Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 10: Living In an Integrated World
An Integrated World Requires Integral Education

In the previous chapter, we quoted Baal HaSulam’s words from his essay, “The Freedom,” stating that we are “compelled to think and examine as they [social environment] suggest,” and we are “denied of any strength to criticize or change.”[i] Baal HaSulam concluded that to avoid a predetermined fate, we can change the environment, which will in turn change us and our fates. In his words, “One who strives to continually choose a better environment is worthy of praise and reward … not because of one’s good thoughts and deeds …but because of one’s efforts to acquire a good environment, which brings … good thoughts.”[ii]

To put it in a more contemporary context, in order to channel our lives and the lives of our children in a positive direction, we need to foster social values that promote the positive direction we wish to instill. We need to educate ourselves, our children, and society at large toward mutual guarantee, mutual responsibility, and eventually toward unity and cohesion. As has been demonstrated throughout the book, it is our vocation as Jews.

We need not conceive any new means of education to achieve this goal. All we need is to shift the means we already use—mass media, the internet, the education system, and our social and familial ties—toward promoting kinship and mutual responsibility, instead of the prevailing narrative of separation and alienation.

Although more often than not, the traits of unity and kinship—and most of all, of mutual responsibility—are dormant within us Jews, it is our duty, indeed our vocation to awaken them and offer them as our gift to the world. As has been shown repeatedly in this book, unity is the gift of the Jews, the quality that makes us unique, and the quality we must bestow upon the rest of the world. It is this quality that the world needs today, and it is we who are obliged to nurture it within, and then hand it over to the world.

There are two ways to convey mutual guarantee and the quality of bestowal. The first, intended for those with “points in the heart,” as mentioned earlier in the book, is a straightforward study of Kabbalah. According to one’s level of interest, it can be done at varying levels of intensity, from watching TV shows to studying intently (and intensely) with a group and a teacher. The other way is a method of unity-oriented education intended to induce cohesion and a sense of mutual responsibility within the society. I will elaborate on these ways one at a time.

[i] Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom,” 419.

[ii] ibid.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 9: Plurally Speaking
Affecting Social Cohesion Through the Social Environment

Four Factors of Influence

In his essay, “The Freedom,”[i] Baal HaSulam discusses extensively the structure of the human psyche, and what we need to focus on in order to achieve a lasting change in our societies. Through a long analysis of the interplay between heredity and the environment, Ashlag explains that four factors combine to make us who we are:

1. Genes;
2. The way our genes manifest through life;
3. The direct environment, such as family and friends;
4. The indirect environment, such as the media, the economy, or friends of friends.

Since we do not choose our parents, we cannot control our gene pool. But our genes are merely the “potential we,” not the “actual we” that eventually manifest when we are grownups. The actual “we” consists of all four factors. Moreover, the latter two—which relate to the environment—affect and change our genes to suit the environment.

Let’s examine the following wonderful example of how the environment changes the genes, as reported by Swanne Gordon of the University of California in an essay titled, “Evolution Can Occur in Less Than Ten Years,” published in Science Daily. “Gordon and her colleagues studied guppies—small fresh-water fish… They introduced the guppies into the nearby Damier River, in a section above a barrier waterfall that excluded all predators. The guppies and their descendents also colonized the lower portion of the stream, below the barrier waterfall, that contained natural predators. Eight years later…, the researchers found that the guppies in the low-predation environment… had adapted to their new environment by producing larger and fewer offspring with each reproductive cycle. No such adaptation was seen in the guppies that colonized the high-predation environment… ‘High-predation females invest more resources into current reproduction because a high rate of mortality, driven by predators, means these females may not get another chance to reproduce,’ explained Gordon. ‘Low-predation females, on the other hand, produce larger embryos because the larger babies are more competitive in the resource-limited environments typical of low-predation sites. Moreover, low-predation females produce fewer embryos not only because they have larger embryos but also because they invest fewer resources in current reproduction.’”[ii]

