My new article on Linkedin “Six Days in June that Changed Israel for Good”

Israel’s Defence Minister Dayan, Rabin and Commander Narkis walk through the Lion’s Gate into Jerusalem’s Old City during the Middle East War

This week, fifty-four years ago, the Six-Day War broke out. Leading to it was a weeks-long period of stress and anxiety in Israel, knowing that a war was about to break out, and that the intent of the enemy armies was to wipe the country off the map, as they had intended to do in 1948, during Israel’s War of Independence. But fifty-four years ago, six days after the war broke out, a truce was declared and Israel found itself several times bigger than it was six days prior, and in control of all of Sinai, the Golan Heights, all of Jerusalem, and the West Bank.

At first, Israelis were ecstatic with relief. But soon, hubris settled in, conceit began to contaminate the nation, and division plagued the Israeli society. Since then, Israel has not been the same. The Six-Day War changed Israel for good, but for the worse, for the far worse. The prize for defeating the armies of the enemies hands down on all fronts intoxicated us and turned us into arrogant fools. Instead of using the victory to show the world what Israel was really for, we bragged that Jews, too, could be strong.

The world does not need strong Jews; it needs spiritual leadership, guidance toward love of others, as our own Torah teaches. The world has plenty of strong nations, but none that can bring unity to the family of nations. This is what it expects from the Jews. And since Jews began to boast in their military power instead of in their solidarity, instead of supporting the Jewish state, the world shifted its support to the Palestinians.

Our sages have always connected the prosperity and success of our nation with unity, and our failures with division. The book Masechet Derech Eretz Zutah (chap. 9), for example, writes the following about the power of unity: “Thus would Rabbi Eleazar ha-Kappar say, ‘Love peace, and loathe division. Great is the peace, for even when Israel practice idol-worship and there is peace among them, the Creator says, ‘I wish not to touch [harm] them.’’” However, “If there is division among them,” continues the book, “what is it said about them? ‘Their heart is divided; now they will bear their guilt (Hosea 10:2).’”

Even before the establishment of the State of Israel, the great kabbalist and thinker Rav Yehuda Ashlag, aka Baal HaSulam, wrote in an essay titled “The Freedom”: “The matter of social unity … can be the source of every joy … and the separation between them is the source of every calamity and misfortune.”

Six years after the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur [aka October] War broke out and caught us completely off guard. We managed to pull through it and ward off the invaders, but we paid heavily for our hubris and complacency. Yet, even then, we didn’t learn the lesson. Since then, each time Israel faced a military campaign, we pulled together and won. But each time, our unity diminished. In the last campaign, Operation Guardian of the Walls, our unity has completely eroded.

We decry our growing division in the face of intensifying antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment, yet fail to understand that it is precisely our division that is intensifying the antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment.

The sweet nectar of a sense of omnipotence is a poison that is destroying our society. We have to understand that our military strength buys us time, but it will not hold out forever. Our unity is our real weapon since it turns our enemies into friends and unites the whole world around us, rather than against us.

Henry Ford, a rabid antisemite and one of Hitler’s role models, wrote surprisingly positive and hopeful words about Jews in his nefarious book, The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem: “The whole prophetic purpose, with reference to Israel, seems to have been the moral enlightenment of the world through its agency.” In another place, he writes, “Modern reformers, who are constructing model social systems on paper, would do well to look into the social system under which the early Jews were organized.” Indeed, as the book Maor VaShemesh writes, “The prime defense against calamity is love and unity. When there are love, unity, and friendship between each other in Israel, no calamity can come over them.”
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My new article on Linkedin “Our Own Worst Enemy”

Two things happened this week, which pertain to past wars: We commemorated the 54th anniversary of the Six-Day War in 1967, and new documents were released, which portray the hubris of decision makers leading to the Yom Kippur War (aka October War) in 1973. In the military sense, the Six-Day War was a surprisingly easy and sweeping victory, while the Yom Kippur War was a victory achieved at a great cost mainly because of the hubris that resulted from the previous campaign’s overwhelming success. In between the two campaigns was a prolonged war of attrition that regrettably did not abate our overconfidence.

