Question: Archaeologists often find a great number of figurines of different gods and idols dating back to the time of the First Temple during their excavations. How can the worship of various idols be combined in a people who believe in one God?

Answer: Look at small children—how they make all sorts of idols for themselves, build some little things. When a child firmly holds a toy, it calms him down, gives him self-confidence.

Keeping something familiar, something a person is used to (cameos, amulets, red threads, holy water, for example) gives a person confidence, like a child who does not let go of a small toy because he is used to it, it soothes him.

This is the original basis of worship, pure idolatry.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/5/22

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Comment: “Do I think or does someone think for me? Do I live or does someone control me?” Such are the questions asked by many scientists.

Today, the hypothesis that consciousness exists independently of the brain is defended by modern Dutch physiologists, who believe that thinking matter does not exist at all. And British scientists argue that the brain, like any other organ, consists of cells and is not capable of thinking. It works like a device that only detects thoughts.

In 1935, a baby was born in New York, who lived for 27 days, cried, behaved like all newborns, and only after his death, pathologists found that he had no brain at all. How is this possible?

My Response: We do not know what the brain is. We do not know where it is located. In practice, it spreads throughout the body, because each cell must know what to do and how to interact with the whole organism.

The body is a mechanism that must receive signals, implement them, and give a response, a response about execution. That is, the brain should be practically everywhere in every cell, at every point.

The brain is a field that exists in us, around us. You can’t even say “in or around us” because this is a completely different reality, a different dimension. It is the thought that fills and surrounds the entire universe, the entire universe.

Even astrophysicists and astronomers say that our universe is a thought. They feel that in the conversation of the stars, in the entire vast volume of the universe, in the accumulation of seemingly completely dead bodies, there is a thought, a melody, a transmission of huge information about the past, present, and future, and not at the level of inanimate masses, but at a completely different internal level, which, unfortunately, we do not cover, do not understand.

Therefore, all our attempts to understand the work of the brain, in principle, do not lead to great success because the brain is an executive part. It is what catches the surrounding signals, interacts with them and converts them into some very external, very primitive instructions to our body. No more.

We are beings completely unknowable to ourselves, we do not know ourselves. We just feel our body, and who we really are, we do not know.

Moreover, we do not know the system that controls us and binds us together into one single control force. The brain is there.

Question: Where do all the signals come from?

Answer: What does “come” mean? We are in this system, in the same volume. And we feel ourselves in the form of an animal, a material body, with its executive part, which includes our brain.
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From KabTV’s “Close up. Dissenting Opinion” 8/29/10

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Everyone has their own program of development, according to which they are advancing. No person who was born can understand where he ended up, why he was born with such qualities, in such a family, at such a time, and in such conditions.

Then he grows and develops. As far as souls are concerned, this corporeal development leads to the question of the meaning of life, and then a person comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah, and receives the opportunity to develop further, beyond the boundaries of corporeality.

If a person declines the opportunity given to him to study the wisdom of Kabbalah, he continues his animalistic development. If he accepts the wisdom of Kabbalah, but uses it incorrectly, he will be moving in circles until he corrects his approach.

Nowadays, however, it is no longer possible for a person to develop in all possible directions, the way it was in the past. After all, back then, the development of humanity happened widely in all directions. Today it is narrowing more and more, focusing more and more precisely on the purpose of creation.

In our time there are not many people in the world who want to found some new religion or their own school of philosophy. Humanity has already gone through all these fantasies. The time has come for more practical exercises that allow us to discover methods of correcting a person in order to bring him in line with the correction of the world.

A person receives thoughts and desires all the time from above, from his purpose of creation, that is, from the point where he should be in the common soul. From there, he constantly receives all kinds of discernments in his mind and heart, in his feelings and in his reason, which each time guide him in life, that is, that return and push him to that very end point.

If he tries to use his chance and finds the right environment, he can develop quickly and successfully. If not, he will wander and get confused on the way for a long time, but in the end, he will still reach the goal.

