My article in Newsmax: “The Pandemic That Removed Humanity’s Mask”

If there is one visible element that epitomizes the drastic change in our lifestyles due to the pandemic, it is the massive use of masks. Our new, almost faceless society, opens up a whole new perspective on personal interactions, as some studies suggest that the covering of faces may raise suspicion between people. On the other hand, COVID-19 managed to slip through humanity’s mask to reveal our egoistic behavior, giving us an opportunity to rise above the external barriers between us and penetrate deep into each other’s hearts.

Wearing masks to prevent coronavirus contagion is a cultural paradigm strange to us in the Western world so “we may initially become extremely distrustful of one another,” said Francis Dodsworth, U.K. senior criminologist at the University of Kingston, in the current context when scholars around the world debate on how this new social condition will impact interpersonal relationships.

The face, just like the entire body, conveys information that helps us absorb non-verbal communication clues. The face helps us understand the other and know who is the person in front of us, and what are his sentiments and intentions. Therefore, the requirement to wear masks in public places because of the coronavirus has cut down on interpersonal message transmission and obstructed the non-verbal communication between us.

A Blessing in Disguise

I, for one, think that our mask-wearing reality is a good and interesting situation. It is beneficial to understand that we do not know or recognize the person in front of us. It is better to relate to the person as a stranger whom we do not really understand. After all, we do not know another’s desires and intentions — we have no clue or way to know.

Such a foggy situation demands of us to conclude that we simply have to make a big effort to know the person behind the mask. We should reach a level of communication that will activate an internal demand in us so that the person in front of us will open his heart. We should not look for signs in the other’s facial expressions, a smile or twist of the person’s mouth, all this is external. Rather, we should connect to the other person’s heart, and then we will feel certain that they mean well toward us. And if we behave with the same good intention toward others, in mutual responsibility, cooperation, and a positive attitude, we will not need any more masks or disguises because trust will be built.

COVID-19 is very sly. Its actions are not merely a biological matter, but through matter, the virus is operating on us and teaching us how to be human. Nature, as shown by the coronavirus, demands of us to change our interpersonal connections. If we maintain good interactions between us, we will be able to enjoy mutually beneficial relations. If we make no effort to improve the quality of our interactions, we will not be able to come closer to one another in any shape or form. We will be blocked from each other, unable to communicate, with an enormous sense of rejection that we will be unable to bond above, even without a mask and inches away from each other.

In order to reach the correct form of communication between us — which is the solid basis for any relationship — we must change and adapt ourselves to the standardized form of interaction that exists in nature, which is symbiotic and cooperative. Our next stage will be to create something more qualitative than a give-and-take connection, to focus our connections on truly benefiting others through a bond rooted in friendship and closeness of hearts.

Until our hearts are close and we consider ourselves as one society characterized by consideration and good attitude, we will continue to wear masks. In fact, what we need to do right now is pull a curtain over all our selfish desires and communicate heart-to-heart with our fellow people through the cover over our egotistical desires. It means that the intention and thoughts should be for the benefit of others and not at their expense. As we pull the curtain over any egotistical desires that pop up, we will gradually open our hearts to one another, like a channel of positive communication and understanding. Then humanity will put its best face forward.
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Medium published my new article “Predators that Heal Their Prey, and What We Can Learn from Supermarkets”

With air pollution rising in China to levels that were “normal” in the pre-COVID days, and with countries all over the world celebrating the reopening of their economies, the hope for change that many had nurtured during the clean-air-clear-water lockdown days seems to be fading. But nature has already shown us that it does not want us around the way we were. If we revert to normal, nature will revert to punishments, with a vengeance.

The problem is in our relationships. Nature doesn’t want us not because we eat other animals or emit carbon. It doesn’t want us because we’re mean to one another, and through our atrocities against each other, we are destroying the entire planet.

Humanity, the apex of creation, has harmed creation more than any other creature. In fact, it is the only creature ever to go against its maker: Mother Nature. The coronavirus was the first time nature has shown us that it can hit all of us, anywhere, anytime, if it so chooses. But it did it with compassion. The death toll from COVID-19 is really not much more than that of a seasonal flu, but it scared the living daylight out of us. It was the first time that common folk and state leaders alike stood stumped and helpless before Mother Nature.

Nature sent us a message: I will not tolerate our self-centered wantonness. It will not tolerate our looting and killing, depleting and polluting, poisoning and smothering everything and everyone just so we can be at the top of the heap of debris we have created along the way.

Every other creature but humanity behaves just as it should, and in doing so contributes to the common good. In children’s movies, we often paint cruel faces on predators such as tigers or wolves. But the truth is that these predators prevent overpopulation of their prey and a resulting depletion of their sources of food, and keep their herds healthy and strong by eating the weak and sick.