Dr. Lars Olov Bygren, a preventive health specialist, documented an even more surprising example of how genes change through environmental effects. John Cloud of Time Magazine described Dr. Bygren’s research on the long-term effects that extreme feast and famine years had on the residents of the isolated Swedish village of Norrbotten. However, Dr. Bygren observed not only the effects the dietary oscillations had on the people who endured them. He also examined “whether that effect could start even before [emphasis added] pregnancy: Could parents’ experiences early in their lives somehow change the traits they passed to their offspring?”[iii] “It was a heretical idea,” writes Mr. Cloud. “After all, we have had a long-standing deal with biology: whatever choices we make during our lives might ruin our short-term memory or make us fat or hasten death, but they won’t change our genes—our actual DNA. Which meant that when we had kids of our own, the genetic slate would be wiped clean.

“What’s more, any such effects of nurture (environment) on a species’ nature (genes) were not supposed to happen so quickly. Charles Darwin, whose On the Origin of Species… taught us that evolutionary changes take place over many generations and through millions of years of natural selection. But Bygren and other scientists have now amassed historical evidence suggesting that powerful environmental conditions … can somehow leave an imprint on the genetic material in eggs and sperm. These genetic imprints can short-circuit evolution and pass along new traits in a single generation.”[iv]

Baal HaSulam, returning to his essay, “The Freedom,” suggested a very similar concept that aligns with Dr. Bygren’s findings. In the section, “The Environment as a Factor,” he writes (emphases added), “It is true that the desire has no freedom. Rather, it is operated by the above four factors [Genes; how they manifest, direct environment, indirect environment]. And one is compelled to think and examine as they suggest, denied of any strength to criticize or change…”[v]

In the subsequent section, “The Necessity to Choose a Good Environment,” Baal HaSulam adds, “As we have seen, it is a simple thing, and should be observed by each and every one of us. For although everyone has one’s own source, the forces are revealed openly only through the environment one is in.”[vi]

This may sound deterministic because if we are completely governed by our environments, it would seem we have no freedom of choice. And yet, writes Baal HaSulam, we can and must choose our environment very carefully. In his words, “There is freedom for the will to initially choose such an environment … that imparts to one good concepts. If one does not do that, but is willing to enter any environment that one comes by…, one is bound to fall into a bad environment… In consequence, one will be forced into foul concepts…” Such a person, he concludes, “will certainly be punished, not because of one’s evil thoughts or deeds, in which one has no choice, but because of not choosing to be in a good environment, for in that there is definitely a choice. Therefore, one who strives to continually choose a better environment is worthy of praise and reward. But here, too, it is not because of one’s good thoughts and deeds, …but because of one’s efforts to acquire a good environment, which brings … good thoughts.”[vii]

We therefore see that we are all potentially demonic, just as we are potentially angelic. The choice of whether we act out one extreme or the other, or any mixture of the two, depends not on whether we choose to be one way or the other, but on the social environment in which we put ourselves, or that we fashion for ourselves.

As parents, we instinctively warn our children to stay away from the bad kids in the neighborhood, and from the bad students at school. Thus, the awareness of the influence of the environment is inherent in our parental genes, so to speak. Now we must expand that awareness and realize that it is not enough to see that our kids go with “the right” kids. We must start designing a new paradigm of thinking for ourselves, as well as for our children. It is a paradigm in which mutual responsibility plays a leading role, mutual care, and camaraderie take the limelight, and public discourse changes accordingly.

In other words, Rabbi Akiva’s known maxim, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” must take shape and be molded into a way of life for society. That social paradigm is the DNA of our people, our legacy to the world, and what the world, even subconsciously, expects us to pass on.

In an era of consecutive and overlapping global crises, the world is in desperate need of a lifeline, a sliver of hope. We Jews are the only ones who can offer that hope, which is called “mutual guarantee.” The next chapter will outline the basics of implementing mutual guarantee as the predominant social paradigm.

[i] Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom” (Israel: Ashlag Research Institute, 2009), 414.

[ii] “Evolution Can Occur in Less Than Ten Years,” Science Daily (June 15, 2009), http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090610185526.htm

[iii] John Cloud, “Why Your DNA Isn’t Your Destiny,” Time Magazine (January 06, 2010), url: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1952313,00.html.

[iv] ibid.

[v] Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom,” 419.

[vi] ibid.

[vii] ibid.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 9: Plurally Speaking
Affecting Social Cohesion Through the Social Environment

Cohesion on a Global Scale

Returning for a moment to our common monotheistic forefather, after the expulsion from Babylon, Abraham established an isolated society that moved as a group and functioned in mutual guarantee. He created a social environment that supported bonding, unity, and cohesion, and attached all those elements to the acquisition of the quality of bestowal, the Creator. Our task today is to do just that, but on a global scale.

Because we really have become aware that we are a superorganism, clearly, we must function as one—in reciprocity and mutual responsibility toward each other. But since we cannot teach the entire world how to function in this manner, we need to show the world an example, and the world will do the rest through our ability to empathize, or as Dr Herrero put it, by “imitation and influence.” After all, when people see a good idea they naturally embrace it.

Therefore, when people see that the Jews have something that could work well for them, and that the Jews desire to share it, they will not only support us, but join us. This, as mentioned in the Introduction, is how Abraham gathered more and more people into his company as he was traveling from Babylon to Canaan, as “thousands and tens of thousands assembled around him, and they are the people of ‘the house of Abraham.’”[i]

[i] Maimonides, Yad HaChazakah (The Mighty Hand), Part 1, “The Book of Science,” Chapter 1, Item 3.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 9: Plurally Speaking
Affecting Social Cohesion Through the Social Environment

Why Form a Society That Touts Cohesion?

In Chapter 1, we discussed the concept of “equivalence of form” saying that if you are similar to something, you can see it, identify it, reveal it. It will be easier for us to understand that concept if we consider how radio receivers work. A receiver can pick up waves only when it creates identical waves within it. Similarly, we detect things that seemingly exist on the outside—but only according to what we have created within. This is how we discover the Creator, the quality of bestowal, by forming that quality within us, thus also discovering it outside of us.

It is this principle, “equivalence of form,” that made Abraham’s method so successful. His group created that quality among themselves and thus discovered the Creator. That is, by moving from the “me” mode to the “we” mode, they discovered the “one” mode, the Creator, the only mode that really does exist.

In today’s world, the obtaining of social cohesion is of paramount importance to our survival. We might consider the revelation of the Creator an “accessory” of sorts, were it not for the fact that the Creator is the quality of bestowal, a trait without which we will never achieve unity, and hence never mend the global rift that is threatening to wrench the world into a global confrontation. This is why it is vital that we expedite the spreading of Abraham’s method for achieving unity through equivalence of form.

To do that, we must first abandon a common belief in our society—the idea that we have “free choice.” Science shows that there is no such thing, at least not in the way we normally think of it—that we do what we want by our own free choice. In recent years, data that proves our dependence on society has been piling up. These studies show that not only our sustenance depends on society, but even our thoughts, aspirations, and chances of success in life. In fact, even the very definition of success is subject to the whims of society. And last but not least, to a great extent, our physical health is significantly affected by society.

On September 10, 2009, The New York Times published a story titled, “Are Your Friends Making You Fat?” by Clive Thompson.[i] In his story, Thompson describes a fascinating experiment performed in Framingham, Massachusetts. In the experiment—which was later published in the celebrated book, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives—How Your Friends’ Friends’ Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, and Do—the lives of 15,000 people were documented and registered periodically over fifty years. Professors Nicholas Christakis’ and James Fowler’s analysis of the data revealed astonishing discoveries about how we affect one another on all levels—physical, emotional, and mental—and how ideas can be as contagious as viruses.

