Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can unity help us to fight COVID-19?“

As I write this, more than a year since the coronavirus pandemic hit the world, its effects are still felt very strongly and humanity has yet to get a grip on the virus. Germany is on its way to another lockdown, France is in lockdown, and in India, the situation has reached extremes, while in Brazil, the death toll is constantly rising.

For a certain period of time, we felt the coronavirus as humanity’s common problem. Now, however, there is a feeling that each country needs to deal with it separately. The UN Secretary-General is complaining about inequality in the global distribution of the vaccine, and we are left with the question about when and how the pandemic will end.

Unity—and nothing less than global unity spanning all of humanity—is the key to solving the COVID-19 pandemic. Until we unite around the world and start relating to this problem globally, where we care about everyone worldwide as we care about ourselves, then the pandemic will continue chipping away at us. Unity, mutual consideration and mutual support are thus necessary if we are to exit this pandemic.

We need to see humanity working in consent, together as one family, instead of seeing, for instance, some countries getting their populations vaccinated because they can afford to, and others not doing so because they cannot afford to.

Nature treats us all the same with this blow. We should thus learn from nature how it relates to us, and make steps toward relating to ourselves—all of humanity as a single entity—in the same way. Therefore, the key to defeating the pandemic is to be able to offer help where it is first needed, as much as possible. This requires global concern and consent beyond our individual and national concerns.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by NASA on Unsplash

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My new article on Linkedin “IMF: Covid Scars the Vulnerable the Most”

On the homepage of its website, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) writes that it is “an organization of 190 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.” In a report the IMF published recently, titled After-Effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic, the organization concludes that “The degree of expected scarring varies across countries, depending on the structure of economies… Emerging market and developing economies are expected to suffer more scarring than advanced economies.” As usual, the rich and powerful get away with everything, and the exploited weak bear the brunt. We don’t need an organization of 190 countries to know that this is the case, but to change it. When it does nothing to change it, it means that its purpose is not to change the situation but to perpetuate it, mask the ploy from the vulnerable, and if possible, collect a few compliments on its great service to society.

The pandemic is a blessing for the rich and powerful. They use organizations like the IMF as lip-service, and I have zero expectations from them. When they act, it is only in order to gain even more wealth and power. When you bring them an idea, start with what benefit they will get out of it. If you don’t, don’t waste your time or theirs. Things won’t change until the poor raise an outcry that they can no longer survive. Then, things will get interesting. But the clash will be short-lived. In the end, nothing will change because the ego has not changed.

The pandemic is a blessing for the rich and powerful. They use organizations like the IMF as lip-service, and I have zero expectations from them. When they act, it is only in order to gain even more wealth and power. When you bring them an idea, start with what benefit they will get out of it. If you don’t, don’t waste your time or theirs. Things won’t change until the poor raise an outcry that they can no longer survive. Then, things will get interesting. But the clash will be short-lived. In the end, nothing will change because the ego has not changed.

If the rich can get away from the crowd by hopping on a private jet to a resort in the Maldives, what incentive will they have to change anything? It looks like things will change only when humanity is lying face down in the gutter. As long as heads of states can get away from it all, and get away with it, nothing will change. On the contrary, there will be “world peace” based on a global economy where people have equally nothing, and a global moral system that says, “Steal as much as you can, however you can, and wherever you can.”

You would think that there is no point talking about the situation, but that is not the case. A change will come, but it will happen only when the lie is exposed to the whole world, and the world cannot ignore it. When this happens, humanity will not sit idly when more than 400,000 people are diagnosed with Covid every single day in India alone, and 4,000 people die there for lack of oxygen and basic medical treatment or adequate facilities. A few weeks ago, this disgrace was happening in Brazil, now it is happening in India, in a few weeks it will happen elsewhere, and we don’t care until it hits us in the face. It isn’t just “aid” organizations that are indifferent; it is all of us.

