Yehuda Ashlag

Yehuda Ashlag was born in 1880 in Warsaw

Ashlag was born in Łuków, Poland, to a family of scholars tied to Hasidic courts. As a boy he hid pages of Kabbalah inside his Talmud. He studied at the Gur yeshiva in Warsaw and married Rivka Roiza, his cousin.

In Warsaw he was ordained as a rabbi and served as a judge in a rabbinic court. There he studied Kabbalah with a hidden kabbalist who worked as a merchant.

In 1921 he moved to the Land of Israel and settled in Jerusalem. At first he lived from manual labor, and he was later appointed rabbi of Givat Shaul. From 1926 to 1928 he lived in London, where he wrote a commentary on Etz Chaim.

In 1932 he moved to Jaffa and began Talmud Eser Sefirot, a commentary on the writings of Isaac Luria. He gathered students and called for teaching Kabbalah widely. He also met labor leaders such as David Ben-Gurion and composed melodies for prayers and psalms.

In 1943 he moved to Tel Aviv and wrote the Sulam, a translation of the Zohar into Hebrew with commentary, completed in 1953. He died on Yom Kippur in 1954 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem.