The 20th-century rabbi Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag—also known as the Baal HaSulam after his commentary on the Zohar known as “The Sulam,” or “The Ladder”—played a major role in the surprisingly widespread popularity of Kabbalah. This was no accident, writes Yehuda Fogel.
Unlike many Kabbalists before him, he believed in the import of sharing and popularizing the esoteric, paving the way for the movements that followed from his influence.
Ashlag lived a curious life, Fogel continues:
He’s said to have studied Hegel and Nietzsche in German, and to have studied with an anonymous teacher for several months. Students of his students went on to found the much-maligned Kabbalah Center, which has since garnered headlines about the financial improprieties of its directors, as well as its celebrity adherents. David Ben-Gurion mentions meeting Ashlag multiple times, and that “while I wanted to talk to him about Kabbalah, he wanted to talk to me about socialism and communism.”
Read more on 18Forty: https://18forty.org/articles/his-ladder-will-take-you-to-the-zohar/