If we cared, they wouldn’t dare. They wouldn’t have the audacity to contort their faces in phony frowns of sympathy.

Sincerely, I have no hope that a change will come from suffering. People will continue to ache until they feel that death is better than living, but they will still not change. The only thing that will eventually change us is the realization that our only strength is in each other. Then, when people turn toward each other, they will realize that they cannot unite, that their hearts are frozen, and this is why they’re suffering. Only when people try to merge their hearts will they realize that their egoism is their enemy, the cause of their afflictions, and that all along, it has been fooling them into thinking that it is someone else’s fault.

When we try to form a bond, we will finally find the strength and gumption that we need in order to overcome our ordeals. The horrific future on our path will materialize only if we remain oblivious to the solution of unity, the only solution that can work.

Human suffering is not written in stone; it is written in our hearts of stone. If we turn our hearts toward each other, it will soften them, and this will soften our fate.

Nature isn’t cruel. No animal suffers as much as we do, unless we afflict it on them. The only thing that’s cruel in nature is human nature. If we change it, by reaching out to one another and forming a bond that is similar to the bonds among all parts of nature, nature will cease its lashing at us. Then, and only then, we will begin to heal, and start living for real.
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My new article on Linkedin “Who Comes to Study”

People often ask me who is the most likely person to become a Kabbalah student, and why some people take interest in it, and some do not, or even reject it. Well, the first thing I mention are the known words of Baal HaSulam, the author of the Sulam [Ladder] commentary on The Book of Zohar, who wrote that Kabbalah is for anyone who asks about the meaning of life. However, many people ask about the meaning of life but don’t end up studying Kabbalah, so while most everyone who comes to study Kabbalah had frequently asked about the meaning of life, not everyone who has asked about the meaning of life end up studying Kabbalah.

Especially today, when the ego is destroying every part of human society, and every person individually, it is especially important to know how we can rein the ego and use it constructively.

Covid has increased the level of people’s anxiety dramatically. Many of them even started to ask about the meaning of life. However, this in itself is not enough to become a serious Kabbalah student. People have gone through all kinds of states during the pandemic: They’ve suffered blows for no apparent reason, felt powerless to deal with them, were forced into an endless struggle for survival, and often had very little support from friends, family, or authorities. Such circumstances can easily drive a person to ask why they deserve the punishment, what is wrong with this life, and how come others are happy and they are not.

However, people entangled in the midst of a crisis are (usually) not the best candidates for studying Kabbalah. Kabbalah is a long process that requires commitment on the part of the student. Therefore, I would say that the best candidates for Kabbalah studies are those who are not in the midst of a crisis, but have experienced one (or more) before, and have since stabilized their lives. Nevertheless, the question about life’s meaning does not let up. When this happens, it is a sign that the question is deep enough to make a person a serious and committed student.

When a person begins to study Kabbalah, new horizons open up. The expanded perception of reality transcends the familiar norms and boundaries that the student was accustomed to or grew up on. This takes away much of the burdens of life, and many “guilt trips” that we all have are lifted because the realization of how things work reveals that we are all ego-driven and therefore cannot really help being selfish.

At the same time, it does not make a student reckless because the wisdom of Kabbalah also teaches how we can become masters of our egos. We do not destroy it or suppress it, but rather harness its powers for positive purposes and make it work for the common good. This is why Kabbalah students are on the one hand very individual, but on the other hand are highly committed to society and collaborate enthusiastically for everyone’s success.

Especially today, when the ego is destroying every part of human society, and every person individually, it is especially important to know how we can rein the ego and use it constructively. Therefore, those who are ready and willing to learn Kabbalah seriously have much to gain from their studies, and society will gain from their learning even more than they themselves will gain.
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My new article on Linkedin “We’ve Got Vaccines, When Will We Be Healed?”

