Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is there so much hate towards Israel?“

The source of the hatred against Israel is that we, the people of Israel, reject and hate each other. And as much as we hate each other, the nations of the world hate us even more.

If we related to one another more considerately, the world’s attitude toward us would change accordingly. It is because our nation is rooted in the attainment of nature’s positive force—a force of love, bestowal and connection—and if we block this force’s entrance into the world by acting oppositely to it—with hatred and rejection of each other—then the nations of the world feel us as clogging an abundance of delight from flowing onto them. They then instinctively attribute the suffering they increasingly endure in life as somehow connected to Jews. Antisemitic sentiment then cooks within them while increasingly erupting in an exponential increase of antisemitism crimes and threats worldwide.

If we realize what made us the people of Israel to begin with, by implementing the attitude of “love your friend as yourself” among each other, then we would see the hatred toward Israel invert into an attitude of love and respect for a people that let the positive forces of love, bestowal and connection flow into the world; a people who elevate humanity to a higher level of unity, harmony and peace.
Based on the video “Why Is Israel Hated So Much?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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My new article on Linkedin “The Dead Silence of American Jewry on Iran”

While Netanyahu was Israel’s prime minister, his disapproval of the Iran deal placed him at odds with the majority of American Jewry, which supported it. Their criticism of the State of Israel, they claimed, was not because of their dislike of Israel, but of its leader. However, for more than a year now, Israel has had two prime ministers who are the coming true of American Jewry’s sweetest dreams. Yet, they, too, oppose the disastrous new version of the Iran deal. Since now American Jewry cannot say that it opposes the prime minister, one would expect it to join the voices opposing the formulating deal, which will allow Iran to build a bomb and forbid the West to intervene. Yet, American Jewry is dead silent. Its silence, however, reveals the truth: The majority of American Jews feel completely alienated from the State of Israel. Their silence whispers their indifference, their utter disconnection from the Jewish state.

Some of them hide their carelessness behind the fact that they have family in Israel. It means nothing. If you have a relative who lives in Germany, for example, it does not mean you feel anything for Germany. They feel nothing for Israel, and their disregard toward what is happening with a deal that will put the very existence of the State of Israel at risk reflects their apathy.

I am not surprised that this is happening. This disinterest is characteristic of Jews, and reflects our origin. Since our ancestors came from countless different, often rival nations, the sense of disconnection is rooted in our hearts. Only after Moses united us at the foot of Mt. Sinai, when we pledged to be “as one man with one heart,” did we become a nation. But since then, we have broken our vow and returned to our mutual dislike.

Only antisemitism reminds us that we are bound together. And the more intense it is, the more we huddle together. But as soon as the threat is lifted, we return to our prior aversion from each other until the next wave of Jew-hatred emerges.

Sometimes, the hatred becomes so intense and violent that it crushes the prime community of the time. This is what happened in the First Temple, and this is what happened in the Second Temple. This is also what happened in England in the 13th century, in Spain in the 15th century, in Poland in the 17th century, and in Germany (and consequently in most of Europe) in the 20th century. The prime community is always the target of the violence.

The pattern will be broken only when Jews initiate their connection of their own volition, rather than wait for antisemites to force them. In 1929, Dr. Kurt Fleischer, leader of the Liberals in the Berlin Jewish Community Assembly, argued that “Antisemitism is the scourge that God has sent us in order to lead us together and weld us together.” In those years, the German Jewish community was going through an intense process of assimilation and disintegration. Four years after Dr. Fleischer made his accurate observation, the Nazis came to power.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 9/7/22

Ken Burns is regarded by many as one of the foremost documentarians of American history, with iconic works such as “The Civil War,” “Jazz,” and “Baseball.” Recently, he completed a project that began in 2015, initiated by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, about America during the Holocaust. The result of the project is a PBS six-hour documentary divided into episodes. The series, titled The U.S. and the Holocaust, examines how Americans treated Jews and immigrants during World War II, and reaches daunting conclusions.

