Shaul Magid, the Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, meets Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman to discuss anti-Semitism and find the most efficient way to solve it.

The solution to anti-Semitism lies in establishing loving connections between Jews according to the principle “Love covers all transgressions.” What would be considered a transgression in this case? And how can the connection between the Jewish people make the nations of the world not hate them?

There are two forces operating reality: negative (exponentially growing human ego) and positive (the force connection between people). 3,800 years ago, atop of the deep crisis of human relations in Babylon, called out by a sudden eruption of human ego, Abraham found that connecting two operating forces of reality, and setting the positive force above the negative one gives us a chance to reveal Godliness, a force of love and bestowal, called in Kabbalah “the Creator.” Out of the 70 nations in ancient Babylon, Abraham collected a group that implemented his method. Later on, that groups received the name, “Jews” (from “Yehudi” – “united”).

Since that time, Jews carry in themselves a method that can bring the world to balance and let the good enter it. Taking into account the current situation in all areas, it’s time to implement that method. First, Jews have to reestablish connections between them (“love your neighbor as yourself”), and then, share this connection over the globe (to be “light unto the nations”).

If the Jewish people start following initial Abraham’s teaching—“Love covers all transgressions”—and rise above conflicts and divisions between them (considered “transgressions”), Godliness will enter the world, and Jews will have no enemies and haters anymore as they will fulfill their deep-rooted role in the system of nature we’re all parts of. This will be a true solution to anti-Semitism. However, if Jews fail to perform their role, they can expect to continue facing rising anti-Semitism, even to a point of a new Holocaust.

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Shaul Magid, the Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, meets Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman to discuss anti-Semitism, and how establishing unity between Jews can prevent it.

We live in a shattered reality. Each smallest smart part of society, called human, lives only for a personal benefit, and has no opportunity to really understand or change anything.

The subconscious claim from the nations of the world on the Jews is that their misfortunes and suffering in life is caused by Jews. Kabbalah explains this sensation as a natural phenomenon.

From the time of the Jewish people’s birth under Abraham’s guidance 3,800 years ago, the Jews bear the method of building positive connections above the human ego. This method made them one entity and gave them a name – “Jews” (from “Yihud” – “united”).

Today, we face a global crisis, and since the world becomes more and more interconnected, this crisis will touch each area of human existence. The only way to avoid it is to correct human relations. From this point on, there is a need in Abraham’s method of connection, and the nations of the world already subconsciously demanding from Jews to implement it and share with everyone.

Therefore, the Jewish people must reunite. This is a need. If they do, the entire world will follow their example, if not – the new wave of anti-Semitism will overtake them.

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The Times of Israel published my new article “With or Without Corbyn, the True Solution to UK’s Anti-Semitism”

Anxiety has spread among UK’s Jews over Labour’s potential victory in two weeks. For the first time in history, a prominent voice within the British Jewish community urges to refrain from voting for the party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a politician with a long anti-Semitic background.

The spiritual leader of the UK’s 62 orthodox synagogues, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, warned that in the upcoming elections the “soul of the nation is at stake,” if Labour forms the next government. Leading rabbis also recommended that European Jews “must hide themselves and not stand out in their words and actions,” in light of today’s rampant anti-Semitism.

However, regardless of the election outcome, Jews will continue being felt as an increasing problem, since anti-Semitism is a much bigger phenomenon than any candidate.

Also, keeping our heads down, which failed to help us in the past, will likewise fail to help us today. A century ago, before the Holocaust, Jews acted in a similar fashion with terrible results. We can already see that the avoidance of wearing Jewish distinctive items like the kippah or the Star of David, has not helped diminish vicious attacks on Jews in Europe or anywhere else.

Over the last few years, anti-Semitism passed a boiling point, and it is now bubbling all around the world. Therefore, anti-Semitism demands a more thorough investigation and explanation, to penetrate through to the root of the problem, and seek a solution that would both satisfy those who hold anti-Semitic sentiment, as well as securing the acceptance, safety and peace of the Jewish people.

Today As Yesterday

Hatred against Jews is soaring worldwide, but anti-Semitism in the Old Continent seems to be spreading more rapidly across the major cities, with violent incidents reported almost on a daily basis. Such animosity is fueled by anti-Semitic tropes, as according to a recent survey conducted in 18 countries by the Anti-Defamation League, one in four Europeans expressed profound anti-Semitic sentiments.

Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), the foremost Kabbalist of our era, worked with all his strength to warn the Jews of his native Poland that the danger of annihilation was approaching. He also wrote about his concern in his 1933 article, The Solution:

I have also spoken to the leaders of the generation, but at the time, my words were not accepted, though I was screaming like a banshee, warning about the destruction of the world. Alas, it made no impression. Now, however, after the atom and hydrogen bombs, I think the world will believe me that the end of the world is coming rapidly, and Israel will be the first nation to burn, as in the previous war. Thus, today it is good to awaken the world to accept the only remedy, and they will live and exist.” (Yehuda Ashlag, The Solution)

Baal HaSulam explained to Jews that it was their role to pioneer humanity’s correction. In nature, there are two forces—positive and negative, giving and receiving, love and hatred—and the Jews’ unification would awaken the positive, giving and loving force of nature into the world. By doing so, humanity would experience a newfound harmony and happiness, and the Jews would thus fulfill their role as “a light unto the nations.”

On the other hand, if the Jews do not unite, but continue to sink deeper into egoistic quicksand, i.e., self-centered thoughts and actions, they block the light, i.e., the force of unification dwelling in nature, from shining through to humanity. As more and more problems surface from growing dissatisfaction with life, and divisiveness between people, so does increasing hatred toward Jews. At first, the negative force acts in humanity’s subconscious. Afterward, it strikes openly and violently in tragedy.

Two Ways to Unity

Baal HaSulam taught that the Jewish people have two ways to advance: positively or negatively, through unity or separation. One way is a willful striving for unity a priori. The other way is through undesirable pressure to unite through hatred and violence upon them.

Unfortunately, at the time, no one listened to Baal HaSulam, and he was instead forced to leave Europe, with his son, my teacher, Rav Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlag (Rabash), and enter the Land of Israel. After a while, his family also immigrated, and the Jewish community that remained encountered the Holocaust.

History repeats and the message remains: Jews have an essential role toward the nations of the world. However, they are remote from fulfilling their original role. Most are even unaware of the method that is available to them. But the questions increase and push to awaken the sentiments and common sense:

• Why didn’t the hatred of Jews disappear after the horrifying Holocaust?
• Why do the nations of the world have such a burning hatred toward Jews?
• Why is anti-Semitism rising globally?

The answers to these questions, together with the path to unity, rest in the method of connection: the wisdom of Kabbalah. It can help us become an example and model of unity for all people, especially for the citizens of Britain. If the Jews of Britain will start prioritizing unification above all other engagements, they will be able to awaken the attention of both Jews and non-Jews in Britain, and thus gradually anti-Semitism will become a non-issue, not only among the leadership of the Labour party, but in all walks of life.
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My article in Newsmax: “Rethinking Social Media in the Era of Hatred”

If Hitler had access to social media like there is today, he would have been allowed to buy ads, reflected British actor Sacha Baron Cohen in a recent thought provoking statement, calling internet platforms “the greatest propaganda machine in history,” ruled by money.

I concur, but beyond the speeches, real changes will demand unprecedented measures in times of extraordinary challenges to face bigotry, discrimination, and the most deeply-rooted form of hatred: anti-Semitism.

Social media has been deliberately built to influence our emotions, preferences, decisions, impulses, energy, attention span, and interactions. There is a well-established process to influence our minds and pockets. The internet was created for the purpose of serving humanity, says its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, who 30 years later laments how the opposite has been achieved and “communities are being ripped apart as prejudice, hate and disinformation are peddled online,” suggesting that the web needs “radical intervention from all those who have power over its future.”

Is the Future of Humanity for Sale?

Social media and the media in general have become the ruling power where everything is permissible regardless of the veracity or positive benefit to society. The current communication systems are handled according to monetary interests, a reflection of human nature that is innately egoistic, i.e., aiming at self-benefit and exploitative relations. We will eventually need to realize that any technological innovation or means failing to advance humanity toward greater positive connection only harms it. But how can we achieve such a lofty goal considering that it is against the way we are built: egoistic?

It will happen when we eventually feel there is no other alternative to thrive but to change direction.

