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Abraham’s teaching can be called a religion from the moment it became a unifying force, i.e., when it turned into a practical method for building a society that absorbed the idea of unity, accepted it, and began to live by it as its way of life. Before that, it was a revelation of a law of nature attained by a single person, but from the moment that Abraham taught it to his thousands of students, it became a collective path.
This happened when the group that Abraham gathered in ancient Babylon and later led out of it began to form itself internally at what is described as Mount Sinai. The Torah presents this story in allegorical language. It does not speak about a physical mountain or a physical gathering, but about inner states that people experienced when they confronted the revelation of their mutual hatred and, at the same time, the necessity to rise above it.
From that point onward, we can already speak of Abraham’s method as a religion. It is not a religion in the modern sense of beliefs or rituals, but as the implementation of a clear social structure among the nation, an organization into tens, hundreds, and thousands, and the establishment of positive connections, with the positive force of connection that dwells in nature, among them. Within such a structure, through mutual responsibility, bestowal, and love, the positive force dwelling in nature—the Creator—becomes revealed as a quality that dwells in their connections.
This is where the social movement of those who left Babylon truly begins. Gradually, through this inner work, they become a nation based on their common goal and method of connection. The decisive turning point was the moment when the need arose for precise instruction on how to rise above the hatred that flared among them. From that moment onward, religion appeared as a method of uniting people into one whole, in equivalence of form with the upper force of love and bestowal.
We call Abraham’s method of connection a “religion” because the people who follow it constantly aim themselves, in their inner structure and in their relationships, toward similarity with the upper force. They strive to organize their lives so that this force—the quality of love, bestowal, and mutual guarantee—will become revealed in their connections. That, and nothing else, was the religion of Abraham.
Based on KabTV’s “The Last Generation” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 3, 2017. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.