Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can we stop the spreading of the coronavirus around the world?“

In order to stop the coronavirus’ spread, we first need to accurately diagnose the disease itself. That is, our progress to a better and healthier state depends on our correct diagnosis of our current state.

Moreover, in addition to an accurate diagnosis of the disease, we would be wise to stop expecting that the disease will simply disappear, or that a wonder medicine will appear, and then everything will be okay.

If we could peek deeper into how nature functions at its causal levels, then we would see how it acts toward us, and what it wants from us, through this pandemic.

The pain, anguish and long-term discomfort afflicted upon humanity through this virus is in order for us to wake up to the discovery of the disease’s cause at the level of human relation—that our very detachment and estrangement from each other is behind the virus.

The sooner we understand that our divisive attitudes to each other spawn every agony that we suffer, including the coronavirus, then the sooner we would be able to focus our sights on fixing such attitudes.

I still see, however, that we have learned nothing from the pandemic: we continue expecting the solution to come through a vaccine, and we also keep trying to revive our pre-coronavirus egoistic-consumerist lifestyles that we had, pitting ourselves up against each other in an ongoing competition for narrow individualistic visions of material well-being.

However, the longer we fail to revise how we relate to each other, then the more the coronavirus (or other viruses queuing up after it) will gnaw away at us. The pandemic will remain because today, nature is obliging us to upgrade our attitudes to each other.

Therefore, stopping the spread of the coronavirus first requires understanding how our hatred of each other is its ultimate cause. When we relate to it in such a way, then we have already made a significant step to treating the disease, as half of a disease’s cure is in its correct diagnosis.

This is why those with a deeper understanding of nature exert a lot of effort in explaining this message to humanity, because they understand that the more humanity hears this message, the quicker it can heal from the pandemic, and progress to a better world with more harmonious relations.

We don’t need coronavirus vaccines. Also, if we look at the intention behind the countries and experts in the race to be the first to release the coronavirus vaccine, then we find no pure intention to heal humanity, but an intention convoluted with egoistic motives for wealth, pride and power. We can thus expect no positive progress to emerge from anything made with such egoistic motives, vaccines included.

Instead of spending millions of dollars and hundreds of hours to look for a vaccine to inject into our bodies, we would be wiser to seek the vaccine that already exists inside us—that if we realize positive, kind and loving relations to each other, then we will stop the spread of the coronavirus, as well as myriad other diseases and problems that pollute our lives today.

We have such a “vaccine” in our hearts, and we are given an opportunity to inject it into each other at every moment. Either we let our divisive attitudes involuntarily act through us and inject poison into each other, or we each accept our mutual responsibility upon each other, and thus inject the antidote to the virus into each other by aiming to care and love each other above our divisive attitudes.

Love, unification and togetherness above division is the antidote to all disease. We could test this solution similarly to how we setup clinical trials for vaccines, i.e., by creating labs that focus on leading people who are alien to each other into a newfound internal closeness and heartfelt connection, with the objective of witnessing how they would become immune to the virus.

We have yet to internalize the extent to which we have entered a new era, one of much tighter interdependence and interconnectedness, and that no treatments outside of our attitudes to each other work to fix anything in this era.

From today onward, we will experience more and more blows in order to illuminate precisely this point within us—our attitudes to each other—which needs changing.

Therefore, stopping the spread of the coronavirus requires diagnosing the cause of the virus in our egoistic attitudes to each other, and that positive attitudes hold the remedy for the virus and for all other problems in our lives.

Such knowledge already acts to heal us.

Positive relations are the source of all that is positive in our lives, and the lack of such relations is the source of all that is negative in our lives. Likewise, the coronavirus is a phenomenon that has appeared in order to teach us this principle.

Whether we agree or disagree, it costs nothing to try it out, since it already exists within us. We need not spend money or efforts doing anything with our hands or legs in order to try and find the virus’ cure. I am certain that the moment we implement an upgrade of our attitudes to each other, then we will see the coronavirus’ spread come to a halt.

Above photo by Thanos Pal on Unsplash.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 9/14/20

Not long ago, I received a heart-wrenching letter that highlighted something we often have to deal with: guilt. Because guilt affects all of us, I felt it would help many people if I replied to the letter openly, without disclosing the identity of the sender.

