Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag’s Introduction to the Zohar: The Wisdom of Truth, translated by Yoel Finkelman, presents a sweeping theological vision written during the destruction of European Jewry. Convinced that spiritual repair was urgently needed, Rabbi Ashlag set out to build a 'ladder' to the Zohar, the central work of Jewish mysticism, so that sincere readers could ascend toward its depths. His introduction frames the catastrophe of his time as inseparable from a failure to engage the inner dimension of Torah with genuine intention.

Opening with six foundational questions about creation, suffering, and human imperfection, Rabbi Ashlag argues that God’s purpose was to bestow infinite good. The defining feature of creation, he writes, is the 'desire to receive,' a quality absent in God and therefore wholly new. Spiritual distance from God arises not from physical separation but from 'difference in form': God gives, while humans receive. The task of life is to transform that desire from selfish reception into giving, aligning human nature with its divine source.

The book insists that this inner transformation, achieved through Torah and the commandments performed with true intention, is the only path to redemption. Suffering, Rabbi Ashlag contends, becomes the alternative route when spiritual work is neglected. Reverently positioning the Zohar as a text of the highest prophetic stature, he reminds readers that a ladder is not a resting place but a means of ascent, urging commitment to the study that, in his words, will bring redemption in mercy.