Medium published my new article “Success Begins at Home”

A recent study conducted by the Israeli Ministry of Finance has found, unsurprisingly, that where you live has a major impact on your chances of success. The study found that people who live in disadvantaged areas of Israel have lower chances of academic and financial success. The study also found that these people’s chances of mobility — moving up from lower income brackets to higher ones — are also lower if they live in poorer areas of the country.

The solution people most often use if they want to improve their situation is to move to more affluent parts of the country, where the environment encourages achievements and opportunities are more numerous. This perpetuates the poor state of deprived areas. The study suggests that the solution to this problem may be in developing young, local leaders who will create their own environment of success and lift their area to better achievements.

This idea may work, but I believe that success begins at home. If your family encourages you to achieve and gives you examples of success, your chances of success are much better than otherwise. For example, I have three grandchildren who live in Canada. The oldest went to college last year, the middle one went this year, and the youngest is still in high school but will certainly attend college. The role models they see make it almost a given that they will follow the same path. They simply know that a college degree is a mandatory part of their education. Regrettably, in Israel’s underprivileged areas, most people do not even consider the idea of academic schooling.

The cost of higher education in Israel is also prohibitive for many, but there are many scholarships and other programs that allow students from disadvantaged areas to study at a fraction of the actual cost, or even at no cost. So the problem is not one of affordability, but of approach, awareness, and confidence.

Therefore, I think that the first step toward success must begin at home, by creating an environment of encouraging academic schooling. If there is such an environment in a family, it may be able to offset a less positive external environment with regard to higher education.

Subsequently, young local leaders can rise and lift the entire community. If they focus on the common good and try to improve the situation of society as a whole, and if they ‎themselves set an example of success, they can do a lot of good.

Leadership development requires special programs and unique training. The leaders must first learn how to behave among themselves, and then with their community. They should not be raised to be politicians, but leaders who pave the way through personal example. If they can demonstrate how problems are solved by caring for the whole and cooperating with others, they will succeed, and the community will succeed with them.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Parallel Universes in Israel”

Recently, it seems as though Israelis live in parallel universes. Everyone seems to have their own perception of reality, and anyone with different views is regarded as shortsighted, misguided, ignorant, or plain dim-witted. The government has been dissolved because of such disagreements; the police and the country’s attorney general are accused of corruption, and no one knows whom to believe; Israel’s former prime minister is on trial, and media reports are so contradictory that you would think they are reporting unrelated trials; the media, as a whole, has lost the public’s trust, and each side consumes only the news that cater to one’s views. As a result, the worlds Israelis live in seem completely unrelated and disconnected, parallel universes indeed.

Yet, these universes exist in the same space, and therefore frequently collide with one another. The perpetual clashes have weakened Israeli society to the point where it is disintegrating from within. The complete absence of solidarity makes everyone pull their own way, regardless of others, and everyone thinks that only their side is right and the other side is wrong. And as people behave, so do parties, until the entire structure crumbles.

The Jewish state is unlike other countries because the Jews are unlike other people. Each of us carries within him contradictory forces, desires, and discernments equal to those of an entire nation. Therefore, the only way to reconcile between us and connect us is to make mutual concessions. As long as we avoid it, we are sliding closer to complete and irreversible dissolution. In the summer of 70 CE, around this time of the year, a terrible disaster had happened to us. Now we are approaching a replay of that tragedy.

From the moment we began to endeavor to reestablish a Jewish state in the land of Israel, we began to feel as though we are locked in a cage with people we cannot stand. We are like wild beasts, gnawing at each other, while our enemies gleefully wait for us to finish each other off or make a run for it.

Even if we attempt to split the country into several smaller countries where people more or less agree with one another, it will still not help. The division is not only between us; it is within us! We need to make ourselves whole just as much as we need to make our society whole. Until we understand who we are as people, as Jewish people, what we need to do as Jews, and accept that we must carry out our calling, we will not make peace with one another, let alone with other nations.

