Psalms of Behavioral Analysis (ABA)
This is an opening meditation on behavior, responsibility, and choice — an attempt to hear Applied Behavior Analysis as part of the ancient Jewish song of the world.
Introduction
On the Book Written Before the World
From the very beginning,
the world was given
not as chaos,
but as a text.
Yet not all its lines
were written in ink.
Some were written
in letters
that preceded the world itself.
Others were written
as law —
the law that holds
the world together.
Before matter came into being,
there was the word.
And before the word —
a structure
by which the word
became action.
The Holy One looked into the Torah
and created the world —
as a design
in which order
precedes form.
That is why nothing in the world
is random.
There is cause and effect.
There is response
to conditions.
There is learning.
There is a path.
The Torah is not only
a book of commandments.
It is a book of reality’s structure.
Within it lies the order
by which the world functions,
human beings learn,
and behavior takes shape.
What would later be called science
was already present within it.
What would later be called analysis
had already been heard
in the Talmud
and revealed
in Kabbalah.
The world follows its order.
And this order
is not a cold mechanism,
but a form of meaning.
Within this order,
all creation
sings its song to God —
not only with a voice,
but also through the way
it exists.
The wind sings through movement.
Water through flow.
The stars through their paths.
And living beings —
through behavior.
This understanding matured in me
through the study of Psalms
and through the ancient book Perek Shirah,
in which all that is created
is given its own voice
and its own melody.
I realized:
if grass sings,
if day and night sing,
if the very structure of being sings,
then the law by which behavior is shaped
also takes part in this song.
When King David wrote the Psalms,
he did not escape the world.
He listened to it —
fully.
And after him,
the song did not cease.
Asaph.
The sons of Korah.
The Levites.
Each generation
added its own voice
to the shared melody.
For chosenness
is not a privilege.
It is a responsibility.
To be those
who hear order
and translate it
into song.
To lift the sparks
hidden within the structure of the world.
I understood that we are called
to continue writing psalms.
Not only about pain and hope,
but also about knowledge.
About law.
About behavior.
Because everything
comes from God.
If causality exists —
it is a gift.
If learning is possible —
it is mercy.
If a person can change —
it is a blessing.
And for this,
gratitude is required.
Behavioral analysis speaks
the language of environment,
reinforcement,
and histories of interaction.
And yet behind this language
stands the same Source
who gave the Torah
and placed letters
at the foundation of the world.
I realized that if this strict law
is translated into the language of psalms,
it becomes light
for those
to whom it is addressed:
for parents
seeking meaning rather than blame;
for students
walking a difficult path
and continuing forward;
for those learning to see in behavior
not a defect,
but a response.
To lift sparks
within knowledge itself.
To say “thank you”
even through formulas and graphs.
To return song
to the places
where it was hidden.
A Psalm of What Is Given and the Path
What was given
was given
not to be revised
and not to be replaced.
The Torah was not a draft.
It was a design.
With it was given
a path of continuation —
the Talmud,
the Psalms of David,
the song of creation
in Perek Shirah.
Not in order to cancel what was given,
but to live within it.
That is why Moses spoke
not a threat,
but a law of reality:
I have set before you
life and death,
good and evil,
blessing and curse.
Because choice
does not disappear.
It acts.
It leaves a trace.
It returns
as consequence.
One who chooses life
enters the current.
One who chooses destruction
encounters
its outcome.
Not because punishment was imposed,
but because this is
how the world is built.
This is cause and effect.
This is determinism.
Not as a sentence,
but as a mirror.
Behavior reflects
the path
that was chosen.
Behavioral analysis speaks of this
calmly
and precisely:
when conditions repeat,
responses repeat;
when choices change,
outcomes change.
This is not ideology.
It is law.
And this law
is not opposed to the Torah.
It exists within it.
The Torah said it first:
choice has consequences.
Behavioral analysis
heard it
in the language of its time.
And therefore the task
is not to cancel what was given,
but to return to it
with attention
and gratitude.
To lift sparks
within structure.
To hear song
even within law.
This is Tikkun Olam —
the repair of the world
through understanding,
responsibility,
and the reduction of suffering.
The world was given
with a song.
The human being chooses
whether to enter it
or drown it out
with noise.
Behavioral analysis
adds no new law.
It reminds us
of an ancient one.
And when we translate it
into the language of psalms,
we do not change the truth.
We return it
to gratitude.
P.S.
This psalm does not conclude the book.
It merely sets the direction —
between what has been given
and what a person chooses
each day.
To be continued.