A wolf will not kill more than one deer or moose at a time. After the kill, it will eat all it needs and will go to rest until the next time it is hungry. Humans are the exact opposite: They kill far more than they need in order to eat, and take pride in killing the strongest and healthiest animals. People don’t kill to eat; they kill to show off their strength.

Let’s take another example. When you go to the dairy section in any modern supermarket, you will find an endless array of cheeses. Twenty, thirty, or forty years ago these cheeses didn’t exist. They only appeared because dairy food makers compete over customers, so they produce an ever growing diversity of foods hoping to get more and more shelf space at the expense of other producers. In the process, more than half of the production is thrown out, the product price spikes, more resources are needlessly extracted from the ground, more animals are mistreated, the air becomes more polluted with emissions of machines and trucks, traffic becomes more congested, and employees of competing companies lose their jobs because their company couldn’t bring their product to the store shelves. Every time we choose one cheese over another, we inadvertently make a lot of people miserable.

The problem is not what we consume, and certainly not that we enjoy good food and other amenities that life has to offer. On the contrary, I’m all for it. The problem is in our relationships. Nature doesn’t want us not because we eat other animals or emit carbon. It doesn’t want us because we’re mean to one another, and through our atrocities against each other, we are destroying the entire planet.

This is why I am putting such an emphasis on education and not on reduction of consumption or other restrictions. They will not help unless we fix the problem where it lies — between us, in our desire to destroy one another.

By forcing us to stay home, the coronavirus forced us to stop competing, and with it, we stopped destroying Earth. If we return to biting at each other’s throats, nature will send another envoy that will set us apart more firmly until we learn the lesson.

Since we are already permitted to congregate and interact, let’s use the break that we were given to start over, to try to be better to each other. Just as our ill-will toward each other sickened the Earth, which then sickened us, our good will toward each other will heal us, then heal the Earth.
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Remark: As you know, in China people are very disciplined. They were told to sit in closed apartments and they sat. They were told to wear masks, so they did. Everything is very precise there. Therefore, the virus began to decline and China is returning to normal.

But there is a different question. People sat indoors together for a prolonged period of time. Husband with wife and so on. Now a flurry of divorce proceedings has begun in China.

The city of Fuzhou even introduced a limit of only 10 divorces per day. These are consequences of the virus: the collapse of families, the breakdown of relations between people.

My Comment: People in China are different in general . They worked 15-hour days. Suddenly they are together for these 15 hours. You can go crazy! They did not know each other.

They knew each other only when they interacted at home. That is all. Suddenly they saw: Is this my wife? It was not enough just to ask: What is your name? This is the extent to which many people currently do not interact with each other.

If they do interact, then it is not with each other. What about the kitchen? What are we going to eat? What is here and what is there? That is, outside of myself. Outside of you and outside of me. Something between us.

Question: Doesn’t it seem that the virus turned out to be a test of family relationships for people?

Answer: Yes, they did not have family relationships. They were forced to start a family, get married. They ended up together. Even though they had been living together for 20 years, this was not called life. Now it turns out that this is called life and family. No one agrees.

Question: You are known as an adversary of divorces. You always say that it is the last resort. The most extreme because the family has children and so on.

Still, how do people coexist? Now many are in this state—together in enclosed spaces, and suddenly they begin to notice each other, as you say. How can they not break up their life together?

Answer: First, we must accept a priori that we all are not angels. All of us are twisted by fate, by the upper force. None of us are holy. Naturally, we do not even know each other. We do not know ourselves. Therefore, you can change many, many times in your life. But when you have children you are responsible for them.

It does not matter what your relationship with your wife or husband is, you carry a responsibility for the children you gave birth to. You cannot buy it off with money. You must participate in their formation, growth, and education.

So, you can give millions to your children, but still, they will not consider you a father if you are not with them. On the contrary, you and your whole family may be starving, but if you are with them, they will consider you a father and will not blame you for leaving them.

Therefore, divorce is the most final, I would even say, beyond-final, foreign state. If there are children, I would not allow divorces. If there are no children, then this is another matter.

Talk to many, mostly to the fathers who left their children, and ask them how do the children relate to them? You will hear (I heard it many times in my life) that the children never approved of the father because he left them. He left them! He did not leave the mother, but left them! They perceive this as a betrayal. You cannot pay it off with money. Not with anything!

Remark: See what the virus has done. Still, a person should ask himself these questions.

My Comment: This is because there is no proper education. This is why they see family as such. The virus is doing us justice by gradually showing us, by exposing our entire system as completely unacceptable for the existence of the human race.

Education is what humanity needs. All resources, everything that is now being freed up, except for those necessary for existence, must be used toward education.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/18/20

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 5/14/20

Quite probably, no danger has been downplayed more than the coronavirus. Since case 1, the virus has been described as a type of flu, a negligible threat to health, and basically, a non-issue. Yet, we can already see that this bug has a huge impact on human society. Covertly, COVID-19 has smashed the foundations of human civilization. Within two months, humanity has capitulated to an enemy it cannot see, hear, smell, taste, or touch, and whose noxiousness is questionable.

