My new article on Linkedin “The Way the Pandemic Has Strengthened Religious Beliefs”

When one cannot come to terms with a somber reality, looking towards heaven is an instinctive reaction. In the US, half a million lives have been lost in the COVID-19 pandemic in a year since the outbreak of the virus. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center reveals that people from economically developed countries claim that the eruption of COVID-19 has boosted their religious beliefs, particularly in the US where nearly three out of ten American adults say the coronavirus plague has strengthened their faith.

The coronavirus is a reaction to humanity on the part of the harmonious nature, a sort of catalyst for re-bridging the gap that has been created between humanity and nature. Therefore, what we urgently need are positive connections between us—in other words, the religion of love.

The development of civilization has distanced us from nature; therefore, we are unaware of its conduct and feel more vulnerable to it. Thus, despite our tremendous technological capability, we stand helpless in the face of global epidemics, climate change, and other crises. We do not know where to flee, how to cope, and certainly do not see a bright future on the horizon.

The uncertainty of these times, the lack of clear answers, and the fading of hope sends people searching, as they have since time immemorial, for a higher power they hope might be guiding their fate. They begin to grope in the dark and ask: Where is this power that is creating this evil in the world that we see around us now, how can we survive the next blow, and in general, what is the meaning of this world? As we hear of more and more people dying from this plague, our sense of security is undermined, fear for our loved ones grows, and life takes on an unfamiliar, ambiguous gray tone. On the other hand, living conditions have drastically changed in the past year. Work has moved into home, children have become immersed in distance learning, and the framework of life has been reduced to within family boundaries. Our world has shrunk.

With reduced choices in the search for some ray of light that provides security now when people really do not know what to count on or where to pin their hopes, religion becomes an anchor, a source of stability. One may not necessarily find in it an answer to every question, but at least it gives some sense of relief from the frightening reality people face.

It is not a sign of a backward trend or a tendency to a more religious and conservative world. Instead, it is a sign of humanity seeking, in a time of turmoil and crumbling foundations, for the meaning of life, and a growing desire for a confident connection to the future in closeness with the Supreme Force that governs life. But in this quest, those who find religion insufficient for providing lasting calm and fulfillment will keep searching for answers.

Even before the main religions expanded to the whole world, numerous beliefs, rituals, and idolatry practices existed. The human being has always needed a sense of security and answers for the inexplicable. This notion prompted the controversial Karl Marx to claim that “religion is the opium of the people,” while Voltaire said “if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” As a matter of fact, it is good for a person to seek a connection to a higher power. It manifests throughout our historical axis of development: tribes danced around bonfires to honor their goddesses, bowed to statues, and worshiped the power of nature in different ways until such practices evolved into structured religions and systems of belief.

The strengthening of religious belief in the recent days of the pandemic, as the latest survey shows, actually indicates a broader developmental process that humanity is going through. The global COVID-19 plague is teaching us that we are one small worldwide village, and we are all interdependent under a supreme force that controls every detail in reality.

We are all in a single harmonious natural system, connected in all its parts, and a person, as a result of one’s opposite egoistic nature, time and time again severs the threads of connection between himself and others, thus violating the laws of nature and tearing human society from the feeling of the supreme power surrounding us. The coronavirus is a reaction to humanity on the part of the harmonious nature, a sort of catalyst for re-bridging the gap that has been created between humanity and nature. Therefore, what we urgently need are positive connections between us—in other words, the religion of love.

There is nothing wrong with the temporary tendency to return to the embrace of traditional religion, it contributes to our progress. Firstly, it connects people and hints to them about the good found in unity. Although in the meantime it is an egoistic connection, later it will be corrected to become altruistic. Secondly, religion reveals to believers their weakness in relation to integral nature and brings about dependence on the Supreme Force.

Such a deep relationship does not conflict with any religious practice, custom, or tradition, but goes with them in one turn. Foremost kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, Baal HaSulam, wrote in The Writings of the Last Generation, “Apart from ‘loving your neighbor as yourself,’ each nation may pursue its own religion and traditions, and one must not interfere with the other.” Because when you love, there is a place for everyone, for each and every one. That is the biggest strength of every society.
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My new article on Linkedin “ Is Nature Sentient?”

People who believe in God the way religions relate to Him attribute to Him feelings and thoughts, and communicate with Him the way we communicate with any powerful individual who determines our fate: We aim to please Him, and in return seek His favor. But what about nature? Is nature sentient? Should we please nature? And if we should, how can we do it?