The world is rapidly moving toward a dead end, a turning point in social evolution: power structures are shaking in multiple countries around the planet, as we have witnessed in the last few weeks. Global economic debacle is predicated by international analysts. Such a scenario is showing us that self-centered perceptions and actions are reaching maximum capacity. If money can now buy anything, it will gradually lose its value, and social media as well as political, economic, and social actors will have to find a way to stay afloat.

Here is precisely where the Jewish people can contribute to society’s betterment. It is not by chance that the main social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, and others have been created by Jews. It gives us a hint of our true identity, our purpose, and role in the world: to unite humanity as a whole. We currently have the tools; now it is time to learn how to use them for a higher purpose.

New Principles for a New Society, the Role of the Jewish Nation

About a century ago, Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag wrote: “Do not be surprised if I mix together the well-being of a particular collective with the well-being of the whole world, because indeed, we have already come to such a degree that the whole world is considered one collective and one society.”

The Jewish nation can pioneer the correction of what needs to be fixed in the world: human relations — the way we relate to one another and the purpose of what we have created to either belittle or support each other. The use of social media to enhance mutual concern and a more holistic perception will positively shape the world of today and tomorrow.

In order to do so, every society could follow the model established by the Jewish people centuries ago, similar to what was called in ancient Israel, a Sanhedrin, an ideological body responsible for the nation’s right direction, to achieve balance and harmony. Similarly, in today’s world, the model of such an ideological body, a pluralistic watchdog where all the ideas are represented and discussed, until a common agreement is reached and only then disseminated, could help monitor the correct use of social media.

Such a body should be comprised of representatives from the entire political spectrum, as in Congress, in charge of evaluating media if harmful or malicious information is disseminated to the general public, instead of only facts.

As the world becomes increasingly interdependent, people will have to expand their circle of concern. We need to enhance our social sensitivity, broaden our worldview, better understand our nature as human beings, our limits and responsibilities, and most importantly, learn how to tap into our inherent wiring for human connection.

If the world started feeling an upgrade in consciousness, a positive change in their lives through this new model to find balanced communications and human interaction, the tendency toward anti-Semitism would invert: the Jewish nation will be perceived as the conduit of the good that fills people’s lives.

Such a sense of fulfillment can be achieved if we start using the web as a common umbrella of mutual understanding and support that would help us unite above all of our differences, divisions, and conflicts.
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Shaul Magid, the Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, meets Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman to discuss anti-Semitism, and why America is one of the most sensitive countries where it can have an immersive growth.

The most developed nations of the world can feel the severest effects of anti-Semitism. This is so because they better feel that Jews “are hiding the key to Heaven” from them.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, Jews really do. They bear the method of correction, which lets them bring the force of love and bestowal into the world and prevent the upcoming overall crisis. This method the Jewish people received in ancient Babylon 3,800 years ago from Abraham who revealed that building positive human connections helps to consciously rise above the destructive egoistic human nature. Today, there is an urgent need for this method to be shared with everyone.

Unfortunately, after three exiles, it was lost, and Jews fell into some kind of coma. There is a false sensation of being secure. Even though recently, we were able to observe the anti-Semitic acts all over the world (especially in the US), instead of turning to their nature and become a “light unto the nations,” Jews powerlessly fight against anti-Semitism advocating laws for protecting Jews and state security. With such a state of things, the next Holocaust can happen in a country like America.

In order to prevent this, we must understand that the solution lies in the connection between us. The Jewish people need to do so first, and by the law of nature, the world will follow them.

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The Times of Israel published my new article “Nuremberg Trials Fast Forward: Israel’s Role Against Anti-Semitism”

A trip to a past with a striking resemblance to today’s reality toward Jews. That is how I would describe my recent visit to Berlin and Nuremberg, where I could experience a dense atmosphere against Jews, so common these days in basically any part of the world. However, my most recent encounter with anti-Semitic feelings was actually in Bulgaria.

Our annual European Kabbalah Convention took place in Borovets, Bulgaria two weeks ago. We arrived from Israel a few days before the beginning of the event, which gathered hundreds of my students, to do some sightseeing. We rented a modern house in a rundown and sleepy village. It was an isolated house placed between a cemetery and a monastery. It was a very quiet place, with one store and one café, where elderly people spend their days. When I first approached them, I could immediately feel a hostile attitude and notice how they clammed up. Even though there was no external sign that could reveal my origin, I felt a warning light turned on inside them in relation to the fact that a group of Jews had entered their village.