“Dear Michael Laitman,

“My name is … and I live in Russia. I am an avid listener of your talks and never miss a show. I owe it all to my beloved wife, with whom I lived as one soul for twenty-eight years. We couldn’t have children, so we adopted a boy and raised him with great love, especially my wife. She loved him dearly.

“When the coronavirus pandemic started, my wife and I were very careful. We worked from home, listened to your talks, and agreed with your every word. Our son, however, treated the virus like a challenge or an invitation. He would walk out and scoff at our concerns. He wouldn’t wear a mask. We couldn’t explain to him anything from your words; he simply wouldn’t listen. As a result, he got Covid and infected us, as well. I handled the virus quite easily but my wife didn’t; she passed away.

“Since then, I haven’t been able to look at my son. I hate him. I understand that it’s impossible to bring my wife back, but I don’t want to live with this hatred for my son. Moreover, he, too, feels guilty; I am aware of it, but I can’t help it. I look at him, I turn my eyes away, and I can barely restrain myself from exploding on him. I have no love within me, none at all! Dear Michael, how do I bring my love back? What should I do? How do I forgive my son? I don’t know what to do. Please help me.”

As distressing as this tragedy is, and perhaps because it is so, I hope this story will help us understand how nature works and that in truth, this heartbreak is no one’s fault. It is no one’s fault because just as the father cannot help but hate his son, his son could not help but be reckless. We don’t own our thoughts; they emerge in us from the same place where everything emerges. Call it “nature,” “reality,” “God,” or what have you, but we do not know what we will think one second from now, let alone what we will do.

I know this isn’t easy. I, too, have plenty of reasons for anger. But when you study the wisdom of Kabbalah, you come to see that everything has a purpose: to lead you to reveal life’s deepest, most fundamental force, the source of everything, the Creator of all things. And not only that, you find that its goal is to make us like it, exactly like it. When you discover that creative force, you realize that it is nothing but pure goodness. Its goal, therefore, is to make you, me, and all of humanity just as good as itself.

When you begin to become like the Creator, even if a little bit, you understand why things happen the way they do. Until you become like it, it is impossible to justify your son, or the Creator for your tragedy.

The Creator leads the world to goodness through two reins: pleasure and pain. However, its direction, as just said, is only one—to make you like it: a complete giver. The worst cataclysms in human history, unfolded as they did at the hands of that same, benevolent force, and for the purpose of making us benevolent, as well. And if they unfolded painfully, it is only a sign that we must increase our efforts to become like it, so it wouldn’t have to rush us through the rein of pain.

The coronavirus, too, comes from that same source, and its aim is the same: to make us good, loving, and giving. Right now, you probably cannot love your son. But when you connect to the Creator and begin to become like it, you will find within you such profound love for your son and for all of creation that you never knew existed. You will love him more than ever, and more than you thought possible.

Therefore, my friend, don’t look back and don’t waste energy or time on sulking over the past. It will only bring you more pain. Instead, look up, and go find the Creator in your life. Look for people like you, who want to know the Creator of life, the source of everything, and with them, you are certain to succeed.

Best of luck,
Michael

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Scientists cannot offer a solution to the Coronavirus, we ought not rely on a vaccine. This pandemic isn’t like the previous localized ones: those weren’t aimed at correcting the last generation, stemming from the general force (Mashiach).
Today, it is working on all of humanity for the first time!

The spiritual world isn’t found in three dimensional coordinates. It has no axes, but is like a sphere. By awakening a single cell, we activate, animate all creation. Then we will see that all of the universe’s endless spaces, all the galaxies amount to nothing as we will enter completely different dimensions.

The most vibrant combinations and delicate aromas, all of the beauty of scrutinies is achieved by adding additional tens. As in our world, there is a foundation that is essential, but beauty is achieved thanks to additions and spices that add flavor, aroma, color.

The Creator’s revelations happens both on a quantitative, as well as qualitative levels. The power of the revelation is determined by our success in expanding our Kli, adding more tens to it. The quality of the revelation grows as well; the main Kli is clothed with additional ones, adding partials to the essential note.

To the extent that we unite in the ten, we will begin to feel the necessity of attaching to ourselves more and more tens, expanding the boundaries of our unity, because this is the only way we can draw ever closer to the Creator.

The ego (Pharaoh) has developed so much that its authority is turning from pleasant to unbearable, and is thus forcing us to seek a way to escape it.
From Twitter, 9/14/20

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Question: How did the consumer society appear? After all, the desire to consume was created in people artificially through advertising, mass media, etc.

While in the past exploiters paid people so that they could survive, now they purposely pay more so that they can wander in malls. Surely this was done on purpose.

Answer: This is how man’s egoism was used. Now it has taken on other forms. People have changed. Today you can do somewhat different metamorphoses with them.

Remark: If the rich of this world have created this consumer society, then they themselves must change it.

My Comment: Those capitalists are gone. They are already different too.

Remark: But people who have billions today can create a new society you are talking about if they see benefit for themselves.

My Comment: I think it will not come from them. I do not expect anything good from people who hold on to their wealth and power. They cannot change because they were created that way.

Remark: It is difficult to understand how the transformation of society can take place, if not from the levers that authorities and the rich have.

My Comment: It comes from the inside. A man himself changes and changes society. Look at the new generation, how it differs from the past one. It will take a few more years, and all this will change anyway.

Question: Do you think that the economy changes because a man’s internal needs change?

Answer: The virus will help us. It will speed up this process.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

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The main thing in the fight against coronavirus is to understand the disease itself. Until we understand what state we are in, we will not be able to move forward to the next stage toward healing. After all, nature is not going to give us a miracle cure that will allow us to end the virus and forget about it.

Nature’s purpose is not to guide us through the disease and cure us. Nature wants the suffering from the virus to compel us to reveal the human factor in it, that is, our disconnection and unkind relations with each other.

And then we will correct the attitude of one to another, in order to start worrying about what other people think and feel, we will understand what is in their hearts. If we do not establish such a relationship, we will continue to suffer from the coronavirus or other viruses that are behind it in a long line. The epidemic will not end because we are in a new era and are obliged to correct the peoples’ attitude toward others.

Every bad state is the result of our hatred for each other. The very realization of this already serves as the beginning of the treatment. If humanity hears this message, this is already half of the cure. We don’t need all these vaccines. Every country is now trying to be the first to release a vaccine against the coronavirus, not in order to cure humanity, but to make money on it.

This is exactly the opposite action. Every country wants to sell a vaccine. It is not proud of the fact that it can save all of humanity, it does not offer everyone: “Take our vaccine and be treated!” No, it says, “Buy this.” That is, here we are acting exactly opposite of how this blow directs us. And so the vaccine will not bring any improvement.

But we already have a cure for the coronavirus, we have a vaccine. And it is very simple: a kind attitude toward each other neutralizes all viruses. Did you want a vaccine? You have it! Everyone has a cure for the virus in their hearts. Use it! Nothing is needed other than this.

This antivirus in the heart is love, unity, closeness of the heart. It is the most reliable medicine that destroys all viruses. Let’s run clinical trials like trial vaccines are being tested now. We will organize a group in which people really start to get closer to each other, and make sure that they are not affected by the coronavirus.

And in this a woman with her mother’s heart has a special role. If women really wanted to get rid of the coronavirus, and realized that this was possible due to their joint efforts, they would do it.

Otherwise, the epidemic will grow, because the summer is over and children are returning to school. And then the time will come for holidays, festive gatherings and prayers. If we leave everything as it is, there will be no end to the blows. Nature will not yield.

We are in a new era called the “last generation,” and we must come to love our neighbor as ourselves. Only this can be a cure for all diseases that are now awaiting humanity, in all forms. We don’t even know where to expect blows from, but they will come.

We hope that women all over the world will hear us and understand that in the heart of every person, and especially women, there is a power that can save everyone. It seems that the relationship between people has no connection with the virus, with chemistry and biology, but in fact it does. Our relationship has the highest, hidden power, and therefore, only by correcting them, can we cope with viruses. Otherwise, we will all suffer, and above all, women.

Understanding that the virus appears as a result of an egoistic connection between us, and good relations destroy the virus and serve as a medicine—this very knowledge will already begin to heal us. Good relationships are the source of all good, and the lack of such connection is the source of all evil, and the coronavirus is meant to prove it to us.

A woman as a mother should direct the whole family to treat others kindly. Do you remember how our mother instructed us, sending us to school or walking in the yard: “Be a good child, do not fight, and then they will not hurt you either. Cross the street only along the proper passage. Take care of others, help them, and then they will help you too.” This is called being a “good kid.” So let’s all be good kids. And women, mothers, must tell us this. After all, we do not lose anything by it!

