Was All of Humanity Ever in Spiritual Attainment?

No. Abraham’s group, which had left Babylon, was in spiritual attainment for a brief period. When they exited Egypt, they rose to a new level, and then during the First Temple’s construction, they rose even higher in spiritual attainment.

When we discuss the Temple, we are not speaking about a stone and wood building. Instead, we discuss the soul’s inner construction. There was a period of significant spiritual attainment with the erection of the First and then the Second Temples, after which we fell from those spiritual degrees around 2,000 years ago.

Abraham’s group, which received the name, “the people of Israel,” and later “the Jewish people” under Moses’ guidance, reached spiritual attainment in those times. Humanity in general, however, did not attain spirituality, because while in Babylon, it did not want to master the methodology of the revelation of the single force of love, bestowal and connection that exists in nature, called “the Creator.” Abraham thus had to leave Babylon with whoever wished to follow.

However, while humanity as a whole was never in spiritual attainment, today we have entered a new evolutionary stage where every last person will need to attain spirituality. Every person holds such potential. We are already in a collective state of adhesion with each other and with the force of love, bestowal and connection that holds us together. That state has several names, a couple being “the unified soul of Adam HaRishon” and “Malchut (kingdom) of the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).” Such is our true eternal and perfect state. We are gradually evolving to its discovery. Accordingly, more and more people start awakening with a desire for something more and different to the entire array of worldly pleasures.

If humanity collectively did not accord to Abraham’s method in the times of ancient Babylon, today we are in a new state where suffering will continually increase, making us increasingly question the ways in which we think and act in the world.

One way or another — either through increasing awareness of the system of nature and our role in it, via our aspiration to adapt ourselves to its integral laws, or through increasing suffering — it is the ultimately destiny of each and every person to reach spiritual attainment. It is as written, “For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11, 9), and “Know the Lord; for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them” (Jeremiah 31, 33).