The Path ofthe LadderPrinciples in the Service of God

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The Path of the Ladder:Principles in the service of GodElucidated byRabbi Avraham Mordecai Gottliebas he received them from his teachersRabbi Yehudah Lev AshlagandRabbi Baruch Shalom HaLevi AshlagTranslated from the Hebrew by Yedidah Cohennehora press

Page 4This booklet is an extract from the forthcoming spiritual biography ofRabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag by Rabbi Avraham Mordecai Gottlieb©Nehora Press 2012Nehora Press: A Resource center for the work of Rabbi Yehudah LevAshlag and his son Rabbi Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlaghttp://www.nehorapress.comReturning Light MeditationThe image on the cover art was created by Avraham Loewenthal, anartist, resident in Safed Israel, whose work is inspired by the Kabbalahof Rabbi Ashlag. His art may be found at http://www.kabbalahart.comNote: Although the masculine gender is used throughout this work, the innerwork of serving God applies to men and women equally. Linguistically itwas not possible to address this issue within the text itself. Yedidah Cohen

Page 5ContentsIntroduction 71. God is Good and does good 92. The purpose of creation93. The purpose of creation created the will to receive94. The opposition of form that exists between the Creator and thecreated being 95. The essence of good and the essence of evil 106. The rectification of the will to receive via the mind through faith,and via the heart through service 127. The recognition of evil 298. The threefold cord: love of friends, love of the Sage, and love ofGod319. Service of God 3610. The way of Torah and the way of suffering 3911. The surrounding society tends to influence us unduly 4812. Ascents and descents are part of our spiritual progress 4913. The left-hand side and the right-hand side 5214. Everything in the Torah is within us 56Biography60

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Page 77IntroductionIf you will walk in My statues and keep my commandments...(Leviticus 26:3)The principles brought here are practical ways of serving God, whichRabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag (the Baal haSulam) taught his students. Atno time did he ever teach the wisdom of the Kabbalah as technical infor-mation divorced from Torah and mitzvot, but he taught the wisdom ofthe Kabbalah as a means by which a person may come to give benefitunconditionally to his fellow man and to his Maker.The Baal haSulam received this system of service to God from histeachers, the holy Sages of Kaloshin, Prosov and Belz. It is a system thathe acquired through immense labour and superhuman effort duringthe years of his youth, through which he came to dvekut, that is unitywith 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 forefa-thers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Moses; the Prophets; the Sages of theTalmud; the Ari; the Baal Shem Tov; the Gaon of Vilna; and RabbiMoshe Chayim Luzatto. Our holy Rabbi, the Baal haSulam merited tofind favour in the eyes of God and obtained permission from Above toreveal these holy matters that concern the service of God, which he didwith tremendous clarity, and in a form that is suitable for our genera-tion—the generation that precedes the coming of the Messiah.The purpose of this e-book is to give us access to these principles ofthe service of God within the context of our daily life: in the office, inthe 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 axiomsseparate from the study of the Torah. On the contrary, the only chancewe have of actually succeeding in carrying them out, is through the laborin Torah. Rabbi Baruch Ashlag writes, in a letter to one of his students:

Page 88IntroductionIn order that we shall be able to fulfill the mitzvot, we were given theespecial light of the Torah, as the Sages have told us, “the light withinthe Torah leads a person back to the good way.” This light is drawnto us through studying the Torah. According to the measure that aperson puts effort into his study, so does he draw towards himselfthe especial light of the Torah, through which he gains the strengthto fulfill the mitzvot (as they should be fulfilled, that is without areward).We see that putting effort into our study has a great power, in thatit can transform all the evil that is in a person to good. Therefore, wehave to distinguish two aspects in the learning of Torah: 1) to learnthe rules so that we know what it is we need to do, 2) to put effortinto the study of the Torah so that we may fulfill it. Regarding thissecond aspect it is not important whether we learn rules, or whetherwe learn a part of Torah which does not speak at all about rules, onlywe need to study Torah and put our effort into it and then the Torahgives the person the light that is within it.May God help us so that we may merit that light of the Torah.

Page 99Main principles in the service of God

1. God is Good and does goodThe first principle is that God is Good and does good. As it is writ-ten: “He is Good and does good to both the evildoers and those whodo good.” (Hazarat haShatz Musaf Yom Kippur). He does not need to receivepleasure at all, since He is whole and perfect in every possible way. Fromwhom could the One receive anything?Thus we see that God has no need to receive joy or pleasure becausesuch a desire would imply that He has a lack or is imperfect, which isnot the case.2. The purpose of creationThe second principle is that God wants to give benefit to the createdbeings. The essence of this benefit is the revelation of Himself to thecreated beings, because there exists no greater joy for the created beingthat can be greater or more wonderful than the conscious knowledge ofthe Creator, even in a limited measure.3. The purpose of creation created the will to receiveSince He desired to give benefit to the created beings, He created in thesouls a will to receive good and joy, because only then can they receivethe good that He wants to give them, as without will or desire it isimpossible to receive the good. Likewise, in the physical world we seethat the more a person longs for something, so is the greatness of his joywhen he receives it.4. The opposition of form that exists between the Creator and the cre-ated beingSince it is the will of the Creator to benefit the created beings only inorder to give them benefit, and He has no will to receive, and since thedesire of the created beings is to receive pleasure and joy, we find thatthere exists an opposition of form between the Creator and the createdbeings. This causes the created beings to become distanced from theCreator.As we see in the physical world: If two people have opposite attributesand ideas then they cannot join together with each other. Likewise, in

Page 1010Main principles in the service of Godspirituality, there is no possibility for the created being to join with theCreator and to merit the revelation of His Divinity unless he is able tochange his attributes to those of the Creator. These are the words ofthe 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 aconsuming fire! But cleave to His attributes; just as He is merciful soyou be merciful, as He is compassionate so you be compassionate” (Rashion 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 walkafter the Divine presence? We have already learnt in the Scripture: ‘For

the Lord God is a consuming fire’ (Deuteronomy 4:24), but one may walkin the attributes of the holy Blessed One. Just as He clothes the nakedso you should clothe the naked. Just as He visits the sick so you shouldvisit the sick” (Sotah 14a).5. The essence of good and the essence of evilThe 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 topurity, 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 receivepleasure and joy for one’s own self. This is also referred to as “the evilinclination, (the yetzer hara)” and refers to the shells (klipot), the “otherside” (sitra achra), egoism, selfish love and all the opprobrious attributessuch as laziness, pride, lust and others.Therefore, the general principle of serving God does not in fact containmany different subjects, as the world thinks, but only these two prin-ciple ideas: 1) subduing the will to receive for oneself and 2) acquir-ing the will to give benefit. All the other matters and natural virtuesare only branches which stem from these two main issues: the will toreceive for oneself alone, and the will to give.Since we have mentioned the idea of the klipot, (shells), I would liketo explain what these are. In his book, Or haBahir, the Baal haSulamdefines them as such:

Page 1111Main principles in the service of GodThe klipot are powers that rule over people, such that they don’tsearch out deeply any matter until its end, but are satisfied withonly a superficial understanding. That is they are satisfied with avery superficial understanding of the outermost peel of the wisdombut they leave the real essence. Therefore, their human intelligencedoesn’t serve them to understand the service of God. Their iniqui-ties govern them with the power of the sitra achra, and they do nottake sufficient interest in the Torah and the holy wisdom. Thereforethey rebel against the holy Blessed One.We can conclude from our teacher’s words that every person certainlyhas 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 willto receive pleasure for oneself alone, which causes separation betweenhimself and the Creator, if he were to put his attention to the necessityof so doing. But his will to receive for himself alone chases after thelights provided by the klipot, and thus prevents the person from put-ting his attention into the most fundamental aspects of Judaism, whichinvolve understanding the issues that touch on the transformation ofthe 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 througheach and every mitzvah, and through every opportunity of learningTorah. People tend to forget their distance from the Creator, their lackof 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 account-ing, he or she would see for themselves that he doesn’t conduct himselfin the way one should in the presence of the King. This follows fromlack of faith, or that his or her faith is defective and weak. So a persondoesn’t fear God adequately or love the One. Because who could deludehimself and say that he walks around in his daily life with constantawareness and awe of God?