Why do we teach children to behave well on the street and are confident that it will do them good? Because we know that kindness evokes kindness in return. And it’s the same here, let’s become kinder to each other and see how it helps. And if it suddenly does not destroy the coronavirus, then what do we lose by limiting our selfishness a little, which brings us so many troubles?

It is worth trying the medicine that is already within us. It already exists, we don’t need to invent anything. And I am sure that if we use this medicine that is in our heart, we will defeat all viruses.
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From KabTV’s “Women in the New World” 8/30/20

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Medium published my new article “Social Life in a Changing Job Market”

Think about it, a reality where you need two breadwinners to sustain a family simply makes no sense. Both parents stay out most of the day, and by the time they get home they are exhausted and barely have energy to dedicate their attention to their children. And in families with only one breadwinner the situation is of course much worse, both because there is only one parent to raise the children, and because single parents often have to work two jobs just to provide for the basic needs of the family.

We are living in transformative years. We can stream through them easily and joyfully if we come together and emerge on the other side as a united and caring society. Or, we can experience them as painful and oppressive, and still eventually realize that they were only for our sake. Either way, the coronavirus will make us learn to care.

This is an unnatural and unhealthy situation whose outcome is a generation of neglected children, abandoned by their captive parents who are struggling to keep a roof over their children’s heads and put bread in their mouths. But the biggest oddity about this miserable state is that we’ve come to think of it as “normal” and even “desirable.”

Thankfully, the coronavirus is forcing us to reconstruct our world. We are rebellious, contentious, but it will bend our arms and force us to comply. Covid will shatter the economy however hard we might resist, force us to provide for those who have been struck by the collapse, and will obligate us to start thinking also of each other rather than only of ourselves. We will have to, or the collapse will hit us, too.

Covid will leave very little surplus for indulgence in things we once thought were necessary, but it will not leave us empty handed. On the contrary, it will show us what we’ve really had all along but did not notice: each other. The virus will teach us the obvious — that nothing matters more than caring family and friends, and nothing makes us happier than having them around. It will make us reconstruct our lives and put people at the center of our attention rather than money, which is how it should be because only when we see other people, and they see us, we can be happy.

The world is producing and will continue to produce abundant food and the rest of life’s necessities. There will be no shortage of them. The only question is how fast we will learn to distribute them among everyone and guarantee that everyone is fed, dressed, lives in a proper home, and gets proper education and health care. When we learn that and act on that perception, the only thing that we will still need to do is learn how to relate to one another favorably, which is what we have neglected to do for the past several decades. And this learning will finally make us happy.

We are living in transformative years. We can stream through them easily and joyfully if we come together and emerge on the other side as a united and caring society. Or, we can experience them as painful and oppressive, and still eventually realize that they were only for our sake. Either way, the coronavirus will make us learn to care.
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Medium published my new article “Caring For Each Other Heals”

For quite some time we have been going through a full-blown crisis that has shattered every aspect of our lives. Everything that we had known has crumbled. We need to start over but we don’t know how. So instead, we wait and hope for a vaccine. But lingering is very bad for us; it only makes the necessary changes more painful and slower to occur.

The virus is hitting on all levels: biological, emotional, and social. However, its blows are not random; they have a clear trajectory: to separate us from each other, meaning exercise social distancing, and reconstruct our relations in a non-detrimental fashion. The virus may be a pathogen to our bodies, but it is a remedy to our society.

The sooner we acknowledge that we will not return to our lives before the virus, the better it is for us. To do that, we must understand what we are going through and what is happening around us.

The virus is hitting on all levels: biological, emotional, and social. However, its blows are not random; they have a clear trajectory: to separate us from each other, meaning exercise social distancing, and reconstruct our relations in a non-detrimental fashion. The virus may be a pathogen to our bodies, but it is a remedy to our society. It may be hard to see this at the moment, with all the contradictory reports and misinformation we are fed from all directions, but if we follow the orders given by the authorities, regardless of whether or not they are helpful in curing our bodies, we will find that they are helping us, perhaps unintentionally, build more caring communities and enhance our mutual responsibility.

We shouldn’t regard the instructions to wear masks or wash our hands, or keep a six-foot distance as intended to protect ourselves. This would only perpetuate the current, deleterious attitude that got us where we are. Instead, we should follow these instructions in order not to infect others. Whether it does or does not prevent contagion is really unimportant. What is critically important, however, is that this completely reverses our attitude toward others compared to the attitude we usually exercise.