JTA interviewed Burns and his team about the project, which “chronicles the xenophobic and antisemitic climate in America in the years leading up to the Nazi genocide of Europe’s Jews: a nation largely hostile to any kind of refugee, particularly Jewish ones, and reluctant to intervene in a war on their behalf.”

The series exposes not only America’s indifference to the fate of the Jews in Europe, but also the reluctance of many American Jews to help their European coreligionists. According to Lynne Novick, a Jewish member of Burns’ team, these Jews didn’t want to let any more Jews in, at least in part because they looked down on the Eastern European refugees as poor and unassimilated. “It took me a while to really get my mind around the idea that there was a significant voice within a powerful Jewish American community that [believed] we shouldn’t say too much because it will just stir the pot and awaken more antisemitism,” Novick said.

In an interview for CBS about the series, Burns said that seeing how antisemitism is increasing in America today, he is afraid that what happened in Germany might happen in some form or other in the US, as well. At the end of the interview, he implores the American people: “There is, right now, all of the elements coalescing for something bad to happen again. Let’s not get there again, as human beings, please, let’s not get there again.”

Films such as The U.S. and the Holocaust are helpful in that they offer a glimpse into what might happen today. The way the new cataclysm unfolds will certainly be different from the past, but its purpose will be the same as the old one: to cleanse the Earth of Jews. Regrettably, I think we are only a few years away from it.

Yet, the glimpse into the past will also have a negative side to it: Instead of deterring us from repeating the horrors of the past, it will legitimize it in the eyes of many people. Once people see that America has been antisemitic for generations, it will lift the veil of shame and they will not be embarrassed to show their real feelings toward Jews.

To me, the most important lesson from the series is the fact that Jews denied other Jews an escape from persecution. Worse yet, even when the world learned the truth about what was happening in Europe, American Jewry still made no serious attempt to influence decision makers to assist the Jews. In this attitude of division lies the seeds of the next catastrophe.

Jews have never been defeated when they were united. Every tragedy that has ever befallen our people had always been preceded by a period of division, internal bickering, slander, and often violent infighting. In different cloaks, Jewish internal hatred has been a precursor of every woe, from the Babylonian exile through the destruction of the Second Temple, the expulsion from Spain, the Holocaust, and virtually every slaughter and expulsion in between. Jewish division weakens us, emboldens and strengthens our enemies, flares up their hatred, and galvanizes them into action against the Jews.

Today’s American Jewry shows the exact same symptoms of division that have always preceded our past calamities. Therefore, I have no doubt that unless the Jews unite, another heartbreak is on its way.

We can still avoid it. If we unite, we will prevent it.

By we, I am not referring to American Jewry in particular, but to the Jewish people as a whole. If Jews unite anywhere in the world, it improves the state of Jews around the world. We are responsible for each other, as our sages have told us eons ago. Our mutual responsibility has never been broken; we simply do not use it to our benefit, and therefore suffer.

In the few years we have left before the arrival of another tidal wave of Jew-hatred, we can reverse the ominous course. But for this, we must agree to keep our brethren in our hearts, to agree to unite despite our disputes, to accept that we are one nation under God, one, united Jewish nation.

For more information on the connection between division among Jews and a rise in antisemitism read The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism: Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord.

Photo Caption: Filmmaker Ken Burns speaks at the gala ceremony for the inaugural Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film, October 17, 2019. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “50th Anniversary of the Massacre in the Munich Olympics”

Fifty years ago today, September 5, eight members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team and took nine more as hostages. After some negotiations came a failed rescue attempt, during which the terrorists killed all nine hostages. Today, the German government will hold a ceremony in their memory in the presence of the president of Israel. During the half century that has passed, the Munich Olympics Massacre has come to symbolize the evil of terrorism against innocent people. Yet, as we can see, terrorists and terrorism have not been curbed since. On the contrary, they have only grown because of our lack of resolve.