Page 1212Main principles in the service of GodAnd 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 arestraight, and the righteous shall walk in them, but the transgressorsshall stumble in them.’ (Hosea 14:10)? It is like two people who roastedtheir paschal sacrifice. One eats for the sake of the mitzvah, and oneeats for the sake of enjoying the food. The one who eats for the sakeof the mitzvah is referred to in the Scripture as ‘and the righteousshall walk in them,’ and the one who eats for the sake of the food isreferred to as, ‘and the transgressor shall stumble in them.’ ”The commentator, the Meiri, says on this, “The righteous do theiractions for the sake of Heaven, until through their actions they appre-hend the glory of their Creator; but the wicked carry out the mitzvot byrote, without intention, and so they only gain bodily pleasure throughtheir actions.”The Meiri is not talking here about people who desecrate the Sabbathor eat food which is unfit (treifah), but he is designating as wicked thosewho are not interested in considering the true essence of the practice ofthe Torah and the mitzvot and what is required in keeping them accord-ing to their essence.6. The rectification of the will to receive via the mind through faith,and via the heart through serviceThe will to receive is the basic constitution of a person and expressesitself in the person in two ways:1) via the mind: A person wants to know and understand the purposefor, and the logical consequence of, every act of his. For it is through theintelligent understanding of matters that the will to receive gets plea-sure. This is not the case when a person performs an act whose purposeor use he does not understand. This causes him suffering.2) via the heart: This concerns the sensual will to receive, which ispart 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

Page 1313Main principles in the service of Godappetites of eating, drinking, sleep, desire for money, honor, power, andintelligence.These two aspects of the will to receive are two halves of the samenature, and they work in an integrated way within a person.Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag used to define it thus: “It is as if there isa vessel which goes directly from the heart to the brain and says, ‘Thereis none quite as wise and clever as you…!’ ”Over and against these two aspects of the will to receive there are twomodes of rectification (tikkunim):1) for the mind—the work of faith2) for the heart—the work of serving God and one’s fellow, not inorder to receive a rewardThe 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, onlytaking on himself the yoke of faith, it is possible that he is doing soin order to receive a reward. Therefore a person also needs to workon his will to give benefit in an altruistic manner.However, if the person were to work solely on the aspect of givingbenefit and love of one’s fellow, without working on his faith, thatwould also be insufficient, because he would remain disconnectedfrom God. This is what happened in communism, which held up asits banner love of one’s fellow man, but persecuted men of faith, andthus, from its very outset, was doomed to failure.For the rectification of the intellect—the work of faithA person should not rely on his intellect, but have faith in all the waysof the Torah. This may be broken down into different points as set outbelow:a) Faith that the way to draw near to God is only through giving ben-efit 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

Page 1414Main principles in the service of Godto obligate a person to establish his life on giving benefit to his fellow, inactual practice, without which closeness to God is impossible.b) Faith in the reality of God as the root of all; faith that only He cangive us faith in Him; faith that His Divine Providence is present atall 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 provi-dence) in the paradigm of faith, which is higher than the paradigm ofknowledge.A person should educate himself to behave in a way that is fitting forone who is in the presence of the King, the King of Kings. (In the languageof the Kabbalah, this means the ultimate channel of Good). He needs to visualizefor himself how he would behave, speak, and think, if he were in thepresence of a very great man. Similarly, he needs to conduct himself inno 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 thepresence of a king. A person’s faith has to be of the quality that heshould 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 beingseparate from God) and Ahavat haShem, (love of God) in a com-plete 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 ever-lasting Love you have loved your people the House of Israel, Youhave taught us Torah and mitzvot, statutes and laws. Therefore, OLord our God, when we lie down and when we rise up we will medi-tate in Your statutes and we will rejoice in the world of Your Torahand Your mitzvot for ever and ever. For they are our life and thelength of our days and in them we will meditate day and night, andnever remove Your love from us for ever. Blessed are You who lovesHis people Israel.” (evening prayer) And if the person were to so act,then for sure he would never wish to receive for himself alone. Thelonging for faith needs to be woven into his limbs until it becomes

Page 1515Main principles in the service of Godsecond nature, according to the phrase, “when I remember Him, Hedoesn’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 theworld is filled with His glory, then he is filled both with Yirat haShem,(fear of being separated from God) and with Ahavat haShem the lovefor God. Such a person does not require any preparation of medita-tion, since he places God first naturally. Just like we see in the physi-cal world: When a person truly loves his companion, then he thinkson and longs for his friend’s benefit. He stops himself from doingany action which would not benefit his friend. This is done naturally,without thinking about it. One doesn’t need any great intellect forthis, 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 thatis natural does not need intellect to compel the matter, but one’sactions come forth from our instincts. Our natural instincts them-selves work to such a degree that it is in our nature that we are readyto sacrifice ourselves for the love of something, until we achieve ourpurpose, and until we fulfill our purpose our lives are not worthliving. Therefore, whoever feels for himself as if he is standing beforethe King certainly will achieve perfection, that is to say perfect faithin the Creator. Until he feels that he is standing before the King thenhe 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 bemoney or honor or even just a good feeling, or, if he acts in order to gaina reward in the next world, then his will to receive for himself alonedoesn’t oppose him so much. This is because his focus is not actually onthe holy Blessed One, who is the Giver, but he is only looking at whathe will receive.

Page 1616Main principles in the service of God2) However, if the person is acting only for the sake of God, that is tosay, he acts in order to come into affinity of form with God, accordingto the measure he feels the greatness of His love and His Divine provi-dence, then the will to receive for oneself alone opposes this action withall its power. Because the will to receive for oneself alone does not wantto work without getting a reward for that work. Then the person’s willto receive for oneself alone comes to him with two questions: “Who isGod that I should listen to His voice?”—a question that opposes faith,and “What does this service mean to you?”— a question that opposesservice. (Both these questions come from the Passover Haggadah. The first one isPharaoh’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 thepathway of the service of God in the true way—which is the way ofgiving, not for the sake of getting a reward—without experiencing upsand downs. Because going against the will to receive for oneself alone ispaved with ups and downs. As it says in the Talmud (Gittin 43a) nobodycan 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 plea-sure for themselves. They don’t suffer so many ups and downs, but theyare to be found in a state that is more or less stationary.In connection with this we can mention here an occurrence with theSeer of Lublin: One time a man came to him and told him that prior toevery prayer he experienced a spiritual descent. The Seer answered him:“Before every prayer I experience four hundred descents!” Our teacherRabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag explained: “A person who experiences

a spiritual descent, that is to say a “down” has to have had a spiritualascent first. So if the Seer of Lublin had four hundred spiritual descentshe must have had an equivalent four hundred spiritual ascents… . Butthis only occurs with someone who is truly searching for unity (dvekut)with the Holy Blessed One and is self-critical and searches even withinhis good deeds to see if his will to receive for oneself alone got involved.”

Page 1717Main principles in the service of GodOur teacher Rabbi Baruch Ashlag further said,The process of accepting Malchut Shamayim (that is to say, the Divineprovidence, that everything that happens comes from God) is through ups anddowns, like we see in the moon that waxes and wanes, and whosespiritual root is the Sephirah Malchut. Our intellect thinks that aperson can progress from stage to stage just by going up, withoutany intervening falls. But in fact this is not so. As it is written, “asthe 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 fromwithin the dark. Just as we see in the physical world: If a person isvery thirsty and is suffering on account of his thirst, then when hegets 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 theSource of all, and that all is conducted by Him, is if a person is preparedto work without getting a reward. Just the fact of serving God is hisreward and joy.As we see in the physical word, a person is prepared to minister to thegreat Sage of the generation without receiving payment. Not only that,but it often happens that people are prepared to pay for the privilege ofso doing. How much more so is the case in spirituality with regard toserving God!This is the language of the Tanna (a Sage at the time of the Mishnah) quotedin Ethics of the Fathers: (Chapter 1 mishnah 3)Antigonus, of Socho, received the oral law from Simon the Righ-teous. He used to say, “Don’t be like slaves who serve the Master forthe 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 beupon you.”

Page 1818Main principles in the service of GodRabbi 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 notnumbered amongst his favorites and who does not come into hispresence. This operates, because prior to his advancement he wasan important and honoured minister and because of his skill, hiswisdom, or his work, he increased in status until he became oneof the familiars of the court. But one who was born a peasant, andwho suddenly found favor in the sight of the king, who raised himup, seating him first and placing him above all the other ministers,would not consider requesting a further reward from the king forhis work. That would be wicked, since the king has already been sogracious to him, making him his chief servant and allowing him tostand in his presence with none higher than him.It is a similar case regarding we human beings, who are so lowlyfrom our material aspect, in which we are like the primitive inhab-itants of Canaan, of whom it is written, “my mother’s sons wereincensed against me,” (Song of Solomon. 1:6) yet He has elevated us tothe degree that we can serve Him and stand before Him, which issuch a great merit and sufficient reward! How could we possibly beso brazen as to request a further reward for serving the holy BlessedOne?! 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 requestmore salary. But be like the lowly servants who serve the Master inHis temple, not for any gain.” Understand this deeply.(Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag said more than once that the pupils ofthe Gaon of Vilna, of whom Rabbi Chaim Volozhiyn was one, were allSages of great spiritual stature, who knew the matters of serving God indepth.)In connection with this, Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag taught that thesaying, “the reward of doing a mitzvah is another mitzvah” (Ethics of the

Page 1919Main principles in the service of GodFathers chapter 4, mishnah 2), should be read, “the reward of the mitzvah isthe great merit of having been asked to do it!” The reward of those whoserve God is to merit more and more faith in the Creator as being theRoot of all, until they no longer ask anything for themselves, but theservice itself is their reward.c) Faith that there is nothing other than God, according to theScripture, “You have shown us to know that the Lord is God, there isnone other than Him” (Deuteronomy 4:35). That is to say, that there is noother reality in the world except God. A person needs to look at theworld from the perspective that all the people and the created beingsare bidden to act by God Himself and all their actions are ordained byHim.It follows that a person’s behavior has to be consonant with this per-

spective. For example, if someone hurts him, he has to consider that itis not the person who hurt him, but it was God Himself. Therefore, ifhe responds in a way that is insulting or belittling, it is as if he is belit-tling God Himself. Likewise, if a person tells a lie to someone, in fact heis 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 allthe actions of the Creator stem from His desire to give only benefit toHis created beings.d) Faith that the Creator conducts the world according to His attri-bute that He is Good and does good. Even when a person sees that theopposite 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 seesis false. So long as he is given over to the governance of selfish love hecannot see the truth that the Creator conducts the world according toHis attribute that He is Good and does good.A person’s faith in the goodness of God needs to be expressed in prac-tice through actions of joy and satisfaction in the way that God runsthe world. The person should not act in a way that conveys the opposite.