Christakis and Fowler had found that there was a network of interrelations among more than 5,000 of the participants. They discovered that in the network, people mutually affected one another. “By analyzing the Framingham data,” Thompson wrote, “Christakis and Fowler say they have for the first time found some solid basis for a potentially powerful theory in epidemiology: that good behaviors—like quitting smoking or staying slender or being happy—pass from friend to friend almost as if they were contagious viruses. The Framingham participants, the data suggested, influenced one another’s health just by socializing. And the same was true of bad behaviors—clusters of friends appeared to ‘infect’ each other with obesity, unhappiness, and smoking. Staying healthy isn’t just a matter of your genes and your diet, it seems. Good health is also a product, in part, of your sheer proximity to other healthy people.”[ii]

Even more surprising was the researchers’ discovery that these infections could “jump” across connections. They discovered that people could affect each other even if they did not know each other! Moreover, Christakis and Fowler found evidence of these effects even three degrees apart (friend of a friend of a friend). In Thompson’s words, “When a Framingham resident became obese, his or her friends were 57 percent more likely to become obese, too. Even more astonishing… it appeared to skip links. A Framingham resident was roughly 20 percent more likely to become obese if the friend of a friend became obese—even if the connecting friend didn’t put on a single pound. Indeed, a person’s risk of obesity went up about 10 percent even if a friend of a friend of a friend gained weight.”[iii]

Quoting Professor Christakis, Thompson wrote, “In some sense we can begin to understand human emotions like happiness the way we might study the stampeding of buffalo. You don’t ask an individual buffalo, ‘Why are you running to the left?’ The answer is that the whole herd is running to the left.”[iv]

But there is more to social contagion than watching one’s weight or heart condition. In a lecture on TED, Professor Christakis explained that our social lives, and hence—judging by the previous paragraphs—much of our physical lives, depend on the quality and strength of our social networks and what runs through the veins of that network. In his words, “We form social networks because the benefits of a connected life outweigh the costs. If I were always violent toward you … or made you sad … you would cut the ties to me and the network would disintegrate. So the spread of good and valuable things is required to sustain and nourish social networks. Similarly, social networks are required for the spread of good and valuable things like love, and kindness, and happiness, and altruism, and ideas. …I think social networks are fundamentally related to goodness, and what I think the world needs now is more connections.”[v]

But we are not only affected by the people around us. We are significantly affected by the media, by politics, both national and international, and we are affected by the economy. In Runaway World: How Globalization Is Reshaping Our Lives, renowned sociologist Anthony Giddens succinctly, yet accurately, expresses our concurrent connectedness and bewilderment: “For better or worse, we are being propelled into a global order that no one fully understands, but which is making its effects felt upon all of us.”[vi]

In recent years, the corporate world has picked up on the notion, and trainings and courses galore have surfaced on the internet, offering to leverage from the new trend: social contagion. In Homo Imitans: The Art of Social Infection: Viral Change in Action, psychiatrist and business leadership consultant, Dr. Leandro Herrero, offers a witty summary of human nature in regard to the influence of the social environment: “We are intellectually complex, rationally stylish, highly enlightened, unsophisticated copying machines.”[vii] And to complete his irony on the merits of human nature, he writes, “The threads of the rich tapestry of behaviors of Homo Sapiens are made of imitation and influence.”[viii]

However, the problem is not with our behavior toward each other or toward Earth, not that there is much to pride ourselves on regarding our treatment of each other and of Mother Earth. And yet, our behavior is a symptom of a deeper change, an outburst of egotism at the speaking level of desire, to which no one has a solution.

That said, many people already understand that the change must come from within us. Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), stated that “The real challenge today is to change our way of thinking—not just our systems, institutions or policies. We need the imagination to grasp the immense promise—and challenge—of the interconnected world we have created. …The future lies with more globalization, not less, more cooperation, more interaction between peoples and cultures, and even greater sharing of responsibilities and interests. It is unity in our global diversity that we need today.”[ix]

Indeed, Lamy is right in many respects. In recent years, neuroscientists have been abuzz over a relatively new discovery, mirror-neurons. In brief, mirror-neurons are cells located in a region between the prefrontal and motor cortices of the brain, and are involved in preparing and executing limb movements. However, according to Dr. Christian Jarrett, as published in Psychology Today, they also play a vital role in our social interconnection. “In 2000, Vilayanur Ramachandran, the charismatic neuroscientist, made a bold prediction: ‘mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology.’ …For many, they have come to represent all that makes us human.

