Letter No. 61
A letter that Baal HaSulam wrote to his brother-in-law in 1928 about the secret teacher
Tuesday, 10 Tevet, Tav-Reish-Peh-Het (January 3, 1928)
Here, in the city of Givat Shaul, a suburb of Jerusalem, may it be built soon in our days, Amen.
To the famous, honorable Hassid, Basket Full of Books [an honorary epithet], Our Teacher Abraham Handil, blessings and peace, Braunstein, may his light shine.
I indeed received your letter from December 16, where you asked me many questions. Particularly, you wanted to know on what I have built foundations in the wisdom of Kabbalah, requiring dwelling over a drop of ink seven clean [days]. Thus far are your words.
As for me, I do not find myself obligated to sympathize with this grief of yours. Nevertheless, for reasons I keep to myself, I will reply to the best of my ability. I will tell you about the main things that happened to me from the beginning of the learning to the end, and for which I have been rewarded with the wisdom, thanks to the Creator’s mercy.
On Friday morning, the 12th of the month of Heshvan, a certain man came to me. It was known to me that he was a great and wondrous sage in the wisdom of Kabbalah, as well as in other teachings. Indeed, as soon as he began to speak, I sensed and tasted in him that God’s wisdom was in him, and all his words were in great exaggeration and self-aggrandizement.
Nevertheless, I truly believed, with all my being and senses, and he promised to reveal to me the wisdom of truth to the fullest. I studied with him some three months each night after midnight at his house. The majority of the study was in the ways of holiness and purity. However, each time, I implored him to reveal to me some secret from the wisdom of Kabbalah. He would begin to say the headlines, but never completed it for me. Naturally, this made my longing very strong. Finally, once, after great pleading, he completed one secret to me, and my joy was immeasurable.
From then on, I began to acquire some being by myself. But the more my being grew, the further my holy teacher grew from me. Yet, I did not feel it. This continued for some three months until in the last days, I did not find him at his home at all. I searched for him but did not find him. Then I felt that he had truly grown far from me, and I regretted it very much and began to improve my ways.
Then, on the morning of the 9th of the month of Nissan, I found him and I appeased him extensively for the matter, and then he was just as appeased as before, and revealed to me a great and all-inclusive secret in about a Mikveh (a place for ritual bathing) that was measured and found deficient. I, of course, was overjoyed.
However, I saw him appearing to be weakening, and I would not leave his house. The following day, on the 10th of Nissan, Tav-Reish-Ayin-Tet (April 10, 1919), he passed away.
My grief cannot be expressed in writing, for my heart was filled with hope to be rewarded with wisdom and knowledge as one of the first ones, and behold, I had been left bare and destitute. Even what I did receive from him, I had forgotten at the time because of the great grief.
From then on, I have been gazing upward with endless longing and yearning, not resting for even one moment in the day, until I was found favorable in the eyes of the Creator and my teacher’s merit and his teaching came to my aid, and my heart was opened with the sublime wisdom flowing on and on like a wellspring.
By the mercy of the Creator, I also remembered all the secrets I had received from my teacher, thank God for sustaining me and keeping me. How can one as poor as I thank Him? He knew my indigence from the beginning, that I had neither the knowledge nor the understanding even to thank and praise for His great favors.
However, who will tell Him, “What You will do and how You will work?” My above-mentioned holy teacher made a living from big business; he was famous all over the city as a good merchant, but to this day, no one knows about him and the wisdom of Kabbalah, and he did not permit me to reveal his name.
Now I will answer the rest of your questions: I make a living being a Rabbi here. Although the salary is very low, the Creator provides for my needs in various ways. As a whole, I currently enjoy dwelling in the land of Israel, and I always hang my hope on the Creator, for His mercies do not end.
I engage in Kabbalah openly, in public. However, in private, to a select few, I sometimes show ways and outlines according to the hour and the time.
I engage in the revealed a few hours a day besides teaching a lesson in rules of permitted and forbidden to the students at the seminary that I watch over, called “a seminary for rabbis.”
Your niece, Leah Tehiya, is to be married in the coming days. The groom is a great wise disciple and teacher, with more fear of the Creator [in the Orthodox sense] than most, of a great lineage, the grandson of the holy Rabbi of Stratin, and the holy Sayer of Maazritch, and his lineage encompasses almost all the disciples of The Baal Shem Tov.
Concerning my health and the health of my household, all is well, thank God. May God let us hear good news and to be rewarded with the comfort of Zion.
Your sister’s groom [brother-in-law],
Yehuda Leib