Liars are those who say that idealism is either inherent or a result of education. Rather, it is a direct result of religion. As long as religion did not sufficiently expand throughout the world, the entire world was barbaric, without an ounce of conscientiousness.

Only after servants of the Creator expanded did the posterity of the agnostics become idealists. Thus, the idealist is only so because of his ancestry’s commandment. However, it is an orphaned commandment, meaning without a commander (Baal HaSulam, “The Writings of the Last Generation“).

Initially, Baal HaSulam speaks about the spread of primitive idol worship in the world where people worshipped trees, stones, and the sun. Much later, the three major world religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) emerged; all of which arose from Kabbalah. If it weren’t for Kabbalah, from which all of its adherents, with the exception of a few, rolled down the hill and began to convert it into ordinary earthly practices, then today there would be neither the three main or all other religions.

Question: So when Baal HaSulam speaks about religion, does he mean the one that existed before Judaism, Christianity, and Islam?

Answer: The Torah states that before the emergence of Kabbalah in ancient Babylon, there were various beliefs; each person worshipped his own family idol, and this was purely a psychological practice.

Later, King Nimrod wished to unite all the tribes that inhabited the state (the so-called seventy nations of the world) into one nation. For this, he needed something unifying, a single supreme spiritual image.

This is what Abraham, a resident of Babylon, began to work on. Abraham’s father, Terah, not only worshiped idols but also manufactured and sold idols. Abraham, unlike Terah, came under the influence of King Nimrod and understood that a single force was needed to unite people since egoism was growing, and dividing and increasingly alienating them.

To create a state and a single nation, a consolidating force was required. Nimrod stood for state authority, while Abraham fulfilled these functions as a spiritual priest.

But when Abraham began to develop the concept of a single spiritual creation and a supreme force that would govern everything, he came to the conclusion that this force already existed. He discovered it by trying to harmonize the many totems to one common source.

By generalizing this idea and turning all the deities into a single force, he understood that it has no image. It is so universal that it is devoid of any form.

Thus, the single idol they wanted to create suddenly “came to life” and became real. After discovering that one good force of nature exists that contains everything, unites everything, generalizes everything, and governs everything, Abraham began to teach this to the people.

This suited Nimrod because now he was the single ruler, king, and authority on earth, while God was in heaven. Practically all rulers used this model up until our time.

But Abraham gradually began to annul Nimrod’s authority: “Who is he? We must worship the Creator and deal directly with Him.” A strong confrontation arose between him and Nimrod, and Abraham was forced to leave Babylon with his followers who understood him and agreed with him.

Those who had not yet reached this understanding and wished for a normal, secure, egoistic existence decided to remain with Nimrod. But they could not do so because without the single unifying force that Abraham preached, egoism began to separate them, divide them, and set them against one another.

They realized that they had to disperse, otherwise they would destroy each other in an internecine war. This was a rational decision. Thus, they scattered throughout the world with their idols, while the servants of the Creator left with Abraham.

Question: What did Abraham and his like-minded followers teach? Was it the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: Yes, a method for uniting people, for enabling them to rise to the level of the Creator.

Question: Do Kabbalists call this a religion?

Answer: In principle, what Abraham revealed is called Daat (“religion”).

Therefore, Baal HaSulam writes that the meaning of the one true religion is the attainment of the single force of nature that governs everything. A person can reveal this force if he follows the correct path toward its attainment, through which he acquires absolute knowledge of all the laws of reality.

Baal HaSulam does not pay attention to anything else.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 7/3/17

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Question: What place does physical observance of the commandments occupy in spiritual work?

Answer: All the commandments are merely expressions of spiritual laws in our world. Unfortunately, their physical observance gives no result. This is confirmed by the fact that, despite two millennia of Jews observing the commandments, our condition has only worsened.

In the code of laws, the Shulchan Aruch, there are many rules that speak about love for one’s neighbor, about correct and kind relations between people. But we pass over them as if they were written for small children and not for us.

We consider, for example, that the most important thing is to perform the ritual of washing of hands. Yet this ritual speaks about cleansing our hands from egoism, from the desire to take the whole world for ourselves. The same applies to all the other commandments.

It is said that “a commandment without the correct intention is dead.” Therefore, if we observe them only in a physical form, then unfortunately, we will not obtain any positive outcome except an ever-growing egoism that increasingly divides the entire nation, including religious people.