Jews have always had disagreements. Parallel universes have existed between us and within us since the inception of our nature. They cannot be canceled, nor should they. They were given to us; they are inherent in our nature, and therefore cannot be revoked. Our task is not to make them disappear, but to build above these rifts such ties of love that will be stronger than the chasm and fortify our structure as a nation.

The connection and the unity of the people of Israel are very different from those of other nations. Other nations maintain unity by maintaining similarity of views, culture, or faith. Jews, on the other hand, maintain solidarity, if we succeed, by understanding the vitality of contradictions, embracing conflicts as an impetus to foster stronger ties, and building a stronger bond precisely because it has to overcome a deeper gap than any other nation feels.

It is an unnatural bond, a manmade love that challenges the natural hatred that nature has installed in us for anyone who is dissimilar to us. Nevertheless, it is precisely this connection that makes us sturdy, that builds a new nation based on people’s free choice to unite above their hatred.

This unique unity is the secret to the robustness and durability of the people of Israel. Understanding how to form such a bond is the secret wisdom that our nation must teach the world, and our inability to teach it is the reason that so many people hate Jews.

The parallel universes that exist among the Jews and within the Jews will never disappear, nor should they. But when Jews learn to build bridges of love between their parallel realities, they will find peace and happiness, and the world will find it with them.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Blinded by Hate”

There is a new “weapon” that Palestinians use against Israelis: blinding lasers. Every night, residents of a certain Palestinian village direct strong lasers into the eyes of Israeli drivers in order to blind them and hopefully cause them to make an accident. So far, there has been no response on the part of the Israeli army, other than stating that the army “is working in a number of ways to uproot the phenomenon.” When people are blinded by hate, there is no end to what they will do to hurt their hated ones. Israel’s response should therefore incorporate two elements: retaliating against the terror and mitigating the hatred.

The first element is relatively straightforward. The response should be one that will deter the perpetrators from repeating their actions. Therefore, the rule of thumb here is simple: When someone comes to kill you, kill him first. In practical terms, it means that the army should fire at the sources of the lasers.

Nevertheless, we should not hope that curbing one mode of terrorism will prevent terrorists from finding other ways to terrorize and hurt Israelis. As long as there is unbounded hatred, Palestinians will find countless ways to hurt us.

Here is where we can make the real difference. The Palestinians’ hatred toward us is not because of a territorial struggle or any other reason they proclaim, even if they believe what they are saying. The Palestinians hate us because we hate each other. Their aversion to us reflects our aversion to each other.

This is true not only for the Palestinians, but for every non-Jew who hates Jews. To the extent that we hate each other, the nations of the world hate us. The higher the mountain of hate between us, the stronger the hatred toward us that we bring down on the nations. In fact, the name Mt. Sinai comes from the Hebrew words Mount of Sinaa [hatred]. Our sages explain that it is called so because of the hatred that came down from it to the nations of the world (Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Shabbat, 89a).

In short, we are generating hatred towards us through our own hatred of each other. We must understand that if we want to “defeat” terrorism, and all the hatred toward Jews and Israelis, we must defeat the hatred within us for each other.

Interestingly, when I say this to non-Jews, they often agree. But when I say this to Jews, they often become aggressive and venomous. They argue that I am making this up, and all the quotes I bring from centuries of our sages writing these exact words do not help. Once, after a lecture in New York, a Jew who refused to accept my words tried to physically assault me.

I can understand the resistance. If we accept this statement, it puts the responsibility for antisemitism, terrorism, and millennia of abuse that our nation suffered in our lap, the lap of the Jewish people, rather than to pin it on the aggressors. Declaring that Jewish inner hatred incites Jew-hatred among the nations pulls the rug from under the arguments that attribute antisemitism to religious, racial, economic, and social causes. It creates one common cause for all the cataclysms that have ever struck the Jewish people, and that cause is our own responsibility. I understand why this would be impossible to accept.