Everyone will eventually reach the goal. The only question is how long will we have to wander, that is, how many cycles of life will it take and how much suffering, in order to eventually understand that there is no choice in this life, except to approach the purpose of creation.

We are inside a solid, correctly organized system, but it leaves us some degree of freedom and allow us to make mistakes in order to learn from them or to learn in order not to make mistakes.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/22, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Comment: The word “idolatry” comes from the Greek “idol,” “god.” In the literal sense, this means the worship of some gods to whom sacrifices were made, including human ones.

My Answer: We are constantly making sacrifices in our world. The fact that I get up, go to work, do something for myself, for others, and receive from them, all this can be called a sacrifice of my time, my attention, etc.

In addition, we call a sacrifice a donation, when a person donates from himself for something that is important to him.
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From Kab TV’s “Spiritual States” 5/4/22

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Question: What is the difference between idolatry and worship? Respect?

Answer: The worship of someone or something always exists in our world and determines the difference between the degrees we place people on. We define gradations as better, worse, more beautiful, stronger, and so on.

Idolatry is a completely different attitude to various phenomena of nature when I attribute some special qualities to them.

Moreover, I endow them with my own or contrived qualities because it’s better and more convenient for me. In this way I build myself a more connected picture of the world around me.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/5/22

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Question: A person has an inherent need to believe in something, to have idols, to look up to something, to worship something. Is faith inherent in our nature or is it a result of the development of society?

Answer: Faith is a characteristic of a highly developed organism. We cannot say that some primitive creatures or animals have faith. Faith is a natural need of a person since it comes from his insecurities.

Faith is an internal movement of a person who wants to put himself on some kind of pedestal, on some essential natural or scientific basis, where he can rely on something.

Question: As a Kabbalist, what do you believe in, what do you worship?

Answer: In general, I do not believe in anything and I do not worship anyone or anything. But, on the other hand, there are things that I elevate, respect, and try to reach the level of. You can say that I kind of worship them, but this worship is more like respect.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/5/22

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Comment: The founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud argued that if a person asks about the meaning of life, it is a mental illness.

My Response: From the point of view of a psychoanalyst he is right because a person should live normally and peacefully in his animalistic state. Children, spouse, work, nature, this world, everything is created so that one would find their place in it.

All our impulses, good and not so good ones, both high and low, in principle, should arrange the world that surrounds a person. He must find himself in all this and balance it with all his flaws and opportunities in the environment, in the place, and in the era in which he lives.

Freud was coming from the fact that a person in our world, in general, is self-sufficient. The entire environment around him is designed by the Creator so that a person can reach the right rapport with himself, with nature, and with his inner self.

From Freud’s point of view, everything closes within the framework of our world and there is no need to look for anything else.

On one hand, he was right. Humanity has been moving in this direction for tens of thousands of years since we climbed down from the trees and began to develop as humans. In this regard, we have always found new horizons of development, new motivations in our world. Each generation set itself new tasks and new solutions for them.

In each generation, there was a constant reevaluation of values. Even in ancient Greek writings it was said that our world is not the same as it was before: everyone strives for freedom, children do not listen to their parents. That is, everything moves, everything changes.

Freud had no idea that the world would reach a state where even the most ordinary people would have a question about the meaning of life from within. He believed that a simple person acting within the framework of our world was self-sufficient.

Comment: I imagine the state of a person in whom the question of the meaning of life awakens. He may not always even realize what kind of question it is.

My Response: But this is already a post-Freudian person.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Is Frankl right?” 9/27/10

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Comment: I heard of a case where the parents of students filed a lawsuit against the teachers who taught their children that man originated from the ape.

My Response: Our body really originates from a monkey, and our “I” comes from the upper force. You cannot get away from it! They forget about the second half.

The human in me did not come from a monkey. Only my body is a consequence of animal development.

Comment: The fact is that those parents urged the teachers to give a child some freedom of choice between the fact that he is not only a body and that it is possible that there is something else in it.

My Response: To choose between a monkey and the Creator? Good choice. But how will they do it?