Flu or no flu, one by one, governments revoked all public activities, religious and political congregations, professional conventions, sports and entertainment, shopping centers, factories, hi-tech companies, transportation, and recreation. Despite the unimaginable cost, heads of state succumbed in droves to the bug and stopped their nations in their tracks.

Even more extraordinary, now, as governments are trying to restart their countries, people aren’t excited to partake. It’s not only that they’ve had no income during the lockdown, though this is true as well. It is deeper than that: Humanity is losing interest in a civilization that hails people according to their wallets.

Though policy makers and tycoons are urging people to pick up where they left off two months ago, as they stand to gain the most from the recovery, at our expense(s), this will not happen, not this time. People have changed.

Not only tycoons and policy makers have been given a humbling lesson by the virus, we all have. We’ve all learned how vulnerable we are, how dependent we are on each other for our most basic needs, from health and food to human compassion. We have learned that what really makes us happy is warm families and good friendships, not hot trends and smirking colleagues.

We are learning to be equal. We are realizing that it is more rewarding to complete than to compete, that it is so rewarding to share, to care, and to be free at last from our egoistic selves. By submitting our egos, COVID-19 has given us life.

And as every toddler does, we are taking baby-steps. At times we will stumble, at times we will fall, but our goal must be clear all along: We are learning to unite. If we strive to live in unity, life itself will teach us what we must keep from the past, and what we must cast away. We need not make decisions in advance, just try to bond with one another and see what kind of society emerges, how it caters to its members, rewards its champions, and reproaches its foes.

As our values change, so will our causes for joy and for sorrow. Our aspirations will effortlessly adjust themselves to the new environment, and we will thrive when everyone around us thrives.

Since human bonding will be the ultimate goal of society, we will not be afraid for ourselves, for our children, or for others in our care. We will not need to worry about food, housing, health care, education, friends for our children or friends for ourselves. Simply, we will not need to worry. And the only demand of us will be to do the same good for others as they do for us.

We should fear the virus and tend to our health, but we should also be thankful that it came to our aid. It saved us from killing each other and destroying our planet; it gave us a chance to start over. So in all honesty, I am grateful for the lesson in humility that COVID-19 has given us all.

[Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash]

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 5/14/20

Often, when I say that COVID-19 is educating humanity, people wince a little, as if I said something inappropriate. People don’t like to be educated; they like to be on top, and education means absorbing knowledge from someone else, which puts the educator above and the student below. But what if you knew that the teacher wanted nothing but what’s best for you? What if you knew that the teacher loved you and wanted you to succeed and have the best life you can have? Wouldn’t you learn gladly?

Our whole problem is that we think we are at war with nature, so we’re trying to dominate it. But nature created us; we can’t be above it or win against it, however hard we try. Moreover, nature has no desire to harm us. It is harmonious, and maintains all its components in harmony with one another. Humans are the only element in nature that resists this harmony and wants to be on top.

By impelling us to quarantine ourselves, nature showed us its beauty, brought itself to our doorsteps (often quite literally), cleaned the air and the water, and educated us about the harm we have been causing to ourselves and our surroundings all along.

Now that we are coming out of lockdowns, we can choose to maintain harmony with nature, or dump it and resume our self-indulging festivities. If we choose the former, nature will reward us tenfold. We will be far healthier, safer, and happier than ever. If we choose self-indulgence, nature, like a vigilant teacher, will punish again, but more severely, since we wouldn’t learn the first time. The choice, as always, is ours.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 5/6/20

We often state that the human ego causes all the problems and without it everything would be great in the world. But there’s a very good reason for the existence of the enormous human ego.

The ego is what separates us from the rest of the animals. It is the engine behind every human invention since prehistoric times. As harmful as it is, the ego is what has made us the apex of creation. The problem with the ego begins when we misuse it. When used correctly, the more we use of it, the better.

To use the ego correctly, we need to see the truth: Reality is one complete system whose components are interdependent. Then, just as a mother uses her ego for the sake of her entire family, we will use our egos for the sake of the entire planet—humanity, animals, plants, and minerals alike.

Our innate perception is that only we matter. Therefore, education must begin with changing our perception to a more integral one, which encompasses everything around us. This is called “Integral Education,” and today we must all be somewhat “educated” in that direction. This is the key to building a world that does not exploit people and nature, and does not produce pandemics like COVID-19. Integral Education is the real vaccine against any virus.

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Question: Can the point in the heart awaken during childhood, when someone passes away?

Answer: Yes, such questions often come up at a young age. Then, we usually forget about them and the point in the heart can awaken at a more mature age. Therefore, we do not need to teach children the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is better to wait until they grow up and start when they are at least teenagers.