We have come to a state where returning to the state of connection between us becomes mandatory; without it humanity will lead itself to destruction. And if we take the books of our sages, we will see that they speak precisely about this.
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From a Public Lecture in New York, 7/20/15

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Question: Why was Europe previously a kind of benchmark for other countries?

Answer: Because the Roman Empire passed on to it its ideas, its laws, its attitude to reality, nature, and society to all of Europe after conquering it. In essence, it founded all of Europe, including England.

Comment: But Romans also got their ideas from somewhere.

My Response: The Roman’s nature was based on the opposite to Jerusalem. They followed an egoistic path of development, a complete rejection of religion, a harsh, as if it were, realistic attitude toward the world and the building of society according to certain canons that lie at the foundation of Roman law.

Roman law has not been abolished. No matter what we hang on it externally, internally we are still based on ancient Roman law. And it is absolutely opposite to Jewish law.

This stems from the ancient confrontation of worlds: Rome and Jerusalem. Rome rose and truly flourished in its conquests precisely upon the destruction of Jerusalem. This is an egoistic, natural, and correct from the point of view of our world, development of humanity up to its recognition of itself as absolutely flawed.

In our time, it has reached its full egoistic bloom, and we see that by doing this we are bringing ourselves to a dead end; there is no way to move any further. Egoism has outlived itself. It began to develop in Ancient Rome, and now this period is coming to an end.

The next stage will be the realization that development must be altruistic. People will have no other choice. Regardless of whether they want it or not, despite their hatred of Judaism, they will accept Kabbalah, the very idea of connection, the merging of everyone into one single system. Life and nature will force everyone. But today we are at this point of history.

Therefore, on the one hand, Kabbalah is revealed as a method of uniting humanity. Without it, you will not be able to unite people because egoism will not allow us to do so. Only Kabbalah can give us the strength to rise above the ego.

On the other hand, we see a declining Europe, whose Roman legacy is already coming to an end.

Question: So the experiment of creation began with the Roman Empire, when egoism began to develop in opposition to the spiritual?

Answer: Yes, of course. From here came the three main religions and everything else.

And now a very clear reassessment and revaluation of values is beginning. There is no way around it, we will be obliged to take the universal unification and revelation of the Creator as our foundation rather than all religions and beliefs, and instead of everything that we are told and that we imagine for ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Rise Above Death” 10/1/10

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Question: You say that a person should improve and change. Some people can intelligently lay out what is happening in the world and why. Some religions describe this by saying: “Because people do not believe in God, He punishes them.” How can you stand out from a large number of smart people?

Answer: I am not going to stand out.

Comment: But you want people to know the truth.

My Response: I say what I say, but I do not want to criticize others. A person who yearns for serious analysis and scrutiny of cause-and-effect phenomena will see a rational seed in me, and in all others, their failure.

Comment: Many people convert to Buddhism. They may think they will find peace in Buddhism.

My Response: They may think that, sit there for a few years there, and then come to their senses because they will not find a solution. Their solution is to disconnect from this world, reach nirvana, and detach from everything.

Where do we see an example where Buddhists are happy? Where do we see in India (with its castes and disunity, where people live in squalor, and everyone fights for their piece of bread while they worship the sacred cows that walk the streets) an example that we should live like this? Is it the fact that they retreat into their illusions where they find at least some escape from this life? Or is it their belief in burning souls and then launching candle-lit boats along the Ganges?

I do not see anything in this, not in their state structure, nor in their friendship with each other when they shout about love. What kind of love is there with their castes where you cannot give a hand to another, let alone marry someone from another caste, where there is such poverty, such a separation between classes?

What can they set an example in? In an escape from reality.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Harry Potter Platform” 10/4/10

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Question: If Kabbalah is a science, then why is it said that the surrounding light acts only on those who believe?

Answer: Faith is the force of bestowal. It is not about believing someone’s words. In the science of Kabbalah, faith is the force of bestowal, Bina; it is not words spoken by someone and accepted by someone else as fact.

In science, it is not customary to believe, and Kabbalah does not use this concept of faith. It is not a religion!

I rely on the advice of the Kabbalists in order to draw the surrounding light upon myself. They tell me what needs to be done and they explain why.

With their help, I study the system, trusting them the way a child trusts a schoolteacher or their parents. A small one must trust the grown-up in order to rise to a higher degree, relying on the instructions that come from there, but no more than that.