The wisdom of Kabbalah does not distinguish between nature and God. In the essay “The Peace,” the great 20th century kabbalist Baal HaSulam explained that nature and God are synonymous, so when we speak of nature, we are actually speaking of God, and when we speak of God, we are actually referring to nature.

This mechanism is evidently intelligent. Everything within it is intricately and wisely tied to everything else, and all parts of creation are moving in synchrony toward increasing merger. Just as ants or schools of fish think and act as one, guided by their synchronized intelligence, everything around us operates in congruence; everything but man.

However, in the wisdom of Kabbalah, nature is not a “bookkeeper” who checks our balance of good deeds or bad deeds and rewards or punishes us accordingly. Nature is a super intelligent mechanism that creates everything, conducts everything, and guides everything to its purpose of complete unity and harmony with all of reality. Nature continually develops creation toward greater complexity, from the atomic level through the mineral, vegetative, animate, and human levels.

On the human level, we evolve the way all of nature is evolving. We first huddled in clans, which grew into villages, villages into towns, towns became countries, and today, when the entire world is one global village, people, animals, plants, and minerals are all part of one, interdependent system. We have become a single mechanism threaded and laced throughout the world.

Moreover, this mechanism is evidently intelligent. Everything within it is intricately and wisely tied to everything else, and all parts of creation are moving in synchrony toward increasing merger. Just as ants or schools of fish think and act as one, guided by their synchronized intelligence, everything around us operates in congruence; everything but man.

Humans are the only element in nature that has been denied the instinctive knowledge of right from wrong, and when to do what. But this, too, was done for a purpose. The only element missing in the perfect creation around us is the awareness of our life’s purpose. Awareness cannot be pre-installed; it has to be acquired. This is why we are born devoid of any knowledge about our world. In fact, we are born so helpless that at first, we cannot even reach our mother’s nipple for food, or defecate without making a mess of ourselves. No animal young is as helpless as a newborn baby. However, it is done on purpose, so we will learn everything from scratch, and at the end of the process reach the zenith of creation and become as intelligent as the system that has created us—nature (or God).

Since the “nature” of nature is harmony and merger, and since we must acquire the awareness of the goal, when we are born, we are completely opposite from it, so we will learn every aspect of harmony and merger. The problem is that while we are opposite from nature, we are nothing but a menace, destroying everything around us like senseless children. But as we learn to work in unison, as we become aware of the vitality of unity and solidarity to our understanding of creation, we also learn how to conduct ourselves more wisely, in line with nature’s disposition, and the conflicts we feel among ourselves and with nature become tailwinds that push us forward.

As long as we are obstinate, we suffer. We pollute the sky, the water, and the soil. We deplete the abundance that nature has given us in order to achieve power and control; we use and abuse each other, kill, rape, and denigrate each other as though only we are entitled to enjoy life, and we leave nothing for the future. We behave like grownup children, with bodies of grownups but the mind of a child.

If we focus on connection, we will find the right track and clean up the mess we have created. If we keep demanding for ourselves and shun nature’s disposition toward harmony and merger, our escalating conflict with nature will inflict on us worsening adversities. We may be smart, but we are very unwise. If we truly want to do good for us, we must first learn what we know, what we don’t know, and how we can learn what we must do to help ourselves. If we listen to nature’s intelligent mechanism, go along with its trajectory toward increasing cohesion, life will be much easier and simpler than the havoc we have wreaked upon ourselves.
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Question: What is the difference between the desires of the Egyptians and the mixed multitude (Erev Rav)?

Answer: Egyptians perform actions because they were taught so and  the Erev Rav do it ideologically. They say: “This is exactly what you need to do. Perform only the action, and the intention will be in it.”

The Kabbalist differs from them in that he believes: first you have to think about the intention. If, for the sake of it, it is necessary to do some auxiliary actions, perform them, but with intention. Because only in the intention do we have a connection with the Creator. You can even receive something, but if you have an intention for the sake of bestowal, it will be bestowal.

That is, intention determines everything.

The Erev Rav says: everything determines the action. Kabbalah says: everything determines the intention. But the people (Egyptians) do not care about either one or the other. They do not analyze at all what intention is. There is action, they have been taught this, and so they do.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/22/19

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We are in a society, surrounded by many different people. Regarding spiritual work, when a person wants to merge with the Creator, which is achieved precisely in the intention, society can be divided into three parts.