Since December 11, 2020, there have been FDA approved vaccines available for use. Since then, the virus has only spread further and broke record after record of new cases and deaths. Brazil, India, and even Sweden are seeing rising numbers of confirmed cases and their health systems are on the brink of collapse, if they haven’t already faltered. At the same time, some countries are emerging from the crisis. Israel, for example, has had a day without Covid-19 deaths for the first time in nine months. The US is also seeing diminishing numbers, though it is still not out of the woods.

Until we realize that the problem is not with Covid, but with us, and specifically with our relations, we will not be healed. Each country, even those that currently appear to have defeated the virus, will suffer their own blows. We will be healed only when we realize that our attitude toward each other is our real sickness, that this is the real plague. There isn’t, and cannot be a vaccine for human cruelty; we can cure it only through sincere efforts to build positive ties, to transcend our mutual alienation.

Nevertheless, even countries that now appear to be winning, have other blows waiting in the pipeline. The pandemic has landed on humanity for a reason: to force us to understand that we have to change our attitude—first toward each other, and then toward the rest of the world. But despite nearly 150 million cases, and more than three million deaths, we have not learned a thing. Until we understand that the problem is with us, and not with the virus, we will keep suffering blows. If we don’t understand it through the coronavirus, we will understand it through some other crisis.

Besides the illness, Covid has far-reaching consequences that are even worse than the disease itself, which is horrible enough. Widespread joblessness, other health issues, and social crises are all consequences of Covid, but there is more. The climate crisis is worsening, political tensions are rising, and the future of humanity seems bleak on all fronts. The initial lockdowns were actually helpful in moderating some of the adverse effects of humanity on the climate, but that moderation was short-lived and repeated lockdowns proved detrimental on other aspects.

Until we realize that the problem is not with Covid, but with us, and specifically with our relations, we will not be healed. Each country, even those that currently appear to have defeated the virus, will suffer their own blows. We will be healed only when we realize that our attitude toward each other is our real sickness, that this is the real plague. There isn’t, and cannot be a vaccine for human cruelty; we can cure it only through sincere efforts to build positive ties, to transcend our mutual alienation. Covid-19 is one way to convey this message to humanity, but nature can land plenty of other blows that will force us to acknowledge that we are dependent on each other. The sooner we learn that the healing is between us, the sooner we will overcome the virus.

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My new article on Linkedin “Israel – an Illusory Defeat of Covid”

As of Sunday, April 18, 2021, wearing masks in open spaces is no longer mandatory in Israel. For some time now, new cases have been dropping and hospitals are growing emptier as more patients leave for home and far fewer come in. The majority of the population is inoculated and it seems as though Israel has defeated Covid-19. I wish it were that easy, but I understand that this cannot be the case. We haven’t completed the process that instigated the arrival of the virus, so I am certain that if not Covid, something else, worse than Covid, will come along and pick up where Covid left off.

Without hope, people have nothing to live for. They sink into depression, substance abuse, commit suicide, or seek refuge in violence, as the US has seen over the past few months, with 147 mass shootings since January, according to CNN.

I’m not trying to scare people, but we need to be aware because awareness can help us prepare, and if we don’t prepare, it will hurt much worse. The current vaccines are like aspirin; they treat the symptoms but they don’t cure the disease. And since the disease keeps developing regardless of the symptoms, the next time it breaks out, its symptoms will be much worse. As long as we keep trying to suppress the symptoms, our solutions will be temporary and will end up with worse outbreaks of the illness once they stop working. If we want a real defeat over Covid, as opposed to the current, illusory one, we must uproot its cause.

The root cause of Covid, and of virtually all our problems, is emotional rather than physical. More specifically, it is social rather than individual. The sickness is not in each person individually but in the whole of society. However, in each person, the same sickness manifests in different ways. Just as Covid can manifest in many symptoms—sometimes so unrelated that physicians fail to detect that they are caused by the coronavirus—this root cause generates many illnesses that seem unrelated, yet stem from the same septic seed.

That cause is social alienation. Social alienation, which has worsened dramatically since the turn of the century, is depleting our emotional strength and physical resilience, draining our spirit from optimism and hope, and makes life seem purposeless.