In religion, however, in our world, faith is not trust with subsequent ascent and verification, but a fanatical loyalty with one’s eyes closed.

I do not accept the words of the Kabbalists as facts; I implement them and test them on myself. And afterward, having provided myself with a full set of knowledge and evidence, I will be able to continue the research on my own.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/09, Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book From the Mouth of a Sage”

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Сomment: The wisdom of the Chinese people is often very profound. For example:

“The one who points out your flaws is not always your enemy, and the one who praises your virtues is not always your friend.”

My Response: This is absolutely true. The most important thing for a person is to correct oneself along life’s path. And someone who points out your flaws is doing enormous work on your behalf.

In order to discover these flaws on your own (let alone correct them), you would encounter countless obstacles, bang your head against them, and get into trouble. People sometimes end up in prison, get free after a few years, and have to start all over again. But if someone can truly point out your shortcomings, and you are able to feel them, understand them, and recognize them, that person spares you enormous suffering.

Comment: Yet we often consider such a person an enemy: “He exposed my flaws, he humiliated me.”

My Response: Humiliation is a different matter. I can feel my flaws and still rejoice that someone has pointed them out to me. But the one who says nothing, or even flatters me, perhaps he does so maliciously so that I will not pay attention to the corrections I need to make.

Question: So it is not in vain you keep saying that someone who criticizes you is closer to you than someone who praises you?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: Do you listen to someone who suddenly tells you something about yourself?

Answer: I very much wish I could.

Quote: “What happens, happens at the right time.”

My Response: We must accept this apriori as an axiom. The thing is that everything comes from the world around us and has its own path of development. Therefore, all that unfolds in front of us comes from this great mechanism in which we exist as small participants.

We need to understand that everything happening around us in society or in the universe as a whole occurs according to a vast plan, and we are within this plan. Our task is to fit into this plan, not to change the external flow by any means, but to correct ourselves so that we adapt to it.

Question: And then I will feel that whatever has happened, has come at the right time?

Answer: Yes. It has come on time, properly and correctly. And suddenly I begin to understand the correctness of everything that happens and how perfectly it suits me.

Question: And I have no regrets?

Answer: There is nothing to regret because everything happens outside of me, before me. And what I am shown are just the steps that I must take within myself to perceive everything correctly, to agree with it, to connect with it, and to move forward in resonance with it.

Question: That is, in harmony with it?

Answer: Yes, in agreement with it.

Quote: “He who drinks the water must remember those who dug the well.”

My Response: Beautifully said. And one must be grateful to them because the one who dug the well was not thinking only of himself, he was thinking also of me, anticipating my need.

Therefore, I am deeply grateful to him and must, in some way, repay him, whether simply with my heartfelt attitude, or perhaps by doing something good around that well myself. In general, even a warm, grateful feeling toward the one who opened a source of life for me already helps to correct the world.

Question: This sounds very much like a Kabbalistic approach. That is, instead of focusing on the pleasure I receive from the water, I turn my thoughts to the one who dug the well for me. Should a person behave this way in life, for example, by digging wells for others in turn?

Answer: A person must feel that everything he has around him and in the world was given to us by our ancestors who left it behind. And we must do the same for others, and for future generations.

Quote: “Misfortune enters through the door that was opened to it.”

My Response: That depends only on the person.

Question: Am I the one who opens the door to misfortune?

Answer: Yes, naturally. It is us who do all this.

In fact, the world is filled with boundless, absolute happiness, but by our own attitude, we turn it into the opposite. This is why it is said allegorically that we “open the door” to misfortune.

Question: And what if I were filled with the thought that the world around me is absolute happiness? If I constantly thought about this and strove toward it, would I still open the door to misfortune? Would misfortune still come to me?

Answer: This is our egoism. In truth, it exists within us so that we may learn to recognize and open far more doors to what is good. But we use it incorrectly; that is the problem.

A person is essentially unhappy. He is given an egoistic desire, a foundation, a character, an aspiration, but only so that he may correctly sense in advance what to avoid and how to adjust himself. Yet he uses this desire in the wrong way.

Question: Is that why he opens the door to misfortune?

