My new article on Linkedin “Fatal Despair”

Long before the pandemic hit the world, the US was already on a downward trend. According to a story published by David Leonhardt in The New York Times under the title “Life Expectancy, Falling,” “During the second half of the 2010s, life expectancy [in the US] fell on a sustained basis for the first time since the fighting of World War II killed several hundred thousand Americans.” Echoing this topic, the magazine Science News stated in an essay titled “‘Deaths of despair’ are rising. It’s time to define despair,” that “Since the 1990s, mortality had risen sharply.” However, according to Science News, the spike in mortality was not indiscriminate; it affected mainly the “middle-aged, non-Hispanic white people, especially those without a college degree.”

According to both stories, which relied on publications by Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton, the reasons for the declining life expectancy were what the researchers dubbed “deaths of despair.” Such deaths are caused by several factors, all of which are social rather than medical. Among these factors are lack of structure and meaning in life, broken or poor social ties at work, loss of connection to the church or community groups, high divorce rates or not marrying at all, drug and substance abuse, alcoholism, and suicide.

As Leonhardt writes, “It’s hard to imagine a more alarming sign of a society’s well-being than an inability to keep its citizens alive.” While I understand that educated people may be less susceptible to fatal despair, since they have more distractions to fill up their minds, the profound crisis that has struck the American society is pervasive. I have no doubt it will affect everyone in America, and far beyond its borders. As Case and Deaton note, the crisis is not in the ability to live, but in having no reason to do so.

Humans are not animals. We cannot settle for having a place to sleep and food to eat from day to day. As humans, we contemplate the future, reflect on the purpose of our lives, and on our freedom to steer our lives where we want, assuming we know where we want to steer it.

Also, as developed social beings, we live in complex social systems that constantly influence us, just as we influence the systems. When any member of society is in crisis, it spreads from person to person much like a virus. Countless studies have shown that when people around you are happy, your chances of being happy are far higher than if people around you are depressed. This is true even if you don’t interact directly with those people. Therefore, when a sense of meaninglessness spreads through the society, it must be treated on a social level since it is, in fact, an epidemic.

The problem, as Case and Deaton already noted, is lack of meaning in life. Therefore, this is the issue we must tackle if we are to heal society. The longer we wait, the more the depression will spread and take its toll. Already, millennials find most things that excited their parents tasteless. And without a purpose in life, they’ll fall into the same quagmire that is ruining their parents’ generation.

To stop the spread of fatal despair, therefore, we must give people a lasting purpose. Such a purpose must be greater than one’s worldly life, since people have already given up on finding worldly goals worth chasing. We need to show people that human existence has a purpose, that it is possible to feel truly alive only when we look outside our personal shell and begin to examine the world and the people around us. When we begin to connect with others, we find meaning in everything we do. Suddenly, our every action and thought has an impact—positive or negative—and each one of us matters, since we all influence each other.

Only when we see the world through a broader perspective can we understand how important each of us is to humanity. When we work to improve society, rather than selfishly amass wealth, power, and possessions, then everything we do, say, or think becomes important to everyone around us, and to those who will come after us.

Life is not valued by how much we manage to accumulate, but by how much we impact society. Those who solidify society, who make it resilient and animated, are those whose lives become imbued with meaning, which continues after their years on Earth have ended.
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In the News (NewYorkTimes): “All over the world, countries are confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust, a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history that will make first-birthday parties a rarer sight than funerals, and empty homes a common eyesore. …

“Demographers now predict that by the latter half of the century or possibly earlier, the global population will enter a sustained decline for the first time.

“A planet with fewer people could ease pressure on resources, slow the destructive impact of climate change and reduce household burdens for women. ”

My Response: It will be good for everyone. We will start thinking about the things we need to get rid of, what we need to stop producing, what is excessive. What is humanity occupied with? Production. So we will not produce what is not necessary.

Consumption will decrease and the birth rate will decrease accordingly. After all, in any family, when they want to have a child, they still plan: “Can we afford it or not, how will we cover the costs?”

Question: Do you think reason will prevail?

Answer: Everyone already has it, every family.

Only in animals everything is built on instinct, but another chain works for them: less food causes them to have a lower birth rate. Automatically. They do not think that it is necessary to give birth less, they have it instilled within their nature: less food, lower birth rate.

Question: Can you say that over time, we will become more conscious?

Answer: No, it is the same egoism that controls us and urges us to either give birth or not to give birth.

Question: Will it now lead us to the fact that predominantly we will not give birth?

Answer: People do not want to take care of others. Egoism is growing to such an extent. Why should I invest in these children who will not even thank me later? They just leave the house calmly as if they do not owe me anything, and I would like to demand at least something from them.

