Yehuda Ashlag, the Socialist Kabbalist

Among the few who know of Rav Yehuda Ashlag (1885–1954), his name is associated with esoteric Jewish thought or with the pop Kabbalah movements led by his second generation students. Some may know that he translated the central work of Jewish mysticism, the Zohar, into modern Hebrew in the early 50s, or have studied his brilliant commentary on it, Perush al HaSulaam (The Ladder).