Medium published my new article “Millennials at the Forefront of the Economic Pandemic, Why?”

REUTERS/Nora Savosnick

While the elderly are much more vulnerable to the coronavirus disease, the brunt of the economic pandemic certainly has a young face. Millennials in America and around the globe face a particular economic upheaval due to massive job losses in the service-related industries that provided their main source of income. This is no coincidence; the hardship comes as a call to action for the new generation to lead the world to a more promising future by rebuilding the old, failed economic and social systems.

The crisis demands a new education for a new lifestyle based on the same laws of mutual support and reciprocity that exist in nature.

For millennials — those born between 1981–1996 who are now 24–39 years old — the coronavirus epidemic has been especially harsh. They had not fully recovered from the 2008 financial crisis before being hit hard by this new crisis caused by COVID-19. Their limited savings affect their capacity to weather the crisis. A recent study revealed that 76% of surveyed millennials said their household income has been negatively affected by the pandemic, making them the hardest hit demographic and one struggling to cover their most basic needs.

The coronavirus pandemic has revealed how our current economic system founded on destructive competition at the expense of others leaves large swaths of society vulnerable and in danger of crumbling into dust in the blink of an eye. It shows how our current structures do not offer young people what they need to prosper. Feeling discouraged and frustrated, they see no future within such systems.

The millennials will be the pioneers, and they need to realize that all this upheaval is happening to them specifically to push them to take their future in their own hands and start creating a new and better world for everyone.

Although we may not yet grasp it, a huge change in reality is now underway. The pandemic has placed on the shoulders of a new generation of young people, one now suffering greatly, a special role and responsibility to build a new social structure that fosters stable connections above all the differences and disparities in society for the benefit of all.

Millennials beg to be heard, but we do not know how to listen since our generation still operates according to old paradigms. Until now, the careless patterns of human interactions that permeated our economic and social systems have created a vast chasm between the generations. To make matters worse, we have failed to build an educational system that is suitable for them. We have built a narrow and conflicted worldview around us that divides the world and forces everyone to fend for himself and compete with others at all cost.

The crisis demands a new education for a new lifestyle based on the same laws of mutual support and reciprocity that exist in nature.

A new wind is blowing in the world, changing orientation and old ways. Young people are sucked into a whirlpool of despair, the depths of which will push them to anchor on new safe shores. The safeguard and life-buoy in this scenario must be the tenet “love thy neighbor as thyself,” the most important principle for reaching endless fulfillment — the kind of perfection every human being aims at, and which is achievable only when all the contradictions within man connect in the mind and in the heart.

Meanwhile, the young generation fights a war for survival. We have yet to realize that something in reality is resetting, the old world is dying and a new one is being born. The change is rapidly evolving, so we have to hurry to keep up by quickly opening many courses and education centers to help young people transition smoothly between the two worlds. The millennials will be the pioneers, and they need to realize that all this upheaval is happening to them specifically to push them to take their future in their own hands and start creating a new and better world for everyone.

It would be wise on the part of countries and nations to provide young people with alternative shelters
in hotels and sponsor studies in how to survive in a new world that is founded on improved social relations and more balanced systems. Teach the young pioneers how to be citizens, not in the sense of habitants of a specific country but as builders of a new human society, founded on good connections that encircle everyone in brotherhood. From these young citizens tomorrow’s leaders will emerge. They will understand what forms the new state should take, what connections should prevail among people, and how to educate new generations. They will create a good and beautiful atmosphere that the entire society will enjoy.

This is the time for millennials to exert leadership by uniting all factions of society and merging them into one system with a common vision — a vision that America and the world needs for this generation and for those to come.
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Medium published my new article “COVID-19 Will Unite Us (even if against our will)”

Alongside rumors of a near-to-come vaccine, governments and municipalities face the reality of a lingering and fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic. Some are reinstating lockdowns, others are begging residents to abide by instructions, maintain a six-foot distance, and wear masks. Still others are fining residents, and in places where central governments are too weak to enforce, such as El Salvador, gangs enforce closure with baseball bats or — as in Colombia — with guns.

Governments, citizens, affluent, afflicted, capitalists, and socialists, everyone must transcend their restricted visions and look at the whole, the integral, which is all of humanity, and all of reality. Only if we act as one will we know what to do to heal our society and heal from the virus.