There are important lessons to learn from the wars of the past, but there is one lesson that far outweighs all the others: It is impossible to win a war using only military means. An army can buy time, but the only way to win a war is to win it internally. In other words, while we won on the battlefield, we lost the war against ourselves. Since the Six-Day War, we have become a divided society. Conceit, vanity, and hatred of others have pervaded our nation and a sense of entitlement took over the gratitude for the return from a two-thousand years long exile.

And worst of all, even though we did not manage to unite the nation before the Six-Day war, after our great victory, we shunned unity even more. We have completely abandoned our vocation to be a virtuous people, a light unto nations that serves as a role model of love of others, that cultivates “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Instead of preaching for unity, as did Abraham, Moses, and the rest of the founders of our nation, we have come to pride ourselves in our military, technological, and industrial abilities. And because we have abandoned our vocation, the nations have abandoned us.

As long as we have external enemies who wish to wipe us off the face of the Earth, we must fight for our lives, and win! However, we mustn’t forget that at the end of the day, we are our own worst enemy. As soon as we connect among ourselves, our enemies will connect with us.

In the 1950s, the great kabbalist and thinker Rav Yehuda Ashlag, wrote that a “return such as today’s,” namely without unity, “does not impress the nations whatsoever, and we must fear lest they will sell Israel’s independence for their needs.” Evidently, Ashlag was right. Today, no country supports the Jewish state. We may tell ourselves that it is because we cannot explain our position properly, but in truth, it makes no difference what we say as long as we are spewing hatred of each other. The world simply does not want us around if we hate one another because in such a state, we are not a role model nation but the opposite, and the world does not want us if we set a bad example.

The people of Israel unite the world whether we are united or not. However, if we unite, the world will unite around us. If we divide and hate one another, the world will unite against us.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Would a new government mean a profound shift for Israel?“

A profound shift for Israel would mean remedying the tensions and divisions in Israeli society, which have been getting out of hand recently, and I doubt that the new government is capable of impacting such a shift.

The new government is an assemblage of politicians who each pull in their own direction, and who are unwilling to make the necessary concessions for the sake of uniting Israeli society. They have formed their current bond against a common foe. After they get their way for now, we can expect them to each soon return to pursuing their individual interests instead of setting them aside in favor of unity.

However, while the new government cannot be expected to bring about a profound shift for Israel, we would be wise to view Israel’s current turbulence as a timely situation that can serve to change our outlook on Israel and its future.

We, the people of Israel, have but a single virtue on which our success or failure depends. It is our unity. If we calibrate ourselves to unite above our divisions and tensions, then we set foot on a positive path of development. By aiming at positively connecting to each other above our deepening rifts, we awaken the support of a positive unifying force dwelling in nature to hold that unity together. Without any unifying inclination among each other, then we also get no support for unity, and our ties then loosen and break.

Moreover, our path to unity is not contingent on the government and politics, and should not be viewed as such. Rather, unity should emerge from the people. It requires recognizing the basis for our divisions: that our very nature is egoistic, i.e. we each seek to benefit ourselves at the expense of others, and instead of letting this ego lead us into conflicts and other outbursts, we would be wise to look deeper into why we always encounter crises, and why we never seem to overcome our divisions.

Also, if we haven’t already, then we need to wake up to the world’s attitude toward us. On one hand, we supply the world with much innovation by way of technology, medicine and science. But on the other hand, the attitude toward us becomes increasingly negative and hateful. The more divided we become, the more the world frowns upon us, and it is not far-fetched to think that it could lead to our isolation.

The gray clouds forming over us are in order to make us realize that we will have no other option but to unite. Any motion we make in the direction of our unity, even if it is a single thought of our need to unite, will act positively toward such an end. While negative emotions are ablaze toward us and between us, we should view this situation as the chance of a lifetime: that times of change are upon us, and if we want that change to be positive, we should take the initiative to start implementing relations of unity above division using the method of connection that was made for uniting us and leading us to a harmonious existence.