Page 2020Main principles in the service of GodIn accordance with this Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag explained, “Whywas it that at the Baal haSulam’s table it was customary to drink winewith the blessing, “He is Good and does good?” This was to remindourselves that this blessing is the greatest thing of all that a person canbelieve, that the Creator is Good and does good.e) Faith that God “hears the prayer of every mouth” (from the morningprayer). The Baal haSulam said, this saying includes even the most lowlymouth of all; that God hears prayer and God has within His power torescue even the lowliest person from his situation. Let not a person saythat God can only help someone who is not so down, but He has thepower to help even the lowest of the low. This faith has to be expressedin 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. Thereis purpose to spiritual descent. This may occur in order that a personshould 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 hehas progressed sufficiently in his spiritual work to be able to cope withit. The revelation of the evil within the person is in accordance with hiswork. Only after the evil within the person has become completely clearto him in its true measure can he give a prayer from the depth of hisheart that God should take him out of the pit of his exile and from therule 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 thework. This means serving God unconditionally, as the Scripture says,“Walk after me in a land that is not sown” ( Jeremiah 2:2). Faith gives theperson the power of commitment, so that he does not despair, but con-tinues all his work in exactly the same way as he does when in a periodof spiritual ascent.

Page 2121Main principles in the service of GodThus the Sage Rabbi Baruch Ashlag spoke on the anniversary ofRabbi Yitzhak Agassi’s death:A person needs to fulfil the mitzvah of “Love the Lord your God” intwo ways: 1)When he feels good and experiences a good feeling inTorah and prayer, and 2) even when God takes his soul.Because this is the way the Sages taught: (Berachot chapter 9 mishnah5)“and with all your soul” means “even if He takes your life.” But oneneeds to ask the question: if He takes the life of a person, then theperson can no longer serve Him. But one must understand thisteaching according to the service of God, that God takes from theperson the soul of Life, that is his life-force in Torah and prayer. Hetakes away from him the taste of Torah and prayer. Then a personhas to work to reveal and to make manifest all his love for the Cre-ator 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 personneeds to cleave to the Creator in such a way that everything theCreator tells him to do he does, except if He tells him to go out ofthe framework of holiness, then he mustn’t listen to Him. And thismatter 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 Onewho gave the descent to him. The distance between these two possi-bilities is as the distance between east and west. For the place wherea 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 ofthe descent itself, then he is connecting to a negative state of con-sciousness, and it is not possible from the negative to connect withwhat is blessed. Therefore, if a person is connecting to the One whogave the descent, then he is one with the Creator, May He be blessed,

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Main principles in the service of Godand remains totally connected, and thus, in practice. is already savedfrom the descent.g) Faith in the greatness of the eternal God; complete faith in Hisperfect attributes, with the intention to rejoice in even the smallestcontact that a person merits in spirituality. For there is a general prin-ciple, that in order for a person to receive satisfaction from somethingof low quality he requires a large quantity; but for a person to receivesatisfaction from something of a high quality, even a small quantity willsuffice.The higher the quality, the smaller the quantity that suffices to givehappiness. For example, a person wishes to bring a wedding gift: If hedecides to bring gravel he would need tons for it to be a gift… . If hebrings iron he needs a smaller amount. If he were to bring gold, twohundred grams would be enough. And if it were diamonds, fifty gramswould suffice.In an analogous way we see that the more a person develops faithin the greatness of God’s love and feels the importance of the Creatorwithin himself, the more he can be happy and the more he can valueeven the smallest aspect that appertains to holiness—even the smallestword or deed—even if he does not yet have the requisite intention.Our holy teacher, the Baal haSulam, spoke frequently on this sub-ject, and many times mentioned that we need to be happy and joyful,even when we are practicing Torah “not for its own sake”. We cannotestimate how important this work is, even regarding Torah that ispracticed “not for its own sake”. We are simply unable to estimate howimportant any act of spirituality is. Rabbi Baruch Ashlag emphasizedthis 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 oftensaid, if a person were to come to the Beit haMidrash (study hall) or tothe synagogue, but he didn’t manage to learn any Torah, neverthelesshe should still be very happy, since God gave him the merit of havinga good thought. Just imagine how many millions of people there are in

Page 2323Main principles in the service of Godthe world who were not privileged in even their entire life to have such agood thought as this!h) Faith in the way of unifying the contradiction between, “If I am notfor myself who is for me?” and “if I am for myself what am I?” (Fromthe dictum of Hillel the Sage: “If I am not for myself who will be forme? And if I am for myself what am I? and if not now, when? (Ethics ofthe 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 notfor myself who is for me?” That is to say, if I don’t do anything, no onewill do it for me.” In such a way he is saved from all manner of disrup-tions 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 theydon’t want to do anything. If they are sick, they don’t want to go to thedoctor, because they say that everything comes from God, so what useis a doctor here? If God wants them to get better then He will healthem even without a doctor. There are others who say, “If I don’t go tothe doctor then for sure I will never get better.” But the correct way isto go to the doctor like everybody else. After one has gone to the doctorthen one must say, “It was God who healed me, and not the doctor, andif 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 heshould again go to the doctor saying “if I am not for myself then whois for me?” Afterwards, when he gets better he needs to say again that itwas not the doctor who healed him but it was God. This way is beyondthe understanding of the will to receive.This applies likewise for earning one’s living. Some people say, “If Godwants 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, “IfI don’t work, then I certainly won’t have the means to live.” The way ofholiness is to work, and afterwards to say, “Even if I hadn’t worked, but I

Page 2424Main principles in the service of Godhad sat at home all day, then God would have given me a living becausethat is His will.” We learn that the way in holiness is always in opposi-tion to the opinion of the will to receive, and this is the meaning of thephrase “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 believethat he receives a reward from the Creator, and that reward is cleav-ing to the Creator. And this is the greatest reward of all, to becomeclose to God. Punishment means separation from Him. And this iswithin the person’s province, for this is the focus of the choice. How-ever, once a person has made his choice, and opted for the good andleft the evil, and God has drawn him close to serve Him, then he hasto believe that everything comes from God, and that if God had nothelped him he would not have been able to prevail. So before theaction, 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 afterthe action he has to believe that everything comes from God.This is hard, because before doing the positive action the evil incli-

nation comes to the person and tells him, “don’t do it, everythingcomes from God,” and after performing the good deed the evil incli-nation tells the person, “you did it all yourself!” according to thedictum, “If I am not for myself who will be for me?” as if to say, thatif 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 withrespect to his Sage necessarily involves nullifying one’s own will, it is ofutmost importance that the teacher with whom we work in this way isa teacher of integrity. The Sage must embody humility and truth. Hewishes only to serve others and has no desire for students or others toserve him. He keeps Torah and mitzvot completely and has knowledgeof the innermost aspects of the Torah. In his presence we feel an earnestdesire to reach dvekut with the Holy Blessed One. Through our work

Page 2525Main principles in the service of Godwith him we come to nullify and transform our will to receive for one-self alone. Only such a person is worthy to be considered a Sage.The following discussion only refers to the way of working with thegreat Sages, the Baal haSulam and his son, Rabbi Baruch ShalomAshlag and others of their stature.The more that a person believes in the greatness of the Sage then thegreater the motivation he has to give unconditionally to the Sage, with-out 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 thebook of Kings (2 Kings 3:11) ‘and Jehoshaphat questioned the servantsof the King of Israel saying, “Is there no prophet of God that we mayinquire of the Lord by him?” and one of the servants of the King ofIsrael answered, and said, “Here is Elisha the son of Shefat who pouredwater on the hands of Elijah.” ’ The Scripture does not write that Elishalearned from Elijah but that he served him. From this we learn that serv-ing Torah is greater than learning Torah.”This work is very practical, because a person can measure every daythe degree to which he is prepared to sacrifice himself in order to give tohis teacher. And one can add to this daily.Now this work is a preparatory work to the work carried out betweena person and the Creator, because the service we give to the teacher hasprecisely the same nature as the work one needs to do towards God,may the One be blessed. However, regarding the Creator, there is anextreme difficulty, in that He is completely concealed; likewise societydoes not have a tangible opinion as regarding His greatness, unlike thestudents and the disciples regarding their teacher. Nonetheless, when astudent has eventually acquired the attribute of giving unconditionallyto his teacher, then he can transfer this attitude towards God, relatively

easily.

Page 2626Main principles in the service of Godj) Faith in the greatness of the other students. As Rabbi Ashlag writesin his book Matan Torah:Every student needs to regard himself as the least amongst the stu-dents, and then he will be able to acquire a feeling of the greatness ofthe Sage from all of them. This is because a person who feels him-self to be greater cannot receive from one who he considers to belesser than him, especially with regard to being moved by his words.Only one who feels himself to be lesser, is influenced by one whohe esteems as being greater. Thus every student needs to value andlove his fellow student to the utmost, and regard him with the sameesteem as one who is the greatest teacher of the generation. (MatanTorah: essay on the conclusion of the Zohar.)Further, the more a person has faith in the worth of his fellow, the morehe will have motivation to work for the sake of love of his fellow, accord-ing 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 self-ish love, so that if he cannot see that from a certain action he willget gain for his own benefit, then he has no motivation to put in anyeffort to make even the smallest move. Therefore, without the nega-tion 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 canform a great force against this selfish love in that we all work togetherto nullify our will to receive for ourselves alone. This will to receivefor oneself alone is designated as being evil, because it prevents usfrom arriving at dvekut, which is the purpose for which the humanbeing was created.Therefore, the community needs to be made up of individuals, allof whom are of the same opinion that we need to arrive at dvekutwith God. Then all the individuals together can make one strongforce that the individual can use against his own selfish love, becauseall are included in each other. We see that every person can then