Without hope, people have nothing to live for. They sink into depression, substance abuse, commit suicide, or seek refuge in violence, as the US has seen over the past few months, with 147 mass shootings since January, according to CNN. We may not all feel pathological symptoms, but we should have no qualms about it; we are all affected. Our physical health deteriorates, our mental health declines, and our spirit becomes drained.

We’re making great efforts to legalize drugs in order to make life’s burdens easier to bear, but we’re not making any serious efforts to remove the burden altogether, even though we can. If we remove the burden of alienation, we won’t need to disconnect from reality into a dream world since reality will be great, positive, optimistic. Who wants to disconnect from life when there are great promises ahead and a clear path to achieving them?

If we start focusing on human connection, bonding, increasing mutual understanding, empathy, and mutual responsibility, we will dramatically improve every aspect of our lives. We will nearly eliminate depression related disorders, all forms of violence will drop to near zero, people’s overall health and vitality will skyrocket, and crime will virtually disappear. Instead of feeling locked inside our homes, we will feel belonging. We will feel connected to our families, to our communities, towns, and to the country, and we will gladly share and contribute what we can to the overall well-being.

A society whose members feel responsible and accountable for one another truly cares for its townsfolk and countryfolk. Its members don’t need policing; their concern for one another guides them to behave not only in a civil manner toward others, but to actively seek the well-being of their community members. Think of where we are today compared to the kind of society we need to be in, and you will understand what harm we’re doing to ourselves through our mutual hostility.

Our hampered immune system, debilitated by endless attempts to protect ourselves from others’ ill-will, is losing its ability to protect us physically. Thus, increasingly susceptible, we are becoming “sitting ducks” for viruses, which sicken us in droves. If we want to defeat Covid-19, and the viruses that will soon follow, we must focus on defeating alienation.
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My new article on Linkedin “Covid Has One Message for Israel, and One for the World”

More than a year after its outbreak, the world is still grappling with Covid-19. More than three million people have died from the virus, and in some countries, the pandemic is still spreading despite at least six companies that manufacture vaccines. At the same time, Israel has revoked the instruction to wear masks in open spaces, completely reopened its schools and entertainment facilities, and Covid numbers are dropping. With more than half the population inoculated, Israel seems to have overcome the virus.

I think we have to spread the message that the only justified reason for taking off the masks is to smile at each other, but sincerely, from the heart. The smile, or rather the feeling behind it, is the real cure for the virus. If Israel uses the opportunity it’s been given to increase its solidarity and unity, it will become a positive example to the world. If it uses it to revert to the old and nasty ways, the world will turn against us.

This is a precarious situation for the State of Israel. People always feel that Israel is winning at their expense, and Covid will be no exception. While they are dying in droves, we are celebrating our reclaimed freedom. While their economies are crashing, ours is quickly recovering.

Therefore, I think we have to spread the message that the only justified reason for taking off the masks is to smile at each other, but sincerely, from the heart. The smile, or rather the feeling behind it, is the real cure for the virus. If Israel uses the opportunity it’s been given to increase its solidarity and unity, it will become a positive example to the world. If it uses it to revert to the old and nasty ways, the world will turn against us.

There is only one thing that can help humanity against Covid-19: connection. It may be hard to do, but it is easy to understand that only if countries work together, if there is solidarity, it will be possible to defeat the virus. As I’ve written in countless articles and two books, the leader in connection must be Israel. It is our role, our duty, to set an example of unity, yet it is the one thing we are not doing.

We can look at the break from the virus we’ve been given as an advance that the world has given us, but if we don’t pay back with connection, it will demand its debt. The frozen state of the world, its paralysis, can only be thawed by Israel’s example of warmth among ourselves. This is the only example that we need to give, and the nations will know how to use it to their benefit. But if we don’t start, nor will the world. The onus is on us, and so is the reward or punishment.