Based on a meeting with a team of writers and Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on June 3, 2021.
Written/edited by Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Rafael Nir on Unsplash.

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Question: The Jews had to constantly fight for connection. But why, even if we look at what is written in the Torah, did they first fight with external enemies, and then began to fight against each other and with those Jews who accepted Hellenism?

Answer: All the Jewish wars were between the original representatives of the Jews and those who wanted to break away from this nation and preach other values but also remain part of them.

They wanted to convince the entire nation that the new values that the Hellenes or the Romans carry are correct. Supporters of the observance of true national values rebelled against them. Wars were fought between them.

There were practically no serious wars between Jews and Romans and Jews and Greeks. To a certain degree, they happened later, and more with the Romans than with the Greeks.

The confrontation that consumed the entire country greatly bothered the Romans who did not know what to do with it, and therefore, sent their representatives, governors, up to the point that they were forced to send troops.

Question: It turns out that the conflicts within the nation caused a kind of response from the upper force, which was manifested precisely in the fact that the Greeks and Romans came here and did their job.

If we transfer this to the internal war, then can we say that the “Greeks” are my desires?

Answer: All that a person is made of is his desires. They are all egoistic and are divided into several degrees. One of these degrees is called “Romans,” the other one “Greeks,” and so on.

If you, as a Jew, do not cope with them, then you become under their control and enter a state of war. You are forced to destroy them, and they destroy you until you get a certain result from these clashes.

That is, those wars that you cannot fight internally within yourself, ideologically, you will have to fight outside of yourself, physically.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 5/14/21

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My new article on Linkedin “Time to Sober Up”

Israel is on the threshold of a new era. Until now, we have been celebrating like reckless children, slaves to our egos, and we have caused a lot of damage. That time is over. Operation Guardian of the Walls marked its end, and the emergence of a new government is the inauguration of a new period. It is time to sober up. In my eyes, this period should be about one thing: recognition of evil—the realization of all that is wrong with us and why we cannot stop the downhill slide.

We have no choice but to start building a new spirit in this country, a spirit of unity above all our differences, as it is written, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezek. 36:26). With a spirit of unity and with a caring heart, we must begin to build a new country.

Our country is in a shameful state. The whole world is mocking us; we have become its laughingstock. Everyone hates us, no one wants to recognize our right to live here, and all they want is to use our intellect and technological abilities as much as they can, but no one wants to be near us.

This pitiful state can be a springboard for positive change, if we are brave enough to make it, but it can also escalate into complete alienation where the whole world unites against us. The only thing that can prevent this horrifying scenario is our own unity. If we unite, the world will unite around us; if we remain scornful toward each other, the world will unite against us.

A new government marks the beginning of the new state, but we mustn’t think that this state has anything to do with technology or policy. The beginning of the new state must show the beginning of unity among us. On the current trajectory, the world will turn against us so intensely that we will not want to stay here but we will have nowhere to run; we will not be permitted to go anywhere.

We have no choice but to start building a new spirit in this country, a spirit of unity above all our differences, as it is written, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezek. 36:26). With a spirit of unity and with a caring heart, we must begin to build a new country.

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My new article on Linkedin “Way Ahead of Everyone”

A student told me a joke he had read on the internet: Israel is way ahead of everyone. While the rest of the world is still grappling with Covid-19, Israel is already two disasters ahead—the Mt. Meron stampede disaster and the military campaign against Hamas. Gallows humor isn’t funny, nor is it meant to be. It does, however, point directly to the truth. In our case, the truth is that we are not learning from experience, and this is why we suffer.

Instead of examining why Covid-19 came to us, we tried to get rid of it as quickly as we could so we could get on with our lives. Covid gave us time to think, but instead of thinking why we got it, we thought only about what we will do when it is gone. So now that we got over it, we’re taking other blows since we didn’t learn the message that Covid came to teach us—that the problem is in our relation toward each other.