Everything revolves around egoism. Even if my children give birth to grandchildren, it still requires some kind of participation from me. I am not going to be the kind of grandparent who is burdened with the new generations.

Rabash said very simply about the attitude of children to their parents: “Close your mouth and open your pocket.” That’s it!

Comment: And it will get more and more drastic. In addition, the future is not particularly promising. In addition: “I want a quiet life.” And the birth rate will fall…

My Response: Everything will be fine. This is an auto regulated system by nature, no one else. Or call it “The Creator.”

Question: And what does He want?

Answer: He wants to create the most suitable conditions for our correction, for our self-correction.

We are at a crossroads: which part of our correction will the upper governance take upon itself and which part of our correction will we consciously take over.

So far, I do not see any movement toward this, no inclination on the part of humanity that realizes it should be different, more sociable, more ready to accept the challenges of nature consciously, and somehow address this, set these tasks for itself.

I do not see that research centers are created, as is usually done in humanity, to study this phenomenon: what is happening to us, to humanity, to society, to the family, to children and parents? There should be a lot of such institutions, different ones in every nation, in every group, in every country. We have to study all this.

We must produce all kinds of research on this topic. Instead, I see that not only statesmen are not concerned about this at all, I am not talking about them at all, they are only interested in their place, but even society, men, women, and families. There is no pressure, no challenge from society to create such research centers.

I have not even seen serious public research on the topic of the pandemic, really serious ones, not medical, not strictly specific, but concerning society, family, children, and so on. I do not see that they are engaged in this or that they are concerned about it.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/10/21

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My new article on Linkedin “The Danger in Our False Perception”

Today, when we look at the world, we see only one force: egoism. We think that everything runs only according to everyone’s efforts to raise themselves to the top of the heap, to be the hunter and not the hunted, the predator and not the prey. We, humanity, have reached the top of the pyramid, and from the zenith, we’re trying to find what more we can take. To achieve this, we learn, become more sophisticated, and develop technology, science, social structures, and everything we have developed in order to succeed in this world.

If we continue on our selfish trend, the horrible summer we are experiencing throughout the world will be the best summer of the rest of our lives. We don’t have to continue on this route; have another option: to bury the hatchet and make peace with nature and with one another, and realize that we don’t have to fight to win a good life; we only need to work together.
But now that we’ve achieved all that, we find that something is still amiss. We realize that we have gone too far. We have taken egoism to the extreme, and we have destroyed our planet. Instead of supporting us, our own home is caving in on us, releasing torrential rains that flood entire countries, bursting in flames that incinerate titanic forests, and launch ash to the highest levels of the atmosphere. Siberia’s frozen lands, once thought to be lifeless, are melting and discharging viruses and bacteria for which our immune system has no antibodies. And the animal kingdom, which we believed we had subdued, is infesting us with viruses and other bugs that arrest our entire global activity.

With the heyday behind us, and the threat of nature’s vengeance ahead, we seem to have one choice: Stop trying to dominate nature and start cooperating with it. This is the time to realize that nature isn’t run solely by egoism, but rather by two forces, egoism and altruism, which balance each other out and generate the dynamic harmony that enables the creation of life and evolution. Now is the time for us to realize that there is no hatred in nature but acceptance and inclusion of everyone into a larger whole that, in turn, sustains all of life.

If we develop a considerate, accepting approach to all of nature, including to all people, we will discover that this is how nature truly operates and we will be able to operate likewise. Currently, our own egoism hides the truth from us, since if we see reality for what it is, we will agree to relinquish egoism, and no egoist wants to be relinquished.

Yet, if we continue on our selfish trend, the horrible summer we are experiencing throughout the world will be the best summer of the rest of our lives. We don’t have to continue on this route; have another option: to bury the hatchet and make peace with nature and with one another, and realize that we don’t have to fight to win a good life; we only need to work together.
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My new article on Linkedin “How to Exit the Pandemic in a Split World”

Covid-19 has split the world between those who strongly support the need for massive vaccination to tackle the pandemic, and those who vehemently oppose mandatory inoculation and restrictions, taking to the streets of Europe and America to express their discontent. As the Delta variant spreads across the world, in the U.S. alone, an average of 43,000 new cases are reported every day, a 65% increase in one week. How can we ever exit the pandemic in such a divided scenario?

It is written, “I dwell among my own people” (2 Kings 4:13)—a statement that means: I am part of the society I live among, and I share the public’s frame of mind. If the vaccine is acceptable to most people and recommended by health officials, then I must go out and get vaccinated. I do not disengage from the people and do not consider myself more of an expert than the experts.