For more on this topic, refer to the books Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour, and The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord.

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My new article on Linkedin “How to End Covid-19”

Every country in the world is grappling by itself with the woes of Covid-19. Germany is on its way to yet another lockdown; France is already under lockdown; India breaks records in new confirmed cases, and Brazil breaks records in Covid deaths. There was a time when we felt that the pandemic is everyone’s problem, and then presidential candidate Joe Biden said “An infection anywhere is an infection everywhere.” Now, each country is fighting the bug on its own. The UN Director General complained about inequality in administering the vaccines, and while some countries have vaccinated half of their population, others have not received a single dose of any of the vaccines.

Currently, each country thinks of its own interest and behaves as selfishly as we always have. At the same time, the global nature of Covid-19 requires that we start thinking globally about our health rather than locally, since every country affects every other country. Also, financial ability to afford the vaccines should not be a consideration in administering it.

If we continue this behavior, there will be no end to this pandemic. Variants will keep emerging and the spreading will continue. If we want to resolve this crisis, we must return to the perception of the pandemic as a global problem and treat it as such. There needs to be a global vaccine bank, and we must produce enough vaccines for all of humanity. Afterwards, we must prioritize who should get it first: by age, by country, etc. It needs to be as impartial as possible.

Currently, each country thinks of its own interest and behaves as selfishly as we always have. At the same time, the global nature of Covid-19 requires that we start thinking globally about our health rather than locally, since every country affects every other country. Also, financial ability to afford the vaccines should not be a consideration in administering it.

To put it simply, we must treat humanity the way we would treat our own family. If we do this, we will at least try to send the vaccines where they are most required, and that way we will all recover from the pandemic much faster. We must keep in mind that until we all recover from it, no one is safe. In a way, the plague is a lesson in consideration that nature is giving us. So far, we have been poor students.

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My new article on Linkedin “Some Lives Are Worth More in Our Egoistic World”

Covid-19 has claimed nearly 350,000 lives in Brazil, vaccinations are infuriatingly sluggish, and thousands of casualties are added to the tally each day. In the meantime, European countries have access to vaccines, and their daily tallies are in the lower triple digits. Yet, the tragedy unfolding in Brazil gets little to no media attention while the struggle in Europe, which, by the way, could have been even more successful if it weren’t for bureaucratic incompetence, is getting the full spotlight. Are Brazilian lives worth less?

As I have stated countless times, we’re in a different time now, when the interconnections between us impose an all-encompassing solution. We will not be healed from the virus, in one mutation or another, until we heal our egoism. Until then, any reprieve from its whip will be short-lived, and every blow that will follow will be more painful than the former.

Judging by the media coverage, the answer is clear. However, in truth, the answer is even worse than “Yes, they are worth less.” The uneven attention that the tragedy unfolding in Brazil, and in a few other countries in South America, demonstrates the level of self-absorption we have reached. It is now at a point where it is impossible to answer the question of the value of life simply because no one gives it a single thought. Life, it seems, is not worth discussing, but only rating and coverage.

This is not news, of course, but when it becomes so patent, it’s still worth mentioning, even if only to remind ourselves of the nature of our being. Humans, we are seeing once again, are selfish to the core.

Let’s ask ourselves a question: If, for the sake of argument, we could do whatever we want, whenever we wanted, and no one, absolutely no one, would know about it, point the finger at us, punish us, or reproach us in any way, what would our world be like? How would we behave if that were the case? As I’m sure you can imagine, we have much more to learn about our nature than has been revealed. Perhaps it would be wise to imagine what we’d do if we could rather than wait for it to manifest, since we see that gradually, what we do not imagine, materializes in reality.

If I could give humanity the best present, I’d make everyone see the real human nature as quickly and as harmlessly as possible. This would make us search sincerely for a correction of our nature rather than apply makeshift fixes that let the fester swell up even worse until it painfully explodes.