However, it is not my idea, but the idea of all our sages throughout the ages. The people who engendered the Jewish nation, who solidified its peoplehood, and who gave it its unique values and manners, all advocated this exact message: Sinaat Hinam [baseless hatred] has been our curse since our inception as a nation, and the only thing we need to cure.ADVERTISEMENT

Since we are full of hatred, it is hard for us to agree that hatred is the cause of our misfortunes. We tend to blame our troubles on the side we hate. But it is not this or that side that causes our troubles, but the hatred itself. As the two books I have written about it show (see links below), our spiritual leaders throughout the ages tried to teach this to us, yet we refused. We coined the tenet “Love your neighbor as yourself”; it is time we tried it out.

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Read these books for more information on the responsibility of the Jewish people for the hatred toward them: The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord, and Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour.
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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 7/29/22

It is said that educated people do not fight. Because of it, Israel invests a great deal in the education of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. In recent years, the number of Palestinians studying under the Israeli curriculum has increased significantly. According to a story published in Haaretz, “In the past five years the number of such students in the … Israeli program has climbed 160 percent.” There is no question that Israeli schools and universities offer better education and more opportunities to develop academic and professional careers. However, this will not make Palestinians more moderate toward Israelis. If anything, they will use their knowledge to kill us more efficiently.

First of all, not only Palestinians, but all of us are motivated by ill-will, as it is written, “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). Therefore, the more knowledge we have, the more power we have, and the more power we have, the more ruin we can bring upon others. In the case of the Palestinians, their knowledge will go toward building firearms and devising tactics to use against Israel and Israelis. If we expect gratitude, we should forget about it.

Second, the hatred that Palestinians feel toward Israel and Israelis cannot be mitigated through knowledge. Mitigating hatred requires a completely different kind of learning. To mitigate hatred, we need to learn specifically how to do that. We need to learn that we are all irreversibly connected, that everything we do affects everyone else and returns to us in an unbreakable cycle. In other words, we need to learn that the only way to improve our situation in the world is to improve the situation of everyone else.

Third, we need to learn that the irreversible connection among people also applies to nations and to all of reality. Therefore, we must recognize that whatever harm we inflict on the world will invariably return to us.

Finally, we must learn that all our conflicts, on every level—from the most personal to the international—happen for one and only purpose: to strengthen our connections. Every time we rise above a disagreement with someone, on any level, we strengthen our connection with that someone. Just as every couple that has been together for many years knows that the secret to a lasting relationship lies in the crises they have overcome together, relationships between countries and nations also strengthen through the trials and tribulations they endure.

Crises force us to increase the importance of our connection, which helps us overcome the dispute. When the dispute is over, we have a stronger connection than before because we have increased its importance in our eyes.

That said, no Palestinian will be willing to learn any of that unless we, Israelis, implement it among ourselves and set an example of the very thing we strive to teach. Unless we bridge the divisions in the Israeli society by increasing the importance of unity among ourselves, no one will believe in our sincerity, hatred toward us will grow, and all our efforts at making peace will fail.

Peace begins at home. Once we make peace among ourselves, others will want to learn from us and will therefore make peace with us. They will learn from us even if we do not teach, since our example will show the way. However, the opposite is also true: If we fight against each other, everyone will fight against us, as is the case today.

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Right, Left, and Tired”

It is election time in Israel, again, the fifth campaign in less than four years. It is said that Israel is divided between three main factions: Left, Right, and Tired, too tired to care. Yet, the political situation points to a deeper problem: division. There is division in the nation, division in the government, division everywhere and in every direction. Because there is division in the nation, there is division in the government. This division is really our only problem.

Politicians capitalize on division. Because the nation is divided, it allows them to echo it, which then increases the division even more. On the one hand, politicians laud unity. On the other hand, that unity invariably means “Let everyone unite around me, with me at the center, and obeying my words.”

Not only is this unity a lie, but everyone knows it is a lie. Yet, we Jews have a soft spot for unity. Because of our heritage, unity plays a sensitive chord in our hearts, and politicians sense this and profess to advance it in order to exploit our sensitivity to it. But no one means it, no one cares, and specifically in Israel, this lie is the most obvious and the most putrid.

Indeed, why should anyone agree with anyone else? What would agreeing with someone else give them? If people want to win and rule, why should they agree with anyone? Because they want to win, they not only fight against each other, but even if they lose, they do not let the winner rule and do everything they can to overthrow the government so that they might emerge victorious after yet another round of elections.