I remember the tragedy. It was not something that came out of the blue. What did surprise me, however, was Israel’s indecision. In my opinion, the only way to deal with terrorists is to give them the same treatment that they strive to give us: annihilation.

In the case of the Munich terrorists, five were killed during the botched raid, and three were arrested after they killed the hostages. A month later, all three were released in a hostage exchange following the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 615.

As I see it, the whole concept of chasing perpetrators after they have committed their crime is flawed. Israel should not be chasing individual terrorists; it should eliminate any terrorist organizations in their entirety. The same logic that had made the US crush Osama bin Laden’s organization, and finally he himself, should apply to the treatment of any organization that seeks to achieve political goals by slaying innocent civilians, i.e., by terror.

However, Israel will not treat terrorists or terrorist organizations the same as America does. Israelis simply feel they have no justification to do so. It is not a conscious feeling; we do not feel that we are criminals, but there is a tenacious hidden devil that whispers in our ears that we are bad, unworthy, that we deserve the troubles that befall us.

This feeling is nothing new. It has been with us for thousands of years, and will continue to be with us until we understand that we need to behave differently, why we feel this way to begin with, and what we need to do about it.

Like I said, from the operational perspective, we should eliminate anyone who wishes to eliminate us. However, acting only on this level will not achieve lasting results. The most important, and the most difficult work we must do is among ourselves: to deepen our unity and solidarity.

Just as fifty years ago, terrorism is wreaking havoc in our society, sowing fear, and exposing our internal weakness. Just as then, so now, it would not succeed were it not for our division. If we were united, not only would terrorist acts against Israel fail, there would be no attempts.

We are bringing hatred on ourselves by hating one another. No other nation must abide by the law of unity like the Israeli nation. No other country depends on its internal strength as much as Israel does. No other people became a nation by uniting their hearts as if they have one heart, and no other nation has been charged with being a model of unity for all of humanity.

Just as we subconsciously feel guilty for not being a model of unity, and therefore “deserve punishment,” resulting in lack of resolve against our enemies, other nations feel our debt to them. They blame us for every woe and tragedy that befalls them, but underneath their accusations lies one charge against the Jews: You are spreading division instead of unity.

This is why only if we bond together and become united will we defeat our enemies. We will not win through weapons but through closeness of hearts among us, which will restore the essence of our peoplehood to its historic role in the family of nations.*

*For more on this topic, please read Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “After 125 Years, We Still Do Not Understand Zionism”

This week in Basel, Switzerland, Israel is commemorating the 125th anniversary of the 1st Zionist Congress. At the conclusion of that congress, Theodor Herzl, who organized the conference and was the driving force behind the Zionist movement in its early years, wrote in his diary: “Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word … it would be this: At Basel I founded the Jewish State.” The purpose of this week’s event is to both celebrate that seminal conference, and just as importantly, to discuss contemporary Zionism, its vision, or lack thereof, and its challenges and pitfalls going forward.

Indeed, the Jewish state is well founded. Israel is a strong and solid country, and it seems like even humanity has largely come to accept the existence of a Jewish state. Now I hope that we are correcting the world and that we will not vanish but keep on moving forward.

However, in order to advance, the State of Israel must go beyond securing its survival. It must come to a state where it agrees with our sages, who said that “Love your neighbor as yourself” is our all-encompassing law, and that this should be the basis for the existence of all the nations.

Despite Herzl’s initial assimilationist approach, by the time he conceived the idea of establishing a Jewish state, it seems like he had completely abandoned the idea of amalgamation among the nations. In fact, he concludes his book, The Jewish State, with words that imply that he even embraced our sages’ legacy that the Jews must serve as a model nation. In his words, “The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, ‎magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, ‎will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.”