But a lockdown is not a work plan; it’s an emergency measure that can, at best, inhibit contagion but not finish it off. As soon as restrictions are lifted, infections return with a vengeance.

Worse yet, in some cases, such as that of the Argentinian trawler Echizen Maru, the virus seems to appear literally out of nowhere: The ship’s crew was all tested and came out negative, went into two weeks of isolation prior to sailing, and set out to sea. Somehow, after weeks at sea without contact with anyone besides the crew, all of a sudden, virtually the entire crew got COVID.

The coronavirus is a mysterious bug. At first we thought it affected only the lungs and the sick and elderly. Then we realized it affected much more than the lungs, that it causes blood clotting and affects other parts of the body. Then we realized it affects not only the elderly, but everyone, even embryos and infants, such as the mass contagion where 85 infants less than one year old have tested positive for coronavirus in one Texas county.

As if this is not enough, the UN “warns of global mental health crisis due to COVID-19 pandemic,” and patients and doctors are reporting “brain disorders found in mild, recovering COVID-19 patients.” It is no wonder that the UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres says that the world is “at the breaking point.”

Mr. Guterres not only observes the state of the world, he also points out the reason: lack of mutual responsibility. According to the Daily Mail, Guterres stated that the COVID-19 crisis “is exposing fallacies and falsehoods everywhere: The lie that free markets can deliver health care for all … the delusion that we live in a post-racist world, the myth that we are all in the same boat,” and that developed countries are strongly invested in their own survival and have “failed to deliver the support needed to help the developing world through these dangerous times.”

Reconstruction after the Breakdown

Before our very eyes, the invisible menace is crumbling our civilization. It has placed a mirror that exposed our disconnection and alienation from each other, as Guterres phrased it so well. It has shattered our illusions about ourselves. Our civilization of entitlement has come to its end, and out of the wreckage, a new humanity will rise.

Bit by bit, we will grasp, truly, in our hearts, that humanity abides by the same laws that govern the entire universe. We have yet to realize that we are part of nature, created by it, and therefore subject to its laws. Just as homeostasis, namely equilibrium between different but interdependent elements, governs all of nature, balance between receiving and giving must govern human society.

Humanity is an integral entity, an indivisible whole that seems divided only because of our self-centered perspective. When we look at the world, we seek to gain pleasure or avoid pain. By doing so, we analyze which part of what we are seeing will benefit us more or harm us less. Inadvertently, we divide the integral world into parts and miss the perception of the integral reality.

Because of this fractured perception, for example, our hearts always go out to the hunted animal when we watch nature films. We don’t realize that predators keep the flock healthy by eating mostly the sick and old animals, prevent overpopulation and the resulting depletion of vegetation. Keeping vegetation lush decreases soil erosion, which prevents streams from eroding their banks, and prevents mudslides and flash-floods. When you look through the prism of integrality, there is no good or bad; there is homeostasis, wholeness. When you look through the prism of personal benefit, there is only good or bad, hurting or being hurt.

This is the sad world that COVID-19 has come to end. It has come to admit us into an integral world where everything is one, complete, inseparable, and indivisible. Clearly, the virus is leading us there against our will. But it is stronger than us, so the more we insist on separation, the more we will suffer. No leader will be able to fight it, no protest will be able to restore the economy, and no vaccine will stop the transformation of society.

We are in the same boat even though we act as if we’re not. If we keep this up, we will all sink. Therefore, every person who understands the situation must carry on the message. Governments, citizens, affluent, afflicted, capitalists, and socialists, everyone must transcend their restricted visions and look at the whole, the integral, which is all of humanity, and all of reality. Only if we act as one will we know what to do to heal our society and heal from the virus.
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Remark: Many people fear losing the world these days.

My Comment: Indeed, I see it. But I personally have no fear. On the contrary, I am like that bird singing a new world so that I can already stand up and open to all. I think the sooner this happens—of course, with a soft landing—the better for humanity.

So far, everything is going according to plan. Humankind will gradually be freed from piling up all kinds of egoistic enterprises and ties. Involuntarily, people will become simpler in their ordinary lives; they will value relations between themselves more, either through suffering, or through awareness, but still it will come to them.