One part is the people of Israel (Isra-El), which strive directly to the Creator.

The second part are the “Egyptians,” that is, a society of people who do not care about spirituality at all. They naturally do what they feel is good for them. They may not understand what I am doing, and it does not matter to them. The main thing is that they feel good.

The third part is the “Erev rav” (mixed multitude), i.e., people who believe that one should obey the commandments without intention.

The intention is a completely different picture. A person must rise above his egoism, attract the upper light to himself, convert egoism into altruism, and to change absolutely everything within oneself and to begin to feel the Creator, the higher world.

This is huge and very difficult spiritual work. Therefore, there are people who believe that it should not be done. They once fell from the level of correct intentions for the sake of others and for the sake of the Creator into egoistic intentions for themselves.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/22/19

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Question: How can I fight the desires called Erev Rav (the mixed multitude)?

Answer: Each time a person begins to analyze his actions, he sees what he needs to fight with and where the condition called Erev Rav is located in him.

This is most visible in the group, in the ten, when we try to connect with each other. Connecting and striving to love your neighbor as yourself is the most important thing.

Here for sure you are literally faced head-on with the condition that the main thing is to connect in intention. If you pursue it all the time, you definitely move from the simple degree of Israel, or even before that, to the degree of Erev Rav, and from the degree of Erev Rav to the degree of a Kabbalist.

Question: Does it mean that the desires called Erev Rav are saying: “Perform actions, this is the main thing. And your intentions are for your own sake”?

Answer: No. They do not think that they are doing it for themselves. They think that the intention automatically follows the action. In other words, if a person does some bestowing actions, then it follows that his intentions are the same. He no longer has to control and check whether they are altruistic. He gave to another, it means he is an altruist.

Therefore, if he cannot scrutinize that he did it for himself, and in the end our egoism does everything only for itself; otherwise, it does not have the energy to do anything, then this is not determined by him.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/22/19

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Question: There is a lot of talk about spirituality now. How does one recognize the level and correctness of the teaching? What can you recommend? There are many different options. How does one choose the best one?

Answer: I don’t know. I do not call anyone, I do not attract anyone, and I do not entice anyone. I can only tell you one thing: you must feel it yourself, not to trust, but to feel what is closer to you.

Kabbalah is a science that explains everything very logically and sensibly, it uses examples and exercises, not some mystical, meditative ones. If meditation or prayer is closer to you, then go to other places. If you are closer to science, clearer knowledge, then come to us.

Question: How can it be felt? What is this feeling and how can you find out inside yourself what is closer? How is closeness manifested?

Answer: There are people who by their nature, say: “You tell me something so that I believe in it. Give me some piece of paper, and I’ll use it to pray so that I feel good,” like a small child holding onto a pacifier or a rattle, and this gives him confidence. He doesn’t need anything else in life.

But if a person wants to comprehend, learn, understand, and, most importantly, achieve something specifically different, then he comes to us.

He senses that the truth is here. Not just like that, but through feelings and reason. Mostly by reason. He understands that this is indeed a science that seriously speaks about an attainment of the upper layers of the world, the systems that govern.

And this is exactly what is intended for our generation.
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From KabTV’s “Ask a Kabbalist” 12/31/18

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Question: The opening of energy zones, chakras, astral trips, and meditation are fundamental spiritual practices. Why does Kabbalah limit itself and ignore them, as if everything related to magic was specially removed from it?

Answer: That which exists only in your head, in mysticism, in your ideas and thoughts, is not in Kabbalah.

Kabbalah should give a person a result. Moreover, this result must be tested by experience, in practice. If this is missing and there are only far-fetched ideas, then this is not science.

Kabbalah talks about how we should change our senses, and does that clearly, in a regulated manner, step by step. And in accordance with this, we will feel a new world in them.

You may say, “This is also mysticism.” No! This is not mysticism because here you calculate how much I change my egoism, how much I rise above it, to what level, how, and what I feel at the same time in the next level of the universe, which is revealed to me above my egoism.

And I can come back again and rise again. And the other does the same, and we describe it to each other. This is absolutely real. But all this must be felt.

Many sciences are at a level where you cannot transfer anything to another individual, everyone must somehow experience it in themselves.

Question: We do not need astral trips, meditation, and opening the third eye?