There will certainly be challenges ahead. Our argumentative and opinionated character will pit us against each other, but we will learn how to funnel it toward constructive routes. It will take time, but we will learn how to forge unions while embracing contradictions of opinions and without suppressing ideological minorities. We will learn it not because we want to, but because this is our duty to the world, the wisdom we must project to all of humanity, and the only modus operandi that will create true and lasting world peace, once it is implemented.

Herzl’s words were correct. To the extent that we are close to one another within the people of Israel, we will bring the nations of the world closer to each other. The reason there are war and conflicts in the world today is that there are war and conflicts among us, Jews, and particularly the Jews in Israel. These are not my words; these are the words of our sages throughout the generations, and the words of many thinkers who were considered antisemitic for saying these very words.

Herzl, in that sense, was a special human being. He was a channel through which the awareness that Jews must have their own state came to the world. At the end of his book, as we saw, he also connected our return to the physical land to our spiritual calling, our duty to be a model of unity and solidarity, but this we have yet to accomplish. We must explain this first to ourselves, then begin to implement it among us, and then explain this process to the world. If we are sincere, the world will endorse our efforts with all its might. If we remain divided and derisive toward each other, the world will scathe us and deny us the country.

There are voices that say that we have lost our way and we need another Herzl. I do not think we need another Herzl; I think we need many people vocally supporting the right kind of Zionism, the Zionism of connection among Jews as an example for the world. We need many people to understand the process, embrace it, and act on it, for our sake, and for the sake of humankind.

—

*Read these books for more information on the obligation of the Jewish people to be a model nation: The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord, and Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour.
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Comment: You once said that classical composers, even Bach, were far from spirituality, that, in any case, their music cannot be considered spiritual.

My Response: Their music is not spiritual because it does not come from a sensation of the opposite properties of giving and receiving, but flows only in the single property of receiving, and in one egoistic key. All famous composers, artists, and sculptors worked only in this direction. Apart from a few Kabbalistic works, the rest are purely egoistic.

But all the same, their music showed humanity’s desire for spiritual ascent. It is felt in their direction. This is a huge difference between music aiming for the soul and the upper, or for instance, music by Tchaikovsky or Italian composers. Their music is delicate, nice, and gentle, but it doesn’t tear you apart and let your soul soar. This is not Bach.

Question: Who else besides Bach aspired to this?

Answer: There are several other such composers who lived in the Middle Ages. But there were very few of them, and none of them can compare to Bach. Everything else is music written out of purely selfish drives. It can be beautiful, and at the same time awaken strong feelings of a completely different kind.

Take Wagner, for example: a wonderful, talented composer, but it seems as if he was constantly strangled by a toad and had to somehow pour this bile out. Poor man.

He was a conduit of a hefty left line. He did not see much else in this life apart from it. As it is written in the Megillat Esther (Scroll of Esther), “But all this is worth nothing to me, every time I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the King’s gate.” This is a characteristic feeling of anti-Semites who can’t do anything about it. It burns inside them from morning until night, but they can’t get rid of it.

Seriously speaking, I understand them and deeply sympathize with them. This is a force that reigns in nature on purpose, and people in whom it burns are very unhappy. They are constantly consumed by this hatred, they eat themselves, and devote their lives to it.

Question: Is that why Hitler loved Wagner?

Answer: Yes. The problem is that when you get to the root of anti-Semitism, you are very close to real Judaism, to Kabbalah. Therefore they all had an idea of its origins and understood that it was the upper realm.

The book about anti-Semitism The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, we published, contains the quotes of many famous figures. The smartest, most educated, and cultured people with broad views are mainly focused on this idea.

As a result, they come to a correct understanding of the mission of the Jews. Look at what Henry Ford essentially writes: “I hate them all only because they can’t fulfill their purpose. I will calm down only when I see they are fulfilling their mission.”