Answer: Exactly. He keeps stepping on the same rake. Imagine there are “rakes” placed on the ground to show you the right path and to guide you to walk between them. But instead, you constantly step directly on them. This wrong perception of life stems from the fact that we relate to it totally incorrectly. That is, in fact, we fail to understand that egoism itself shows us how to walk properly and what to avoid. But we use it in its direct sense, and so we step on the rake again and again.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 11/10/24

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Humanity is moving forward. Once it believed only in spirits, in hidden forces of nature: wind, sun, moon, earthquakes, sacrifices, etc. There are still many similar beliefs on Earth today that exist to this day. Some of them will only vanish with the revelation of the Creator.

But as egoism develops in humanity, the ego begins to demand greater revelation, greater comprehension, and a stronger foundation for any action. A person becomes lazier and more egoistic; they want rewards, and demand clear understanding, knowledge, and compensation for their efforts.

That is why, in ancient times, over many centuries, various movements and forms of worship emerged. All of them were also tied to the specific characteristics of each nation that were beneficial to their elites.

But the key point is that all these beliefs are referred to as “faith,” that is, as blind faith—believing in something that a person does not reveal, does not see, and does not feel. Yet when someone begins to work with this, everything in him is purely psychologically shaped into a kind of knowledge, a conviction so strong that one is ready to give their life for it.

Question: Is blind faith close to faith with knowledge?

Answer: There is no actual knowledge here because no one is revealing the Creator. But gradually a person reaches a state where they must do so.

The first person to reveal the Creator was Adam only 6,000 years ago. Although for many centuries before that humanity sought to know the Creator, it remained in a state of faith and not knowledge. Adam HaRishon was the first who attained the Creator. That is, he gained clear knowledge, and the ability for mutual, two-way communication: “I speak to Him, and He responds.” Adam began to work within this interaction.

This kind of attainment of the Creator by a person in this world is called the wisdom of Kabbalah. Only then do we move from faith to knowledge.

The entire wisdom of Kabbalah is based on knowledge. It calls each person to rise either from the level of nonbelief—which is also a kind of faith, a belief in the absence of upper forces, a program of development, etc.—or from the level where upper forces are accepted on faith, to a state where a person reveals the Creator’s governance and begins to interact accordingly.

Thus, in our world there are two completely different approaches to human behavior. That is why there are over 3,000 various belief systems. We can see how much they differ across different regions of the world.

For example, in South America it is customary to dig up the bones of ancestors, wash them out of respect, and rebury them. In China, other types of worship exist, and in Japan, still others. People come up with all sorts of methods. This is one path.

The second path is Kabbalah. It is intended for those who cannot function within blind faith; they need knowledge.

Kabbalah leads them to the revelation of the upper force, not just belief in it where people invent various methods, systems of behavior, and interaction, but actual revelation. A person is shown models of behavior with the upper force, mutual closeness, communication, development, and so on.

Question: So when Baal HaSulam writes “religion,” should we always interpret it as “Kabbalah”?

Answer: Baal HaSulam specifically means Kabbalah because nothing else is connected to the upper force.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 7/10/2017

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Question: What is Kabbalah’s position regarding non-believers and religious people? I see that you seem to constantly navigate between them!

Answer: You are right.

Religion views the Creator similar to a human being, i.e. changing and depending on the person’s actions. Each religion presents both the Creator and His messengers as it likes. They are forced either to coexist or to try to destroy each other because their view is based on faith, meaning it is unprovable. Whoever is stronger is “right.” Or they act as if the others do not exist, each in its own flock.

But they all share one thing: they see God as treating a person based on how the person treats God and others. That is, God changes, is sometimes angry, sometimes compassionate. This is how a person interprets it from their life and fate.

So God can be bribed, you can “pay” for paradise, or appease Him so that He will treat you well. You can atone for sins or buy off punishment. You can give charity to ward off a blow of fate. It is all built on the idea that a person’s external behavior changes God’s attitude toward them.

Atheists treat God like nature, unchangeable and mechanical, and it does not have its own mind and plan, it does not depend on our attitude toward it, but only on our “mechanical” actions.

Kabbalah sees nature and the Creator as one and the same. But He has intelligence, a plan, a purpose. He has feelings. So in the process of development (evolution), He created the human being exactly as we are: with feeling and mind, with two opposing systems, like an egoist who wants to enjoy every moment of existence. He created us this way so that by using the method of Kabbalah and the forces of nature (the surrounding light), a person would change themselves and become similar to the Creator.