Page 2727Main principles in the service of Godbase himself on this great will that all share, in order to arrive at thepurpose for which we are all created.However, in order that we should be able to include each otherin the creation of this force, everyone needs to negate himself with

respect to his fellow. That is, everyone should be able to see theworth of his friend and not his lack. But whoever thinks he is of ahigher 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 toother students who are working in the same way, of wanting to nullifytheir 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 principlein Judaism, he is not advocating that one should see everyone we comeinto contact with as greater than oneself, because that would cause con-fusion and a low self-esteem, leading the person off the way rather thanhelping him on it. However, by negating his own will to that of others,who are similarly working on themselves, enables the student to learnways of giving benefit that may not be obvious to him and adds greatpowers of motivation and strength to persevere on the path)k) Faith that the way to come to dvekut (affinity of form) with theCreator 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 toone’s fellowA person should take whatever he himself desires and give it to hisfellow man. This is in order to arrive at love of one’s fellow, and fromhere to love of one’s teacher, and to love of God. This is according to thecommandment of “Love your neighbor as yourself ” (Leviticus 19:18). Soa person, in a systematic and orderly way would begin to consider theneeds and lacks of his companions, he would be concerned about whatbothers his friend and he should try to help him to the same extent thathe would help himself. Similarly, he should participate in the joys of his

Page 2828Main principles in the service of Godfriend and participate in his celebrations as if they were his own. This isdaily work against the natural desire of the body.A person should endeavor to do actions of giving benefit regardinghis fellow, and actions of giving benefit regarding the Creator, not forthe sake of receiving anything, just for love. After a person has com-pleted this work to its very end, that is to say he has completely nullifiedhis will to receive for himself alone, and his only purpose in life is to givebenefit to the Creator, or to his fellow man, then he arrives at the secondstage, wherein a person can receive joy and pleasure, but not for the sakeof receiving for himself, but only because he knows that it is the will ofthe Creator to give to him. By allowing the Creator to give to Him he isin 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 benefitto others but they may be doing this in order to receive some reward.

However such giving would be considered as receiving and not as givingat all. Here we are talking about a person who is endeavoring to givebenefit, not because he hopes for any reward. He is acting to give benefitbecause he values the other person, and therefore considers it an honorto be allowed to give to him, even if he were not to receive any rewardat all.There are many people who occupy themselves with giving and doingacts of loving kindness. However, not all who do so are acting in order toarrive at dvekut with God, or because of their faith in God, but becausetheir humanitarian conscience obligates them to so act. They havemercy on their fellow man and they understand that a rectified humancommunity should be of that nature, or they don’t feel at ease with theirconscience if they do not help their fellow man. But though one mustnot negate such help towards one fellow man, because through suchhelp there is an improvement in human civilization, such an approachhas two main deficits:1) This approach does not require faith in God or any connectionwith the Creator, and so the person does not need to have any inten-tion to come to dvekut with the Creator. As the Creator is far from His

Page 2929Main principles in the service of Godcreated beings so is such giving far from true giving. And our teacherRabbi Ashlag wrote on this: (Introduction to Panim Meirot uMasbirot para-graph 6) “The purpose of the donkey is not to serve all the other donkeysin the world that are of his own age. Likewise, it is not the purpose ofthe human being to serve all the other human bodies who are the sameage 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 servethe Creator, and to perfect His intention in the purpose of Creation,as Rabbi Shimon Ben Elazar said, ‘these were only created in order toserve me, and my purpose is to serve the Creator.’ ” (Kiddushin chapter 4mishnah 14).2) The purpose of helping one’s fellow man is to come to love of one’sfellow man. It is clear that a person is not able to come to love of one’sfellow man if he doesn’t create a connection on the basis of equality.Therefore, although actions of loving-kindness are beautiful and impor-tant in themselves, they cannot bring a person to love of one’s fellowman. For example, when a person gives charity to the poor, or he looksafter an elderly or sick person, but then goes home and has no connec-tion 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 selfishlove 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’sfaith and asks, “Who is God that I should listen to His voice? It alsoasks “What is this service to you?” (These are the questions of Pharoah and ofthe wicked son, from the Passover Haggadah). But for people who are not inter-ested in nullifying their selfish love, not only does their will to receivefor themselves alone not ask such questions and doesn’t bother them,but it even helps such people do their acts of giving benefit, becausethese acts build up their ego.

Page 3030Main principles in the service of God7. The recognition of evilIn practice, this is the first rung on the ladder achieved through the lightthat is in Torah and mitzvot. As the Sages said, (Midrash Bereishit Rabahperush 44): “The mitzvot were only given in order to purify the createdbeings.” Our teacher, the Baal haSulam writes (Matan Torah “The essence ofReligion and its Purpose”):The practice of the mitzvot purifies the practitioner in a gradual andslow process, in which the measure of the recognition of the evil thatis within us, marks the criterion of the stages of purification.Explanation: When a person sets as a target for himself, that he wantsto attain dvekut, affinity of form, with the Divine, and starts to workin a true way on the points that are explicated here, then he begins tosee just how far he is from a true faith in God. He sees that his will toreceive does not in any way agree to accept the authority of the HolyBlessed One. He also discovers just how far he is from love of his fellowman, and that he is addicted to his own selfish love. The more that aperson works on himself, the more it is revealed to him just how greatthe power of his will to receive that is in him actually is. His will toreceive for himself alone rules over his entire life without any inhibi-tions, and does not allow him to cleave with everlasting love to the King,may He be blessed. This recognition is incredibly painful and brings theperson to a deep bitterness. However it is, in itself, also the vessel forthe salvation of God.The Zohar tells that the children of Israel were not redeemed fromEgypt until they had reached the forty-ninth level of uncleanness (ZoharHadash Yitro Perush haSulam paragraph 3). This implies that they had reachedthe greatest recognition of the evil within them that exists in reality. Wesee that when a person starts to work in order to come to the service ofGod he expects to progress from stage to stage, to reach the heights ofholiness. But actually the opposite happens. He first treads on a hardand painful path of discovering the truth about himself. Only subse-quently can he get his full tikkun.

Page 3131Main principles in the service of GodAs Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag said:“When a person arrives at the recognition of the evil within him, onecan discern two stages: 1) that he is in distress 2) that he is happynow that God has revealed to him the evil that is within him. Theseare two opposite states that occur in one subject, but the personexperiences them at different times. First, a person is in distress andprays to God from the depth of his heart. After that he needs tobe in wholeness and happiness. Then he can receive the answer tohis prayer from God. And this is the inner meaning of the words,“Make me wise through my enemies” (Psalm 119:98), that through thisa person knows and recognizes that he has enemies within him.Already, this is a big step forward, because now he is able to fightthem. This is the inner meaning of the teaching of the Holy BaalShem Tov, that a man needs the service of the heart, because theservice of the heart brings a person to feel that he is in a low place.Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag explained the phrase, “Everyone who pur-sues glory, glory will escape him” (after Eruvin 13b):Whoever pursues the glory of Heaven and wants to feel the glory ofthe King, then such glory will escape him. Because if previously hefelt distant from God at a measure of say ten percent, now he feelseven further away. Therefore, the Sages said that a man should notbe alarmed if the glory of heaven escapes him, because God wantshim 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 isworse than everybody else. But even though he sees his own low-liness he needs to believe that the salvation of God is like a twin-kling of the eye. And a man should not say, “I am so despicable andlowly that even the Holy Blessed One could not, or would not, wantto help me.” This is completely false. It is as if to say that the HolyBlessed One only has it within His power to help people with skillsand who have powers of prevailing over their will to receive, but forlow and base people God doesn’t have power to help?! (written in theyear 5749)

Page 3232Main principles in the service of God8. The threefold cord: love of friends, love of the Sage, and love ofGodLove of friendsThe Baal haSulam instituted the practice that all his disciples shouldmeet together at a certain fixed time—at first this was fixed as a once-a-month meeting, later they convened once a week. At this gathering

the friends were to discuss matters relating to the principle of the loveof one’s fellow man and matters concerning the service of God. The dis-ciples were also to discuss issues which would bring them to a closerunderstanding of each other, and each one was to endeavor to considerthe merit of his companions and not their lacks, in order to bring thelove and importance of the friends into the heart of every person.Besides the gathering of the friends, which included everyone, andwhich was made up of ten or fifteen disciples, it was incumbent on eachone to chose for himself two or three out of the general group withwhom he was especially close, and to direct his effort of love of one’sfellow towards these companions in particular. This involved strivingto implement the dictum, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” in the full-est possible way. The aim is to get to a stage wherein the student feelsthe same love for his fellow as he feels for himself. It is not possible toachieve this level of love at the outset, with regard to the whole world;neither is it possible to achieve initially with an entire community, buta person can certainly strive to achieve this love of one’s fellow with thepeople 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 thedesired stage wherein he loves every created being as himself.Actually the real effort in this work occurs when one’s fellow doesnot act in a fitting manner—at least so it seems—then the person hasto nullify himself and his own wishes, and behave towards his friendexactly as he would behave towards himself. That is to say, just as aperson justifies his own actions when he stumbles, and he can find onehundred reasons to explain why he was right, so a person needs to jus-tify his fellow. Why is this so difficult? The general rule is: “Love covers

Page 3333Main principles in the service of Godall sins”, and since a person loves himself, therefore he naturally coversup his own sins. Justifying the other person’s acts is therefore harder, asthis natural love is absent.Love of the SageThe love that a person feels for his Sage is certainly a springboard forthe love of God, for his Sage represents the perfection of the virtues andthe attributes that a human being can aspire to, (according to the situ-ation of every generation). And this the Sage did not acquire throughinborn abilities, but through hard and intense work on himself. Andthis is not through any charisma, because what, after all, has a humanbeing to offer? But the greatness of the Sage comes from his connec-tion with God, and through this he merited to such perfection. We seethat 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 withinthe 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 therevelation of God, even if it be in the smallest possible way, is the ulti-mate in perfection.The love of one’s Rav comes directly from the belief in the greatness ofthe Rav. Because God gave us the nature that a lesser person naturallyhas awe of a greater person. So a person has to first work on himself orherself to believe that the Rav has true greatness of spirit, and then he isable to give up his own views in favour of his Sage’s views and he loveshim.The work of faith starts with education: That is to say that a personhas to act blindly like an ox to the yoke and the ass to the burden. Aperson has to spend time every day on the thought of how he wouldact and behave in the presence of his Sage if he knew for certain thathis Sage was the most important person in the whole world. And thenhe 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 atonce but one has to train oneself gradually, in a way similar to the wayone trains a small child.

