Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag is best known as Baal HaSulam (“Owner of the Ladder”), thanks to his famous Sulam (Ladder) commentary on The Book of Zohar. He devoted his entire life to interpreting and developing the wisdom of Kabbalah, and to spreading it both in Israel and around the world. His approach was groundbreaking: he created a method of studying Kabbalah that allows anyone to explore reality in depth and uncover its roots and purpose.

Baal HaSulam was born in Warsaw, Poland, on September 24, 1884. At just nineteen, he was ordained as a rabbi by the leading rabbis of Warsaw. For sixteen years, he served there as a Dayan (a rabbinical judge) and as a teacher.

His main teacher was Rabbi Yehoshua of Porsov. In 1921, Baal HaSulam immigrated to Israel and settled in Jerusalem’s Old City. Word spread quickly among Polish immigrants that a great authority on Kabbalah had arrived, and before long, students gathered around him to attend lessons in the early morning hours. Later, he moved to the new Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Shaul, where he also served for several years as the local rabbi.

Between 1926 and 1928, Baal HaSulam lived in London. There, he wrote his commentary on the Ari’s Tree of Life, Panim Meirot uMasbirot, which he printed in 1927. Throughout his time in London, he kept up active correspondence with his students back in Israel. These letters were eventually collected and published in 1985 in a volume called Igrot Kodesh (Letters of Sanctity).

In 1933, he published several important essays: Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah), HaArvut (The Bond), and HaShalom (The Peace).

His two major works, the product of many years of effort, are Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot), a commentary on the writings of the Ari, and Perush HaSulam (The Ladder Commentary) on The Book of Zohar. Publication of Talmud Eser Sefirot began in 1937, eventually appearing in 16 parts across six volumes. In 1940, he published Beit Shaar HaKavanot (The Gatehouse of Intentions), which includes commentaries on selected writings of the Ari. His Sulam commentary on the Zohar came out in 18 volumes between 1945 and 1953, followed by three additional volumes on The New Zohar, completed in 1955 after his passing.

In his Introduction to The Book of Zohar (item 58), Baal HaSulam explained the meaning behind the name of his commentary:

“I have named that commentary The Sulam (Ladder), to show that its purpose is like any ladder—if you have an attic full of treasures, all you need is a ladder to reach it, and then all the wealth of the world is in your hands.”

To prepare students for proper study, he also wrote a series of introductions, including Preface to the Book of Zohar, Introduction to the Book of Zohar, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Preface to the Sulam Commentary, General Preface to the Tree of Life, and Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot.

In 1940, he published the first and only issue of the journal HaUma (The Nation). The British Mandate authorities shut it down after false claims were made that it was spreading communist ideas.

Publishing his books was never easy. The importance he placed on printing and spreading Kabbalah is captured in a description by Prof. Shlomo Giora Shoham, winner of the 2003 Israel Prize, who met Baal HaSulam in the early 1950s:

“I found him in a run-down building, almost a shack, working with an old printing press. He couldn’t afford a typesetter, so he was setting the type himself, letter by letter, standing over the press for hours—even though he was already in his late sixties. Ashlag was clearly a tzaddik (a righteous man)—a humble man with a radiant face. But he was marginalized and lived in terrible poverty. I later learned that he spent so many hours at the press that the lead from the type damaged his health.”

This account was published on December 17, 2004, in Haaretz by Micha Odenheimer.

Baal HaSulam didn’t stop at writing—he worked actively to promote his ideas. He met with key leaders of the Jewish settlement in Israel, figures from the Labor movement, and other public personalities. Among them were David Ben-Gurion, Zalman Shazar, Moshe Sadeh, Chaim Arlozorov, Moshe Aram, Meir Yaari, Yaakov Hazan, Dov Sadan, and the poet Haim Nahman Bialik.

Ben-Gurion later recalled that he met with Yehuda Ashlag several times, and was somewhat surprised:

“I wanted to talk to him about Kabbalah, and he wanted to talk about Socialism.”
(Ben-Gurion Archive, Diaries, August 11, 1958)

Dov Sadan, in his essay Three Meetings and In Between (Amot, Tel Aviv, 1963), wrote:

“Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag, one of the greatest Kabbalists of his time, sought to turn the fundamentals of Kabbalah into a driving force for our generation. Through his socialist outlook, rooted in Kabbalah, he sought ties with the Kibbutz Movement.”

It may seem surprising that Baal HaSulam reached out to the leaders of the Hebrew Labor Movement, given how different their worlds were. But a closer look at his writings reveals a fascinating figure: a deeply learned scholar, fully engaged with the issues of his time, whose ideas remain bold and revolutionary even today.