Through this a person gains true independence (otherwise they are completely driven by nature and egoism, and are not free), perfection, eternity, and adhesion with the Creator (the status of the Creator).

The Creator in Kabbalah is unchanging because He is absolute, absolutely good, and therefore cannot change; only something less-than-perfect can become better or worse, but not the absolute.

Therefore turning to the Creator is really turning to yourself and convincing yourself of the need to correct yourself to become like the Creator, the model of goodness.

So atheists try to remake the world, and the religious beg the Creator, while Kabbalists correct themselves and thereby correct the world.
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Comment: It turns out that there are hundreds of millions of atheists in the world. By some estimates their numbers near 1 billion.  It is projected that their number will continue to grow.

My Response: The main reason is that a person is developing. But atheism is also a religion. It is the religion of nature, not godlessness.

For atheists, their deity is progress, technology, money, or something else. It is still a belief in something higher than oneself.

Question: So what is true faith then?

Answer: True faith is the revelation of the upper force—clear, absolutely attainable, analyzable, and synthesized within oneself.

Question: Is it felt?

Answer: It is a felt absolutely completely, up to full connection of a person with the upper force, when it “dwells” in him and becomes he himself. A person becomes filled with this upper force, and then it acts in him, with his consent, and through his mutual effort.

This is all described in Kabbalah. There is only one true religion, and that is the wisdom of Kabbalah, the science of revealing the Creator, of a voluntary, conscious, gradual rapprochement with Him, that is, adapting oneself to this upper force of nature.

And the upper force is bodiless and timeless. It has no whims, no conditions, only the revelation of the opportunity to merge with it, to attain its level.

Question: What are the qualities of the upper force?

Answer: Absolute bestowal and love, nothing else.

Question: But why doesn’t that attract a person? In theory it should attract him!

Answer: It is the opposite of human nature. If a person has a predisposition, a yearning to attain the upper force at any cost (meaning, “I have no reason to live except for this!”), then he goes for it, no matter what, and is ready to sacrifice everything.

But if this yearning is not given to him from above, then he remains on the earthly level, and exists to serve his animal body. Of course, everyone has to take care of this animal body, but he exists for the sake of it.

Then he is a so-called human, that is, an animal, highly developed in some way, who lives and dies, lives and dies, until this yearning for attainment, for merging, for rising to the Creator develops in him.

Question: Is it bound to develop?

Answer: In everyone! And after us, the animate, vegetative, and inanimate nature rises to the same level. We pull everyone along with us! And all of nature integrates into this upper level, into the Creator.

Question: Then is it rightly said that “Man is the crown of creation”?

Answer: In that case, yes.
[237867]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 12/21/24

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The soul of Abraham, like all souls, is a result of the shattering of Adam HaRishon. Within all these souls are various parts, and as they naturally unfold from the beginning of correction to its end, this leads to the emergence of special souls who begin to feel that the world is not as it appears to the rest of the souls.

The feelings of the souls stem from the fact that their discernments have not yet reached a sufficient measure to reveal and feel that although the outer picture of the world seems to contain many separate forces, there exists a deeper picture in which all those forces are governed by a single force.

We are precisely in such a state since in our attitude toward life, we do not perceive it as governed by a single force that influences us with a single intention that wishes to bring us pleasure. We do not understand that the Creator’s attitude toward us is revealed in various forms according to the changes in our own state. Yet He Himself is one, unique, and unified.

The contrast between Terach and Abraham essentially repeats itself among us in the fact that we, like Abraham, want to reveal something different from what the world sees and from what we ourselves were in our previous state, which is called “the previous generation.”

A special readiness in the soul is needed in order to feel the demand to reveal nature, all of reality, as a single system, a single force, a single thought.

This idea can be grasped only by the most “refined” layer of souls that emerge as a result of the shattering of Adam HaRishon. Then, more and more souls can begin to join them. From generation to generation, the desire to receive increases within all souls. The souls of the earlier generations are essentially the same souls that return in later cycles, only with an added desire to receive, with the revelation of “coarser,” more substantial Reshimot.

But since the souls go through suffering in this world precisely because they become coarser, these sufferings prepare them to begin asking questions and to increasingly feel that something is missing, something that would bring order and unify all the forces of reality, to feel that behind all the diversity of visible forces there must be a single program, a single thought.
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From the 1^st part from the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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