Why do religious people suffer less from stress?

Question: It is a well-known fact that religious people suffer less from stress. What is the reason?

Answer: It is because they believe that there is a higher purpose and upper forgiveness. So they believe that everything will be fine in the end. It does not matter how they act or what happens, everything is predetermined from above the way it should be, and therefore, what will be, will be, and for the best.

Question: Does reading prayers and texts such as Psalms help to manage stress?

Answer: Of course. Take any text, start reading it, and you will see that you have a completely new sense of reality. I am not saying that you actually change yourself or your reality, but it is reassuring. This is the meaning of religion.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/25/20

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Rejection of the Religious Perception of the World

Question: In the first half of the 19th century, the struggle within the Jewish people began to subside, and it is perceived as a single whole. However, another problem arises, the era of the Enlightenment begins, the development of sciences, the acquisition of civil rights by Jews, and freedom of movement.

This again led to a split among Jews: on one side, the Orthodox society, and on the other side, people who began to leave religion. That is, there was a rejection of the religious perception of the world.

Why, for the first time in history, Jews, as well as other nations, began to leave religion en masse and engage in science?

Answer: It is because religion did not explain to them that love for one’s neighbor is its main law.
Following religion consisted only in the fulfillment of prescriptions, fasts, and all kinds of holidays.

It obliged people to observe traditions, but at the same time it did not explain at all why this was necessary and to what it should lead. Therefore, a person who did not feel why he was doing things and what positive purpose they had, simply renounced religion.

Question: How did this period affect the correction of all humanity and the role of Jews in this process?

Answer: I believe that this was a necessary period, firstly, because nothing happens in vain. It was necessary to sober up and cut off the figurative fulfillment of the laws of the Torah without any thoughts and feelings when they were realized only because this must be done, scrupulously and mechanically at that. After all, this is not what the Creator requires of us, but that we correct our thoughts and feelings, mind and heart.

Comment: In principle, such a mechanical religious approach is quite egoistic. I follow the traditions, and for this I am entitled to something in this world and in the other world, paradise is promised to me.

My Response: This is an egoistic, medieval approach that did not provide a person any development. Naturally, the great sages knew and understood why and for what purpose everything was happening this way, but there were only a few of them.

Question: It was necessary, because it kept people within limits and gave some kind of confidence in life?

Answer: Yes, this was demanded by the current period of human development. Everything depends on the development of the person’s inner desires.

Question: Why weren’t all these laws revealed 1,000 years ago and their disclosure took place precisely in the short period of Lurianic Kabbalah?

Answer: There are periods of accumulation of some internal tensions in a person and in society, and then they are released, as a rule, in an explosive way.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 8/5/19

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The Confrontation Between Two Movements

Question: Some time after the expulsion of Jews from Spain, spiritual movements began to flourish in Safed, and Kabbalistic knowledge among the masses began to spread.

But then the rapid dissemination of the new movement caused a response and resistance. Spiritual teachers of the traditional Lithuanian school began to oppose the spread of this knowledge with boycotts, slander to authorities, and physical extermination.

How does one explain this? Why did the teaching of the Ari, which should have already been embodied in humanity, suddenly fail and the fall began again?

Answer: This is not a failure, but a natural development of the method of correction, which cannot go by only one line. It goes precisely by two lines and is realized between them, in the third one.

As a result, it turned out that the Kabbalah of the Baal Shem Tov is the same Kabbalah of the Ari, which was understood by the masses. He organized a Cheder, that is, a place for classes. He recruited talented young people into his group, completely regardless of their status. And then large groups of students and leaders of Hasidic movements were formed from his students. They were especially popular among the Jewish population of Ukraine, Belarus, and Eastern Europe where their own schools were organized.

But at the same time, another school, which was founded by the Vilna Gaon appeared. He believed that people should be taught gradually, and only those who had achieved great knowledge in the Talmud, in a simple study of the Torah.

In his opinion, studying Kabbalah should be spread not among ordinary people, but among the elite to whom the spiritual worlds and other predestinations of humanity can be explained only after they had seriously mastered the “dry” Torah.

Question: Kabbalah speaks of love for one’s neighbor in its simplest, earthly form. What could be the danger of studying Kabbalah?

Answer: The fact is that when you simply talk about love for your neighbor, by that you let a person think that if he treats others correctly, then nothing else is needed. Therefore, there is some lightheadedness in the understanding of “love for one’s neighbor.”

