In the story about ancient Babylon the Torah offers this advice: “Listen to the Abraham in you.” Find him amidst the egoistic madness and give him the freedom to act. Let the ego squeal and resist any changes aimed at spiritual advancement, but it must be understood that there is no other way. Everything else has been tried and tested, and we can clearly see that it hasn’t worked.
This is precisely why the wisdom of Kabbalah, Abraham’s method, hidden from humanity for millennia, is being revealed today.
If humanity listens, we will follow the constructive path of unification with Nature. If it doesn’t, we will follow the path of suffering. But either way, we will reach the goal.
The Development of the Ego from Ancient Babylon to Modern Global Crisis
What does it mean to unite with Nature? Kabbalists wrote about it almost 4,000 years ago in The Book of Creation.
All around us exists a single law, to which we do not conform. The Law of Nature is one of absolute altruism, absolute love. It acts all around us in full force. It is known as the Creator’s Law.
We oppose this law egoistically. Instead of correcting our constantly growing egos and equalizing with Nature, we put up artificial barriers to protect ourselves from it. That is what all our sciences and technologies are used for.
This phenomenon of man refusing to correct himself and seeking to dominate Nature instead is what’s referred to as “building the Tower of Babel.”
Since the days of Babylon, our egos have been gradually developing until they have reached their peak. Humanity has become disillusioned with its ability to satiate its own ego via technological or any other kind of progress. Today we are beginning to realize that this whole journey of ours was trekked in vain.
Due to the crisis and the dead end we find ourselves in the modern ruin of the Tower of Babel is happening before our very eyes. Now all we need is to make the right choice.
The great Kabbalist, Yehuda Ashlag, known as Baal HaSulam (Owner of the Ladder) for his Sulam (Ladder) commentary on The Book of Zohar, wrote in the 1940s that if humanity didn’t come to its senses there would be a third and then a fourth world war, with only a handful of survivors. These people will then unify with the universal law, and the world will know true peace and love.
From the Revelation of Evil to the Correction Method
“In the end, the Creator descended upon the earth with seventy angels and held court over that generation.” This passage speaks of the altruistic force (the Creator) “descending upon the earth” as a result of the breaking. In other words, this force entered the egoistic desire (the earth).
It simply means that we suddenly saw ourselves the way we really are. This was made possible by the light of the altruistic sparks that entered us. Like flashlight beams, they illuminated the darkness and granted us sight, and we realized that all our actions are dictated exclusively by self-love.
Each of these desires was infiltrated by an altruistic spark during the breaking, turning our whole lives upside down, demolishing the usual order of things, and forcing us to reflect on who we are.
Imagine how shocked people were when they suddenly discovered that they couldn’t communicate with each other in one language and were instead inexplicably speaking seventy different languages.
In other words, in the illumination of the altruistic Light, it was discovered that every desire lives only for itself. This is how all people live. No one understands another, and all the slogans about love and brotherhood are empty words. The true altruism highlighted the abyss that truly exists between egoistic desires—people, nations, and the world—and showed that egoism does not allow us to love, be together, or speak the same language. Egoism is when everyone cares only for themselves, speaking their own language that others cannot understand.
A terrible discord and turmoil fell upon the land. The people all picked up arms and began to kill their friends—and so perished half of humanity.
In the altruistic Light, it becomes evident that the ego has no friends. It is designed to drive us to the extreme, pinning us to the wall. Only then do we realize that we are trapped, slaves to the ego without any free will of our own, realizing that everything we had done throughout our lives was at the command of self-love.
Man suddenly discovers that instead of creating, he was “killing” all along.
Entrenched in terrorism and drugs, feeling helpless and unfulfilled, he is ultimately brought to a desperate state. He doesn’t see a way out and doesn’t want to move in any direction. He has become so distant from Nature that he doesn’t see from where salvation might come or what he can do. This realization constitutes the “ruin of the Tower of Babel” within us.
What happens next? Next, a wisdom known as Kabbalah comes to the rescue. This wisdom was born back in the age of Ancient Babylon, was kept secret for thousands of years, and is now being revealed throughout the world, for humanity will never know how to continue to develop without it. Things will continue to deteriorate until humanity is ready to utilize the method of the world’s correction as a solution to all the problems.
“The Meaning of the Story of the Escape from Babylon with Abraham’s Method” is based on the book, The Secrets of the Eternal Book: The Meaning of the Stories of the Pentateuch by Semion Vinokur.