“For his 2011 book, The Tell-Tale Brain, Ramachandran took his claims further. …he argues that mirror neurons underlie empathy, allow us to imitate other people, that they accelerated the evolution of the brain, that they help explain the origin of language, and most impressively of all, that they prompted the great leap forward in human culture that happened about 60,000 years ago. ‘We could say mirror neurons served the same role in early hominin evolution as the Internet, Wikipedia, and blogging do today,’ he concludes.

“Ramachandran is not alone. Writing for The Times (London) in 2009 about our interest in the lives of celebrities, the eminent philosopher, A.C. Grayling, traced it all back to those mirror neurons. ‘We have a great gift for empathy,’ he wrote. ‘This is a biologically evolved capacity, as shown by the function of ‘mirror neurons’.’ In the same newspaper this year, Eva Simpson wrote on why people were so moved when Tennis champ Andy Murray broke down in tears. …‘Blame mirror neurons, brain cells that make us react in the same way as someone we’re watching.’ In a New York Times article in 2007, about one man’s heroic actions to save another, those cells featured again: ‘people have ‘mirror neurons,’’ Cara Buckley wrote, ‘which make them feel what someone else is experiencing.’”[x]

According to Jarrett, it seems that “mirror neurons play a causal (emphasis in the source) role in allowing us to understand the goals behind other people’s actions. By representing other people’s actions in the movement-pathways of our own brain, so the reasoning goes, these cells provide us with an instant simulation of their intentions—a highly effective foundation for empathy.”[xi]

While there are quite a few dissenters to the theories surrounding mirror-neurons, it is clear that our bodies dedicate portions of the brain explicitly for communication with others. In that manner, we physically connect with others without having physical contact with them, but only eye contact. In a sense, these cells validate the words of Christakis and Fowler, “The great project of the twenty-first century—understanding how the whole of humanity comes to be greater than the sum of its parts—is just beginning. Like an awakening child, the human superorganism is becoming self-aware, and this will surely help us achieve our goals.”[xii]

[i] Clive Thompson, “Are Your Friends Making You Fat?”, The New York Times (September 10, 2009), http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/magazine/13contagion-t.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

[ii] ibid.

[iii] ibid.

[iv] ibid.

[v] “Nicholas Christakis: The hidden influence of social networks” (a televised talk, quote taken from minute 17:11), TED 2010, http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_the_hidden_influence_of_social_networks.html

[vi] Anthony Giddens, Runaway World: How Globalization Is Reshaping Our Lives (N.Y., Routledge, 2003), 6-7.

[vii] Dr. Leandro Herrero, Homo Imitans: The Art of Social Infection: Viral Change in Action (UK: Meetingminds Publishing, 2011), 4.

[viii] ibid.

[ix] Pascal Lamy “Lamy underlines need for ‘unity in our global diversity,’” World Trade Organization (WTO) (June 14, 2011), http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/sppl_e/sppl194_e.htm

[x] Christian Jarrett, Ph.D, “Mirror Neurons: The Most Hyped Concept in Neuroscience?” Psychology Today (December 10, 2012), url: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-myths/201212/mirror-neurons-the-most-hyped-concept-in-neuroscience

[xi] ibid.

[xii] Nicholas A. Christakis, James H. Fowler, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives — How Your Friends’ Friends’ Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, and Do (USA, Little, Brown and Company, January 12, 2011), 305.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 9: Plurally Speaking
Affecting Social Cohesion Through the Social Environment

The Warrior’s Legacy Left for His Progeny

Today, enough people understand that the only way to avert a global catastrophe is to unite. It may be called by other terms, such as “collaboration,” “coordination,” or “consideration,” but whatever the term, it is fair to say that we already understand that we are interdependent and interconnected. This reality creates a situation where we are de facto united in all our global systems. However, to the extent that we are connected, we are also emotionally alienated and resentful about the situation.