Page 3434Main principles in the service of GodThe 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 hisSage. He gains the thoughts, desires for God, and manifestation of Godthat the Sage has, and then the disciple can ascend to the spiritual levelof the Sage in actuality, and acquires the strength to progress in the loveof God.Love of GodIt 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: theinanimate, the plant life, the animal life, and the human world, andunderstand that the inner essence of everything, the power that giveslife to all, is God himself. A person may educate himself to live in tunewith 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, heshould concentrate his thought on what he wants to apprehend throughthis mitzvah. The desirable aim is to apprehend the greatness of God’slove, and that only God can give him faith in Him. Through the mitz-vah he wants to appreciate the reality of God in every detail of life, andrelate to God’s providence in the aspect that He is Good and does good.Before performing holy acts a person needs to consider the great-ness of the One, who is giving the opportunity to perform the act, inthe sense of, “Know before whom you are standing” (Ethics of the Fathers:chapter 3, mishnah 1). For example, before a person says Grace After Mealshe needs to think, “To Whom am I giving thanks?” If he makes this

his practice before undertaking any mitzvah, he will slowly but surelyadvance in affinity of form with God.Actually, he can also make this his practice prior to any action that hedoes, whether it is a meeting of the friends, or a meal on the Sabbath oron a festival. In any action a person can center himself and concentrateon 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, andoccupying myself with its wisdom in order that I should receive all

Page 3535Main principles in the service of Godthe blessings that are written in the Torah, or in order that I shouldmerit the life of the world to come.”Likewise he should not say, “I will separate myself from the sinsthat the Torah warns against, in order that I should be saved fromthe curses that are written in the Torah, or in order that I won’t becut off from the life of the world to come.”It is not fitting to serve God in this way, because one who serves inthis way serves from fear for himself, (that is for his will to receivefor himself alone) and this is not the way in which the prophets andour 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 personshould love God with an overwhelmingly great and strong love, untilhis soul is connected to the love of God, and he meditates on hislove for God like one who is love-sick for the love of a woman andcannot think of anything else. Thus he meditates on God continu-ally whatever he is doing. As it is written, “Love the Lord your Godwith all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”(Deuteronomy 6:5). King Solomon expressed this figuratively, saying, “Iam lovesick” (Song of Songs 2:5). The entire Song of Songs is an alle-gory 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 Godunless he constantly meditates on Him as is fitting, and he shouldleave aside other physical pleasures in the world. As it is written,“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your souland with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Your love for God is com-mensurate with your knowledge of Him; the more you know Him,the more you love Him. If you know Him a little, you will love hima little. If you know Him well, you will love Him more ardently.Therefore, a person must dedicate himself to become wise and toachieve fluent knowledge and understanding of his Creator, as muchas is humanly possible.

Page 3636Main principles in the service of GodWe may further add here the words of our teacher Rabbi BaruchShalom Ashlag (Sefer haMa’amarim 5751):Why is it so important for a person to thank God for every singlepoint he gains in spirituality? It is because there is a rule that grati-tude leads to love. Through the Torah a person may look at thegreatness of the gift that the Giver is giving him. And this naturallyarouses one to love the Giver. Through the love for God that theperson acquires, he may arrive at dvekut and unity with God. It is awell known fact, that a person wants to speak with and to join withsomeone he loves, and he desires to be close to him continually. Andwe have already learnt that the greatness of a gift is not dependanton the size of the gift, but on the stature of the Giver. The greaterthe 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, aperson should also take responsibility for his relationships in otheraspects of his life:Between a man and his wifeAlso in this relationship a person needs to step outside his selfish love.Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag said, that a person should check himselfdaily to see if he indeed he fulfils the command of the Sages (Yebamot62:) that a man is obliged to respect his wife more that himself. That isto say it is incumbent on the husband to truly respect her and to acttowards her as one acts towards an honored personage. He needs to beconcerned that his wife is satisfied and happy and should take steps ifhe sees she is upset or sad.Likewise a woman needs to respect the will of her husband. On herpart this involves her in a lot of inner work until she can act towardshim in accordance with the scriptural verse: “Love your neighbor asyourself ” (Leviticus 19:18).

Page 3737Main principles in the service of GodBetween 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 ben-efit to every person and not just to our companions or to our fellowstudents. Certainly this is true. Sometimes God provides us with theopportunity to act kindly or give charity. If that happens, of course weshould seize such an opportunity with both hands.

However, the acts that a person initiates from his part, should focusprimarily on those who are trying, like himself, to work on leaving theirselfish love.9. Service of GodIn general we can discern four stages that take place with regard to aperson’s service to God.Receiving for the sake of receivingThis means that a person desires to receive pleasure and joy according tothe nature that God gave him. He naturally wants to fill his lacks withpleasuring his own self. This is hinted at in the verse “Man was born asa wild ass,” ( Job 11:12) implying that a person was born in affinity of formwith the animal. Just as an animal wants to fulfil its appetites, so doesthe human when he is in this stage, which is designated as klipah (a lightwhich sustains the evil) and uncleanness. However, this type of receiv-ing is limited, because the satisfaction gained extinguishes the joy, andthus limits it, and also because of the shame that is at the root of thistype of receiving.Giving for the sake of receivingThis stage is an intermediary stage between holiness and uncleanness,and it is designated in the language of the Sages as “the practice ofTorah that is conducted not for its own sake.” That is, a person gives tohis fellow or gives to God but he is not actually acting out of love for hisfellow man or out of love for God, but he is giving because he wants togain some reward. Therefore his actions at this stage are still consideredas those which are being performed for his own self-benefit.

Page 3838Main principles in the service of GodGiving benefit for the sake of giving benefitThis stage is designated as being completely holy. It is called in the lan-guage of the Sages, “actions that are done for the sake of Heaven”. It iswithin the power of the human being to act in order to give benefit tohis fellow man, or to give to God, solely out of love for his fellow humanor out of love for God. At this stage he is acting out of pure concern forthe other and does not desire to receive anything for his trouble neitherin 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 theburden. The donkey and the ox work, and their masters gain fromtheir work, but the ox and the donkey do not share in the gain. Inlike manner so should a person not desire to share in any gain thatcomes through his service to the Creator, may the Name of the Onebe 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’tengage in Torah out of fear, or in order to earn a reward, but as aconsequence of his love for the Lord of the universe, who so com-manded him, is doing so for its own sake. Nevertheless, as the Sagessaid, “Always practice the Torah, even if its not for its own sake, forfrom the practice of ‘not for its own sake’ will come the practice ofTorah for its own sake.” (Pesachim 50b). And so when one instructs chil-dren, women, or illiterates, he should train them to serve God outof fear of being separated from God or to serve God for a rewarduntil they become more knowledgeable and grow wiser. And thenhe should expose them to the secret of practising Torah for its ownsake very, very slowly, and accustom them to it patiently, until theycan grasp and understand it, and serve God out of love.

Page 3939Main principles in the service of GodRabbi Baruch Ashlag explained this statement of the Rambam asfollows:Children, women, and illiterates, are different aspects found withina person, and this phrase is not meant to be taken literally but theseare aspects within every person who is still governed by his will toreceive for himself alone.However, the stage of ‘giving for the sake of giving’ is not the final desti-nation. Although ‘giving for the sake of giving’ is the stage in which theperson reaches dvekut with God, because this stage is in affinity of formwith God, this does not fulfil the purpose of creation. The Creator’spurpose 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 stageis required.Receiving with the intention of giving benefitThis stage of service to God is the stage in which all the conditions aremet for the purpose of creation to be fulfilled. The person receives fromGod according to His will to give. The person does not receive for him-self alone, but only receives from Him, because by doing so he is givingto God the pleasure of fulfilling His purpose. In this way the person isin complete dvekut with God, even whilst, and because, he is receivingpleasure and joy.At this stage the person receives because he wants to give pleasure toGod. Now there is no limit to the amount he can receive, for a personcannot say, “I have already given enough to God,” and since the mediumwith which he can give pleasure to God is through the fact that hereceives pleasure and joy from Him according to His will, we see thatthere 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 thelove 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

