Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do people hate each other?“

Hatred is an attribute unique to humans.

Human nature is a self-serving egoistic desire that considers its own benefit before the benefit of anyone else.

The more we develop, the more our egoistic quality grows, and likewise, the more we try to benefit ourselves at the expense of other people and the ecology.

In other words, the more we develop, the more our hatred toward each other increases.

While seemingly a negative quality, there is a positive flip side to the hatred increasingly unfolding in humanity: the growing negative sensation serves to lead us to a serious self-examination, where we will discover that we need to change our egoistic human nature in order to survive, prosper and be happy.

Outside our egoistic nature is nature in its positive, altruistic, loving and giving form, which thinks and acts oppositely to the way in which we think and act.

Therefore, if we act on our hatred, it merely shows our unawareness of nature’s laws, and also our incongruence and imbalance with nature.

Genuine hatred thus reveals itself as we head toward love. That is, if we set foot on a path to love each other as we love ourselves, as is the ultimate law of nature, we will then start seeing hatred surfacing in us as a quality that we need to fix in order to truly love others.

And why would we want to love others?

Whether we want to or not, nature is guiding us all to a state of absolute love—nature’s fundamental quality. By aligning ourselves to love others, through building a supportive environment to love each other above the rising hatred, we would then spare ourselves from much suffering that would otherwise emerge in the involuntarily-surfacing hatred.

Today’s many world events express the immense hatred dwelling in humanity. We take sides against others in many areas of life, and bridging our divides seems unthinkable.

Since we fail to implement any kind of education that guides our understanding of how our egoistic human nature operates on us, dividing us in order that we develop supportive ties above the divisions, then we fall to the ego’s demands time and again, and hatred takes over in an unabated fashion.

We need to learn how to fix our hatred’s source—the human ego—so that we would know how to cover it with love.

If we take a status check of what is happening in the world right now, we would see that we are in a very significant transitional era: one where we increasingly become aware of the ego’s wickedness.

We feel worse and worse, more depressed, stressed, anxious and uncertain about our future, but still are unaware of our negative sensations’ causes and effects, and what we can do about it.

However, we will eventually have to reach a realization that our egoistic human nature is a lever that we can “pull” in order to switch it to love.

Without the increasing hatred and negativity filling our lives, we would also be unable to sense a much fuller sense of enjoyment in love, as the increasingly unraveling evil within us adds more appetite and yearning for a genuine sensation of love to emerge.

Yet, we need not wait for pain and suffering to spur on the recognition of our egoistic nature as evil in order to want it to change.

There is a method of connection that we can implement in order to build supportive ties, direct ourselves to love one another, and already start connecting positively and accelerating the revelation of our hatred’s source—the ego dwelling inside each of us—within a more powerful envelope of love and positive connection that we construct with the method’s guidance.

In short, we are sent hatred so that through our active efforts in building a society that aims itself at loving one another, we could repair the hatred, cover it with love, and by doing so, experience a new sense of harmony and bliss spread throughout society.

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The Times of Israel published my new article “The greatest danger to the Jewish people (that you probably didn’t know about)”

The longer the pandemic lingers, the more the world will turn a blaming eye toward us, the Jews. Anytime affliction grows around the world, it directs its anger at the Jews. A few days ago, far-right white nationalist Canadian politician Travis Patron released a video stating, “What we need to do, perhaps more than anything, is remove these people, once and for all, from our country.” He’s not alone, and these ideas do not come only from the far-right. There is ample evidence of antisemitism on the left, as well, and even people who aren’t known for their extreme views express or share anti-Semitic social media posts.

Just like the Jews in Germany before World War II tried to convince the Nazis that they were good Germans but to no avail, Jews today are trying to convince the world that we are good people. They say that Jews donate to charity more than any other nation or faith, that they contribute to high-tech innovations that advance the world far above their proportion in the world, that Jews have given the world many great physicians, thinkers, artists, and entrepreneurs, and that they are ardent human rights activists. But the world largely responds with contempt. It may be ironic, but it seems very natural for anti-racism protesters to yell “Dirty Jews” at counter-protesters, as The Jerusalem Post reported on June 15. In other words, many people don’t even relate to antisemitism as a type of racism.

Jew-hatred is irrational. It doesn’t need justification (though one is always found) and it always grows when times are hard. But there is a very good reason for it, though most Jews and most non-Jews are unaware of it.

The first Hebrew, Abraham, left his hometown, Haran, in ancient Babylon, when his countryfolk rejected him. Midrash Rabbah, Maimonides, and many other sources describe Abraham’s findings—that his people had become alienated from each other. He tried to bring them together, to help them rise above their egocentric attitude to one another. But instead of gratitude, he suffered their disdain. Eventually, they excommunicated him and drove him out of Babylon.

But Abraham succeeded. As he wandered west toward Canaan, more and more people joined him since they felt that unity above hatred is the right way to live, while those they had left behind wallowed in their hatred and eventually disintegrated. At the same time, Abraham’s people became a nation and continued to work on their unity, despite the many conflicts that arose within them. That ancient schism between Abraham’s group with its method of unity, and the rest of the Babylonians with their mindset of individuality, is the hidden root of all forms of Jew-hatred. And since the Babylonian culture had spread across the globe, there is not a single place on Earth without latent antisemitism waiting for a crisis to trigger it.