One way to resolve this contrast is to try to “de-globalize” ourselves. While there is no doubt that breaking down the supply chain from developing countries and producing everything inland would cause massive economic and financial challenges, some may say it is worth the price. Perhaps, but worth it or not, no one denies that isolationism will have a hefty price tag. Moreover, in the eyes of some, this notion is completely unrealistic. Economist Mark Vitner, for one, described attempting to untie the global interconnectedness as “trying to unscramble scrambled eggs. It just can’t be done that easily.”[i]

The contrary option to de-globalization is to embrace globalization, expand it, coordinate it, perfect it, and at the same time learn to like each other so that everyone benefits from the prosperity. All we need in order to achieve it is the method by which we shift our thought patterns from me (focusing on myself), to we (focusing on all the people), to one (focusing on society as a single entity).

Today, nearly 4,000 years after Abraham’s escape from Babylon, the world is ready to listen. We have all suffered enough, and we have all grown too smart to think that we can make it on our own, that we can show Mother Nature, or God, that we don’t need her because we are stronger and wiser.

[i] Associated Press, “Recession will likely be longest in postwar era,” MSNBC (March, 2009), http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29582828/wid/1/page/2/

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 9: Plurally Speaking
Affecting Social Cohesion Through the Social Environment

Recall the First “Ego-Warrior”

When the speaking level of desires first erupted as egotism, Babylon was at its peak, and Abraham was the one faced with trying to solve the mystery of his people’s social decline. His countryfolk were so immersed in building their tower that they completely abandoned their camaraderie. They were no longer “of one language and of one speech” (Genesis 11:1); all they cared about was the tower.

The book, Pirkey de-Rabbi Eliezer (Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer), portrays Abraham’s dismay with his people’s new passion: “Rabbi Pinhas says that there were no stones there [in Babylon] to build the city and the tower. What did they do? They fashioned bricks and burned them like artisans until they built it [the tower] seven miles high. Those who would lift up the bricks climbed up from the east, and those who climbed down would descend on the west. And if a man fell and died they would pay him no mind. But if a brick fell, they would sit down and wail saying, ‘When will another come up in its stead?’ When Abraham, son of Terah, walked by and saw them building the city and the tower, he cursed them in the name of God.”[i]

But Abraham did more than curse the builders. First, he tried to mend the rift and bring his people back together. Midrash Rabah tells us that Abraham brought together all the people in the world,[ii] and Rabbi Behayei Ben Asher tells us how he exposed Nimrod’s pretence of supernal powers. In his Midrash, Rabeinu [our Rav] Behayei, he writes, “[Nimrod] said to him, ‘I created the earth and the heaven with my power.’ Abraham replied, ‘…when I came out of the cave, I saw the sun rising in the East and setting in the West. Make it rise in the West and set in the East, and I will bow unto you. But if not, the one who gave my hand the strength to burn the statues will give me strength and I will kill you.’ Nimrod said to his counselors, ‘What shall be the sentence of this one?’ They replied, ‘He is the one of whom we said, ‘A nation shall come forth from him and inherit this world and the next world.’ And now, as the sentence he had decreed, so shall be done unto him. Promptly, they threw him into the furnace. At that time the Lord filled with mercy over him and saved him, as it is written, ‘I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans.’”[iii]

Following his heated debate with the king, Abraham took his family, his students, and his possessions and fled from Babylon. Along the way he collected into his entourage people who agreed with his message—“When faced with egotism, unite above it.” In other words, when hatred breaks out among friends, make the common goal of revealing the Creator—the quality of bestowal, the fundamental force that creates reality—more important than the rivaling parties, and thus unite above the rivalry. The bonuses of such deeds are enhanced unity, subsequent acquisition of the quality of bestowal by the former adversaries, and consequently, the revelation of the Creator.

The above sentence describes the essence of the fusion, the mending of the rift with which Abraham attempted to furnish his countryfolk. And that essence—unity above differences enhances cohesion and (if you want it to) reveals the Creator—has never changed. In fact, it will never change, as it is Nature’s Law of Bestowal.

As detailed in the Introduction to this book, Abraham’s group succeeded in uniting and grew into what became the people of Israel, a nation whose common trait is the desire for the Creator. Through unity above differences, as explained in Chapter 1, Israel developed a method by which to shift one’s thinking from the “me” mode to the “we” mode, thus perceiving the “One,” the Creator.