The Role of the Jews in the World

It was clear to me that it wasn’t them, it was me. They had no real choice to love or reject, to embrace or hate. I felt what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches: Humanity is like a machine that follows absolute laws of nature, and we, Jews, are responsible for operating this machine for the world’s betterment or the contrary.

That is why I felt ashamed. The attitude of the elderly Bulgarians reflected the lack of the correct action on my part, on our part, the Jews.

Why does such responsibility rest on the Jewish nation?

As it is written in the seminal book in Kabbalah, The Book of Zohar: “As the organs of the body cannot exist in the world even a minute without the heart, all the other nations cannot exist in the world without Israel.”

Similarly, in the words of the book Sefat Emet [True Language], of Yehuda Leib Arie Altar (ADMOR of Gur):

“The children of Israel became guarantors to correct the entire world … everything depends on the children of Israel. To the extent that they correct themselves, all creations follow them. As the students follow the teacher, the whole of creation follows the children of Israel.

What Is Israel’s Task in the Correction of the World?

Correction, according to our sages, means to become united, as a precondition to deliver that unity to the rest of the world. Until we implement our role, humanity’s demand for a better life with more social cohesion manifests as anti-Semitism that will never rest.

74 years ago saw the beginning of the Nuremberg trials, the prosecution of the heads of Nazi Germany leadership who were tried for planning and carrying out war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Back then, Germany was the most developed culture. It was easy to point out and condemn the guilty. Today, however, due to our living in a much more interdependent global world, if we were to place Israel’s haters in the dock, we would probably need to indict the whole of humanity. The number and range of anti-Semitic incidents is beyond comprehension, both percentage-wise and also in its expansion to faraway corners of the world.

With an instinctive will, the world feels that the springboard to a better, happier and more positively connected world is in the hands of the Jews. The Jews, however, disregard the nations of the world. We deal with selfish trifles that have nothing to do with our role to spread a spirit of unification to humanity. This angers the nations of the world. It is an animosity that is increasingly showing itself to reach abysmal hatred, and it explodes in our faces more and more.

However, I blame no one. I do not accuse any nation. I only judge one person: myself – myself and my people – the Jewish people. We have the choice. We assume the responsibility because we were given the method that can bring about a significantly positive shift in the world. The Israeli nation is a substantial part of the human puzzle, a part that has a role to unite, and then through our unity awaken the power of love and spread it to humanity, to be a “light unto the nations.”

The Israeli nation has to become aware of its duty and accurately interpret what the world wants from us. We must learn, analyze and internalize it first, and then explain it adequately to the nations of the world, so they can pressure us in a correct and peaceful way to fulfill our role, and not through crimes and threats.

Such a change of attitude toward us will happen when we help humanity unite and awaken the positive unifying power. We will then all experience a completely new and improved world filled with goodness.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Have you ever experienced anti-Semitism?“

When I lived in Russia, it was a time when anti-Semitism was completely forbidden. Whoever would say a single word against Jews would be put into prison. Then, gradually, it started coming out little by little.

I experienced a situation in Leningrad where someone erupted on a Jewish man on the street, and I got myself involved to try and break it up. I was taken with the men to the police station, and noticed how the police were actually pro-Jewish.

Afterward, when they imprisoned the guy who attacked the Jewish man, I asked the investigator, “Why are you putting him in prison? He’s also got his reasons.”

The investigator replied, “I don’t get involved with what he feels or not. I get my instructions from above. Anti-Semites help Zionists. Jews are a positive force in our country. They work in respectable professions that are good for the country, such as doctors, engineers and lawyers. Therefore, we are pro-Jewish.”

In other words, what he said was not to ask him whether or not he likes Jews. He hated them, but he saw them as beneficial for his country.

In those days, Jews were not in key leadership positions and in the financial banking sector as they are today. They filled those places considered as respectable professions. It was only when the Jews started entering places like the finance and banking sector that the tides of anti-Semitic sentiment started turning.

Today, however, I feel anti-Semitism everywhere I go.

I recently traveled around Europe, visiting and teaching groups of my students in Berlin, Prague, Nuremberg, Moldova, Rome, and most recently where we held a European Kabbalah Convention in Bulgaria.

Everywhere I went, I felt feelings of blame from the nations of the world.

For instance, most recently in Bulgaria, I arrived with nine of my students, and we traveled to a house that we rented in a rural village. It was a lonely house, and there were a few small stores and restaurants, with a local café where people sat from morning till evening.

