From Babylon To Rome, Part 1

The Foundation of the People of Israel

Question: During the First Temple, the Jewish people reached their point of unity. As a result, the Temple was built, a symbol of the union of all 12 tribes. A spiritual decline then began, which entailed the separation of the people. It lasted about 16 years and ended with the destruction of the Temple and the Babylonian exile.

Baal HaSulam, in his article “Exile and Redemption,” writes about this period: “And because they would not do it, but wished to include their narrow selfishness, meaning the Lo Lishma, this developed the ruin of the First Temple, since they wished to extol wealth and power above justice, as other nations.”

But because the Torah prohibits it, they denied the Torah and the prophecy and adopted the manners of the neighbors so they could enjoy life as much as selfishness demanded of them. And because they did that, the powers of the nation disintegrated: some followed the kings and the selfish officers, and some followed the prophets. And that separation continued until the ruin.

What kind of justice are we talking about?

Answer: In this case, the concept of justice refers to the Jewish people since it follows from its very foundation: why and how it was created.

The fact is that they gathered from various small nations that inhabited Babylon during the time of Abraham, and were created on the condition “love thy neighbor” and “love covers all transgressions.”

Therefore, if they adhere to this rule, then they exist as people, and if they take other conditions as a basis for their existence, then from the point of view of the forces that act upon them, they are no longer a people.

Other forces influence the rest of the nations, since each nation is affected by its own strength, its so-called “guardian angel.” In other words, the common power that exists in humanity selectively acts upon each group of 70 nations of the world.

The people of Israel do not belong to them because it is an assembly of their representatives. The Jewish people are very different and opposite to each other. If they gather in order to coexist correctly over their egoism, then they are viable. But if this rule is violated and they stop rushing to unite over all of their problems, then they become a dispersed people.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 7/8/19

Polytheism—A Natural Human Instinct

Question: All citizens of ancient Babylon worshiped many gods. What does polytheism mean?

Answer: Polytheism is a natural evolution of man. We can see that even today such beliefs are preserved in the world, especially in the East.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam originated from Abraham. All other beliefs are based on polytheism, i.e., the existence of a host of gods, a multitude of supposedly all kinds of forces of nature, each of which has some special influence on nature and the destiny of man.

Question: Can we say that each of us is also an idolater? That is, if a person does not discover one force behind all matter, then one is an idolater?

Answer: I do not think that we deify these forces to such an extent. After all, idolaters were not stupid people; rather, they just saw that they were greatly dependent on various properties of nature but could not bind them together. Neither can we.

It was believed that the god of rain, the god of the sun, the god of night, the god of day, etc. were all great forces of nature on which a man is completely dependent and must worship to maintain good relations with them. After all, along with the fact that man deified nature, he felt his dependence on it.

Remark: People believed that there are certain forces that could be appeased and it could be best appeased by different priests who know exactly how to do this.

My Comment: Yes. Imagine an uneducated, ignorant peasant. He would rather submit a bag of grain and be sure that he will no longer have any problems either with the crop, or with drought, or with flooding rivers.
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From KabTV’s “System analysis of the development of the people of Israel,” 6/24/19

Everything Is Transient – Only The Relationship With The Eternal Is Eternal

Question: Jerusalem is a city of three religions. In Islam, Jerusalem is considered a holy city because according to legend, the Prophet Muhammad miraculously was transported from Mecca to Jerusalem and from there ascended to heaven. Why do all the religions point to Jerusalem?

Answer: All religions speak of the upper force. The difference is that each of them recognizes its own representative of the upper force: Muhammad, Moses, and Jesus. Religions do not argue with each other regarding the upper force; they all agree with the existence of one God.

All disagreements arise with respect to the representative of this upper force and the requirements that it puts before people through its messenger.

Question: How could religion survive for such a long time, millennia?

Answer: Religions exist because a person has no other way of contacting the upper force but through those prophets, everyone of whom is considered a saint in his religion.

A person is clinging to religion, understanding that everything in this world is transient: today exists, and tomorrow does not. Only connection to the Upper Force—eternal and perfect—does not disappear. Every religion teaches us how to behave in order to come, through a particular prophet, a representative of the Upper Force, in contact with it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah does not deal with religions and faiths, which exist in great numbers, in addition to the main three.

Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose” that the true religion is Kabbalah that reveals the Creator to the human being. And the religions that exist today are just intended to support a person during the time when he develops until he grows out of them and will be able to grasp the overall comprehensive methodology, that is, Kabbalah.

Kabbalah does not belong to any religion: not to Judaism or Christianity or Islam. In it we reach the point where “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people,” and all the nations of the world will come to the Creator.

Therefore, everyone must use the same technique for revealing the Creator to the created beings, not related to any single nation. Abraham is the forefather of all three religions, which therefore are called Abrahamic.

But in fact, the basis of Abraham’s teaching is the wisdom of Kabbalah. Abraham wroteThe Book of Creation, in which he tells how to reveal the upper force, which is hidden from us.

The group of Abraham’s disciples, that later grew and turned into the people of Israel, revealed the upper force. The people of Israel lived in connection with the upper force until the destruction of the Temple. It is written that “They checked from Dan to Beer Sheba … and did not find a baby boy or a baby girl, a man or a woman who were not proficient in laws of impurity and purity.”

Their desires were so corrected that even a child could feel the upper force. There was a time in the history of the nation of Israel until it fell from this high level and found itself in darkness and concealment of the Creator. Then all the religions appeared.

But now we live in a time when all the religions are gradually exposing their emptiness. They are revived for the last time before disappearing completely. We are going to witness major wars within each religion and between them.

This was told by the prophets describing the so-called era of the Messiah in which we find ourselves today. We are faced with a very difficult time until people become completely disappointed in all religions and realize what the only correct actual method is. Kabbalah not only talks about the prophets and their prophecies, but reveals the upper force to man.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/7/15