Thus, while Israel was going from strength to strength by employing unity over egotism, the rest of the world was experiencing episodes of ebb and flow, with empires rising and falling and the hedonistic culture of self-indulgence assuming predominance. For this reason, even today, in the most hedonistic of all eras, Abraham’s monotheism is the predominant notion of deity, while the Tower of Babylon is a symbol of human conceit and folly.

This is why the only ones who can educate the world as to the way one can grow as wise as Abraham are those who were his students, the children of Israel, known worldwide as Jews. This wisdom was Abraham’s legacy to them, and passing it on as he did is their obligation to the world.

[i] Pirkey de-Rabbi Eliezer (Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer), Chapter 24.

[ii] Midrash Rabah, Beresheet [Genesis], Parasha 39, Paragraph no. 3.

[iii] Rabbi Behayei Ben Asher Iben Haluah, Rabeinu [our Rav] Behayei, Beresheet [Genesis] 15:6.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 9: Plurally Speaking
Affecting Social Cohesion Through the Social Environment

From Me, to We, to One

With our current knowledge of human nature, we cannot avoid this competitive and alienating attitude because it is coming from within us, a dictation of the fourth, speaking level of desire. We also cannot stop the evolution of desires, just as we cannot stop the evolution of the whole of Nature. Moreover, if we are to achieve the purpose of creation of becoming similar to the Creator, we will need a robust desire as the fuel thrusting us forward, which means that we must not diminish or oppress our desires, or we will not attain our life’s goal.

And yet, not being able to stop the heightening of our self-centered desires does not mean we must yield to a trend of worsening human relations on all levels. Our society does not have to decline to a point where all we can do is to stock up on supplies, take cover, and lay low in wait for some miracle to save us from our fellow men and women.

In fact, even if we chose to try to shield ourselves, our nation’s mournful history indicates, and the law of Nature dictates that the nations will not permit us to remain passive. When troubles ensue, it is guaranteed that the Jews will be blamed for it once more and consequently tormented, perhaps worse than ever. However, contrary to past ordeals, there is much we can do to prevent this from unfolding.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 9: Plurally Speaking
Affecting Social Cohesion Through the Social Environment

The Drive for Superiority

In Chapter 2 we introduced the words of our sages concerning the fundamental desires at the foundation of Creation, and the four levels that make up the desire to receive. Briefly, we said that reality consists of a desire to bestow pleasure and a desire to receive it. We learned from those sages that the desire to receive pleasure is divided into four levels, known as “still,” “vegetative,” “animate,” and “speaking.” However, it is still essentially one desire that wears different attire at different levels of development.

For example, the most basic desire in existence is to sustain oneself. At the human level, that desire would appear as being content with a shelter, be it even a tin hut, and the means to keep warm, clothed, and fed. This is the still level of desire. Just like inanimate materials that keep their atoms and molecules together but do very little else, such a person will wish only to sustain oneself, seemingly “keeping one’s atoms and molecules together” and very little else.

At the vegetative level of desire, a person will want to sustain oneself on the same level as everyone else. As all plants of a certain kind blossom and wither at the same time, such a person will want to be the same as everyone in one’s town or village, or follow the latest trend seen on TV.

If everyone is poor, that person will not feel poor as long as his or her standard of living is on a par with that of the social environment. And if the new trend in clothing is to wear the left shoe on the right foot, and vice-versa, the vegetative-level person will be more comfortable wearing the wrong shoe on the wrong foot, so long as he or she is in line with the prevailing trend in fashion.

The animate-level person differs from the vegetative-level one in that he or she begins to seek self-expression. Such a person no longer settles for being like everyone else, but needs to establish one’s individuality. For the most part, this level leads to enhanced creativity and distinction in that person’s subject of choice.

The speaking (human) level is the most complex and tricky. Here it is not enough to express oneself. On this level, the desire is to be superior. This is the desire that makes people want to be recognized as special, even unique. In other words, on that level we constantly compare ourselves to others.