The change of worlds is an era.
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From KabTV’s “Today’s International Situation” 6/18/20

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New Life 1251 – Demanding Work Culture
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

Why have we exchanged life with work when it leads to such frustration? Does it really make us feel important and special? The excessive industry that we have established is destroying the planet and our inattention is destroying the nuclear family. It would be worthwhile for us to advance to a state where technology provides us with what is needed for existence and people are free to develop their spiritual lives.

It is preferable to invest energy in our inner development in life, to learn why we exist, etc. We would develop good relationships between people so we will not live in destructive competition, pressure, and hatred. In the future, people will understand how nature manages us and how we can interact with it; our lives will be full of culture, spirit, and satisfaction on another level.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1251 – Demanding Work Culture,” 6/8/20

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Question: What values does nature want to instill in man by sending a global crisis?

Answer: First of all, to get out of the swamp we were in, to brush ourselves off from the old world; this is already of great value.

Secondly, to shake off the old habits, re-evaluate previous values and occupations, even if it we do so reluctantly, if we don’t want to. Then we will see that nature shakes off all garbage from us, that in the end we will not be able to restore our small businesses built only on serving each other because there will be no one to serve.

The world that recovers from the coronavirus will be different. Most small businesses will stop operating. Many people will be out of work. Therefore, governments will need to create a completely new system of work, pay, and of keeping people occupied.

Payments, according to Kabbalah, should be made in the form of scholarships because through the Internet and TV people will be engaged in an integral understanding of the world, and the correct relationships between themselves, which the science of Kabbalah teaches them. In this way, they will begin to build the right society.

Seventy to eighty percent of the population will be engaged in this, including schoolchildren and retirees. And only twenty percent or less will be employed in manufacturing so that we can maintain our level of existence in a normal way.

This may take more than one coronavirus, many more. But in the end, we will arrive at this.

Question: Why should small businesses that provide service to each other stop working? There is a law “go and earn from each other.” Or do you propose a model of totalitarian communism where the government pays according to the needs of each resident of its state?

Answer: I am not offering any model. All I am saying is that people will not be able to start millions of small businesses again. They will no longer have the desire to do so. They won’t! The desire to acquire gifts, costume jewelry, gemstones, fashionable clothes, or to fly around the world—that is all transitory. People will gradually stop craving this. You will see for yourself.

No one is going to put any pressure on anyone. Our development will result in the fact that we will stop wanting it. We will not need the tinsel that we play around with in life. We will face more interesting, serious, global issues that need to be addressed radically.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 5/17/20

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 7/12/20

With COVID-19 on one hand, and swarms of locusts on the other, nature seems to have served us a double whammy this year, and we’ve only gone through half of it. As though ground by millstones, nature has stripped humanity of its wealth. We knew we were exploiting nature; we knew we were destroying our own planet, and we knew that we have been abusive and exploitative toward each other. We knew, but we didn’t really do much to stop it, so nature tumbled civilization like a deck of cards.

Now, just over six months into the year, nothing is left standing but Amazon. But as jobs vanish, so will online retail, and we’ll be left with nothing but the basics.

And this is the whole purpose. Call it nature, call it God, or call it life; whatever the title, reality is teaching us that we must build a society that tends to everyone’s needs. There is enough food and water for everyone, and there will enough be in the future, too, but civilization will survive only if it sees that everyone has access to these basics.

We have built a civilization based on exploitation, where nations, races, religions, and rulers vie for hegemony, and the winner takes all. We justified our depravity by saying that nature’s way is the survival of the fittest. But we have misunderstood the concept. It is not those who are the most fit who survive; it is those who most fit into their environment. To fit into the environment means to contribute to it, strengthen it, enrich and sustain it, rather than exploit it. We didn’t only misunderstand; we completely reversed the meaning of the term “to fit.”

Now nature will force us to start over. It will leave nothing of the old economy, the capitalism we so idealized. Nature will teach us how to build a society based on caring, sharing, and tending to each other. It will teach us to treat strangers like family, to give of ourselves not because we must, or because we want others’ to be indebted to us. We will give because giving will feel like living, and taking will be an embarrassment. Once our self-entitlement is ground thin, a new humanity will rise.

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Medium published my new article “A Bailout Plan for a Country in Pain”

Look around, we need a bailout plan, and we need it fast. COVID-19 is winning on all fronts, the economy is crashing, anxiety is rising, and aggression is winning. But there are things we can do, if we have the guts, gumption, and grit.