Therefore we need to fulfill it; nothing else will do.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Bach, Wagner, Ford… Anti-Semitism” 3/3/13

Related Material:
The Secret about the Jews that even They Do Not Know about
In What Way Does Kabbalistic Music Differ From The Music Of The Nations Of The World?
The Healing Power Of Music

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My new article on Linkedin “The Omen of Financial Hardships”

The recent study by Gallup and West Health, which found that rising healthcare costs have forced nearly 100 million Americans “to delay or skip healthcare treatments, trim regular household expenses or borrow money,” could bode ill for Jews. Since the turn of the century, antisemitism has been on the rise around the world, including in the US, and antisemites are becoming more brazen and more aggressive. The problem is that for many years, American Jewry believed that antisemitism cannot happen in America. As a result, they often fail to recognize the warning signs, even when they flare up before them. Now that financial hardships have come to a level where Americans are forgoing necessities, it is an omen they should not ignore.

The majority of today’s American Jewry grew up in a relatively antisemitism free society. Jew-hatred was a taboo, and even if you felt it, you were forbidden to express it. Overt antisemitism is still not mainstream in America, so it is often portrayed as anti-Israel feelings, but the veil is very thin and can easily show its true face.

Before World War II, and even during the war, antisemitism was a recognized fact. There were antisemitic radio shows, clubs where Jews were not allowed, and other open expressions of the oldest hatred. The fact that it became illegal and morally reprehensible to show that you hated Jews did not make it disappear. It only tucked it away in wait for a more favorable time to rear its ugly head again. Now is a more favorable time, and it is rearing its head.

At such a time, Jews should lower their profile and forgo complacency. The current situation where Jews are occupying key positions that are often the target of political confrontation is not good for them. The losing side will readily blame them for its defeat. Even if it does not express it, it will feel it and, given the right opportunity, it will express it.

What is true for American Jews is also true for Jews around the world. Antisemitism has been rising everywhere. In many places, it is already mainstream, condemned by some, embraced by others, and gradually gaining prevalence and popularity.

Just as is happening in America, the worsening economic conditions make a fertile ground for outbreaks of Jew-hatred. As matters are continuing to deteriorate, the eruption of anti-Jewish sentiments is more likely to happen. It will not be long before Jews around the world are persecuted once again, just as they have been for two millennia.

However, if previously, ruthless leaders were using them as a scapegoat or as a means to manipulate the masses to their side, this time, it will come from the masses. There will be no need for a leader to incite against the Jews; regular people will do so spontaneously, and will accompany their words with actions. It will not be an endemic outbreak; persecution of Jews in the coming round will be worldwide and emerging from the people rather than from leaders.

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My new article on Linkedin “The Psyche of the Jewish Antisemite”

For the past 19 years, a Jewish man has been protesting outside a Michigan synagogue nearly every Sabbath. What began as protesting against policies of the State of Israel has gradually morphed into signs that read “Resist Jewish Power,” “End Jewish Supremacism in Palestine,” and the support of a Nazi German who wrote a book titled The Hitler We Knew and Loved. The fact that he received Jewish education, by the way, that he had a Bar Mitzvah and attended Hebrew school, makes no difference whatsoever. I cannot say that it surprises me to see that some Jews hate their own faith. Because of our unique history and calling, there is a latent antisemite within every Jew.

I have had the questionable pleasure of meeting, not to say encountering quite a few such people. With some, especially those who belong to certain extreme Left organizations, I filmed several televised conversations. It is impossible to reason with such people; they feel what they feel, and that’s the end of it. Once the antisemite within takes over, it is very hard to topple it.

Jews experience self-hate like no other nation. But then, Jews have experienced every kind of hate like no other nation because Jews are like no other nation. The Jewish people introduced the most sublime notions to humanity. They introduced such practices as charity and welfare systems, which relied on novel notions such as solidarity, mutual responsibility, and love for others as for oneself.

At the same time, during the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews inflicted on each other cruelty that shocked the ancient world. In fact, the animosity among Jews was so intense that to this day, our sages attribute the destruction of the Temple and the expulsion of our people from the land of Israel not to Titus and his Roman armies, but to the people of Israel’s own hatred for each other.

These Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde inhabit every Jew because our ancestors came from regular, self-centered people who acquired sublime qualities of love of others and solidarity, after which they were instructed to build a role model society that will be “a light to the nations.” That was the original people of Israel.

But developing a “better self” did not erase the primordial one. On the contrary, to make Israel continue to improve themselves, their self-centeredness intensified continually. As a result, when they triumphed over their reprehensible selves, they rose to new highs. But when they fell, they fell to new lows.

For centuries, the people of Israel oscillated between good and evil. When they were good, no one was better, and they succeeded as individuals and as a nation. When they were bad, no one was worse, and they failed as individuals and as a nation. Their worst failures culminated in exile.

Approximately two millennia ago, the evil Mr. Hyde within us won a major triumph, and the people of Israel destroyed each other and weakened themselves to a point where the Romans could overtake the city that was decimated from within. Since then, we have not been able to restore our solidarity and mutual responsibility, our love of others, and our concern for humankind.

Moreover, when the kind Israel within us awakens, it often agitates our evil selves and we vehemently resist it. This is when Jews turn against their own people and become antisemitic.

There is only one remedy to the condition of Jewish self-hatred. It is the same remedy that our ancestors used when they established our nationhood: to go all out against our own ego and unite despite our mutual dislike.

We can develop love only if we first feel hatred and become motivated to emerge from it. If we feel no hatred, no burning anger, what will motivate us to feel love? And without motivation, nothing within us will change. Therefore, we must relate to our hatred not as a reason to reject each other, but as a calling to connect, to strengthen our bond.

Perhaps now that many of us feel hatred for their own people, we can begin to nurture the love that our ancestors felt above their hatred. Perhaps now, we, too, are ready to become a light to the nations, a flare of unity in a world darkened by hatred. Perhaps, and perhaps not yet. But sooner or later, the world will demand that we deliver on our oath to be a virtuous people, and the only virtue that we need is our insistence on unity above any division.

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Blinded by Hate”

There is a new “weapon” that Palestinians use against Israelis: blinding lasers. Every night, residents of a certain Palestinian village direct strong lasers into the eyes of Israeli drivers in order to blind them and hopefully cause them to make an accident. So far, there has been no response on the part of the Israeli army, other than stating that the army “is working in a number of ways to uproot the phenomenon.” When people are blinded by hate, there is no end to what they will do to hurt their hated ones. Israel’s response should therefore incorporate two elements: retaliating against the terror and mitigating the hatred.

The first element is relatively straightforward. The response should be one that will deter the perpetrators from repeating their actions. Therefore, the rule of thumb here is simple: When someone comes to kill you, kill him first. In practical terms, it means that the army should fire at the sources of the lasers.

Nevertheless, we should not hope that curbing one mode of terrorism will prevent terrorists from finding other ways to terrorize and hurt Israelis. As long as there is unbounded hatred, Palestinians will find countless ways to hurt us.

Here is where we can make the real difference. The Palestinians’ hatred toward us is not because of a territorial struggle or any other reason they proclaim, even if they believe what they are saying. The Palestinians hate us because we hate each other. Their aversion to us reflects our aversion to each other.

This is true not only for the Palestinians, but for every non-Jew who hates Jews. To the extent that we hate each other, the nations of the world hate us. The higher the mountain of hate between us, the stronger the hatred toward us that we bring down on the nations. In fact, the name Mt. Sinai comes from the Hebrew words Mount of Sinaa [hatred]. Our sages explain that it is called so because of the hatred that came down from it to the nations of the world (Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Shabbat, 89a).

In short, we are generating hatred towards us through our own hatred of each other. We must understand that if we want to “defeat” terrorism, and all the hatred toward Jews and Israelis, we must defeat the hatred within us for each other.