Page 4040Main principles in the service of Godthat the love of God is burning within him and that is more precious tohim than anything else. Then it is clear beyond any doubt, that if such aperson should receive the pleasure and joy that God wants to bestow onhim, he will receive it for the love of God alone.10. The way of Torah and the way of sufferingGod prepared for us these two ways that ensure we progress inspirituality:The way of TorahWhen we follow this path, we cleave to our holy books that deal withthe 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 theirwritings so that we will be able ascend the holy path to the House ofGod. Furthermore, a person should join in companionship with otherswho serve God, who put this path into actual practice. And through thefact that the person connects himself to such a good environment, bothin terms of the holy books and in terms of his companions, he becomesdrawn to the path in which the pleasantness of Torah shines, and hissoul is enlightened with the greatness and perfection of God. To theextent that he recognizes the beauty of the destination, so he also recog-nizes how awful separation from God feels.The way of sufferingWhen a person or the society is not mature enough to connect withthe books of wisdom and their authors, then, from Heaven, suffering isinvited as a wake-up call, so that the person or the society will see thelack of substance in materialism and its achievements, and appreciatethe beauty of spirituality and all it contains.The Talmud teaches (Sanhedrin 97:):Rabbi Eliezer said, “If Israel would repent they will be redeemed, butif not, they will not be redeemed.”Rabbi Joshua said to him, “How can it be possible that if theydo not repent of their own accord they will not be redeemed?! But

Page 4141Main principles in the service of Godthe Holy Blessed One will put a king over them, whose decrees areworse than Haman’s, (and this is the way of suffering) and will thuscompel 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 writ-ten 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 theyare worthy [for redemption through the way of Torah] then “I willhasten it”; if they are not worthy [then the redemption will come] “inits 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 eithertake the fish out of the water, or you can drain the water from thefish.Moral: If a person wants to stop using his or her selfish love, thenhe can take himself away from material enjoyment, and cleave toTorah. However, if the person does not do this himself, then he inev-itably receives the path of suffering; the Holy Blessed One will takethe joys and satisfaction out of the material world for him, and he isleft with complete emptiness. Then he is forced to go and search outa new source of sustenance because of the suffering caused by theemptiness.In his book Matan Torah Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag writes as follows:Know that there are two forces given to us from Above that pushus to climb up and ascend the rungs of the spiritual ladder until wereach the heavenly top that is our destination—namely, our similar-ity of form with our Creator, may the One be blessed.The first of these forces pushes us without our intent, which is tosay, 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’,

Page 4242Main principles in the service of Godwhich is based on experiential knowledge acquired by critical analy-sis of situations that arise in practice. This ethical law is in essence asummary of the damage that has become obvious to us and whichis caused by the core of egoism within us. These experiences cameto us seemingly by chance, without our intending them or choosingthem. However, they are sure in their purpose, because the charac-ter that evil takes becomes clearer to our senses. According to themeasure that we recognize the damage the evil causes, we removeourselves from it and thus arrive at a higher rung on the ladder.The second force pulls us consciously, that is through the powerof our own choice. This force pulls us forward from ahead. We havedesignated this force as being the path of Torah and mitzvot for thesake of giving benefit. For through the practice of the mitzvot and thework of giving satisfaction to the Creator we find that there develops

within us, with marvellous rapidity, the same sense of recognitionof the evil. We thereby profit in two ways: Firstly, we do not haveto wait for the vicissitudes of life to push us from behind, for theincentive they give rise to is measured only by the amount of painand destruction they cause us, which comes upon us through thepresence of the evil within us. Through the path of service to God,may the One be blessed, the same recognition of the evil within usdevelops without any prior suffering or destruction. On the contrary,through the pleasantness and refinement that we feel at the time ofour pure service to God, which we do only in order to give satisfac-tion to Him, there develops within us a relative ability to recognizethe baseness of the sparks of light that we gain through selfish love,that hinder us on our j ourney towards receiving this refined taste ofserving the One unconditionally. This gradual sense of the recogni-tion of the evil increases and develops within us through the periodsof delight and great tranquility we receive periodically, consequenton our service to God, may the One be blessed, and from our experi-encing the pleasantness and refinement that comes to us consequenton our affinity of form with our Creator. Secondly, we save time, asthis process functions with our intent, and we have it within our

Page 4343Main principles in the service of Godability to increase our practice of Torah and mitzvot, and so hurry upthe time our healing takes as much as we wish.Suffering is something all human beings undergo, and we all wonderwhy, 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 mayunderstand 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, fromits creation, was destined only for death and burial. This teachesus that the will to receive for oneself alone that is in the body waslikewise only created in order for us to blot it out, remove it fromthe world, and transform it into the will to give. The sufferings thatwe undergo are simply disclosures that reveal to us the futility anddamage that overlies the will to receive for oneself alone.Let us see what it will be like when all humanity agrees unani-mously to nullify and completely remove the will to receive for them-selves alone that is within them, and they will then have no willother than that of giving benefit to their companions. Then all ourworries, and all that is injurious to us, will vanish from the earth, andall beings will be certain of healthy and full lives, since each one ofus 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 andthe holocausts, from which we have no refuge, originate. Our bodiesbecome weakened with all kinds of illnesses and pains. Yet all thesufferings of our world are only warning lights to push us into doingthis work of nullifying the evil shell of the body and receiving theperfected form of the will to give. As we have said, the way of suffer-ing 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 theday that the heaven and the earth were created.” This means that all

Page 4444Main principles in the service of Godthe created beings of the world exist in their complete perfection, tosuch an extent that there was no joy before Him like unto the daythe heavens and the earth were created. However, it is impossible fora human being to participate in God’s great joy until he has come tothe complete teshuvah (transformation) from love. (He has achievedthe stage of the will to receive with the intention of giving benefit.)Before this he can neither rejoice in himself nor in the created beingsof the world. On the contrary, the person feels the world, with whichhe is confronted, to be full of suffering and pain, until he says, (as inJob 9:24), “the land is given over to the wicked.” Both bodily pain andemotional pain, which are caused by the sins that people do, come tothem because they are going along a path that is contrary to the pur-pose of creation. For the world was created according to the innerintention of giving unconditionally, that is for us to practise Torahand good deeds in order to give pleasure to the Creator, and not forpleasuring ourselves, as it is written, “All that God creates is for Hissake” (Proverbs 15:4), that is to say, in order that the created beingsshould give Him pleasure.But in the beginning, “A human being is born as a wild ass” ( Job11:12), which means that the only thing that interests a person is topleasure himself and he has no desire to give benefit to another at all.Thus the person maintains, “Everything that God made, He madefor me and my self-enjoyment,” and therefore he wants to swallowthe world, and all that is in it, for his own good and his own purpose.Therefore, the Creator implanted harsh and bitter suffering to beinherent in the matter of receiving for oneself alone, which is thenature a human being has from birth, including both physical andemotional suffering. If he were to occupy himself with Torah andmitzvot, even for his own pleasure, through the light that is in themhe would, at least, perceive the paucity and the dreadful destructivenature of the will to receive for oneself alone. Then the person maygive 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

Page 4545Main principles in the service of Godto the measure of the Scripture, “All that God has worked is for Hissake.” And then God will open the person’s eyes, and he will seebefore him a full world, perfectly whole, which has no lack. Then hewill be able to partake in the joy that God had when the One createdthe 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 ofmerit.” For wherever he looks he only sees goodness and perfection,and he does not see any deficiencies in God’s work, but he sees thateverything is meritorious.There are two ways by which one may consider the suffering,both physical and spiritual, that the person suffers before he or sherepented, (before reaching affinity of form with the Creator):Firstly, all that the Merciful One does is to benefit. For now theperson sees with his own eyes that if it were not for the dreadful painthat he suffered, because he was sunk in receiving for himself alone,he would never have merited that repentance, and so he blesses theevil in exactly the same way as he blesses the good. So we see thateverything that God does, He does in order to do good. That is tosay, 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 them-selves are transformed and become good in themselves. Thatis, the Creator, may the One be blessed, through the meansof very great light, illuminates all these evil acts until they aretransformed into good acts. This applies to both physical sufferingand to emotional suffering, which are sins. In this way all the sinstransform and receive the form of merit.In the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sephirot (paragraphs 42-44) RabbiAshlag writes:You need to know that the distance that we feel ourselves as beingso far away from God that makes us so liable to sin, has only onesingle cause. It is the source of all the pains and sufferings we expe-rience, and is the source of all our arrogant acts and mistakes over

Page 4646Main principles in the service of Godwhich we stumble. It is obvious that if we were able to remove thisone 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 thanthe minimal understanding that we possess of the way that Godinvolves Himself in the life of His creatures, which is termed HisDivine Providence. We do not understand Him as is fitting.Let us imagine how the world would be were God to relate to usin a completely open way. Suppose, for example, a Jew ate somethingthat was not kosher. It would cause him or her to choke immedi-ately on the spot. Equally, anyone who performed a mitzvah wouldstraight away experience the most wondrous ecstasy equivalent tothe best possible delights of this physical world. Of course, underthese circumstances, no Jew would contemplate even tasting some-thing that was not kosher if he or she knew for certain that it wouldcause them to lose their life. One would no more think of doing sucha thing than one would of jumping into a fire! In the same way, whowould miss an opportunity of running to perform a mitzvah as fastas they could? It would be just like a person, who, when offered agreat material delight, cannot refrain or hesitate, but runs to acceptit with all the alacrity he or she can muster. Therefore, if the DivineProvidence were to be openly manifest, everyone in the world wouldbe a complete tzaddik.So you can see, then, that in our world, all we lack is that DivineProvidence should be revealed. If the Divine Providence wererevealed, then all human beings would be complete tzaddikim. Allwould cleave to God in total love. It would be considered the great-est honor for each one of us to be friends with God and to love Himwith all our heart and soul, cleaving to Him continually, never miss-ing a moment.However, this is not the case. There is a basic principle in Jewishthought that we do not see the reward of mitzvot in this world. Simi-larly, we do not witness the punishment of sinners. God appears tohave great patience with them. Sometimes it even seems to us that