This is how I chose and will continue to choose to act, and I will certainly not determine choices for my acquaintances or students, nor do I have the authority to do so. Every person is free to make an independent decision, and I respect and accept with great love each one and the choices everyone makes.

It makes sense that there are concerns and objections—anxiety from the unknown and fears from the risks of failure—and other doubts arising from people involved in the medical field. Such voices have been heard and have resonated in the public space from the day the plague broke out. However, we will not come to a unanimous conclusion from within the swirl of endless rumors.

The sages wrote to us in black and white about a spiritual law, “It was taught in the school of Rabbi Ishmael about the verse, ‘He shall cause him to be thoroughly healed’ (Ex. 21:19). From this we learn that permission has been given to the physician to heal.” (Babylonian Talmud, Berachot, 60a). The supreme force of nature heals through a representative within society, the doctor.

It is true that today’s medicine has fundamental flaws. This is also true about every other system we have built, because when the relationships between human beings are broken and the connections between us are selfish, society itself is broken. Naturally, this breakdown also affects the systems themselves. And yet, despite all the negative and positive things that are part of the medical field, it is nature acting through it in order to heal.

Medicine is neither better nor worse than the human beings who rely on it. Doctors are not angels and the health systems are not heaven, but with all the shortcomings that we have, the medical situation is still the service we need. In other words, current spoiled medicine dresses like a glove on our spoiled society.

If we were better, then we would be healed from this Covid plague by more natural forces, or we would find more creative solutions. But we are not corrected. Everyone can see that humanity is a society that is eating itself from within. People behave badly towards each other. We are locked within ourselves with self-interested calculations, ignoring the fact that we are not alone, that we are all connected and interdependent. So unfortunately, we cannot wait for a cure until everything within human society works properly. In the meantime, we have to recover from such diseases, and the available solutions are dressed in matter, in chemistry, in vaccines.

If we make a change for the better in society—if we become a more supportive, loving, considerate, close, healthy society—then physical medicine will also change for the better. But it will never happen the other way around. Medicine will not change for the better until we change.

Then, in every area and every situation in our lives, when we become more corrected, our world will also be more corrected. The plagues will disappear, the air will be cleansed, the water will clear, volcanoes will calm down, hurricanes and other hard forces will subside. It all depends on our inner state, on our relationships with one another.
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In the News (bbc.com): “Coronavirus will be with us forever, Sage scientist warns

Question: Should we just accept it?

Answer: No. We have to accept this with a condition: this is happening because we are separated. If we were connected, the virus would not have penetrated us. This is how you need to understand what the connection between the two is.

Comment: Some experts have noted that humanity is too divided by national and political barriers to effectively combat the coronavirus.

My Response: That is regarding fighting the virus. And I am talking in general—before fighting the virus. The virus would not have appeared. Many, many negative qualities, sores, and diseases of humanity would not have manifested if we were interconnected.

If we approached the structure of Adam, it would have healed us if we were coming close to this state. But we are only moving away from it.

Coming closer to the structure of Adam means the connection of humanity until reaching the condition “love your neighbor as yourself.” And then, humanity will be completely healthy and above all problems, including the matter of death.

Question: Does this mean that from above it is probably also understood that humanity cannot unite and we must be pushed toward this?

Answer: Nature teaches us this way. That is, if it is time for us to rise in our development to connection and reveal the new world in our unity, then the implementation of this unity is called “love your neighbor as yourself” every time, up to that state.

Now we are in a period when we must attain one of these states, these degrees, and realize it in a good connection with each other. But we do not realize it and fall into the opposite state. This pandemic, that war, something else—anything that we can only imagine.

Question: With this pressure, will we be guided to the upper intelligence?

Answer: Of course. We are being educated. We have stocked up lots of various good skills to make the world kind and comfortable for everyone: destroy barriers, make humanity more connected, be kind to each other, etc. There are means in technology, in science, in everything, but we do not implement them well.

Question: In other words, we have prepared good means to connect peacefully and without much difficulty, but we do not want to use these means?

Answer: Yes. And so, everything will happen the other way around.

Question: Therefore, all the means will not be needed at all?

Answer: The means will be needed to make war.

I see the future of humanity as dark and gloomy. People will believe in such nonsense, worship gods, gods that they have invented. People will only wish each other evil, and such evil is worse than death.

Question: Do you now want people to hear this and shudder?

Answer: Why would I be talking otherwise? So that it somehow influences people for the better. In general, the state of the world, of course, is very, very gloomy.

Question: Well, how can we convey this good, kind reality to humanity?

Answer: By shouting as much as possible at all crossroads and proclaiming at all corners the only possible salvation.

