Yehuda Ashlag: Doing

“In addition to the animal essence, we have something that is above animal existence. This something is called our egoism. It is based on our aspirations to wealth, honor, fame, power, and knowledge. Animals do not have these aspirations […] — envy, inclination to pleasures, and aspiration to honor. These aspirations bring a person to a level above the animal. Since they are above animal qualities, these aspirations and qualities are praiseworthy. On the other hand, their common natural utilization puts us below all other levels”

Yehuda Ashlag

i.e. still, vegetative, and animate
Introduction to the Book of Zohar, in Introduction to the Book of Zohar: Volume Two, Michael Laitman, ed., Laitman Kabbalah Publishers, 2005, p. 94.
Introduction to the Book of Zohar

Pleasure , Nature , Knowledge , Animals

“It is much like a rich man, who takes a man from the market and feeds him and gives him gold and silver and all desirables every day. And each day he showers him with more gifts than the day before. Finally the rich man asks: Do tell me, have your wishes all been fulfilled? And the man from the market replies, not yet, for how pleasant and wonderful it would be if all those possessions and precious things came to me through my own work as they came to you, and I would not be receiving the charity of your hand. The rich man told him then: In this case, there has never been born a person who could satisfy your wishes.”

Yehuda Ashlag

Assorted Themes, On Shame with regard to Receiving

Personality

“Know that the essence of a person, as such, is quite impossible to perceive without his material embodiment (…) This is because our five senses and our imagination do not offer us anything more than the revelation of the actions of the essence, but not the essence itself.”

Yehuda Ashlag

Assorted Themes, On Form, Essence & Matter

Imagination , Sense , Personality

“[W]hat a terrible wrong inflict those nations that force their reign on minorities, depriving them of freedom without allowing them to live their lives by the tendencies they have inherited from their ancestors (…) For we can see how all the nations that ever fell, throughout the generations, came to it only due to their oppression of minorities and individuals, which had therefore rebelled against them and ruined them. Hence, it is clear to all that peace cannot exist in the world if we do not take into consideration the freedom of the individual. Without it, peace will not be sustainable and ruin shall prevail.”

Yehuda Ashlag

Assorted Themes, On Freedom

World , Peace , Freedom

“[W]hen we examine the acts of an individual, we shall find them compulsory. He is compelled to do them and has no freedom of choice. In a sense, he is like a stew cooking on a stove; it has no choice but to cook. And it must cook because Providence has harnessed life with two chains: pleasure and pain (…) there is no difference here between man and animal. And if that is the case, there is no free choice whatsoever, but a pulling force, drawing them toward any bypassing pleasure and rejecting them from painful circumstances. And Providence leads them to every place it chooses by means of these two forces [i. e. pleasure and pain], without asking their opinion in the matter.”

Yehuda Ashlag

Assorted Themes, On Freedom

Life , Pain , Pleasure , Sense

“[I]f all people were to come by equal concepts and inclinations, without any difference whatsoever, all the souls of all the people would be regarded as one soul. Its value would be like the light of the sun: the light clothes in all the inhabitants of the world, yet we do not discern that there are separate forms in the sunlight. Similarly, one conceptual soul would robe many bodies, since places do not separate at all in spiritual matters if there are no separate forms in their qualities.”

Yehuda Ashlag

Selected Articles

People , World , Soul , Light