Even in such a comfortable setting, I felt how they looked at us. I could feel how the attitude was not toward fellow human beings, but that it was an attitude to Jews.

There were no physical signs. It is a feeling that emerges from nature itself, and I understood them well.

Since the Jewish people were founded on an ideological basis of uniting (“love your neighbor as yourself”) from among the divisive social atmosphere of ancient Babylon around 3,800 years ago, then today too, the nations of the world hold a subconscious demand upon the Jewish people to unite. As social division tears through modern society more and more, making people feel increasingly isolated, depressed, anxious and stressed, the more people suffer in today’s modern world, the more they subconsciously blame the Jews for their misfortunes.

Today, anti-Semitism has re-ripened into a global form that has spread over many developed countries and cultures. For instance, South and North Korea, countries with basically no Jews, are generally anti-Semitic countries. The hatred emerges from within human nature, which ultimately wants to access the Creator, the force of bestowal and love that fills reality, but there is a force blocking them from that sensation.

That force is known as “the Jews.”

Therefore, in all anti-Semitic sentiment, and in every anti-Semitic action, I see only a cry from the nations of the world toward the Jews in order that the Jews fulfill their function in the world: to unite “as one man with one heart” and be a connecting plug between humanity and the upper force of love and bestowal.

However, before I see the Jews as a people to blame, I see myself principally as the one to blame.

I see everyone as parts of a grand mechanism that I activate, and whether the connection of the mechanism’s parts are well-oiled, functioning smoothly and harmoniously together, or the contrary, malfunctioning with all kinds of breakages and defects, depends solely on me.

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The Times of Israel published my new article “The future of Europe and the Jews”

November marks the memory of two major events in European history that still resonate in today’s continent: Kristallnacht, the beginning of the systematic persecution of Jews that culminated with the Holocaust; and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the beginning of Europe’s reunification process. But how much has the continent advanced toward unity in the last few decades? Is it going backwards? Do Jews feel safer? Amid rising anti-Semitism and sociopolitical challenges in Europe, it is evident that the glass walls of the continent’s security and stability can be broken any time.

The Reappearance of Hatred That Never Vanished

If we forget the atrocities of the past, we constantly get reminders. Jews were murdered, synagogues were torched, thousands of Jewish-owned businesses, homes and schools were plundered by the Nazis on Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) 81 years ago. This month, right in 2019, the commemoration of the pogroms was marked by a wave of anti-Semitic attacks across Scandinavia attributed to neo-Nazis. More than 80 graves were desecrated at a Jewish cemetery in Denmark, and, stickers resembling yellow stars that Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust were placed on multiple Jewish sites in Denmark and Sweden, including on the Great Synagogue in Stockholm.

In Germany, hundreds of neo-Nazis marched on the anniversary of the anti-Jewish riots, while a multitude of demostrators against the rally questioned why German officials turn a blind eye to such events promoted by extremists.

Massive immigration, economic challenges, and increasing political and social divisions in Europe are fueling radical movements from the right and from the left. And as we have learned from history, that is fertile ground to hatred against Jews. This is precisely the reason why the current state of affairs should matter to us.

The Berlin’s Wall Fell But the Tower of Babel Stands Strong

A call for European unity was the key message of an article recently published in 26 EU countries by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, commemorating the fall of the Berlin’s Wall 30 years ago. Conversely, today’s Europe resembles the period of upheaval in ancient Babylon when social division prevailed.

In fact, the downfall of the EU within the next one or two decades is perceived as a possible reality by more than 50% of Europeans, according to a survey conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations earlier this year.

How Jews Can Contribute to Europe’s Future

Knowing our background is crucial to understanding how the Jewish people can contribute to a prosperous future not only for itself but for Europe and the entire world. The people of Israel was not born as a nation in the common sense of the word but as a group of people who subscribed to an idea, the idea of unity. It was formed by Abraham the Patriarch from representatives of different tribes and cultures, just as today’s Europe.

They were an eclectic amalgamation joined only by the idea that there is one force that governs the universe. They also grasped that this force is one of mercy, love, and unity, and that only this force can connect us above our differences and give us the power to agree to unite “as one man with one heart.”