We should not fold our hands and sit, bang our heads against the wall or on the floor and say: “It will only be bad, only bad.” We have to work. And our work is very simple: it is in explaining, in educating. This is what we should be doing.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/24/21

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 25/7/21

Today’s troubles may not seem as bad as the ones that humanity had suffered in the past. Rarely are scores of people killed, there is no pestilence that is threatening to decimate half the population of Europe, no tyrant has conquered half the world, at least not yet, and starvation isn’t threatening the to claim billions of lives. There are certainly many of the problems I just pointed out, and many more, but nothing as colossal as we’ve seen throughout the chronicles of humanity.

Nevertheless, the problems are very serious. They are serious because we may not be perishing in droves as before, but our tolerance is also not nearly that of our ancestors. We are sensitive, and therefore suffer and hurt much more from much less pain. This may sound like a flaw, but in truth, the pain is not pointless; it stirs us into action. If we need fewer afflictions in order to move, it is better for all of us. If such levels of pain weren’t enough for us, we’d be seeing levels of anguish similar to the atrocities that our medieval ancestors had endured.

These relatively mild crises are transforming us. Bit by bit, they are engendering a new humanity, where people feel connected and mutually dependent. In this humanity, it will be a given that an infection anywhere is an infection everywhere. People will know that this motto pertains not only to viruses, but to anything that pains humanity. Look at the floods that have inundated towns and villages all over the world, the raging forest fires around the world, the social tensions that seem very similar in multiple countries, and of course, the virus. We truly have become a global village, and nothing proves it more unequivocally than our troubles.

Yet, we can turn this bane into a boon. Closeness is troubling and crippling only when there is hatred among people. When brotherhood and friendship rules among them, closeness is welcome and advantageous. Our closeness is a fact. We cannot disconnect from the rest of the world. Therefore, the only option we have is to turn our foul connections into positive ones. Unity is the cure for all our ills and agonies, and we will decide whether to cure ourselves or keep on suffering.

Photo Caption:
Residents are silhouetted as they watch the Blue Ridge Fire burning in Yorba Linda, California, U.S. October 26, 2020. REUTERS/Ringo Chiu/File Photo

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In the News (United Nations): “Humanity is ‘waging a war on nature’, threatening biodiversity loss, climate disruption and escalating pollution, the UN chief said on Friday.

“‘We will all be losers if we don’t achieve peace with the planet’, Secretary-General António Guterres told a webinar ahead of the International Day for Biological Diversity…

“He said one million species are at risk of extinction; ecosystems are disappearing “before our eyes”; deserts are spreading, and wetlands are being lost.

“Every year, 10 million hectares of forests are lost, oceans are overfished and ‘choking with plastic waste’ as the carbon dioxide they absorb is acidifying the seas, bleaching and killing coral reefs, he added. …

“‘We are depleting resources faster than nature can replenish them’, the UN chief continued. …

“’Three-quarters of new and emerging human infectious diseases are zoonotic’, jumping from animals to humans, and against this backdrop, the UN chief said that tackling the current COVID-19 crisis provides an opportunity to recover better.”

Question: What would you say? If we don’t make peace with the planet, then what?

Answer: The planet will spew us out, squeeze us out. It will make us defective, miserable, sickly, and pathogenic.

Question: Can there be an end to the earthly species?

Answer: No. Until we move to another dimension, nothing can happen.

Question: Will only a few of us remain, but we will nonetheless be compelled to conclude an agreement with nature?

Answer: I don’t even know if there will be a few left, but we will remain with such a life that death is better. No one will want to live and there will be no strength to die.

Question: What does it mean to “make an agreement with nature”?

Answer: It is to rise above our egoism. Because it is only our egoism that actually destroys nature. If we were like inanimate, animate, and vegetative nature, then everything would be fine. We would live in a normal ecosystem, we would not violate it.

Question: Because we could not violate it? Do we exist in this law?

Answer: Yes. And now we rise above it and destroy what must exist.

Question: His conclusion: since we are invading the habitats of wild animals, then there are all sorts of epidemics, is it wrong?

Answer: We are invading the habitats of not only wild animals, but also inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature. We have no right to interfere in it! We must be like it on our earthly level.

Question: How would we use it then?

Answer: Only to the extent it is necessary for our existence! Not one iota more!

Question: Does it exist for us to communicate with it this way? Would this raise us above egoism to the level of “man”?

Answer: Yes. We don’t need anything else.

Comment: And all infectious diseases, all troubles, and all illnesses…

My Response: This would never have happened!

Question: Is this a response to the violence?