Page 4747Main principles in the service of Godwe see exactly the opposite, just as the Psalmist observed, “Beholdthese are the wicked. Always at ease, they increase in riches” (Psalms73:12).The consequence of this is that not everyone who wants to professa true relationship with God is able to do so. We stumble over everystep, to the extent that the sages, commenting on, “I have foundone man out of a thousand” (Ecclesiastes 7:28), said that if a thousandpeople enter to learn, only one will emerge as fit for instruction. Theright understanding of God’s relationship to His creation is thesource of all good, and its wrong understanding, the root cause of

all evil. So we find that this understanding is the still point aroundwhich all people revolve, attracting to themselves either correction orkindness.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 doesHe not reveal Himself immediately to the created beings? Why is Heconcealed from us at first?The reason is, that there is no way for the created beings to merit thelight of God if He did not first behave towards us in the modality ofconcealment. We see that God conceals Himself so that the person whois suffering will search and wonder, Why do I not feel all the goodnessand the joy that I should be feeling, since God is Good and does good toHis creatures? When he searches within, he will discover that he cannotfeel the joy and the good, because he is not putting his intention for thesake of Heaven, but all his actions are motivated by selfish love.Summary: the suffering and pain that we feel in this world comeabout because we are sunk in our own selfish love. The rule of such loveis, “Whoever has one portion will want two hundred!” We see that aperson lives continually in a state of lack of satisfaction and emptinessand his desire is never fulfilled. However if he lives in order to give ben-efit 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 alwaystakes more than his capacity to receive really is, and this causes him

Page 4848Main principles in the service of Godsuffering. We see this clearly with regard to food for example; takingmore than what is really required causes many illness. This rule is alsotrue for other appetites. However, when a person lives only on the basisthat he wishes to be in affinity of form with the Creator, and nothingelse is really important to him, then he uses all his faculties only in thebest and most appropriate way.Being sunk in our will to receive for ourselves causes all the mischiefthat occurs between ourselves and our fellow humans. From the con-stant demands of our selfish love to which we are enslaved, we tend toenslave and take advantage of our fellow. We don’t take note of the dif-ficulty of our fellow but put our focus on our own egoistic desires. Butin 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 toour fellows then we would certainly be living a life of happiness andtranquillity. For when everyone is concerned about the welfare of hiscompanion then the Scriptural promise that the land will no longerhave poor and downtrodden will be fulfilled, as it is written, “But therewill no longer be poor among you, for the Lord will surely bless you inthe 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 himselfand God. While a person is enslaved to his will to receive for himselfalone, this connection is not possible, because there is no affinity ofform between him and God—God having no will to receive, only thewill to give benefit. Thus a person, sunk in his selfish love, is denied theexperience of true happiness.All our sufferings are only given to us by God in order to show usthe intrinsic lack of worth of the will to receive for ourselves alone inorder that we should understand that the will to give benefit is a won-derful and amazing value in our lives, and we need to put forward allour best efforts in order to attain it. When we acquire the will to givebenefit and the ability to love our fellow human, then we have gainedon two counts: We come into affinity and connection with the Supreme

Page 4949Main principles in the service of GodKing of Kings, (the ultimate channel of Good) according to the dictumfrom the Talmud (Sotah 14a), “How can one cleave to Him, behold He isa flaming fire? As He is merciful and compassionate, so you be mercifuland compassionate,” and we gain true joy. Now we are able to receiveall the good and joy that God prepared for us. We cannot receive thegood and the joy in order to fulfill our selfish love. We may only receivethem for the sake of giving Him the pleasure of fulfilling His purposeof Creation.If we believe that all these sufferings are for our own benefit, then wecan accept them all with love, and are saved tremendous pain.11. The surrounding society tends to influence us undulyA person is a social creature. Therefore, he is influenced by the societyaround him. However, those who check their actions, their speech andtheir thoughts, sifting them, concerned as to whether their behavior is inaffinity of form with God or not, need to be careful about the influenceof the prevailing society. Generally speaking, the default consciousnessof 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 aperson’s will to receive (including his physical body) opposes the way ofgiving unconditionally, and a person does not find it easy to overcome it.Undue and pervasive influence from the surrounding society, if it is fol-lowing an opposite path, is thus detrimental, and a person needs to takeappropriate steps not to identify with a society that pursues oppositeaims than his own.12. Ascents and descents are part of our spiritual progressThe human being, unlike the animal, suffers from “ups” and “downs”.The name “Adam”, the human being, connotes one who tries to becomelike 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 selfishlove, that is, it is based on receiving a reward in this world, or a rewardin the next world, then he doesn’t suffer these “ups and downs” in the

Page 5050Main principles in the service of Godspiritual 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 onlyto serve God, not for any gain, then his will to receive opposes him withall its strength and power. It portrays the Torah in a negative light to theperson. Thus the person suffers many falls.Our teacher, Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag, said, “Descents are givenonly to those to whom ascents are also appropriate.” In other words,Heaven only sends the downs to those who serve, in order to help themadvance, 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, “therighteous will walk in them, but the wicked will stumble.” For then theperson has to say that in truth the down was caused by God himselfin order to help the person. It is only through these descents that theperson comes to be aware of the evil that is within him, and then he canpray 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 evilthat is within him clearly and then he cannot pray from the depths ofhis heart. Our teacher wrote on the virtue of such “downs” that it is justin the dark time that the person has the strongest connection with theCreator, because then he needs God with all his being. No-one can trulyassess the importance of the connection with God. During the time ofthe “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 con-ducts himself accordingly, then he is in the category of “the righteousshall walk in them,” and he will continue to progress on his path. Butif he is unable to accept that the descent comes from God, from Hisdesire to give good to all the created beings, then he can fall into bitter-ness 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, andagain 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 ofKotzk, “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 deli-cate balance in which those who are trying to come to affinity of formwith God find themselves. If they are able to walk in the paradigm offaith, which is above the paradigm of knowledge, and oppose their willto receive for themselves alone, then they are in the seventh heaven. Butif their will to receive for themselves alone were to prevail, then they fallto 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 thata person goes through to a nut on a bolt. The nut travels up or downon the thread of the screw. Every time it turns, it gets closer to thehead of the screw. Likewise, concerning a person’s work, even thoughit appears to him that he is going round and around at the samelevel, this is not in fact the case, because no day is like the previ-ous day, and no situation is like the previous situation. Each time heis actually rectifying something else. Furthermore, it is through thedescents that all the progress of the human being takes place. This isbecause when a person feels he is in a “down” he is not satisfied withthis feeling, and so we find that his desire to rectify himself growsstronger.When a person feels that he has an ascent in spirituality then his ten-dency is to feel that spirituality is natural to him, and to some extent hefeels surprised at the other people of the world, who busy themselveswith material things. He gets a glimpse of the beauty, joy and tranquil-lity that God’s light gives. At this point, it is very important that he nottake this state for granted—a mistake which tends to happen because itfeels natural—but he should remember where he came from, and givegreat thanks and praises to God, that God saw fit to grant him such ablessing. To the extent that he suffered the separation from God whenhe was down, that is the extent of the thanks and praise he is able togive God when he is up.

Page 5252Main principles in the service of GodFurthermore, the work of the left hand side and the work of the right-hand side as described in the next section, exists at every stage, as RabbiBaruch Shalom Ashlag explains:When a person receives an ascent, then he needs to think about thedescent. That is, he needs to think, what thoughts did I have whilst Iwas down, and what thoughts do I have now I am up? And when hesees what his thoughts consisted of when he was down, he can reallyappreciate and value the time of the ascent. Likewise he can feel andunderstand 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 havealready gone out into freedom. The halachah (Jewish Law) statesthat one who did not eat the bitter herbs didn’t go free, because oneactually needs to feel the bitterness of the evil during the time of theascent, in order not to forget all the bitterness that he was in duringthe 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 toenhance the feeling of gratitude, similarly to the way that the light isenhanced when it emerges from the dark.13. The left-hand side and the right-hand sideIn general, the inner work of a person needs to be divided into twoaspects: day and night. “Day” is the aspect of the right-hand side, andis the consciousness in which the person occupies most of his time inthe service of God. During this time, he should not examine himself inorder to see what he did or did not achieve in his tikkun, but he shouldonly consider the greatness of the Holy Blessed One. The more a personlives and breathes from this consciousness and ponders the greatness ofGod, the more that he finds that he is happy, because he is one withthe King of the universe. Nothing else in a person’s life causes him asmuch happiness as being one with God. In this state of consciousness, a

Page 5353Main principles in the service of Godperson can be happy from even the smallest degree of holiness, becausehe does not regard the size of the gift as being important, but he focuseson 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-handbrings close, and the left-hand pushes away” (Sotah 47a). It is through thisaspect of consciousness that the person yearns to become close to God.An example of the right-hand side of consciousness may be: A personhas spent the entire day cut off from thoughts of God, and was occu-pied entirely with material things, when he suddenly remembers thatthere is a Creator of the world. If he looks on the greatness of God andthe perfection of His providence, then he straightway gives thanks toGod that He gave him the privilege of coming close to Him.A person needs to believe that every thought that comes to him comesdirectly from God. Since a person’s nature, which is that of receiving, isconsidered as lowly when compared with the Creator—who is desig-nated as the Giver, and therefore felt to be inestimably high—a personneeds to rejoice in even the slightest portion of holiness that God giveshim. He really needs to appreciate that it is a gift and he should not takeit 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 toreceive for himself alone asks him, “And where were you all day? Weren’tyou thinking only of materialism? Now, suddenly, you remember thatthere is a Creator of the world?” and the person feels ashamed. Sincethere is a general principle that a person is where his thought is, we seethat in this feeling of sadness he is uniting with the negative and evenwith the material. Therefore, a person has to be on his guard againstthis response of his to this situation.So we see that the essence of the inner work done on the right-handside consists of work that a person does against his rationale, against hiswill to receive for himself. He needs to be happy that he merits even theslightest contact with holiness; he should rejoice in every mitzvah thathe has the opportunity to do, and in every thought that relates to God.