Still, the pandemic won’t let up. As I have stated countless times, we’re in a different time now, when the interconnections between us impose an all-encompassing solution. We will not be healed from the virus, in one mutation or another, until we heal our egoism. Until then, any reprieve from its whip will be short-lived, and every blow that will follow will be more painful than the former.

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My new article on Linkedin “Covid Not Incentive for Antisemitism”

The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs 2020 Antisemitism Report argues that last year was good in the sense that in the previous year, no Jews were murdered for being Jews. At the same time, the report laments the rise of what it considers the most decisive power driving antisemitism in the previous year: the Covid-19 pandemic.

We should know better. Jews have always been blamed for the world’s woes. Were Jews not blamed for the Black Death in the Middle Ages? Were Jews not blamed for Germany’s woes before World War II broke out? And when Jews aren’t blamed for something as tragic as the Black Death, they’re still blamed for every little pain. In fact, Jews are hated even when there is nothing at all to blame them for.

Unless, of course, we put a stop to it. We, Jews, are the unexpected holders of the key to ending antisemitism. And once again, it is not a circumstantial solution. Nor is it a matter of policy, ideology, or stifling of antisemitic outbursts. We can and should apply sticking plaster solutions when possible, but we must not think that they will solve the problem. If we believe they will, reality will explode in our faces.

These days, the trend is to blame Israel for the intensification of antisemitism, as though this or that policy of the Israeli government will change how the world feels about Jews. I was born in Eastern Europe right after the war; almost my entire family perished in the Holocaust. There was no State of Israel to blame, and my family certainly didn’t cause the downfall of Germany in World War I, but they were murdered nonetheless. Their only “fault” was that they were Jews. Once it is legitimate to assail Jews, no pretext is needed, and no brutality is off limits.

According to the Internet Archive, since the Bar Kokhba Revolt, which ended in 135 CE, Jews have been expelled from their host countries, or altogether exterminated, more than 800 times! These pogroms predate the State of Israel, racism, and even Christianity. In fact, antisemitism is as old as Judaism itself. Therefore, if we want to find the solution to Jew-hatred, we have to look deeper than attributing it to some passing crisis that is here today and gone tomorrow.

But perhaps the most intriguing fact about Jew-hatred is the apparent dichotomy between the development of a country and the intensity and ferociousness of its antisemitism. Of all the countless atrocities that non-Jews have inflicted on Jews, none did so more potently and painfully than the most powerful nations of their time. Egypt under Pharaoh was the first, followed by Babylon, which ruined the First Temple. Then came Greece with the temporary destruction of the Second Temple, followed by Rome, which destroyed the Second Temple beyond repair and let the Jews destroy each other in a gruesome civil war. In the 15th century, Spain, a mighty and enlightened empire, expelled all the Jews from its midst in the second most traumatic event since the ruin of the Second Temple, and finally, the Holocaust that Nazi Germany had wrought on European Jewry was the worst trauma since the ruin of the Second Temple. In all those episodes, the decimators were the most advanced, cultured, and civilized nations of their time. But at some point, something made them turn against the Jews and let the monster loose.

Since this pattern has persisted throughout history, and only the pretexts changed to suit the circumstances, there is no reason to expect it to change going forward. The future of the Jews, it seems, is bleak, and another blow is nearing. Whether it will strike the State of Israel, American Jewry, or both is anyone’s guess, but there is no question that the two most developed and advanced Jewish communities are the targets of the next great blow to the Jewish people.

Unless, of course, we put a stop to it. We, Jews, are the unexpected holders of the key to ending antisemitism. And once again, it is not a circumstantial solution. Nor is it a matter of policy, ideology, or stifling of antisemitic outbursts. We can and should apply sticking plaster solutions when possible, but we must not think that they will solve the problem. If we believe they will, reality will explode in our faces.

The real solution lies not with the world, but with the Jews themselves. This is why this hatred persists through any circumstance. We must look for the solution not in how the world treats us, but in how we treat ourselves. Our relationships with one another generate the hatred of the nations toward us. It may sound outlandish, but our sages have known this throughout the ages, yet the people were reluctant to heed their advice.