Interestingly, when I say this to non-Jews, they often agree. But when I say this to Jews, they often become aggressive and venomous. They argue that I am making this up, and all the quotes I bring from centuries of our sages writing these exact words do not help. Once, after a lecture in New York, a Jew who refused to accept my words tried to physically assault me.

I can understand the resistance. If we accept this statement, it puts the responsibility for antisemitism, terrorism, and millennia of abuse that our nation suffered in our lap, the lap of the Jewish people, rather than to pin it on the aggressors. Declaring that Jewish inner hatred incites Jew-hatred among the nations pulls the rug from under the arguments that attribute antisemitism to religious, racial, economic, and social causes. It creates one common cause for all the cataclysms that have ever struck the Jewish people, and that cause is our own responsibility. I understand why this would be impossible to accept.

However, it is not my idea, but the idea of all our sages throughout the ages. The people who engendered the Jewish nation, who solidified its peoplehood, and who gave it its unique values and manners, all advocated this exact message: Sinaat Hinam [baseless hatred] has been our curse since our inception as a nation, and the only thing we need to cure.ADVERTISEMENT

Since we are full of hatred, it is hard for us to agree that hatred is the cause of our misfortunes. We tend to blame our troubles on the side we hate. But it is not this or that side that causes our troubles, but the hatred itself. As the two books I have written about it show (see links below), our spiritual leaders throughout the ages tried to teach this to us, yet we refused. We coined the tenet “Love your neighbor as yourself”; it is time we tried it out.

—

Read these books for more information on the responsibility of the Jewish people for the hatred toward them: The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord, and Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Connection Between Ice Cream and Self-Hating Jews”

When the multinational corporation Unilever recently announced that it had sold the rights to produce Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to the current licensee in Israel, it was thought the deal would end the year long pro-Palestinian boycott of the product sales in Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, as well as in East Jerusalem. However, then the Jewish founders of the ice cream brand—the main promoters of the boycott—reminded the world that they will not rest until Israel is isolated by concocting a new way to cause trouble.

The frozen relationship between the Ben & Jerry’s Jewish founders and Israel again became evident. As part of the company’s independent ideological board, they decided to sue Unilever to block the sale to the Israeli licensee that would allow the unrestricted distribution of the product in Israel as a whole. They claim that selling their brand in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory” is inconsistent with the company’s values and integrity.

This division between Ben and Jerry’s Jewish founders and Israel exactly highlights our main problem as a Jewish nation: the separation between us Jews. It is our separation that weakens our foundation and portends gloomy ramifications for our future. It is our internal division that invites attacks and boycotts and gnaws away at our strength.

Why can Jews be antisemites? It is because we Jews have a point that connects us to humanity’s corrected and unified state—“love your neighbor as yourself”—which we once discovered under Abraham’s guidance some 3,800 years ago. Together with that point, we also play host to the shattered egoistic desire, which opposes the point of unification, detaching us all from each other.

Every Jew accommodates this duality: an egoistic desire to receive, which seeks personal benefit at the expense of others, coupled with the altruistic point of unification that is attached to humanity’s peak unified state of development.

Whoever feels closer to the central point of unification is drawn to develop differently than those swept into the rat race of the masses, to positive connection in society. Whoever resists such development, letting the ego determine his or her goals and pleasures in life, is against unification, and is thus, according to its deeper definition, an antisemite.

Beyond differing political views, there are disputes about Jewish practices, legitimacy of certain denominations, distribution of funds and donations, and more. These are all weighty issues worthy of serious discussion. However, above and beyond all our disagreements and differences we must agree on this: No matter what, we need to stick together as one nation.

If we want to advance good causes, we need to start by setting an example of unity to humanity and by doing so, we will spread harmony to the entire world. It will give us the taste of our lives, as it is written in the book Maor VaShemesh, “When there are love, unity, and friendship between one another in Israel, no calamity can befall them and by that, all the curses and suffering are banished.”
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