The writing of The Tree of Life by the Ari, marks the beginning of the last phase in the evolution of the souls. The Ari writes that his phase is the last generation. From his time on, the wisdom of Kabbalah begins to emerge from hiding, though it still takes centuries. With him, a new qualitative process has begun.
Kabbalist writers can feel that their phase is the last before correction because they know it takes only a little MAN (prayer for correction) to reveal everything and put an end to our world’s troubles. There’s just a fraction of an inch missing to make contact. Crossing the gap is up to us, and this is why Kabbalists try to spread their knowledge, so more souls are corrected. They feel we are very close to completing our correction.
The Study of the Ten Sefirot
The words of Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai were written in The Book of Zohar by his student, Rabbi Aba. The words of the Ari were written by his student, Chaim Vital. But unlike his spiritual ancestors, Rav Yehuda Ashlag, known as Baal HaSulam (Master of the Ladder) for his Sulam (ladder) commentary on The Book of Zohar, wrote his books by himself.
The “flagship” of his work is his commentary on the writings of the Ari, known as Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot). In six volumes and more than 2,000 pages, Baal HaSulam explains to uneducated souls of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries what the Ari actually meant when he wrote The Tree of Life. Baal HaSulam wrote his book specifically to people who want spirituality and nothing else. In his “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,”he states that his intended audience is those who ask, “What is the meaning of my life?”