If the majority of people adopt this attitude, to think about the neighbor’s health and take appropriate action to support it, it will revolutionize society. It will not matter what prompted the change, but simply the fact that the change has happened will work miracles. And since it would not happen were it not for the coronavirus, we will find that it’s the virus that has brought us to a new level of connection among us.

Naturally, in such a state of mutual concern, the chains of infection will all break and the virus will vanish in a matter of weeks. But more importantly, we will find that our society has risen to a new level of concern for one another, a new level of cohesion, and we will not want to return to the alienation, loneliness, and suspicion we had harbored before the onset of Covid-19. Instead, we will want to keep developing the new agenda that caring for each other heals.
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Day by day the situation is getting worse all over the world. This indicates that humanity is not moving in the right direction and is not sweetening its condition.

Instead of following the path of light desired in the eyes of creation and the Creator, humanity, due to a lack of understanding of what is happening and what needs to be done, follows the path of suffering, the natural development of events, that is, under the pressure of forces that oblige us to advance. So, we follow that way as if there is no other choice.

It cannot be said that there is a real awareness of evil, but it is clear that the state is bad and may not be corrected anymore, but will only deteriorate more and more. The crisis affects everyone, both ordinary workers and managers. Many already understand that this is not just a virus, but a phenomenon that will change our whole life. This is becoming more evident every day.

At the same time, people still hope that if a cure for coronavirus is found quickly, they will be able to return to their old life. They do not understand that the virus does not hit our health, but much deeper. Nature began a global treatment for humanity. It did not seek to confine us to our homes and distance us two meters from one another, forbidding us to communicate, celebrate weddings together, sit with friends in a restaurant.

Nature had a completely different intention: it wanted to give us room, free space, time, and the opportunity to understand and feel why all this was done, for what purpose. This is not just an epidemic, but a higher, integral, global, and special phenomenon. It is difficult to grasp it right away, but humanity is already approaching it.

Blows are the surest way to reach our minds and hearts and make us aware of our condition. We must try to explain to people why nature does this to us. Nature is an integral, global mechanism that acts on us and gradually advances us along the path of evolution, that is, the program of creation. We are developing according to a higher plan.

The science of Kabbalah explains to us what kind of program it is and what steps we need to go through. It is impossible to escape from this program. You can only change method of our progress toward unification, the goal of development, from bad to good.

Likewise, in raising children, if a child listens to his parents, then he is treated well, and if he does not want to listen, then you have to put pressure on him and even punish him. It is said that “he who spares the rod hates his son.” (Proverbs 13:24) The goal is already outlined from the beginning, and we must come to it.

Soon we will be left without money, without food. The sooner we explain the true reason, the fewer blows we will get that are intended to lead a person to a new, correct order of life.

We cannot wait for this to be done by the forces of nature that beat us and seem devoid of compassion and feelings. They did come after we had not heeded the warnings of nature and had not made an effort to go on a good path.

It is necessary to explain to everyone that it is not the epidemic or the virus that is to blame. There is simply one force that acts very harshly and is forced to put pressure on us, like a parent on naughty children. We must develop, no question about it.

But we can choose a good, easy, beautiful, and fast path if we direct our hearts and minds to the goal to which nature leads us: to our unification and organization of life here on this earth, in a simple and good form. On the material side, you need to keep what is necessary. The main thing is to direct yourself toward spiritual development, that is, toward connection from heart to heart.

People feel more unhappy day by day because they cannot see the image of the future that nature is leading us to. They think that it is just a disease and one day we will recover from it. Let us spend money on it, some will get sick, some will even die, but eventually, the epidemic will end, and we will return to normal life.

Every country is struggling to return to its usual life. Every politician convinces us that he has a solution to restore the old way tomorrow. This is known and desirable to everyone because we understand how to live in it.

But it is impossible to reverse the process of evolution. We see from history that we pass from state to state and move on to the next stages. Now nature requires us to move to a new stage where humanity must become closer to each other sensually. In addition, we must take care of our home, our planet, and together take care of our future.

After all, in this, we all depend on each other. We cannot make distinctions between peoples, countries, we must think about the global state.

Let each of us be an egoist who thinks only of himself, who does not care about anyone else in the world, but if we want to survive, we must think about everyone. After all, we are all in one boat.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/19/20, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: If a person stops obeying the laws of nature on the level of thoughts and feelings, does this mean that he actually has to change himself on this level?