And the people? Who cares about the people?

The only solution to the incessant fighting is to spread the view among the public that regardless of the election results, the parties must respect the election and respect each other. Only if the people, the electorate, insist that this is the code of conduct in Israeli politics will it happen. At the moment, we do not have such a culture, but rather a culture of continuous ‎belligerence. Perhaps we simply did not suffer enough to realize that we have to change our approach to politics and to each other.

If we were wiser, we would understand that there is no point trying to convince anyone or trying to crush anyone. We would understand that our differences are like two legs to stand on. If we had only one leg, we would fall. But with two legs, one on the right and one on the left, we are steady and can stand tall.

Until we learn that we need all views and all perspectives, we will never have a stable political system that actually serves the people rather than the politicians. And until we learn the value of connection among people, we will never learn that lesson.

Therefore, in order to heal our ailing political system, we need to start brandishing our unity. This will signal to our politicians that they, too, must nurture it among them, and in the entire system of the government.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Specter of the Forebear of Palestinian Terrorism Lives On”

A documentary series on the Palestinian Arab nationalist Mohammed (aka Haj) Amin al-Husseini was recently broadcast in Israel. Al-Husseini was the leader of the Palestinian Arabs in the years preceding the establishment of the State of Israel. He was determined to prevent its founding. During World War II, al-Husseini became Hitler’s close ally, and together they drew plans to destroy the Jewish settlement in Palestine. In the years leading up to the war, he incited to violence and led uprisings and attacks against Jewish settlements throughout Palestine, as well as against the British forces that governed Palestine. One might think that had it not been for al-Husseini, the bloody, hate-filled history of the relationships between Jews and Arabs in Israel would have been different. I am not inclined to speculate on what might have been; it is impossible to know and pointless to try.

Concerning al-Husseini, we need to realize that the world is divided into factions and groups, and everyone is in some sort of struggle. It makes no difference if the arguments of one side are correct, and those of the other side are incorrect, since no one listens to the other side anyway. Whoever has an opinion sticks to it and people rarely change their minds.

Because of it, I think it is pointless to seek justice, as the truth is in the eyes of the beholder. It is clear that an Arab leader will be against Jews, and Jewish leaders should act accordingly, meaning stand against the Arabs. In other words, each side fights for its own justice and its own people. There is no justice here; each side is right from its own perspective.

To Arabs, the fact that Jews want to settle in Palestine is a just cause for hate. As long as Jews did not want to settle in Palestine and rebuild their historic homeland, things were relatively quiet. But once the Jews began to return, the hatred began to flare up.

As this is the case, I see no possibility for peace unless we embrace the spiritual meaning of the word. In spirituality, peace does not mean absence of hostilities; it means complementarity. Peace is a situation where each side has a completely different perspective, yet understands that there cannot be a complete picture of reality unless both perspectives coexist.

To coexist, the vying parties must value peace, meaning complementarity, more than they are zealous about their own side of the story. Once they come to such a state, they can rise above the chasm between them. There, in the common, higher realm, they will find a completely new reality. That reality will be called “peace.”

Therefore, it is imperative that the Jews unite among themselves and present an equal force against the enemy that wants to destroy them. In the end, neither side will destroy the other but the struggle between them will lead to the birth of a new perception of reality—a spiritual, complementary one.

Until this happens, we Israelis will continue to have to live by the sword, as the specter of al-Husseini lives on among us and seeks to terrorize us and drive us out of Israel. We will never kill it, but we must fight against it with all our might, and at the same time fight for unity above our differences, as this, in the end, is the only thing that chases away contemporary and future al-Husseinis.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Bad Neighbors Should Part Ways”

A few hours after US President Joe Biden departed from Israel, Islamic Jihad fired several rockets at Israeli cities. Israel’s automatic response was to retaliate with bombs at empty warehouses that harmed no one and caused little damage. In this usual scenario, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are running the show. They have the initiative and Israel only responds. When they want, there is quiet in Israel; when they want, there is no quiet in Israel. Israel’s response, it seems, makes no difference. In this war of attrition, we, Israel, are clearly not on the winning side. Our enemies will keep hurting us until we want to leave this country; this is their goal. Therefore, if we want to stay here, the only solution is to completely separate ourselves from them. Bad neighbors should part ways, not stay in the same place and go on fighting.