Page 5454Main principles in the service of GodThus the main part of a person’s work is that he should endeavor tobe happy before God, on the basis that his happiness is establishedthrough affinity of form with God, and that he merited, in some way, tocome close to the Creator.The second part of the person’s service should only occupy a small por-tion of his time, and is referred to as “night” or the left-hand side. This isthe time in which a person needs to look at himself and see how muchhe has progressed in all the points which are important in the serviceof God: the love of friends, the issue of faith, the issue of the fear ofbeing in separation from God, the love of God and so forth, as we havelearnt above. When a person sees that his situation is not good then hecan ask God for help. Therefore, this side is designated as the left-handside because the left-hand side denotes an aspect that requires correc-tion, 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 yourhand,” (Exodus 13:16) which, according to a hint in the text the Sagesunderstood as referring to the weaker hand. So we see that the left-handside symbolizes weakness. Also, as we learn from the Talmud, (Sotah 47)the right hand brings close and the left hand pushes away, because thecriticism that the person makes when working on his left-hand sideshows him how far away he is from holiness.Therefore, it is important for a person to walk according to these twoaspects of inner work. It is also important that the person learns to keepthem completely separate from each other. He should spend most of hisday practising the work of the right-hand side, not allowing himself atall to think thoughts that belong to the left-hand side. If such thoughtsarise within him spontaneously, he should push them aside until thetime 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” (Psalm57), on which the Sages taught (Yerushalmi: Berachot 5a) “I will awaken thedawn, but the dawn will not wake me.”Our teacher, Rabbi Baruch Ashlag, explained this saying as follows:

Page 5555Main principles in the service of GodThe word “dawn” (shahar) refers to darkness (shahor), which hints ata 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 criti-cism shall not come just when it wants,” according to the teaching ofthe 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 right-hand side a person merits to advance in spirituality and connect withGod. The Talmud describes these two paths using the metaphor ofbirth, “The father provides the white (the right-hand side) the motherprovides the red (the left-hand side) and the Holy Blessed One pro-vides the holy soul” (Niddah 31a).We also find these aspects alluded to in the sabbath song, “The right-hand side and the left-hand side and the Bride between them.” That isto say the holy Shechinah is found between these two lines, as is revealedto whoever walks on both these paths.Rabbi Baruch Ashlag asked, Why do we need the right-hand side andthe 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 sad-ness and finally come to a full stop in his service of God. So we needto work primarily on the right-hand side. However, we also need thework of the left-hand side, because a person needs to value the ser-vice of God, and if a person is satisfied with simply having a smallconnection with God and is happy with that, then he does not lackanything and will no longer try to progress.But since the purpose of Creation states that God wishes to givepleasure to the created beings, and therefore He desires that theyshould receive from Him—and receiving is only possible if there isa lack—we see that the attribute of being happy with one’s lot is notsufficient to come to our ultimate purpose.However, from negativity alone we cannot come to our ultimatepurpose, because from a consciousness that only consists of lack

Page 5656Main principles in the service of Godthere is no motive to progress.

Rabbi Baruch Ashlag further said,The right-hand side magnifies the left-hand side, and the left-handside magnifies the right-hand side. In the consciousness of the right-hand side the person portrays for himself the great love of God andhow God gives him faith, and when he subsequently passes over tothe left-hand side he is able to look at himself accurately accordingto the measure that he appreciates the greatness of God. He seesthat his own behavior really isn’t appropriate in the face of God’sbeneficence. And this increases his feeling of lack.However, on the other hand, the more his feeling of inadequacygrows, the more he needs to magnify his faith in the greatness ofGod, as in the consciousness of the right-hand side, and this pro-vides him with the motivation for his work. In this way, each linefertilizes the other line.We see that whoever walks on just one line, feels as if he is doing theCreator a favour with every mitzvah he does and he wants a reward foreach action. He sees himself as important and the Creator as less so.Walking on the two lines in harmony implies that the person attains thegreatness of the Creator and his own insignificance.14. Everything in the Torah is within usWe have to divide the learning of the Torah into two modalities. 1) theTorah 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 itis talking about two separate people. For example, when the Torah talksabout Jacob and Esau, then this would imply that it is speaking abouttwo separate individuals, Jacob and Esau, who quarrelled. Or when itis discussing the Children of Israel in Egypt, then it is talking abouttwo separate nations, the people of Israel, and the Egyptian people whoenslaved the Children of Israel. Most of the world learns the Torah inthis way. However, this approach often leads to difficulties, in that aperson finds it hard to feel any connection between himself and the sto-

Page 5757Main principles in the service of Godries of the Torah, the prophets, or the writings, and they appear to himas 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, “Andthe ark rested in the seventh month on the seventeenth day of themonth on the mountains of Ararat” (Genesis 8:4). How delightful arethe words of the Torah! Every word has high, inner meanings, andthe whole Torah is called “high”.We learn in the beraita of Rabbi Ishmael the thirteen principlesby which the Torah is propounded: “A particular (example) thatembodies a general principle, and is taken from a general principle in

order to teach, does not teach only about itself, but was brought toteach about the whole.”Since the Torah is the generality of the most High light, eventhough it may be telling one simple story, it certainly does not intendto demonstrate that particular story alone, but it intends to showhigher and concealed matters, and was not brought only to teachabout itself. Even though the example emerged from the general-ity of the Torah it did not emerge just to teach about itself, but itemerged in order to tell about the generality of the Torah.As it is written, “And the ark rested on the seventeenth day of themonth on the mountains of Ararat.” Certainly this scripture emergesfrom the generality of the Torah as a simple story. One asks, Whatdo we care if it rested on this mountain or that mountain? After allit had to come to rest somewhere! Answer: it does not come to tellabout itself, but to elucidate some general principle of the Torah.Happy are Israel to whom was given the highest Torah, the Torahof truth. And whoever says that a story of the Torah only comes totell that particular story is not in his right mind. Because if that werethe case, the Torah would not be a Torah of truth. But certainly thishighest, most holy Torah, is a Torah of truth,Come and see, regarding a King of flesh and blood: It is notaccording to his honor that he should speak in the language of theordinary person, or even more so that he should write in such a

Page 5858Main principles in the service of Godfashion. 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 hecollected together all sort of lowly stories like the words of (wickedpeople such as) Esau, and of Hagar, and of Laban against Jacob, andof Balaam’s donkey, and of Balaam, and the words of Balak, and ofZimri, and put these together with all the other stories and madethe Torah from these?If so, why would it be called the Torah of Emet, (Truth)? But “theTorah of God is whole…, the testimony of God is faithful…, thecommands of God are straight…, the mitzvot of God are clear…, thefear of God is pure…, the ordinances of God are true….” and it iswritten, “they are more pleasant than gold or much spun gold” (Psalm19, 8-11). Such are the words of the Torah.Certainly the highest, holy Torah is a Torah of truth. It is a wholeTorah of God and every single word comes to show the highest mat-ters, because the matter that is told in the story does not come toshow 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 iscomposed of the highest and deepest inner meanings of the revelationof God. In this way we should relate to the Torah, believing that in everyword hides the revelation of God. In every word the Torah is teachingus how to walk, in order that we may come to affinity of form with theCreator.2) Learning the Torah as a single entity. That is to say we learn theTorah as if all the events of the Torah are occurring within each indi-vidual person. This means that Jacob and Esau are two aspects that areto be found within each person and they fight with each other for thedomination of the person. As it is written, “Two peoples will come fromyour womb and they will strive with each other” (Genesis 25:23).Likewise, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob come to show different aspectsand stages in the service of God that a person should try to emulate.

Page 5959Main principles in the service of GodSimilarly, Israel and Egypt are two aspects within the same person, suchthat the Egyptian aspect within the person enslaves the Israelite aspectwithin 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 connectionwith himself but every letter of the Torah is connected with him andspeaks to him.We need to emphasize what our teacher Rabbi Baruch ShalomAshlag said, “If a person divides himself into two then he can deal withthe other side of himself. But if a person doesn’t do this then he cannotgive battle.” Explanation: If a person understands that there are two ele-ments within him that are in conflict with each other, one of which iscomposed of the appetites and thoughts of the will to receive for him-self alone, and the other is the holy point within the heart, then he isable to give battle in a more objective way against powers within himthat don’t in fact really belong to him. But if he identifies with them as ifthey are his own desires, then how can he fight against himself?

Page 60BiographyRabbi Avraham Mordecai Gottlieb heads the Beit haMidrash, OrBaruch Shalom situated in the Judean hills outside Jerusalem in KiryatYearim. From his youth he was close to his teacher, Rabbi BaruchShalom HaLevi Ashlag z’l, whose tradition and teaching he carries ontoday. 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 Ashlagz’l into English from the Hebrew.Her published books in English are:A Tapestry for the Soul: The Introduction to the Zohar by RabbiYehudah Lev Ashlag explained using excerpts from his other writings,andIn the Shadow of the Ladder: Introductions to the Kabbalah byRabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag with additional explanatory chapters byYedidah and Mark Cohen z’lShe runs an active website in English, Nehora Press, on which she pub-lishes short talks on the relationship of the Kabbalah with our dailylife and facitlitates small groups learning the work of Rabbi Ashlag inEnglish over the internet. She may be contacted via the website.

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