Giv­ing is a clas­sic text, essays from Rab­bi Yehu­da Ash­lag’s book The Giv­ing of the Torah, trans­lat­ed by Aryeh Siegel into lay­man’s Eng­lish with a new com­men­tary that pro­vides spir­i­tu­al guid­ance attuned to the needs of our time.

Instead of instinc­tive­ly ask­ing our­selves ​“what’s in it for me?,” we can learn to ask ​“what can I do for you?” with no self-cen­tered hid­den agen­da. This is the essen­tial teach­ing of the Kab­bal­ah por­trayed in these essays by Rab­bi Ash­lag (Baal Hasu­lam), the great­est mod­ern expli­ca­tor of Kab­bal­ah. Rab­bi Avra­ham Mordechai Got­tlieb pro­vides the com­men­tary, as he is a liv­ing Chas­sidic rebbe devot­ed to the prac­tice and teach­ing of Baal Hasu­lam’s spir­i­tu­al path.

The fruit­ful study of Kab­bal­ah is not depen­dent on one’s knowl­edge, intel­li­gence, or tal­ent. It requires only a desire to work on one’s char­ac­ter, sin­cer­i­ty of inten­tion, and faith. So the intend­ed audi­ence of this book includes any human being with that desire. The goal is to become a soul that longs to give to oth­ers in imi­ta­tion of the divine char­ac­ter of love.