If your neighbor does not stop trying to kill you or force you out of your home, yet you want to live, then you have two options: leave, or force your neighbor to leave. When no reconciliation is possible, there needs to be total separation.

Therefore, the State of Israel should be cleared of anyone who threatens its existence or the existence of its residents. Additionally, anyone who tries to kill Israelis from outside of Israel should be treated the same as he is treating Israelis. It is not politics; it is common sense, and every democratic country in the world applies this principle.

Trying to reason or compromise with people who do not listen to reason and do not want to compromise is not political moderateness; it is folly. This approach has led to relinquishing more and more territory, which invariably becomes a basis for more rockets, bombs, and knife attacks on Israeli citizens. In short, it does not improve the situation, but makes it far worse because there is no intention on the other side to live side by side, but to drive us out. Consequently, every bit of ground we waive is another victory for the other side, which emboldens it and makes it more audacious.

It is true that the world will not like it if Israel forced a separation of population, but there is no other choice. If we want to survive, our attitude toward the Palestinians should be that there is no contact with them whatsoever, and anyone who tries to kill us, we kill them first.

However, total separation is only a temporary solution, only the first half of what we have to do, the half that should enable us to carry out the second, more important task.

This second half pertains to what we have to do among ourselves. Toward ourselves, we should be just as tough, but toward cohesion rather than separation. The only thing that determines our endurance is our social cohesion, our unity. Therefore, this should be our sole focus when it comes to Israeli society.

Unity does not mean uniformity. It does not mean that we must all think the same or want the same things and have the same goals. Unity means that above all our many differences, we feel as one nation, and each faction in the nation contributes its unique perspective to the common pool of ideas and attitudes. In this way, we will not have a divided society, but a society that is vital, vibrant, and dynamic.

The secret of our people’s success throughout the centuries has not been our intellect, but the reason for our intellect and fortitude. That reason is that we have always had different views, yet we have known how to keep ourselves together despite our different views. The constant arguments and debates have developed us and made us resilient and smart.

Today, because we have become intolerant toward each other, we are very weak and vulnerable, as each side blames the other for its woes. In truth, the fault is not in this or that view, but in the fact that we cannot rise above them and keep ourselves together.

In fact, the whole purpose of our diverse viewpoints is to rise above them and form a canopy of unity under which all views can exist. If we try to revoke an opposing view, we end up canceling our own view, as well, since our view can assert itself and develop only in relation to other views that stand against it.

And finally, if we establish unity above our divided views, we will set an example to the world, the example that it wants to see from us. We embody in our nation every viewpoint on the planet. If we can unite above our myriad opinions, we will show the world the way toward peace among the nations, too.

By this, and only by this will we win the favor of the world. Then, even the Palestinians will make peace with us.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you think of U.S. officials who said Monday the bullet that killed veteran Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh was likely fired from an Israeli position?“

I heard about CNN reporting that IDF soldiers shot the Al Jazeera reporter, Shireen Abu Akleh, as a targeted attack, which is uncanny because firing at civilians is the opposite of what the IDF teaches their soldiers from their very first training stage. It is no secret that the media is presenting Israel in an increasingly negative light, and it is because we Jews are not doing what we are supposed to, i.e. what humanity innately expects from us.

There is a subconscious expectation dwelling in humanity toward the Jewish people: to reveal the method of the world’s correction so that the world will become a positive, warm and friendly place. A common counterargument to this that I often hear from Jews in Israel is that “I wish the world would be a kinder and better place, but we’re living next door to people who teach their children to kill Jews from a young age.” What we fail to understand is that we are to blame for the increasingly negative attitude toward us, from our neighbors systematically teaching their children to kill us, to the global media painting a dark portrait of us.

