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When I learn the work of Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag, the Baal HaSulam, I am struck by the joy and the love that is embedded in his work. Listening to some old recordings of him giving a lesson, we hear his voice ringing out with joy. He was clearly a man of both deep understanding and of rich feeling.
Our feelings actually originate with the very Thought of Creation, whereby the Creator desires to give pleasure to all the created beings. Thus we all long for pleasure, and that is a given. But what is not a given, is how we receive this pleasure?
In a letter that Rabbi Ashlag wrote to his brother, he teaches that the soul incarnates into this world, because only when it is clothed in the physical can it experience feeling; whereas in the higher realms it has knowledge of God but not feeling. It is through our difficult feelings that we long for the revelation of God’s light in our lives, creating the desire, the vessel for his light. When such a desire is at long last fulfilled we rejoice in the manifestation of God’s goodness, His light. In this way, the soul, while in this world, grows in spiritual stature in a way it cannot do in the higher realms. it learns, through this interplay of negative and positive feelings, the revelation of God’s Names in the world.
Dedicated to David and Linor on the occasion of their marriage.
Here is a link to a recording of a lesson given by the Baal HaSulam even when we don’t understand his words we can hear the beautiful clarity and radiance of his voice.
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