“Living Instead Of Just Making A Living” (Medium)

Medium published my new article “Living Instead of Just Making a Living

Could we call the period before the pandemic “life,” or was it just a compulsory race to make a living? This question arises now, as we are forced to rapidly transition to a new state, a new reality. We can make the best of our new beginning if we realize that there are more fulfilling goals in life than chasing passing fads and pointless ambitions.

“This is what is happening with humanity right now. It is going through a phase of growing up, and the push we have received toward it is not easy for us.”

I remember myself as a child, how my parents spoiled me and gave me everything I wanted or needed. Suddenly, at a certain age, they began to pressure me and demand self-discipline in my studies, making sure I lived up to what was required of me. I did not understand what was happening. If they wanted me to be so successful, why didn’t they arrange it? Why was everything on me all of a sudden? I remember how this question troubled me.

It took time for me to be able to gladly accept that my life is divided into two periods: The first one is childhood, when I was under the complete protection of my parents, and the second period, adulthood, during which I needed to stand on my own, no matter how much my parents loved me and wanted the best for me. I had to achieve maturity by myself.

This is what is happening with humanity right now. It is going through a phase of growing up, and the push we have received toward it is not easy for us. It requires that we begin to approach life differently, and we don’t want to. We want to be left alone in our private world and do as we please, just as we have done until today.

If “growing up” in our world means entering the job market, going to bars, and traveling around the world for no real purpose or fulfillment, it is actually the definition of “childhood.” Until now, people have primarily focused on short term goals, on what was in front of their eyes and immediately relevant.

Material gadgets, running from one indulgence to the next, endless competition to outdo others, struggles and wars over dominance, building and tearing down and building once again — these have been our childish games. Suddenly, the moment has come when we, as a global society, are required to lift our eyes from the playground and realize our situation in the larger landscape. What is the purpose of this world where we find ourselves? What is this life? These thoughts are something that we are not accustomed to.

Until today we had expected to live life to its fullest but we tried to achieve this satisfaction artificially, focusing on having a good time without considering our surroundings. We hadn’t paid any attention to the examples that nature’s behavior has given us, which take into account the balance of the whole ecosystem.

The way we have conducted our lives is not real life. We haven’t even begun to grasp what life really means. Adulthood will be reached only when we begin to grow according to nature’s plan, when we begin to measure ourselves according to its rules and characteristics which are integral, connected.

To live life means to understand it, to feel its essence and its goal. Real life is the capability to taste the supreme meaning of our existence, to feel the intricate networks and links within the universe. This is what we can call true life: when we apprehend that everything born or created has a purpose and goal for its existence.

What do we live for? Why were we created? This is something we have yet to discover. It will be revealed when we grow up not only chronologically, but also through our internal discernments. This exercise that nature has given us today with the coronavirus is our first test in growing up, that is, to reveal the meaning of life.

If we want to be smart children, we must understand what life holds in store for us and gladly, enthusiastically, and with great anticipation move toward it. Otherwise, we will experience our exercises in adulthood as suffering. One way or the other, we will have to grow up. The time has come to leave behind the toys of wealth and honor and find the true treasure, the real purpose of life, which exists in cohesive and harmonious relations between us.
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“Predators That Heal Their Prey, And What We Can Learn From Supermarkets” (Medium)

Medium published my new article “Predators that Heal Their Prey, and What We Can Learn from Supermarkets

With air pollution rising in China to levels that were “normal” in the pre-COVID days, and with countries all over the world celebrating the reopening of their economies, the hope for change that many had nurtured during the clean-air-clear-water lockdown days seems to be fading. But nature has already shown us that it does not want us around the way we were. If we revert to normal, nature will revert to punishments, with a vengeance.

The problem is in our relationships. Nature doesn’t want us not because we eat other animals or emit carbon. It doesn’t want us because we’re mean to one another, and through our atrocities against each other, we are destroying the entire planet.

Humanity, the apex of creation, has harmed creation more than any other creature. In fact, it is the only creature ever to go against its maker: Mother Nature. The coronavirus was the first time nature has shown us that it can hit all of us, anywhere, anytime, if it so chooses. But it did it with compassion. The death toll from COVID-19 is really not much more than that of a seasonal flu, but it scared the living daylight out of us. It was the first time that common folk and state leaders alike stood stumped and helpless before Mother Nature.

Nature sent us a message: I will not tolerate our self-centered wantonness. It will not tolerate our looting and killing, depleting and polluting, poisoning and smothering everything and everyone just so we can be at the top of the heap of debris we have created along the way.

Every other creature but humanity behaves just as it should, and in doing so contributes to the common good. In children’s movies, we often paint cruel faces on predators such as tigers or wolves. But the truth is that these predators prevent overpopulation of their prey and a resulting depletion of their sources of food, and keep their herds healthy and strong by eating the weak and sick.

A wolf will not kill more than one deer or moose at a time. After the kill, it will eat all it needs and will go to rest until the next time it is hungry. Humans are the exact opposite: They kill far more than they need in order to eat, and take pride in killing the strongest and healthiest animals. People don’t kill to eat; they kill to show off their strength.

Let’s take another example. When you go to the dairy section in any modern supermarket, you will find an endless array of cheeses. Twenty, thirty, or forty years ago these cheeses didn’t exist. They only appeared because dairy food makers compete over customers, so they produce an ever growing diversity of foods hoping to get more and more shelf space at the expense of other producers. In the process, more than half of the production is thrown out, the product price spikes, more resources are needlessly extracted from the ground, more animals are mistreated, the air becomes more polluted with emissions of machines and trucks, traffic becomes more congested, and employees of competing companies lose their jobs because their company couldn’t bring their product to the store shelves. Every time we choose one cheese over another, we inadvertently make a lot of people miserable.

The problem is not what we consume, and certainly not that we enjoy good food and other amenities that life has to offer. On the contrary, I’m all for it. The problem is in our relationships. Nature doesn’t want us not because we eat other animals or emit carbon. It doesn’t want us because we’re mean to one another, and through our atrocities against each other, we are destroying the entire planet.

This is why I am putting such an emphasis on education and not on reduction of consumption or other restrictions. They will not help unless we fix the problem where it lies — between us, in our desire to destroy one another.

By forcing us to stay home, the coronavirus forced us to stop competing, and with it, we stopped destroying Earth. If we return to biting at each other’s throats, nature will send another envoy that will set us apart more firmly until we learn the lesson.

Since we are already permitted to congregate and interact, let’s use the break that we were given to start over, to try to be better to each other. Just as our ill-will toward each other sickened the Earth, which then sickened us, our good will toward each other will heal us, then heal the Earth.
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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 5/24/20

Lesson Preparation

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Lesson on the Topic “The Right Way To Study The Wisdom Of Kabbalah” 

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 1

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”

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