Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag — Baal HaSulam

Born in Łuków, Congress Poland, and known by the title of his own life's work — Baal HaSulam, "Master of the Ladder" — after Perush HaSulam, his line-by-line commentary on the Zohar. He emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1921, wrote a comparably systematic commentary on Isaac Luria's Etz Chaim (Talmud Eser Sefirot, published in sixteen parts from 1937), and died on Yom Kippur 1954; he is buried at Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem.

⭐⭐⭐ THE FIGURE THIS WHOLE WING TESTS. Ashlag's own explanation of the name he chose: "I have named that commentary The Sulam (Ladder), to show that its purpose is like any ladder — if you have an attic full of treasures, all you need is a ladder to reach it, and then all the wealth of the world is in your hands." The claim this wing keeps open, the same way ⚕ Jung's keeps its own central claim open, is how much of the ladder is a genuine simplification of Luria's system and how much is Ashlag's own addition — his students call it the former; independent scholarship is more divided.