And if the ancient rupture isn’t enough to justify antisemitism, upon their exodus from Egypt, the Jews not only achieved complete unity (although it soon faded), but were also tasked with being “a light unto nations”—to spread that unity to the rest of the world. For nearly two millennia, the Jews had fought to keep their unity and be faithful to their mission. But some two thousand years ago, they succumbed to their egoism, which they called “unfounded hatred,” and were dispersed. Since then, they have become unfit to carry out their mission as a chosen people since their hatred for each other prevents them from spreading unity.

Because the Jews fell from brotherly love, from the motto “Love your neighbor as yourself,” into unfounded hatred, the world does not view them as the carriers of unity. But even so, it still regards them as responsible for the world’s troubles, and especially the wars. Ask any antisemite who is responsible for all the wars in the world, and they will tell you it’s the Jews. Although they are unaware of it, by holding the Jews responsible for all the troubles in the world, antisemites are saying indirectly that the Jews aren’t bringing peace. Inadvertently, they are admitting that the task the Jews were given at the foot of Mt. Sinai is still valid, and that not carrying it out is the reason for their hatred.

What then should the Jews do about it? Exactly what the antisemites (subconsciously) expect them to do: unite and project that unity to the world, be “a light unto nations.” Since the Jewish people are descendants of Babylonians from tribes and clans that were often sworn enemies until they joined Abraham’s group, if the Jews unite above their hatred, it will set an example and pave the way for the rest of the nations.

Ironically, the only cure for antisemitism is Jewish unity, and sharing it with the world. It turns out that the greatest danger to the Jewish people is not knowing their task.
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Medium published my new article “COVID Isn’t a Virus, It’s a Tsunami”

On December 26, 2004, at 9:30 in the morning, an unusually large and fast moving wave rushed across the tranquil morning sea, wetted the surprised beachgoers in Koh Lanta, Thailand, crashed on the beach, and dragged some of the chairs back out to sea. Lisa Anckarman, then a fifteen year old girl, filmed the wave, and much of what had happened afterwards. At first, she says, “People remained on the beach and a confused murmur spread among the locals and the tourists. The response was shock,” she continues, “yet somewhat amused.” But as people were watching the chairs drift off to sea, “that’s when a roaring sound filled the air. The amused looks turned to the horizon, to see a wall of mud and water approaching. At first,” she writes, “I struggle to comprehend what I am seeing.” And then, “the air around filled with complete panic.” Anckarman, young and athletic, grabbed her little sister and ran up the nearest hill.

They survived, but on that day, nearly a quarter of a million people lost their lives to the tsunami. The earthquake that caused the tsunami was the third largest ever recorded, and had the longest duration of faulting ever observed — between eight and ten minutes. Yet, in the vast majority of the coastal areas surrounding the epicenter of the quake, no alarm was sounded prior to the arrival of the waves.

In my view, our biggest problem today is that we are a lot like those naïve beachgoers. We think that this is just a big wave; it’ll take a few chairs with it as it retreats and that’s the end of it. We don’t realize that it’s the beginning of a series of waves, each bigger and more devastating than its predecessor, and that when it’s all over, our world will have changed forever. COVID-19 is not the whole event; it is that first “unusually large and fast moving wave.” This is why many people are confused yet amused, not knowing if they should take it seriously or not. But we should all take COVID-19 very seriously.

The new world has been forming under the surface for decades, yet we resisted its arrival. We tried everything we could to keep consumerism and ruthless competition going at all cost, but we only delayed the inevitable. Now, finally, the tectonic pressure has built up to the point where the plates flung into a new position, the pressure has been released at once, and the result — a worldwide life changing tsunami. We should not fool ourselves; the waves that will follow COVID will be higher and more devastating. We will escape their impact only if we act now.

The shift that has been building is a transformation in our relation to the world and to society, to other people. It is a revolution in our perception of reality from seeing the world through individualistic eyes to seeing it through the eyes of the collective. We are still resisting the transition. Our egos tell us that it’s just a wave; we’ll soon go back to celebrating life, depleting the planet and exploiting anyone we can, deliberately or inadvertently. But our egos are misleading us. The majority of those who stayed ashore on December 26, 2004 didn’t survive the waves that followed. Nor will those who insist on burying their heads in the sand today.

The sooner we turn our minds, hearts, and bodies to building a society based on mutual responsibility, incorporation of all parts of society, and building a sense of commonality, the sooner we’ll be freed from the virus and its subsequent horrors.

Unlike 2004, we have had numerous alarms. Many people warned that our paradigm was unsustainable. I myself have been writing and speaking about it for at least fifteen years, but my pleas were always met with patronizing tolerance, if not with blatant scorn.

Now we are past the phase of sounding the alarm; we are in the midst of the event. We should do what we are told: keep our social distance, wear our masks, and begin to look at where we are. The jobs of the past are gone or dying fast. Machines will do most of the physical work, and human jobs will relate more and more to human connections. There will be an abundance of occupations required for building a new society, based on caring, solidarity, social cohesion — all those values we have ridiculed for so long. Now they are vital for our existence. Without them, we will not be able to do anything, not even maintain food supply chains to feed ourselves and our families. Today, mutual responsibility is not a gallant notion; it is as necessary as food and water, since without it, we will have neither.

We must understand that now we will swim together, or we will drown alone.
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Lesson Preparation

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati 56 “Torah Is Called Indication”

Writings of Baal HaSulam,  “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,”  Item 130

Lesson on the Topic “Connecting the World in the Last Generation” 

Writings of Rabash, Article 5, “What Does the Rule “Love Thy Friend as Thyself” Give Us” (1984)

Selected Highlights

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