I Believe in Rav Laitman, Recollections of Feiga Ashlag, the Widow of the Late Rav Baruch Ashlag May 2005
Since Rav Baruch Ashlag (1901-1991) was the last in a long chain of kabbalists who passed the secret wisdom on from one to another throughout the generations, this recent interview with his wife about his special relationship with Rav Laitman is very moving.
Here is an excerpt:
People believe that a Rav is someone who has to behave and look a certain way. There is an expected standard, and Rav Laitman did not fit into this. It was as if he consciously violated certain conventional norms; externally, he did not try to look like a saint or righteous man. He was even more of an ordinary man than Rebbe. Rav Baruch used to at least dress in his religious-looking attire. Meanwhile, Rav Laitman came out into the public as a simple, relatively young person (he was forty five). These guys had to accept him as their Teacher, their Rav. They did, but there was a point when they started having big doubts.
Once I told a few of them: “Everything is in your hands. If you let Rav Laitman go now, you will let your desire for the spiritual slip away, and you will not be able to increase it! Afterwards there will be no one around to receive it from. You will have nothing! Now, you just have a complete faith that everything is in the hands of Rav Laitman, that he has something to say. Everything else is the exterior! This doubt that you have is probably given to you on purpose!” I remember this from Rav Baruch. He used to do similar things to his students to deliberately try to lessen their homage to him. “Disregard what appears on the surface! Focus on the heart of the issue – Rav Laitman holds the strings to the spiritual!”
Rav Laitman was, is, and will be guided by the Upper Providence for the purposes of bringing the world to completion, correction, and going beyond the boundaries of time and space.
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