It is almost impossible for us to hear that we are to blame for the negative attitude toward us, because we perceive ourselves as the victims, and it seems preposterous to say otherwise. Why? It is because we do not want to see the core reason behind this statement: that we have a role to guide the world to its correction, i.e. to a state of “love your neighbor as yourself.” Ultimately, although it appears we are headed in an opposite direction, humanity in general is headed to a state of mutual love, consideration, respect, support and encouragement. That state is set in nature, and our current state of development is akin to an unripe fruit that becomes increasingly bitter, until at its very end it inverts, becoming sweet, ripe and good to eat.

So who are we Jews in this developmental process? Unlike other nations that have biological roots, we share an ideological foundation: we first become known as “the people of Israel” when, under Abraham’s guidance in ancient Babylon, we attained a state of “love your neighbor as yourself,” and that heightened connection between us—balanced with nature’s force of absolute love and bestowal—attracted nature’s positive force into our connections. That is what it means to be “Israel,” from the two Hebrew words “Yashar Kel,” which means “straight to God”—understanding God as the root force in nature, a quality of love and bestowal that created and sustains reality.

Today’s increasingly negative attitude toward us is due to the increasing need in humanity for the revelation of nature’s positive force of love and bestowal, and that there is a critical mass within humanity who hold the key to attracting that force, and they are not doing so. Instead of acting like an open tap that lets nature’s positive force of love and bestowal stream freely into humanity, this critical mass instead acts like a cork, blocking the positive force from humanity. Without letting nature’s positive force of love and bestowal into humanity, the negative force of human egoism continually grows unabated, and thus problems across the board increase: from personal problems such as depression, loneliness, stress, insecurity and anxiety, through to problems in society such as increased distrust, inequality, poverty and crime, to name a few.

The more humanity experiences hardships, the more a subconscious negative feeling emerges in humanity toward the Jewish people. Today, that negative feeling becomes expressed as a recent exponential rise in antisemitic crimes and threats, together with an increasingly negative view of Israel.

If we Jews would start realizing our role, to achieve relations of “love your neighbor as yourself” among each other and to become a conduit of that positive force dwelling in nature toward the rest of humanity, then we would see the negative attitude toward us dramatically invert to a positive one. The subconscious urges within humanity would take a major turn. People would start feeling a new light, harmony and peace fill their lives, seemingly out of nowhere, but it would be due to our attainment and projection of a mutually considerate attitude that is sourced in nature.

We hold the key to making this immense positive change a reality. We just need to find the lock and turn it, and then we will see how a whole new perception and sensation of reality would open up. We would understand the core drive behind what currently appears as unjust and unfair accusations against us, and through our own attitude shift toward each other above our differences, we would enable that attitude shift en masse.

It is my hope that we will awaken to this process sooner rather than later, because the sooner we do, the more we will spare both ourselves and the rest of humanity much suffering.

Based on the video “Media Coverage of Al Jazeera Reporter Shireen Abu Akleh’s Death – A Kabbalist’s Response” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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My new article on Linkedin “Normalization Is Politics, Not Peace”

After opening the sky for Israeli airlines to fly over Saudi Arabia, some people are talking about normalization. Yet, Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, who is leading his country’s reforms and modernization, stressed that normalization with Israel will come only after Israel and the Palestinians reach a peace agreement that creates two states: Israel and Palestine. I think we should make a clear distinction between normalization and peace. The former is an economic issue and depends on the will of governments. The latter is something that the people of Israel must first achieve internally, which therefore depends only on us.

I realize this begs explaining. The relations Israel has with its neighbors depend on their feelings toward us. With Egypt, for example, we have good relations. However, we have had good relations with them for a long time because despite the wars, the last of which was in 1973, the Egyptian people were never really hostile toward us.

The same can be said about the Saudis. We have never had any problems with them. I myself used to send packages by mail to a student of mine in Saudi Arabia, and they always reached their destination without any problem. Moreover, he often came to Israel and went back there, and there were no problems at all. Now that the Saudi government is becoming more moderate on Islamic issues, too, it really leaves no cause for problems with them, so I am confident that relations with the Saudis will be good.

