Question: Is there a reason for all our problems?

Answer: If there is a conflict with our spouse, our children, our neighbors, at work, and even within ourselves it means that our ego, called Pharaoh, dominates us.

Question:  But the slavery in Egypt, which the Torah tells us about, was only in ancient times and ended a long time ago.

Answer: Pharaoh dominates us all the time, even right now. The events described in the Torah are not related to a certain time and are not a historical story. We are still enslaved to the same ego, to our egoistic nature, which doesn’t allow us to live a normal life.

We live in a special world today, in a special time. We are all connected in one network to an integral world, an integral economy, and depend on one another. If the international community imposes certain sanctions against any country, it cuts off its connections with that country , like Iran for example, this state falls, since everyone depends on everyone else.

This shows us what an integral world we are living in, in which everyone is connected to one another. If we don’t keep the good relations in this interdependent world, we harm ourselves.

Therefore, if we don’t manage to fix the relationships between all the nations, all the countries, and all the political parties within a country, we will simply destroy ourselves. Nothing can help us if we are opposite to the general law of nature.

Question: But it is a fact that we don’t get along with each other and we still go on living.

Answer: There is a limit to this confrontation: how large it can grow and how long it can continue. The reason for this confrontation is our nature, which forces each of us to think only about himself. But a person doesn’t understand that his own good and wellbeing depend on everyone else. Our foolish ego operates in such a primitive way. People cannot understand that if we connect with good relationships with others we  will only benefit.

Question: It seems contrary that in ancient primitive societies people were more closely connected and that we draw further apart as we develop.

Answer: Don’t consider ancient societies as primitive. They realized that they depended on each other and that they were connected and couldn’t survive without these connections.

The problem of modern society is that we have reached such a high level through technological progress that it seems that we can live independently of each nother and so each one locks himself in his apartment with his cell phone and his computer and doesn’t want to see anyone. The main point is that he shouldn’t be touched.

This lack of connection between us, or the negative ties, are called Pharaoh, our ego. We don’t want to consider others and we don’t understand that we are mutually connected in one network and this is especially true for the nation of Israel. We always need to value ourselves according to this scale: the extent that we are against others or for them.

The whole Torah is only about “love thy friend as thyself,” which is the great rule of the Torah. This rule includes everything and there is nothing but reaching the right unity.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 3/15/15

Related Material:
Under The Yoke Of The Ego
The Leap Into The “Red Sea”
Passover – The Level Of The Exodus From Egypt

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