If people stay home idly for more than a few months, they will begin to lose their ability to commit. Once they are in that state, it will be virtually impossible to train them and make them productive for society, and they will remain a weight on the back of society.

First, we need to free the world from the illusion that the coronavirus is a passing phase. It is here to stay. It may not remain the coronavirus that we know today, but its quelling impact on the capitalistic world we’ve known for generations will remain. So whether we like it or not, capitalism as we know it is over, and the sooner we get over the withdrawal phase, the better.

Next, the majority of the job market that we know today will not survive the transition. Anything that is not essential for regular human sustenance will fade, though perhaps not immediately, and the remaining occupations will shrink in size and volume to a fraction of what they are today. Alongside the demise of the old job market, a new scope of jobs will emerge. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman referred to them as jobs that “create more value with hearts and between hearts.”

These jobs will be occupations that deal exclusively with bringing people together, increasing mutual responsibility within communities, mutual care and concern, and a sense of accountability and affinity even among strangers. To engage residents in the process, another aspect of this new social work will deal with providing knowledge about the shift that the world is going through. The information will be given via courses that will explain the nature of the change we’re going through, why all of a sudden the economy came crashing down, why we must be responsible for one another like never before, the benefits of such a change of mind and change of heart, and what would happen had we kept going the way we did until the outbreak of COVID-19. The two kinds of training — for enhancing solidarity and providing knowledge — will run side by side and will keep people busy at least as many hours as they would be occupied had they kept working as before, perhaps minus transit time.

Third, the transition period between the capitalist era and the new era must be as short as possible. Human nature loves rest and becomes accustomed to it almost instantaneously. As a result, if people stay home idly for more than a few months, they will begin to lose their ability to commit. Once they are in that state, it will be virtually impossible to train them and make them productive for society, and they will remain a weight on the back of society.

Fourth, alongside the shift in the job market, society will transform its values from admiration of the powerful and narcissistic to esteem for the empowering and altruistic. This will not be a society that worships superheroes, but one that honors those who bring it together in solidarity.

Fifth, preparing the next generation for life in the new world will require changes in the approach to learning, teaching, communication between teachers and students, and between students and students. As in society, so at school, the most commended students will be those who excel in helping their peers work together. The idea isn’t a novel one; it’s been around for more than a decade. Perhaps the best expression of the practicality of collaborative learning is a quote that patent lawyer Lawrence Ebert J.D. found in an essay about high-school cheating: “In no industry is collaboration considered cheating. Only in school is this a problem. What are we teaching our kids?”

We have very little time to make the change. COVID-19 is pressing and old certainties are crumbling. Fringe groups have become mainstream and extremities the norm. If the bailout plan begins without delay, it can take us across the water to the other bank in relative calm and safety. If we let the current carry us where it is going, we will drown.
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Question: Humanity does not know the concept and the instrument called intention. Can the wisdom of Kabbalah help us begin to operate mutually and correctly by using our intentions, even with those who do not have the point in the heart?

Answer: Every individual has an intention. A person’s attitude when he cooperates with others is actually determined by his intentions. This is a crucial component in our mutual relations. But we need to learn how to build and how to use our intentions, because our compatibility with the general, integral, global nature actually depends on them.

Question: What should we expect, as to whether humanity will change as a result of the coronavirus?

Answer: Don’t worry about that. It is already starting to change and it will change even more. If it doesn’t, there will be another virus and then another. Nature will hit us until we change.

Question: We always give love to others, but it is sometimes painful. How can we balance our relations with those we don’t get along with, with those who cause us pain?

Answer: If you are in the right society where people understand each other, you need to lower yourself and to do everything so that others will want to be in good relations with you.

Comment: We see what is going on in the world today as the coronavirus is spreading, but people still engage in “games” such as marketing, commerce, and banking.

My Response: I think that if not this virus, then the next virus will wipe out all this, and so all the games of money will no longer exist. I am confident that this will happen. We will undergo such shocks in the near future, that this whole system of games, shares, coupons and so on will simply shrink, and will belong to the past.

Question: How does our beastly fear change to the fear of the Creator?

Answer: It is only when you know that everything that the Creator demands is good. Then the beastly fear gradually changes to spiritual fear.

Question: Which professions will be most in demand in the future society?