Answer: Yes, because we trigger them.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/31/21

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Question: It is unbelievable what is going on in the world right now. All bonds are breaking down; a mother can sell her own child. Crazy things are happening. Are you saying that this is being revealed on purpose?

Answer: This is being revealed due to our oppositeness to the ideal system we actually exist in, but we do not correspond to it at all. At the same time, the wisdom of Kabbalah is being revealed: the methodology that explains how we can bring ourselves into conformity with this system in order to be in perfect comfort.

Up to this point, Kabbalists hid it and now are revealing it because only now there is a need for it. Through implementing it, it is possible to correct people so that they conform to the general law of bestowal and love. This is a law of nature. If you do not observe it, you feel bad. Observe it, and everything will be fine.

In principle, in our corporeal sciences, we study how to observe the laws of nature and at the same time how to get the most benefit for ourselves. It is the same here. Therefore, Kabbalah is called Hochmat Kabbalah, which means the wisdom of receiving. It is the correct reception of the upper energy, matter, consciousness, eternity, pleasure, and attainment.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Universal Law” 9/30/09

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Question: We live in times when most people have everything they need. Since our basic needs are initially covered, it is no longer necessary to monetize your life’s work, right?

Answer: After a certain historical period, perhaps in a couple of decades, we will come to such a state that robots will work instead of us, and people, in principle, will no longer need money, fame, or even knowledge, because all this will lose value due to the lack of meaning.

Gradually, we stop seeing the meaning of our corporeal development and we understand that everything is coming to a dead end, including science. What we reveal in nature is actually a path leading us to the dead-end of development, to a global crisis. Everything is much broader and on a different level.

Egoism develops according to certain degrees, and now it has come to the point that it has closed itself. It folds, becomes a small village, and eventually it will force us to connect even though we do not want it.

Here we can come to connection either urged by various sufferings, including wars and destruction, or through realizing that it is necessary because it is the implementation of the program of creation.
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From KabTV’s “Videoconference”

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My new article on Linkedin “Is This Awful Summer the Best Summer of the Rest of Our Lives?”

I am not afraid of the pandemic; I am afraid that nature has started to relate to us the way we relate to it. It seems as though chaos has taken over the world. Natural disasters of unprecedented magnitude are occurring in multiple places simultaneously: unheard-of floods in some places, unparalleled fires in other places, sometimes a few hundred miles apart, and scorching heat in still other places. At the same time, the coronavirus is spreading once again with the Delta variant, and threatens to hamper humanity’s efforts to recover from the pestilence, while international relations are growing increasingly tense and volatile. But worst of all is the trend: it’s negative. Things are not only bad, but quickly worsening. If this trend continues, this awful summer will be the best summer of the rest of our lives.

We need to think things over. It makes no sense that so many crises are happening all over the world at the same time, that a virus is spreading around the world and disrupts the lives of every person in humanity, and all of these are unrelated incidents.

Perhaps you can blame climate change for natural disasters, but you cannot blame it for countries threatening to destroy one another. There is a deeper cause to our woes, and we can find it only in ourselves. When we analyze all the crises, we find that the one common element in all of them is man. If we are the common element, then the reason for the crises is within us.

More precisely, the reason for the crises is how we relate to nature and to one another. Nature is a perfect system. It maintains a dynamic balance we call homeostasis. Contrary to nature’s balance, we seek only to take and overtake. We have forced our winner-take-all attitude on a system that operates in a manner that guarantees everyone’s sustenance and well-being. We injected hatred, violence, and meanness into a system that contained none of it before. Now it seems as though that system is paying us back in our own coin: the currency of hatred.

If we wish to avoid unimaginable catastrophes, we must abandon the currency we’ve used so far and adopt nature’s currency of mutual responsibility and consideration. We have to start respecting each other’s right to lead healthy and safe lives, without trying to subjugate them, but for this, we must feel that we are all parts of one, global system.

Our sages knew all this thousands of years ago, and talked about this with anyone who wished to listen. The Jerusalem Talmud, for example, offers a beautiful allegory about our connectedness: “If the writing warns about habitual mistreatment, vengeance and bearing a grudge should be forbidden also toward those who are not from among your nation. Also, how is it possible for one to forgive an affront? [Suppose] one is cutting meat, and the knife descends into his hand; would he consider avenging his hand and cutting his other hand for cutting the first? So is this matter … the rule is that one does not take revenge against one’s neighbor, for it is as though he is taking revenge against his own body” (Nedarim 9:4).

We really haven’t any time to waste. Nature is clearly signaling that it is losing patience. If it erupts in all its wrath, Covid will be the least of our worries. Therefore, to save ourselves, we must start treating each other, and all of nature, as we would like others to treat us.
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