This, indeed, is our core illness: our poor relationships, sickened by ill-will. Because we didn’t learn it through Covid, we suffered blows in the form of the Meron disaster, the Guardian of the Walls campaign, and the riots of the Arabs all over Israel. At the current pace, the next blow is right around the corner.

The only change I do see from our “pre-Covid” days is that we are not so attached to our jobs anymore, or even to the concept of work as we thought of it before. We have learned to let go of the rat race, and this is a good sign. Nevertheless, it is far too little to make a real change.

A positive change in our lives will come only when we learn to focus on our connections with each other and try to build a society where people are responsible for one another and care for one another. If we stop wanting to feel superior, and start wanting to feel connected, it will affect the entire world.

Since human beings are at the top of the pyramid, everything we do or say, but mainly think, trickles down to all other levels of reality. When we have bad thoughts about each other, it produces bad results on every level of reality. By wishing harm to others, we tilt the world off balance and bad things begin to happen. If we think about it for a moment, we will realize that no other being bears ill-will toward other beings. But we, humans, bear plenty of it. In fact, we bear nothing but ill-will, as it is written, “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21).

Therefore, if the only being that bears ill-will toward others stops wishing others harm and begins to wish them well, everything will change accordingly. If we change our thoughts from bad to good, we won’t need to advance from bad to worse; we will go from good to better.
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My new article on Linkedin “David and Goliath – Reversed”

We all know and love the story about David and Goliath. It’s very easy to sympathize with little redhead David who stands up to the giant villain, Goliath, defeats him against all odds, and saves Israel from the wicked Philistines. But in the past few decades, it seems as though the roles have been reversed, and Israel, who was once the favorite since it was the underdog, has become the Goliath in the area, the villain that the poor Palestinians are fighting against all odds.

It’s not as if Israel is trying to slay Palestinians indiscriminately. In fact, no army has ever come close to the efforts that the IDF is doing to avoid hurting uninvolved persons. The other party, Hamas, sends rockets explicitly indiscriminately into civilian residential neighborhoods in towns and settlements all across Israel, yet the world sees only one villain in the conflict: Israel.

Is the world blind? Does all of humanity not see the truth? The world isn’t blind; it sees the truth very clearly, and precisely because of it, it sides with Hamas. Its real grievance against the State of Israel is not that we are attacking the Gaza Strip, but that we are not letting Hamas annihilate us. The world thinks that this is what we deserve, since being the most developed, we are supposed to lead the world to a better place, and since the world is not going there, it is our fault, and Hamas is only serving us a well deserved punishment.

Regrettably for us, we are not doing the one thing that will change the world’s mind about us: to lead the world to an unselfish way of life. With our selfish, egocentric manner of existence, we are causing the eruption of egoism throughout the human race, at every level and in every direction, and this is what causes all the catastrophes that the world has been experiencing.

No one consciously chooses to be antisemitic. The most developed part of anything is always its head. Since human nature is selfish to the core, as in the verse, “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21), and Jews are the most developed nation, they are also the most selfish. Since the head determines what happens in the body, and the head is selfish, the whole world becomes tainted with selfishness, and it’s the fault of the head, namely the Jews. This is why from the perspective of the world, Hamas has every right to shoot at us, we have no right to shoot back, and if it kills civilian Israelis, it is doing so on behalf of all of humanity, and it is our fault that it is doing so.

If this explanation seems far-fetched, look at reality: The whole world sides with Hamas; the UN is accusing exclusively Israel of genocide; countries from around the world have already pledged to give Hamas more than a billion dollars to repair the damages from the campaign, even though Hamas stated that the damages were only 350 million dollars; and Israel’s status in the world is plunging while that of Hamas is soaring simply because it stood up to us—the David-turned-Goliath, in the eyes of the world.

