Baruch Ashlag - Social Doctrine

Social Doctrine

Rabbi Yehuda asserted that a human being is a social being and that one cannot exist without a society that provides for one's basic needs, and projects its values upon its members. As his father before him, the Rabash believed that an individual is constantly affected by the environment he is in. From the moment a person enters a certain society, he no longer has freedom of choice and is completely subordinate to its influence. According to Ashlag, one's only choice is the choice of the environment that will project the values one wants to adopt.

Since the spiritual path is like a thin line, from which one must be careful from deviating, the society that is meant to support and promote a person toward one's goal in life is of critical importance. Hence, as did his father, he spent many years formulating the fundamentals of building a co-operative society that strives to achieve spirituality, the way Kabbalists perceived it throughout the generations: obtaining love of the Creator by means of obtaining love of man. For this reason, the bulk of Rabash's essays are dedicated to explication and simplification of the principles of the spiritual work of an individual within such a society.

It is however should be noted that Kabbalah teaching is revealed thru study in a group under supervision of a tutor, while understanding comes as a result of internal transformations the Kabbalah student experiences, therefore the teaching cannot be understood simply intellectually and depending on the efforts of the disciple the perception of the Kabbalah sources change, therefore understanding Rabbi Yehuda's heritage without actually learning Kabbalah correctly in accordance with the method transmitted by the Kabbalists of the past, such as the Abraham, Moshe, ARIZAL, Baal haSulam and Rabash.