Note that our sages do not attribute the ruin of the First Temple to the Babylonian conquest, but to the bloodshed and corruption within Israel. Likewise, they do not attribute the ruin of the Second Temple to the Romans, but to baseless hatred of the Jews for one another. Time and time again, they tell us that if we unite, no harm will come to us; time and time again we pay them no attention, conveniently adopt the victim narrative, and blame our woes on others.

When I look at the global political climate, I do not think it bodes well for the Jews. I don’t know how much time we have, but I do not believe it will be very long before the dark clouds on the horizon amass into a storm front that will unleash its wrath on the Jews. Worse yet, from what I can see, it will not be a single country that will give a free rein to hatred, but the entire world; there will be no escape. This is why I think it is so urgent that we apply the one cure we haven’t tried since before the ruin of the Temple: unity.

The incentive for antisemitism, our sages tell us, is our hatred of each other, and the cure for it is our unity, “as one man with one heart.”

For more on this topic, you may refer to the books Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour and The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord.
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My new article on Linkedin “World leaders’ Call for Pandemic Treaty Exposes International Ill-Will”

On March 30th, AP’s Maria Cheng reported, “More than 20 heads of government and global agencies called … for an international treaty for pandemic preparedness that they say will protect future generations in the wake of COVID-19.” Cheng added that World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and several heads of state proposed “a renewed collective commitment” that will provide “a framework for international cooperation and solidarity.”

The future may seem forbidding, but I think that in fact, we should be grateful that we are living through such a transformational period in history. We are transitioning from a self-centered society to a connected humanity. Since we already know the direction, we can choose whether to go there fast and easily, or slow and painfully. How many generations could say that they have a clear path for all of humanity? I think we are lucky, but we should seize the opportunity and ride the wave. We shouldn’t be afraid; there is no need to suffer. We can join hands and build together a world where people care for one another, where there are no pandemics, no wars, and no alienation. The choice is ours; we can take it or leave it.

On the face of it, it is a good idea. In practice, it will lead nowhere. Cheng herself noted that “Although the 25 signatories of the commentary called for ‘solidarity,’ and greater ‘societal commitment,’ there was no indication any country would soon change its own approach to responding to the pandemic.” Moreover, “China, Russia and the United States didn’t join in signing the statement,” she wrote, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki went as far as stating that the treaty “could divert attention away from substantive issues regarding the response, preparedness for future pandemic threats,” effectively sealing its fate before it was born.

Once again, alienation prevents an initiative from succeeding. If every country caters only to its own interests, how will they be able to solve any global problem, especially when they are as widespread as the Covid-19 pandemic? And since they can’t, they are paying the price. Already, Europe is facing a third wave, Brazil is nearing 4,000 Covid fatalities per day, and the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) director Dr. Rochelle Walensky passionately warned of a fourth wave saying, “Right now, I’m scared …of impending doom.”

We are approaching a tipping point; we will have to choose between solidarity or pain, great pain. Reality has given us an ultimatum, and we must choose whether to stay selfish and suffer, or start thinking of each other. This choice will manifest on every level: international, national, social, and personal. Solidarity is the call of the hour; if we do not heed it voluntarily, it will force itself on us or punish us. Nature has created the virus; nature has created us, and all our innovations will not outsmart nature, our creator.

The future may seem forbidding, but I think that in fact, we should be grateful that we are living through such a transformational period in history. We are transitioning from a self-centered society to a connected humanity. Since we already know the direction, we can choose whether to go there fast and easily, or slow and painfully. How many generations could say that they have a clear path for all of humanity? I think we are lucky, but we should seize the opportunity and ride the wave. We shouldn’t be afraid; there is no need to suffer. We can join hands and build together a world where people care for one another, where there are no pandemics, no wars, and no alienation. The choice is ours; we can take it or leave it.

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