Moreover, these days we cannot settle for being the best at something; we strive to be the best ever. Think of the sports statistics we constantly hear about: Michael Phelps’ ambition to break Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals in swimming in the 1972 Olympic Games, or basketball players comparing themselves to Michael Jordan, or Roger Federer’s drive to keep winning tennis titles, even though he has already won more Grand Slam tournaments than anyone before him. And yet, he is still troubled by the fact that he has not won an Olympic gold medal.[i]

Sports may be a conspicuous example, but it is certainly not the exception; it is rather the norm. The film that earned the most money in its first week, the album that sold the most copies, the company that sells the most phones/computers/cars—competition and comparisons are everywhere. Ask a high school student, “Are you doing well in school?” and you will probably get an answer along the lines of, “I’m on the top five percent of my class” (assuming you have asked a good student). Thus, being good is no longer good enough; superiority has become the motto of our lives. We call it “being somebody.” Being me is not good enough; if I am not somebody, I am nobody.

There is a Hassidic tale about Rabbi Meshulam Zusha of Hanipol (Anipoli), brother of the renowned Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk, one of the founders of the Hassidut. Rabbi Zusha used to say, “When I go to heaven, if I am asked, ‘Why weren’t you Elimelech (Zusha’s esteemed brother), I will know what to say. But if I am asked ‘Why weren’t you Zusha,’ I will not know what to say.”[ii] The moral is clear—be yourself and actualize your potential; this is what you need to do in life.

But Rabbi Zusha lived in the 18^th century. Today, such a moral would be unacceptable because what matters is not who you are, but who you are compared to others, your position in the class percentile. When the primary motto in society is so alienating and antisocial, it is no wonder that our society is falling apart.

[i] “Roger Federer: 2016 Games possible,” Associated Press, July 26, 2012, url: http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/tennis/story/_/id/8202865/roger-federer-leaning-competing-rio-2016-body-holds-up.

[ii] School for Culture Education, Be’eri Program, Shalom Hartman Institute, June 26, 2011. url: http://www.school.kotar.co.il/KotarApp/Viewer.aspx?nBookID=98518913#24.9572.4.fitwidth. url: http://medaon.org/files/zehutariel.pdf.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 9: Plurally Speaking
Affecting Social Cohesion Through the Social Environment

Persecution and anti-Semitism, or in its more contemporary term, Judeophobia, have been the lot of our people for (at least) the past two millennia. And yet, as we have seen throughout the book, the hatred of Jews did not spring up out of thin air. It is rooted in the fundamental, though usually unconscious demand of every human being that the Jews must and will usher them into the attainment of life’s purpose: to receive boundless delight and pleasure.

Thus far we have discussed the goal and role of the Jewish nation, and the reason for our anguish throughout the ages. Henceforth we will discuss the principles we need to follow in order to achieve our goal, which coincides with the goal of humanity.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 8: Together Forever
Unity, Unity, and Unity Once Again

Unity Means Redemption

Elijah comes only to correct the deficiency that was present at the time of his arrival. This is why Elijah comes primarily to settle the dispute, for that certainly unites and ties Israel as one, until they are worthy of redemption from the exile. It is so because Israel are not redeemed from exile before they are completely one, as it is said in the Midrash, that Israel are not redeemed until they are one.
-Judah Loewe ben Bezalel (the Maharal of Prague), Innovations of Legends, Part 4, Masechet Matrimony, p 63

It is a wonderful thing that two prophets prophesied a very significant prophecy regarding the time of redemption: “And I will give them one heart” (Jeremiah, 32:39, Ezekiel, 11:19). Indeed, they knew what they were prophesying; the devil of separation-of-the-heart has been lurking for our nation from time immemorial.
-Avraham Kariv, Atarah LeYoshnah [Restoring Old Glory], “The State and the Spirit,” p 251

It is also clear that the immense effort required of us on the rugged road ahead requires unity as strong and as solid as steel, from all factions of the nation without any exceptions. If we do not come out with united ranks toward the mighty forces standing in our way then we are doomed before we even started.
-Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Nation,” p 487

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