be learned from reading a book. Nor is it learned by listening to a Rav. To learn Kabbalah is nothing less than to embark on a path that leads to self-transformation.
But what sort of transformation is sought? Transformation is the sort of thing that occurs when wine becomes vinegar; an essentially new form develops from the old. In what way could someone take on a new, essentially different mode? What could this transformation be?
For many years, I had imagined it to be a sudden clarity about the true nature of reality (or God) that results from some profound religious experience. Yet despite a great deal of reflection on reality and God and some measure of understanding, I failed to see in what sense such an enlightenment could be a true transformation.
The answer came to me recently while attempting to absorb the teachings of Rabbi Yehuda Leib Halevi Ashlag, well-known for his translation and commentary on the Zohar, which is called “Hasulam” (the ladder). Rabbi Ashlag’s writings and teachings are voluminous and profound, but a recent English translation of two of his introductions provides an excellent opportunity for English readers to be moved by his clear presentation of the connection between Creation and the process of our daily lives. “In the Shadow of the Ladder” produced by Mark and Yedidah Cohen, provides a translation that is good, readable English, faithful to the text, but not obsessively so. The translators are seriously committed to the depth of these teachings, and their work was clearly a labor of love.
So to understand self-transformation, we begin with a fundamental question about the nature of existence. In the creation of the world, did God create something separate from Himself? How could God create something that is not part of Him? Isn’t everything included in God? Rabbi Ashlag’s remarkably insightful answer is that God is basically a giver; he lacks nothing, and has no need to receive anything. The purpose of creation is for God to give to another, and so He created something entirely foreign to Himself – the desire to receive. This desire to receive, therefore, is the basic matter of creation.
All of God’s myriad creations – including we humans - are essentially machines that are programmed to constantly seek benefit from whatever they encounter. “What’s in it for me?” is the question that all of creation is asking at every moment. Although it sometimes seems that people rise above this egotistic nature, actually it is so deeply embedded that no matter how much we adopt altruistic behaviors, a closer look reveals that we are really seeking favors in return, recognition and honor, or reward in the world to come
Now, we can never stop receiving, and so it seems we will always be somehow separated from God, since receiving is foreign to His nature. And yet our primary task is somehow to imitate the giving nature of God, and thereby get close to Him and cling to Him. The resolution of the paradox is to learn to receive only in order to give. We are to act in a manner similar to a hesitant guest, who first refuses his host’s entreaties and then gladly partakes of the food only after the host makes it clear that the guest is thereby doing him a favor.
According to Rabbi Ashlag, the whole purpose of the Torah and commandments, is to enable us to learn to receive only in order to give. It is by no means a simple matter, but by practicing “Love thy neighbor as thyself” – the great rule that is the focus of all of the Torah – we can, with unfailing intention and almost superhuman effort, reprogram ourselves to seek constantly the benefit of others without any intention of reward.
What then is “transformation”? Only when the “what’s in it for me?” machine is completely replaced with a constant seeking of “how can I serve you?”, only then have we truly acquired a new nature.
The transformed individual, now freed from the constant urge to grab some “goodies”, is flowing with the stream of life, open to experience the hidden miracles that abound in every moment, receiving a full measure of God’s bounty because of his eagerness to pass it on. He is full of life, and his life is full of endless delight.
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Everybody knows that Kabbalah cannot be learned from reading a book. Nor is it learned by listening to a Rav. To learn Kabbalah is nothing less than to embark on a path that leads to self-transformation.