Everyone in Love: The Beautiful Theology of Rav Yehuda Lev Ashlag

Rav Yehuda Lev Ashlag (1885-1954) is famous throughout the Orthodox Jewish world as a Kabbalist and commentator on the mystical text the Zohar. In pop spiritual culture, "gurus" of the new age Kabbalah movement embraced by seekers and celebrities drew on aspects of his thought and acknowledged him as their master. He is seldom appreciated for what he also was: a brilliant and important ethicist, a political radical, and an innovative mystical theologian. In this book Matthew Gindin, a journalist and teacher of Jewish contemplative practices, offers a brief guide to the core ideas of this bold thinker. Rav Ashlag's theology contains not only a systematic analysis of the ascent of the soul to God but a profound ethics of love and an inspiring vision of the relationship between the Jewish people and the world.