This is how a movement was formed in Hasidism that if you love another person and seem to treat him correctly, then this is enough. Nothing more is needed, and you are already fulfilling your predestination.

And the Vilna Gaon claimed: “No, it is necessary to seriously study the Torah, the Babylonian Talmud, and carefully keep all the laws. Only after that one can study Kabbalah.”

Therefore, in the introduction to his great work, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Baal HaSulam pays much attention to this. At the very beginning, he asks the question: “Is it really necessary to fully know all the great laws of fulfilling the Torah in our world and only after that study Kabbalah?

“Or is it enough to do it in parallel? Or even, perhaps, is it not at all necessary to know and obey all the laws so scrupulously? Because the Creator requires us to correct our hearts more than to fill our heads with all kinds of laws.”

So here we are in a state of great ideological contradiction. And it is very serious because it speaks of the method of the soul’s correction. Should it be taught to children from the age of thirteen or even earlier? Or maybe, it can be explained to women as well? Or only to great experts on the Babylonian Talmud?

This ideological contradiction was a necessary process and was brewing by itself.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 8/5/19

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Question: What is the difference between orthodox people for whom there is nothing other than God and people who engage in studying the wisdom of Kabbalah for whom “There is none else besides Him?”

Answer: The difference is very simple; these two types of people are completely dissimilar. First, the wisdom of Kabbalah is not a faith or a religion. It engages in faith, but does not obligate anyone to believe. Instead, it calls for a person to reveal the Creator.

A religious person says, “I believe!”

“Why do you believe?”

“I was told to believe and it was explained to me, and so I believe what I was told.”

“Okay, that is your business.”

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, on the other hand, faith means knowledge, attainment, feeling, sensation. It is not what we call faith in our world, when I don’t know whether something is true or not, but I accept it and live as if it is so. Who can prove it? No one. Is it true or not? There are as many views as there are people.

There is thus no connection between the wisdom of Kabbalah and religion. On the contrary, the wisdom of Kabbalah is completely unrelated to religion. It is aimed only at revelation, at knowing and feeling, not at things someone tells us about. There is a huge difference.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 11/24/20

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Hasidism: Touching the Spiritual Truths

Question: The Hasidic movement appeared in the third decade of the 18th century and was founded by the Baal Shem Tov. The approach of the Hasidic teachers allowed ordinary people to touch spiritual truths. If earlier only sages studied them, now ordinary people could do so as well.

What was so special about the teachings of Baal Shem Tov that they captured the hearts of so many people to such an extent?

Answer:  The Baal Shem Tov followed the path of the Ari and explained in a simpler language, close to the people, how to act and connect with each other in order to achieve the revelation of the Creator.

He set a very practical goal: to explain to any person who is in absolute ignorance about what kind of world he exists in, what states he passes through, why the Torah is needed, and why people exist.

It turns out that the Baal Shem Tov gave ordinary people life. He explained to them how to live correctly and that behind every inner movement of a person in mind and feelings is a huge force that is correcting the world. Therefore, every person who treats the world like that is engaged in correcting it.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 8/5/19

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Disagreements Between Two Movements in the Jewish People

Comment: Over the past few centuries, confrontation within the Jewish people has been very strong, in particular between Lithuanian Jews and Hasidim, the Vilna Gaon and The Baal Shem Tov.

The reason for their disagreement was a different point of view on the dissemination of Kabbalah within their own people and all the rest.

My Response: The Vilna Gaon was a great Kabbalist, but he opposed dissemination of Kabbalah among his people.

The Baal Shem Tov, on the contrary, believed that it was necessary to spread Kabbalah, to educate Kabbalist disciples, and to pass information about the spiritual world to everyone. Therefore, Hasidism originated from The Baal Shem Tov, whereby each child was taught about the spiritual worlds, unity, and the purpose of the existence of the people of Israel.

And the disciples of the Vilna Gaon engaged in Kabbalah only as a small group of people. As a result, the emphasis in their activities was placed purely on the formal fulfillment of the commandments.

The confrontation between these two groups continues to this day, although today it is external, informal. But at that time it was a serious war.

Question: Didn’t they understand that their disagreements lead them to disunity and alienate them from the Creator?

Answer: It is difficult for us to say something about these people. These are two different approaches to Kabbalah that manifest within the Kabbalists themselves. But the fact that they could not establish a connection between them led to great persecutions. And all this is felt to this day.