It does not have to be this way. Just as we are tainting the world with egoism today by simply being egoistic, we will clean it up by not being so. And just as the nations feel that their struggles among themselves are because of the ill-will we install in them, when we are unselfish, they will feel that their spirit of friendship and care comes from us.

In antiquity, the equation was very clear: During the time of the Second Temple, around the 3rd century BC, the Jews were relatively united and got along well with one another. At that time, scholars from Greece came to learn from the prophets, Ptolemy II, King of Egypt, summoned 70 sages from Jerusalem to teach him the wisdom of the Jews and to translate the Pentateuch, and people from all the nations would flock to Jerusalem during the three annual pilgrimages when Jews would assemble there. Philosopher Philo of Alexandria wrote that people watched in awe how “in the merging of the hearts … they would find the ultimate proof of unity.”

The world is learning from us by example. If we behave like bullies toward each other, they behave like bullies toward each other and blame us for it. If we behave toward each other with care and compassion, so will all the nations treat each other and will thank us for it. This is what the rabid antisemite Vasily Shulgin meant when he wrote that if the Jews, whom he hated more than anything, “rise to the height to which they apparently climbed [in antiquity] … immediately, all nations will request, ‘Give us Jewish [instruction], wise, benevolent, leading us to the good.’”
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My new article on Linkedin “Finding Peace of Mind”

Today’s reality gives us little reason for peace of mind. Uncertainty prevails everywhere, and the future is bleak. It seems like the best idea would be to find a little cabin in the boondocks of the Australian backcountry or the Canadian far north with a few farm animals and forget about the world. What a shame that most of us can’t do this, though.

Here in Israel, we think that if we didn’t have to fight against our neighbors, everything would be just fine. In truth, however, it would be far, far worse! We, Jews, would consume one another. If anything, it seems as though we were given enemies from above in order to prevent us from annihilating one another. The more we hate each other, the more they hate us, which in turn prevents us from destroying one another.

This is clearly unsustainable. The only way to find peace of mind in today’s world is to annihilate the hatred among us. Mutual hatred is destroying us, destroying our relationships, destroying our planet, and destroying our future. Just as we are currently teaching ourselves to compete against others as hard as we can and strive to reach the top of the heap, we must teach ourselves to be caring, considerate, and kind.

It is okay that we are not really like that; it is only the beginning. But if we don’t begin to cultivate concern, we will never achieve it. Instead, we will continue to fight and destroy one another until we destroy humanity. On the other hand, if we begin to work on kindness, consideration, and caring, we will learn how to nurture these qualities within us. In the process, we will change all of humanity not only in our generation, but for posterity, as well. We’ve never had a generation whose members were genuinely kind to one another. If we create the precedent, it will be that much easier to maintain that pro-social attitude since we will witness its benefits.

We think that we are separate beings, but we are not. In truth, we are all connected and influence each other whether or not we realize it. If we infuse humanity with ill-will, we will hurt ourselves, as well, even if we do it in order to protect ourselves from others. Conversely, if we infuse the system with kindness, kindness will spread through the system and return to us. And if we all do this toward each other, we will bid farewell to problems.

The key to finding peace of mind is not to run away from society, but to improve it so that everyone concentrates on giving others peace of mind. Only in this way, through a system of mutual responsibility, we will find lasting, solid, and joyful peace of mind in life, now and in the future.
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Comment: I arrived in Israel now and realized more than ever that Israel is on the verge of civil war, that within this society are all the contradictions combined: both socio-economic and political because the left and right really hate each other, also religious and ethnic problems.

It seems that within one country there are five or six different countries and five or six different groups of people who do not hear and do not understand each other.

My Response: Yes. This is why if we solve these problems here in Israel, we will thereby act to solve these problems all over the world.

Question: Obviously, this is possible. It simply amazes me when at night I watch the lessons broadcast from your center and I see representatives of different nations, different ethnic groups, and different religious denominations on the screen! When students from other countries, Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics, and Protestants listen to the lessons, I understand that, in principle, this is possible. You are constantly talking about this, constantly stirring up society.