Humanity is now discovering that separation is leading to a dead end, therefore, it is more aware of the need to achieve the opposite state, the state of unity. The nations of the world instinctively feel that Jews, who once attained connection above internal rifts, have the solution to achieve a harmonious existence.

Since Jews are currently not delivering such example of positive connection through Abraham’s method, the nations of the world manifest their pain and discomfort as growing anti-Semitism.

Our role and our most important contribution to the world, according to Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), the most renowned Kabbalist of the 20th Century, is to be a conduit to transfer the goodness of unity to humanity. However, in order for that to happen, we must first implement it on ourselves.

Once we return to a unified state, we will be able to submit to humanity as a whole the method of unity and love among human beings. “And when they do that, it is plain to see that with His work, all envy and hatred will be abolished from humanity” (Baal HaSulam, “The Peace“).

The paramount role of Jews to a promising future for all was also highlighted by Rav Kook, as it is written: “In Israel is the secret to the unity of the world” (Orot HaKodesh).
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are your thoughts on the shooting in the German city of Halle that took place outside of a synagogue on Yom Kippur?“

The shooting attack near a synagogue in Halle, Germany was yet another dreadful act of anti-Semitism on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. However, it could have been much worse if the 27-year-old attacker, who identified with the far-right, had broken the synagogue’s doors and slaughtered the 80 worshipers who were conducting the Yom Kippur prayers.

In a video he shot leading up to the shooting, the attacker denied the Holocaust, denounced feminists and immigrants and stated outright that “the root of all these problems is the Jew.”

Following the attack, there were cries, prayers and warmth given to the victims’ families, but also a clear demand for a significant shift to take place against the anti-Semitism that has rapidly spread worldwide.

For example, upon news of the two people who were shot to death, condemnations came one after another, from German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas tweeting that “shots being fired at a synagogue on Yom Kippur, the festival of reconciliation, hits us in the heart,” and “we must all act against anti-Semitism in our country,” through Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commenting for a “call on the German authorities to continue taking determined action against anti-Semitism.”

However, other than desperate words, there is an air of helplessness in the face of the growing phenomenon.

Helplessness. Desperation. They sound like very undesirable feelings. But could it be that such sensations are actually a positive outcome of the exponentially rising anti-Semitic crimes and threats?

Perhaps when we are repeatedly stunned by an irrational phenomenon that has haunted our people for generations—one which makes no differentiation between genders, between Yom Kippur and a weekday, and between synagogues in Berlin and Pittsburgh—then maybe this is what will goad us to look into what the Kabbalists have been trying to tell us for generations?

Whether in The Zohar or other Kabbalistic texts, what have the Kabbalists been trying to communicate to the Jewish people? Simply put, if we Jews unite with one another, we invite a positive force dwelling in nature to spread not only among each other, but among all humanity. By awakening nature’s positive, unifying force through our unity, we can bring peace to the world. On the contrary, if divided, where every Jew remains within him- or herself in his or her own prayers, then we provoke the opposite: hatred and conflict. As Kabbalist Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Haver wrote, “Creation and choice, correction and destruction of the world—all depends on Israel” (Siach Yitzhak. Part 2, Likutim 1).

Hours after the deadly shooting attack, German chancellor Angela Merkel attended a vigil to identify with the victims at a historic synagogue in central Berlin. She stood with the Jewish community as they together sang, “Ose shalom be Meromav” (“make peace in His heaven”). Ironically, sometimes the answer to our toughest questions can be found right under our noses. Sometimes we need only open our ears and listen to the words we’re singing…

• “Ose shalom be Meromav” (“make peace in His heaven”). It means that in our unity and our common prayer, we can make the upper force bring peace above;
• “Hu yaase shalom aleinu” (“He will bring peace upon us”), i.e. the upper force will bring peace to the whole of humanity;
• “Ve al kol Yisrael” (“and upon all of Israel”), i.e. where the role of the people of Israel is to unite;
• “Ve al kol yoshvei tevel” (“and for all the people in the world”), i.e. our role is not to receive the light of unity for ourselves, but to be a conduit for the light to spread to the world, i.e. to be “a light unto the nations.”
• “Ve imru amen” (“and say Amen”), i.e. then we will all—Jews and the nations of the world—be truly grateful for reaching the long-awaited peace.
  Amen.

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Joshua Goldstein, Chairman of the US Division of Herut North America, meets with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman to discuss the dream society built by Jews.

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