Answer: In the future society the profession that will be most in demand is educator, a person who educates others to mutually cooperate with each other. This is what we teach.

Question: The pressure and the tension as a result of the confinement are already felt. People have grown tired and are beginning to engage in causing harm and destruction. Why is that?

Answer: People’s nerves are growing weak, and there is nothing with which they can fill themselves.

They don’t want to engage in developing themselves and in understanding nature correctly and the right connections between them. This is the reason there is unrest and violations of the social order. A lot can happen when you lock people up in one place.

Question: Can the ten be family members?

Answer: Preferably not.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/12/20

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Nature requires human society to be reorganized according to the principles of integration and rapprochement [establishment of harmonious relations] of people with each other. How will this affect the world of entrepreneurship? As a result, everyone should join in one common business around the globe as one humanity.

More than fifty years ago, we started talking about the butterfly effect, about universal dependence in a global integrated system. Fifty years ago, we did not want to make this change out of awareness and good will, and now we will have to do it involuntarily. We don’t want it and we don’t agree, but we have no choice. We will have to build unified public state economic and industrial systems in all sectors and all countries together.

The question arises: what practical steps should each business owner take to adapt it to the new integral law? The main problem is not how to execute the law, but who executes it. We should start by teaching all employees new relationships, connections, with each other as a single system, at least in the minimal way possible.

It is clear that integration is a multi-stage process, but it must begin. Therefore, we need to organize training courses for employees of each business. Everyone should know what the law of integration includes, where it comes from, what it requires of us, and why we are obliged to comply with it. Its implementation guarantees us great gains and success in general and in particular, that is, each in their personal life, and collectively in society and the whole world.

Those who can adapt themselves to the law of integration will be more successful in all the activities of this world. Gradually, everyone will have to come to this sooner or later.

Employees must understand that they depend on each other and are connected because they are in the same system. The success of an organization depends on how close employees are to reciprocating each other. This is understood even today, and much is being done to strengthen relationships in a team. But the main difference is that now this is done in order to increase one’s ability to compete, stomp on the opponent, and take his place.

In the integral world, we initially build such systems of relationships that everyone strives to be together, wants to help, and opens themselves to others. This approach guarantees their future success.

This is to the extent that if I see that another factory that produces the same product has managed to make it cheaper and better, then I shut down my entire manufacturing in order to help the competing company and the whole of humanity achieve the best results. I am guided by only one criterion: the benefit of humanity, the benefit of the consumer.

After all, why would I produce the same product and try to beat a competitor with all sorts of dirty ploys? I’d rather let the whole world enjoy the best product. I think about the benefits of the consumer, the benefits of the world, and in this I see my profit.

This is a real revolution, because until today, the business owner thought about how to break everyone and remain alone without competitors. And now, in order to succeed, he must take into account the law of integration, which turns around his way of thinking and forces him to care about the good of the consumer, the good of humanity. The concept of business changes radically.

I run my own business and know what is happening around the world in this field, I see who is producing the same product. We always give in to the one who is more successful and try to support and strengthen him. I act in the interest of the consumer, in the interest of the advancement of humanity, not in the interest of my personal pocket.

I can give my equipment to a competitor and help them in every way in order for them to succeed. And likewise in everything. This breaks the law of competition. Competition remains, but in a different form: whoever is better is whom we elevate. And all the others are included in him or disappear from the market altogether.

Businesspeople are always interested in the business perspective, that is, the answer to the question of what will be in demand tomorrow. What is most in demand in business right now is to sort out all the products produced by humanity, and remove everything that is not urgently needed. Closing unnecessary businesses is the most successful business.

The success of a business depends on good relationships between employees, not on equipment and skills. Professional training will take a back seat, giving way to human relationships. Within the relationships between people, we will begin to understand, feel, and discover how to do business more successfully. After all, success is determined only by our connections with each other.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life,” 6/22/20

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Question: What is it worth focusing on in a world of uncertainty, even in terms of work and family?

Answer: First of all, you need to learn how to make money from things you and other people need. It may not be such a high-profile job, but people need you. They need the results of your work.

Secondly, we need a family, a home, a job to provide for our family. However, in addition to the absolutely necessary things, we must think only about spiritual development, about how to begin feeling the world the way it really is and not distorted as it is in our egoistic qualities. And then it will become a completely different world.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/17/20

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