Comment: Our contemporary Baal HaSulam writes that it is only due to the spread of Kabbalah among the masses that we will be liberated, both each one and all of humanity. But if you look into the history of the development of humanity, almost everything repeats itself.

My Response: No. The time is different now. Today humanity is rapidly moving toward revealing itself as falling into egoism, which does allow simply settling down, enjoying life, and correctly using all the achievements of humanity.

Thus, a favorable environment arises for revealing the meaning of life. This question, which urgently requires an answer, appears in every person in our generation. And the answer is generally nowhere to be found except in Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 7/29/19

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Question: Religion is a framework of relationships between people who share the same faith. Is the wisdom of Kabbalah a religion?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah has nothing to do with religion. The fact that in our ordinary life we begin to establish certain rituals and laws that do not exist in nature, but want them to exist, is what we often call religion. Or it may also be some kind of cultural norm of society.

This isn’t the case with the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is based on the fact that you reveal these laws in nature, comprehend them for yourself in absolute knowledge, and then you have no problem with it.

Of course the wisdom of Kabbalah is not a religion nor is it a science because it does not reveal anything in our senses or in our mind, but instead, it is actually revealed in the attributes that you develop internally when you ascend above your ego, above the matter of our world. Then you begin to feel totally different attributes, different laws, and this is how you advance.

You need to delve into this issue in order to attain the truth and in order to understand what you engage in.

Otherwise, you relate to what you hear today from the perspective of what you heard yesterday. What is the result? Yesterday your head was filled with certain dogmas, which you accepted as true, and today you condemn and criticize what you received yesterday and define everything anew.

This means that you have accepted something as a condition, and now you negate everything else, and thus you will continue to increase your mistakes, and will not reveal anything new in life. In ten years you will still be in the same state you are in today.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/15/19

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Comment: Many people look at Kabbalah as a religion. Others consider it a sect.

My Response: This means that they simply do not know anything about Kabbalah. Kabbalah is a science, not a religion. First, anyone and everyone can study it regardless of their origin. My students, who are representatives of different nations, live on all continents. If you take a look at our morning lesson, you will see people of all nationalities.

Secondly, Kabbalah does not force a person to perform any religious actions. Kabbalists have no fetishes, sacred objects, or rites. It is simply the attainment of a higher sphere of our world and nothing else. Nothing else!

When you comprehend it, you begin to feel eternity, perfection, the mutual inclusion of all in everything. You begin to change your worldview, your attitude to the world. This methodology shapes you, it makes you a different person.
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From KabTV’s program “Meetings with Kabbalah: Victoria Bonya,” 3/29/20

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The Confrontation Between the Maccabees and the Hellenists

Question: What was the ideological conflict between the Maccabees and the Hellenistic Jews?

Answer: The opposition was that the Maccabees were in favor of uniting the people under one common principle so that all were like brothers who felt the inner unity of each other.

And the Hellenists were for proclaiming each person free, independent, not worshipping the one God, i.e., the one force, nature, and, accordingly, the one uniting principle. Each person chose from a large host of gods to worship, as in ancient times when people worshiped trees, stones, celestial forces, stars, etc.

As a result, there was a huge difference between them in their ideology, behavior, and attitude toward each other. In principle, the Hellenists existed each by himself. Their state was held only by bayonets, despite the fact that later they were guided by reasonable methods borrowed from the Jews after the conquest of Israel.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 7/8/19

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Question: If the main idea of all world religions is to unite people with some common idea and raise them to a higher power, why has the science of Kabbalah not become the leading world religion in these 6,000 years?

Answer: The science of Kabbalah appeared 6,000 years ago, and the foundations of religions 3,500 years ago in Ancient Babylon. Christianity arose about 2,000 years ago and Islam 600 years later.

The science of Kabbalah is not a religion. You do not need to believe in it, you just need to realize it. The reason for the emergence of religions was the concealment of the science of Kabbalah.

Kabbalah does not affirm anything unfounded; it encourages a person to reveal and find what it is talking about. This is a science that is called Hochmat a-Kabbalah (the wisdom of Kabbalah) that is, wisdom. It consists of no sacred acts, passes, or anything else.

It does not say that you must believe. You must come to a state called faith. But faith is a state of bestowal, of rising above one’s egoism, not the faith that religions speak of.

That is, Kabbalah has absolutely nothing to do with them. So, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you are. Nationality and gender do not matter. The main thing is the desire to know where you live and what for. Kabbalah does not divide people into any signs. Whoever desires comes and engages in it.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/2/20

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