Answer: We don’t need anything else. Thoughts and feelings are what we have. Once we see that we don’t operate correctly—and this happens in our thoughts and feelings—we will begin to change. We don’t need any motion at all. Our future is eventually beyond the physical world.

Remark: According to what you say, unity between people is the remedy against viruses since the virus fears the unity between us. But we see that it is the opposite, that the remedy against the spreading of the virus is keeping our distance and isolation.

My Comment: This is the case now because we are still egoists. If we don’t want to impact each other negatively and make room for the virus between us, we need to draw away from each other.

Question: We need to change our perception of others, and then different practical actions will develop as a result. This means that you don’t advise us to do anything except change our attitude. But is that possible without practical actions?

Answer: No, we need to perform practical actions and we need to help each other so that each of us will constantly change our perspective of others for the better.

Question: If, under the threat of destruction, humanity understands that the solution to the problem is only the struggle with our ego, and people will begin to artificially relate to each other seemingly with love, what will we gain from that?

Answer: It will enable us to draw the positive force of nature that can raise us above our ego and give us the strength to use it correctly.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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The Times of Israel published my new article “Israel – The First at Being Last”

Israel is now the world leader in new coronavirus disease cases. That is, every other country in the world has fewer coronavirus infections per capita than Israel. Data from Johns Hopkins University has revealed that Israel averaged 199.3 new cases a day per 1 million residents in the week ending September 2. Since then, Israel has only widened the gap.

When COVID-19 first emerged, countries lined up to praise Israel for its handling of the pandemic. But in the second wave, reality aligned itself with our behavior and we have dropped from the zenith to the nadir. Even if we shut down the economy once more, place all cities under quarantine, and every household under stay-at-home orders, we will not find more than a momentary relapse in contagion until we do what we must—change our attitude to one another. Then, and only then we will overcome the virus.

When the virus first appeared I said that it was not an ordinary virus. I cautioned that it is here not in order to shut down the economy but in order to teach us how to relate to one another. So far, we have failed miserably, and so the virus celebrates with record breaking infection rates, total helplessness of the authorities, and depravity suggestive of the last days of Rome.

On the surface, there seems to be a battle between those who want to keep the economy running and sustain people’s livelihoods, and those who want to restrict economic and public activities and sustain people’s lives. In my view, as long as we treat each other with such derision and disdain, we will sustain neither.

The whole problem with the measures we are taking in order to avoid contagion is not the measures themselves, but that we are taking them in order to protect ourselves instead of others. When the motivation is so self-centered, those who are young and healthy, and not in the risk groups, or who believe that the disease is nothing but fake news, have no reason to comply with instructions. By doing so, they not only increase the risk to the lives of those at risk, they also increase hatred and alienation in society, and this is the real problem.

We need to treat the masks, vaccinations, and all the other measures not as medical tools, but as social tools that help us portray our relation to others. If we change our relation to others, we will be able to open the economy without any limitations and the virus will be gone in no time. But first, we need to show our efforts to change our attitude to one another, and the way to show it goes through wearing masks, keeping social distancing, and doing everything required in order to preserve the lives and health of our fellow persons. Not our own lives, but those of others around us.

The State of Israel is always at the center of attention. Just as countries lined up to praise us when we succeeded in curbing the virus in the beginning, they now stand bewildered at our colossal failure to do the same in the second wave. If we show the world that the way to oust the virus is through unity, the world will follow suit, and, as a result, a new, united society will emerge around the world.

We must remember that the State of Israel, as are the people of Israel, is not just another country. It was established to enable the people of Israel to carry out its duty to the world—to set an example of unity above divisions and show the nations how they can do it, too. Here in Israel we are meant to become “a light unto nations” by uniting “as one man with one heart.”

Despite recent agreements, the Arab world as a whole will not make peace with us, and the world will not support our being here, as long as we do not make peace with one another. Instead, the nations will blame us for inciting wars and taking a land that is not ours, as UNESCO has been saying for several years now.

Covid-19 has given us an opportunity to change our relation to one another, thereby change the world’s relation to us, and thereby change the nations’ relation to one another. We shouldn’t underestimate our power to do good, or bad, to the entire world. If we rise to the challenge and unite, we will oust the coronavirus, the world, too, will learn that the solution to the pandemic lies in positive relations and will do the same, the pandemic will disappear, and the entire global society will change for the better.
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