Question: Usually, children often ask: “Why do people die?”

Answer: Everyone has such questions. But it does not mean that this is a question about the meaning of life. These are simply ordinary childish questions. We need to answer them somehow, soothe the children, but nothing more than that.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/9/20

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New Life 1185 – The People In My Life
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

The people in my life help me correct myself internally. There are no chance meetings in life or accidents in nature. Every person I meet has a role to play in my development even if I am not ready to discern this. I need to think about the origin of the people in my life, to understand that a higher power is activating them, to communicate with them, to forgive them, and to approach every encounter with love.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1185 – The People In My Life,” 12/5/19

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New Life 1186 – Social Encounters And Human Development
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Everything that happens to us during our lives is supposed to advance us toward the final and perfect state of human development. In every encounter with another person, I experience a meeting between two images within me: theirs and mine. I see the other with an egoistic eye, but I need to look beyond the personality to see a representative of the higher power that I must love. All encounters are designed to teach me how to create a conduit out of myself that transmits positive energy and love into our world.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1186 – Social Encounters And Human Development,” 12/5/19

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My article in Newsmax: “COVID-19 Buried Capitalism”

On March 20, historian Yuval Noah Harari wrote in the Financial Times that the nature of emergencies is to fast-forward historical processes. True, everything that we have known, our entire civilization, is rapidly falling apart. Most people still hope that once the virus is gone their lives will pick up where they left off. They will not. Coronavirus will have changed everything.

It is not merely a transformation of attitude, but a change of our entire paradigm of life. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown touched on it when he wrote that to fight the coronavirus, “instead of dog-eat-dog bidding wars that encourage profiteering, the G20 should back the World Health Organization and the Global Fund’s efforts to coordinate and increase production and procurement of medical supplies.”

Shedding the dog-eat-dog paradigm is imperative, but the virus isn’t likely to disappear in the near future. There are already no less than 40 known strains of the virus. Second, even if we do manage to miraculously abolish all aggressive variants, by the time we can resume normalcy, we will discover that we ourselves have changed dramatically, and the frantic consumerism will no longer seem appealing.

It has stopped tourism, transportation, sports, entertainment, COVID-19 isn’t only changing our economy or even our way of life; it is changing our very thinking about life.culture, industry, education, socializing and even our ability to congregate for prayer. When we restart civilization, we will be different. Or, rather, we had better be different if we don’t want a sequel for the Novel Coronavirus episode.

A Novel Economy

When a superbug imposes a quarantine on the entire world, its ramifications are unfathomable. Sooner rather than later, countries will have to see to their citizens most basic needs. Food, housing, healthcare and education will all have to be administered by governments since the majority of people will simply not have any income to purchase any of the above, not to mention luxuries or gadgets.

The quarantine, or “stay at home” policy, is not just an emergency measure; it is the end of capitalism. We may not realize it but along with the coffins of our loved ones, we buried the way of life and way of thinking about life we all grew up on. Capitalism is dead.

The new economy that will emerge from the ashes will have to be based on different values. Since jobs will be virtually obsolete, wealth and power will become irrelevant gauges of success. But since human nature always strives for prominence, new standards will take over where the old ones left a void.

Instead of power by control, leadership by example will take the fore. Those who contribute the most to lifting the spirit of society, guaranteeing people’s well-being, and increasing social solidarity will become the prominent people in society.

Until now, we competed like children playing King of the Hill. Gradually, the virus will teach us to value and pay tribute to those who exert to push everyone uphill, to lift society rather than themselves.

The new economy that will emerge from the ruins of the old one will not be a new form of socialism. It will be an economy of mutual responsibility. Mutual responsibility is not an economic paradigm, but a social one, entailing both economic and educational aspects. It does not require material equality, but mutual concern that guarantees that people a) have what they need, and b) want everyone else to have what they need.

In an economy based on mutual responsibility, personal attributes are cherished and nurtured as long as one uses one’s skills to improve everyone’s lives. This approach allows for endless ways for people to express themselves, and society will reward them for doing so. Respect, admiration, and love for the people who contribute will more than compensate for the pursuit of wealth and possessions.

For this reason, introduction of mutual responsibility should occur on the physical level as well as on the intellectual level. On the former, as said above, governments will have to tend to people’s basic needs. On the latter level, we must establish an online education system where scientists and other pundits introduce the notion of mutual responsibility and explain why today’s reality requires it.

The idea behind these educational programs is not merely to help humanity overcome the virus. The goal is to change the paradigm that governs our lives from focusing on the “me” to focusing on the “we,” thereby creating a flourishing and sustainable society. The dog-eat-dog paradigm that Brown talked about is why the coronavirus has arrested our civilization. If we want to win, we should now build one that relies on mutual responsibility, and any moment’s delay is one moment too late.
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