Baal HaSulam’s Warning to the Jews: As Relevant Today as in 1933

Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag, nicknamed “Baal HaSulam” (the “Master of the Ladder”) for his monumental multi-volume “Sulam” (“Ladder”) commentary on The Book of Zohar, is widely renowned as the greatest Kabbalist of the 20th century. Other than The Zohar commentary, he invested immensely in teaching and spreading the wisdom of Kabbalah by also writing The Study of the Ten Sefirot, a six-volume commentary on the works of Kabbalist Isaac Luria (the ARI), as well as hundreds of articles that systematically explain Kabbalah’s fundamental principles and basic concepts, texts that provide a firm foundation for Kabbalah’s mass expansion in our era.

In addition to Baal HaSulam’s tremendous efforts to teach and spread Kabbalah as a wisdom capable of explaining why we exist, where we come from, what process we are now in, where we are headed, why there is so much suffering in the world, and how we can shift from a destructive to a constructive evolutionary trajectory, he also foresaw the tragedies the Jews endured in the Holocaust, and tried warning them in advance.

Baal HaSulam wrote about how in 1933, the year when Hitler rose to power as Germany’s chancellor, he had warned the leaders of the time about the impending doom that would come upon the Jews, but nobody listened to him.

“I have already conveyed the basics of my views in 1933. I also spoke to the leaders of the generation but at the time, my words were not accepted, though I screamed like a crane and warned about the ruin of the world. Alas, it made no impression. But now, after the atom and hydrogen bombs, I think the world will believe me that the end of the world is nearing rapidly, and Israel will be the first nation to be burned, as was in the previous war. Thus, today it is good to awaken the world to accept its only remedy so they may live and exist.” — Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “The Writings of the Last Generation.”

The remedy Baal HaSulam wrote about is the need to awaken positive connection and unity throughout humanity. And the warning about the Jews being “the first nation to be burned” points to the fact that in every generation, the Jews, who today make up a tiny 0.2 percent of the world population, continually find themselves at the center of the world’s attention.

Why are the Jews such a focal point in the world? Why are we a nation that is repeatedly pressured and hated by other nations?

Indeed, many people throughout history have reasoned the need for the removal of Jews from various countries, as well as their total elimination from the world. Baal HaSulam described that the myriad reasons for Jew hatred stems from a deep-seeded hatred that dwells in human consciousness beyond the power of human reasoning:

“It is a fact that Israel is hated by all the nations, whether for religious, racial, capitalist, communist, or for cosmopolitan reasons, etc. It is so because the hatred precedes all reasons, but each merely resolves its loathing according to its own psychology.” — Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “The Writings of the Last Generation.”

The attitude to the Jews truly seems to be an unnatural, unrealistic and abnormal phenomenon. However, as waves of Jew hatred have crashed down several times throughout history, we see them also doing so today, and they will continue doing so as we head into the future. It is incredible how such a quantitatively small nation can hold so much influence in the world and its history.

We would thus be wise to learn the deeper reasons behind what is happening, how matters will further develop, and how we can help the process unravel more harmoniously and peacefully. Whether or not we want — or understand — the rising hatred against the Jews worldwide, we need to understand that it will continue rising to levels where all countries, regimes and nations will hold the Jews in their targets.

The hatred that constantly brews toward the Jews is due to an instinctive feeling that we Jews are the source of all troubles. According to our mission, it is correct that such hatred toward us exists. What is incorrect are the various proposed solutions to eradicate us. You cannot destroy the nation of Israel even if it is very small in size.

The pressure on us should, however, awaken our unity and the sense of our mission in the world, which is the need to awaken the force that is positioned against the pressure — that of love, connection and unity. If we realize our mission, then we will see harmonious and peaceful rippling effects throughout the world. It first depends on how we realize a unified spirit among each other, because we host such a solution within us.

If Baal HaSulam’s warnings to the Jews had once fallen on deaf ears, today I think that we are more alert to the dangers we face. We are riper to accept unifying messages that we could not hear in the past.

Today, we have a growing ability to hear that a shift to a better world depends on us, and that we have it in our power — even without our agreement or awareness — to awaken a maelstrom of events in the world, which is also what humanity increasingly points out about us. Therefore, we need to advance such that we can realize our unifying mission, first among each other and then to project a unifying spirit to the world, and by doing so, we will be able to prevent future disasters.