But what should happen in practice? What do we need to do so that people in Israel would start hearing and seeing each other?

Answer: I do not know if I have an answer. I can give some formal answer, but whether it is actually effective, sustainable, and has the right to exist and be implemented, I do not know. I am trying to act according to the Kabbalistic sources, as far as I understand them. I do not see any Kabbalists in Israel or in the world who are trying to solve this problem.

I think that nevertheless, we must aim to reach the state when, first of all, we ourselves, our small society—not so small since there are many thousands of people in it—come to a very serious interaction, a recognition of the need to unite, an understanding that the entire world is behind us, and it has no idea toward what it is advancing and what is ahead of it. We just need to continue our efforts to unite, and most importantly, to disseminate.
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From KabTV’s “Talks. Leonid Macaron and Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/21/21

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My new article on Linkedin “A New Level of Pressure”

Operation Guardian of the Walls may seem like yet another round in a seemingly endless campaign between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but it isn’t. By all indications, it marks the onset of a new level of pressure on Israel and Jews the world over, one that will impel us all to reflect more intently on the reason for our being here in Israel, and the existence of our nation altogether.

Antisemitism is no longer exclusive to Republicans or Democrats, to Europe, or to the US. It is omnipresent, and Jews the world over are beginning to feel that there is no escape from it. This is the positive thing about it: It is clearly a pervasive, natural phenomenon that we cannot dodge. From day to day, humanity is being divided in a way we’ve never seen before: Jews on one side, and everyone else on the other. Those on the Jewish side are feeling mounting pressure from the world’s intensifying hatred, while everyone else is being prompted to hate the Jews.

In a sense, it is reminiscent of Abraham’s situation when he started talking about the need to unite and rise above the ego in his homeland of Babylon and found himself at odds with almost everyone, including the king, and even his own father, Terah, who supported pushing his “unruly” son into the furnace.

It is not an indiscriminate pressure. The nations are pressing Israel and Jews to change their behavior. The demand itself is correct, but without understanding the nature of the change, the Jews experience it as arbitrary hatred rather than as a demand for a specific correction. If this continues, it will explode with an attempt on the part of the world to inflict on the Jews a final annihilation. In fact, the only reason that this has not yet happened is that our vocation requires our presence in order to carry it out. But if we shun it for not much longer, nothing will help us, just as from a certain point, nothing helped European Jewry in the 1940s.

As the world grows increasingly belligerent, people feel that the origin of the aggression is the Jews. Even if the Jews don’t feel it, this is what the nations feel, and they say it very openly. Denying it won’t help since this is what they feel, and reason never defeats emotion. They will buy into any pretext, and there will be no way to convince them otherwise, since they will be right: We are the cause of their misfortunes.

The ancient onus on the people of Israel to bring unity to the world, to set an example of implementing “Love your neighbor as yourself,” has never been revoked since it was given. As then, so now, the people of Israel are the focal point of humanity. We were, and we are the purveyors of the faiths, ideologies, and ideas that drive the evolution of humanity, and we cannot opt out. But the only thing that the world needs now is unity, solidarity. It’s got plenty of everything else, but zero care and mutual responsibility. Our nation, which was established on the basis of mutual responsibility and love of others, and from which entire nations drew their social ideals and morals, must revive its commitment to its task, establish internal unity, and become the example that everyone expects it to become.

We must understand that our conflict with the Arabs is not really with the Arabs; it is with all of humanity. This is why the whole world sides with Hamas, a designated, officially proclaimed terrorist organization. The fact that humanity is on the side of the terrorists indicates that the one thing that is worse in the world’s eyes than terrorists, the one thing that does more harm than a genocidal organization that uses children as human shields, is the Jewish people.

Even if they cannot articulate it, their demand from us is unity. If we unite, they will lift us on their shoulders as in the prophecy of Isaiah (49:22), since they, too, will be able to rise above their conflicts and establish world peace. If we do not unite, the world will unite against us.

For more on this topic, refer to the books 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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