In fact, between the monkey and the Creator there is the “I” of man. If you open Kabbalistic books written long before Darwin, you will see that the human body originated from the monkey—from inanimate to vegetative level, from vegetative to animate.

This is stated in The Book of Zohar 2,000 years ago and in the writings of the Ari 600 years ago. And Darwin’s theory is only 250 years old.

The intermediate state between the animal and human body is the monkey. Nevertheless, it will be proven by science. But that is not the problem!

The problem is that the human self has no connection with the monkey. It is just our body, our physiology, our flesh.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Theater of the Absurd” 7/18/10

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When a person wonders about the meaning of life and shares his concerns with his friends, they often do not understand him at all and ask: “What is wrong with you? What do you want?” This is what we see in the world today.

Usually such people turn to a psychoanalyst, who says: “You are depressed, you have questions to which, in principle, there are no answers. This is some kind of disorder.” A normal person should live within the framework of our world and find his fulfillment and satisfaction in it.

He must accept this life as a normal human existence. And although we have a question about death, we sense it just like animals do, but we understand its inevitability and nevertheless exist.

During the Soviet era, we were diligently taught that nature is infinite, eternal, perfect, and we gradually have to reach maximum harmony in order to live happily, safely, joyfully, beautifully, and comfortably, meaning that our animal existence should be very good, comfortable, nice, and that’s it.

Comment: The famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud believed that a normal person should not question the meaning of life.

My Response: He was right, because there is no answer to this question. And if it remains unanswered, then it arises from some painful conditions that are unnatural for us. Therefore, it is considered unhealthy.

It is the question about the meaning of life, about deep otherworldly states, where did I come from, and what is it that exists there?

Such questions lead humanity to very unreasonable actions, religious wars, all kinds of misconceptions, and thousands of all sorts of paradigms, and we do not know what to do with them.

There are various ramifications that emerge and the separation of mankind according to approaches to life and death. People who invent all sorts of rituals, religions, methods, and beliefs profit from this. And all this spins around the question of death and the meaning of life.

Therefore, Freud offers a very simple solution. We exist within sensible limits, and outside of them, we have no understanding, no feeling, no solutions whatsoever. Therefore, everything that arises outside of this frame is the fruit of our imagination. Let’s not touch it, it always leads us to suffering. Let’s lock ourselves within the framework of our world, and we will live for ourselves and the future generation.

In the same way the Soviet government once brought us up very simply and very primitively. By the way, the very first societies at the dawn of mankind were communist. Meaning, we live for ourselves and for our children. That is all. And in this we find our satisfaction, fulfillment, and happiness.

Question: Is the science of Kabbalah engaged in what gives a person the answer to the question about the meaning of life?

Answer: Kabbalah is engaged in first raising a person to the level of this question and then giving an answer to it. But if a person does not want to delve into it, if he does not have the motivation to do so, Kabbalah does not come to him.

And even if a person begins to be interested in revealing this question through Kabbalah, it does not immediately give him an answer. It is like it is telling him: “You have to develop yourself to the point where you are aware of this question yourself, and then you will gradually begin to reveal the answer to it.”
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up, Is Frankl right?” 8/8/10

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Before the collapse of the Second Temple, the Jewish people lived according to the formula “love your neighbor as yourself.” Therefore, they never had the suppression of one by the other like the Romans.

A person was considered great in his spiritual inclinations, in his mercy to others, in mutual help and love. The scientist who knew why it is necessary to live according to the principle of “love your neighbor” interpreted this from within himself. But at the same time, he could do the simplest work.

For example, the great sage Rabbi Yohanan was a shoemaker, someone else was a tailor, and so on. They considered it their duty to participate in simple labor.

After all, the task of a person in this world is to live by his own work, and along with this, to ascend to the very heights of creation with his inner spiritual work. But with the Romans, everything was done totally differently: divide and conquer, suppress with your pride, with your strength.
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From KabTV’s “Close up. Formula of the Creator” 7/18/10

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