The opposite can be said about Gazans. Even if you encounter people from Gaza on a trip abroad, the hostility is palpable. Therefore, the existence or nonexistence of an agreement is less important. What counts most is the relation of the people toward each other.

Normalization, therefore, is the capitalization on a situation that can yield economic benefits to both sides. It is a political arrangement and nothing more.

Religious extremism, by the way, is also a political decision that stems primarily from power struggles and not from genuine division between Islam and Judaism. As far as religion goes, Judaism and Islam are not contradictory. They are not the same religion, of course, but they are not entirely contradictory.

But as I said, normalization is not peace. Peace, in Hebrew, means wholeness. It is a state where two contradictory sides create a bond between them that engenders a new whole that is sustained and evolves through both sides equally. In the same way that day and night, heat and cold, spring and fall are completely opposite yet complement each other, peace between people can happen only when they are contradictory, yet both commit to building a bond between them that creates something new, which requires both of them for its persistence and development.
In Israel’s current situation, division is rife and deep, but there is no motivation to transcend it in any constructive manner. We are still in the phase of trying to impose our worldviews on the entire country, believing that only our way is correct. We still do not understand that only unity is correct, and division is wrong regardless of one’s opinion.

In such a state of division, no country will make peace with us. There is no nation with whom to make peace; there are only factions and camps that demonize one another in the eyes of the world and intensify its hatred toward Israel. To make peace with our neighbors, we must first make peace with each other within Israel. This is why I wrote above that peace with our neighbors, as opposed to normalization, depends entirely on us.

I do not blame our neighbors for hating us when we hate each other so vehemently and vilify each other in the eyes of the nations. They watch us and follow our example.

When we stop maligning one another and realize that our differences are there precisely so we will unite above them, and not so as to eradicate each other, we will create something new that the world will admire. Then the nations will make true peace with us, to learn from our example of making peace, meaning creating something new and whole above division.

Until we do this, some countries will have good relations with us, and some will not, depending on their political and economic interests. We may call it normalization, but we should not think of it as peace.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: ‘Israel’s Price Hikes Expose Its Many “Inner Countries”’

Over the past several months, there have been price hikes in almost every product and service in Israel. The price of gasoline is already almost double that of the US, the price of electricity has jumped 9.6 percent, water by nearly 8 percent, cars, appliances, and now even staple foods are jumping, in some cases up to 36 percent. Anywhere else, this would have sent millions into the streets to protest. In Israel, not a peep, as if nothing has changed but the headlines in the papers and the bottom line of the bill. It is not that the government cannot mitigate the spike, but it, too, does nothing, a matter of priorities. Will these hikes change anyone’s mind in light of the upcoming general election? Probably not. The people absorb in silence.

What is stranger still is the fact that many people are completely unaffected by the hikes. For many societies in Israel, government decisions make very little difference in their personal lives. They live in large communities that conduct their own lives as if they were a country within a country. Bnei Brak, the orthodox city where I lived for many years, is just such a bubble, as are the residents of Jerusalem, and as is the Arab population in Israel.

The volatile economy, it turns out, not only harms the disadvantaged defenseless who have no “country within a country” to protect them, but exposes yet another aspect of the social division within Israel. This division both harms Israel’s position in the world, and harms the Israeli people’s bargaining position against their own government.

With the world being in an economic storm, I cannot see how Israel can avoid being unaffected altogether. However, the country’s economy is very strong, and the government has plenty of leverage to play with. It can decide what and whom to support, and what and whom to allow to fail. Currently, because the people are divided among themselves, they are nearly powerless against decisions that take anyone’s interest into account but theirs.

Again, if we are not united, we cannot achieve anything. As with all our troubles, the inflation is here to show us that if we want to succeed, we must act in concord, in unison, and this requires unity.

If we had solidarity, we could bring the prices down to very affordable levels, especially when it comes to such basic needs as food. But since we have no solidarity, even eating becomes an uncertainty for some people in Israel in 2022.
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