Answer: No way! Personally, I am a very realistic person by nature. My first occupation, even before Kabbalah, was biological medical cybernetics. I cannot imagine doing meditation: sitting with folded arms, eyes closed, and delving into something.
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From KabTV’s “Ask a Kabbalist” 12/31/18

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Question: The views of Kabbalah are close to Buddhism and in many respects to yoga, Catholicism, and European alchemy, apparently, according to the methods of achieving a brighter future. But, as far as I understand, the brightest future can be achieved only through unity in Kabbalah. Why is that? If other schools offer this, why don’t they count?

Answer: Kabbalists do not reject anyone. But, apparently, there are several ways to unite mankind. Today we understand that without unity we will simply perish, we will destroy each other. From everything that happens to us, we see that this is the only way to salvation. Neither the development of technology nor anything else will help us. We need to develop a person for communication, for a greater good connection with others.

Kabbalah explains how to do this. It relies on a good force hidden in nature that can unite us. Man does not have this power. No matter how many meditations we do or how we  employ various methods with all kinds of exercises, this will not help us, because egoism permeates us literally from top to bottom.

The Kabbalistic methodology is built on uniting humanity with the help of a good force that exists in nature but is hidden from us. Therefore, Kabbalah is called a secret science because it reveals this power, and then by using it, we can unite. This is what makes Kabbalah different from other teachings.

But this is not meditation, not a physical exercise. This is truly delving into nature. But it is different. You just need to understand what it is.

In principle, Kabbalah does not deny anything, in fact, neither do all the other methods. Nor do they deny each other, but each has a different approach.

In humanity there are different groups of people with different inclinations and psychological preparations from nature. And so a different approach is needed. By the way, in Kabbalah it is said that there are many ways to achieve unity.

But the fact that unification between all is the goal and the truly correct way of existence cannot be denied today. A person should check for himself whether the method of Kabbalah suits him. And if not, then he can choose something else.

But all the same, you need to strive to unite people. I believe that this is everyone’s task and responsibility.
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From KabTV’s “Ask a Kabbalist” 3/20/19

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When a person asks about the meaning of life, this question leads him to a search. Where did I come from? What am I for? Why do I exist? In principle, this question involuntarily directs us toward the revelation of the source of our existence, the Creator.

The Creator is not a god sitting somewhere on a cloud. It is nature that surrounds us and rules us. Unconsciously, we are constantly within His power and fulfill His desires, instructions, and laws.

The Creator, or the highest form of nature, its highest stage, is the property of goodness, bestowal, and love; an absolute property which includes all of creation. We do not yet feel it, but we are trying to reveal it.

The question regarding the meaning of life brings each of us to a search for the Creator, for the source, and for the reason for our existence. If I do not answer this question, then my whole life will become aimless, meaningless, and hateful. What should I do? Therefore, I start to look for the way to reveal the Creator.

This takes millennia; people engage in all kinds of systems of study including philosophy as well as other spiritual practices. Humanity has become lost in this because there are about 2,800 types of religions, beliefs, and teachings. None of them are based on anything; they are intended for a person to convince himself of their alleged truth and thus be able to exist.

However, there is a very interesting science called, “the science of revealing the Creator, ”that aims to reveal the Creator to a man in our world. Neither other sciences, nor religions, nor other beliefs or methods, set such a goal for themselves. This is known as the science of Kabbalah.

People who come to it are already prepared or partially prepared for this. But, they are also inside the process. As they begin to study Kabbalah, they go through many different stages that sift them as if through a sieve. Only a few really reach the revelation of the Creator. But, in our time, this, in principle, has been prepared for everyone. Therefore, everyone is invited.
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From the TV program “Kabbalah – Science of Life” 3/1/18

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Baal HaSulam, The Writings of the Last Generation: Ethics cannot rely solely on education and public opinion, because public opinion necessitates only what is in the public’s favor. Hence, if one comes and proves that morality is harmful to the public and vulgarity is more beneficial, they will immediately discard morality and choose vulgarity, as Hitler testifies.

Question: It turns out that Baal HaSulam denies any education in the material plane and says that this will inevitably lead to Nazism. Hence, there must be some kind of higher ideal. But we see in religions that God, as the highest ideal, has not worked. So what can work?

Answer: Nature! They put God in an incomprehensible place, associating Him with some kind of priest. In general, they made of Him some kind of figure with all the attributes in all kinds of guises. For different people, for each group, it is different.

And if you destroy all these gods, idols, what will remain? Nothing! Only complete emptiness in which only the power of love is at work. Its disclosure to humanity is the manifestation of the Creator. This is what we should worship.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 9/10/20

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