My new article on Linkedin “No Ceasefire Will Put Out the Flames of Hatred Between Us”

There is never a dull moment for Israel. Even though a ceasefire is the talk of the day, the public has no confidence that the heavy barrages will come to a halt for long. Threats persist in both the south (from Hamas in Gaza) and the north of the country with rockets launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon into Israeli territory. So the question that arises again is, when will the aggression end once and for all? The ball is in our court, in the court of the Jewish nation.

The hatred towards us never stops. Israel is constantly under siege, with pressure and repeated attacks, not only from Hamas and Hezbollah, but from Iran and other hostile elements all over the world. It is said, “The heart of ministers and kings is in God’s hands,” so even when the United States and other nations put pressure on us to reach a ceasefire, the real, heavy pressure comes from a deeper source, from the depths of nature.

We live in an integral system and are organized in a network that binds together the entire human race and operates according to strict laws of nature. The main hub in all this interconnected global traffic is the people of Israel.

“The Israeli nation had been constructed as a sort of gateway by which the sparks of purity would shine upon the whole of the human race the world over,” wrote foremost Kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag in his article “The Arvut” (Mutual Guarantee.)

In other words, the Israeli nation has a significant role to play in the lives of everyone in the world. We were given a task from the day we stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, united as one man with one heart, when we signed a mutual guarantee and agreed to be a light unto the nations. From that moment on, we received the Torah, the light, the method for uniting the world—the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Since then, the function of the Jewish people has been redefined in the inner workings of reality: as long as the people of Israel are united above their opposite views, then the power of internal connection between them ignites sparks of light, a positive force that is projected to all the nations of the world in the global network. On the other hand, if the Jewish people succumb to egoism—self benefit at the expense of others—and mutual hatred, it is as if they block the pipeline of oxygen for all of humanity, cutting off the sparks of light.

The blockage is not visible, but it is felt keenly in the hearts of people and nations. Animosity against Jews conquers and suffocates the people of the world until it breaks out as antisemitic hate speech and actions. The more the lack of light and frustration intensifies in the nations of the world, the more it obliges them to take action, to seek to annihilate the Jews wherever they are.

So it is not a matter of principle that we should be the first to publish a spectacular picture of victory, nor will it help if we increase the deterrence mechanisms or increase retaliatory actions if we do not take great care to be united from within—not “united” as we are now because outsiders pressure us to embrace each other as we huddle in the shelters, but united in a true heartfelt and lasting unity.

If we just try to obscure the pressure on us, arming ourselves with a variety of fair arguments and adorning ourselves with eloquent information for the eyes of the global media, we will not solve the problem; to date, we have failed in these tactics. We need to listen to the world’s internal and underlying demand from us: Jewish unity.

The first step to calming down the attacks upon us must begin with acknowledging and agreeing that the fire rains down on us because we are not being a cohesive people. Literally. The international pressure on us should be used to increase our awareness of our obligation: to bring into the world the method of connection, to exemplify and preach to humanity anew the great rule of the Torah, “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Only from love will peace flourish in the world.

If we understand the gap between our current situation and the desired situation that the system of natural laws demands of us, we will understand that we must first bring about a ceasefire in the relationships between us as Jewish people. Then, we will cause the world to treat us kindly, with friendship and sympathy, and we will be filled with joy because, as it is written: “In Israel is the secret to the unity of the world,” Rav Kook (Orot HaKodesh).
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My new article on Linkedin “The “Holier Than Thou” Mantle Won’t Help Jews”

Just recently, following the outbreak of yet another round of violence between Hamas controlled Gaza and Israel, a group of 250 odd Jewish employees of Google signed a letter urging its CEO to recognize “the harm done to Palestinians by Israeli military and gang violence.” Moreover, the signatories “object to the conflation of Israel with the Jewish people,” declare “that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism,” and demand, among other things, “the review of all Alphabet [Google’s mother company] business contracts and corporate donations and the termination of contracts with institutions that support Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, such as the Israeli Defense Forces.” But perhaps the most notable point about this letter is the fact that the signatories identify themselves as Jews and have submitted the letter as such.

We have already seen this phenomenon in the past; it never helps. In February 1953, Ilya Ehrenburg, a Jewish Soviet journalist and historian, wrote a letter to comrade Joseph Stalin. In the letter, Ehrenburg suggested various steps “to combat American and Zionist propaganda.” He stated that the solution “to the Jewish question … is complete assimilation, the merging of people of Jewish origin with the peoples among whom they live.” He also referred to Zionists as “enemies of our Motherland” (USSR). Just weeks later, Ehrenburg, along with all the Jews in the Soviet Union, would have been sent to pre-prepared concentration camps in Birobidzhan, Siberia, had Stalin not miraculously died one day before the beginning of the execution of the plan.

In 1993, applying the same appeasing attitude, then Prime Minister of Israel Shimon Peres signed the Oslo Accord with head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat. The two men received the Nobel Peace Prize for their feat, but where did it lead the two sides? Has there been any peace in the region since then?

Now, the Jewish Googlers are applying the same approach, and it will bring them just as much “success.” Playing “holier than thou” over Israel will not win them the sympathy of the world. It will win them its contempt and hatred. Just as establishing the Association of German National Jews to support the rise of the Nazi party to power did not save German Jews from the gas chambers, fawning to antisemitic organizations and movements will not save American Jewry.

The only thing that will help American Jewry, Israeli Jewry, and Jews the world over is to rise above the loathing that clearly pervades the relationships among us. “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,” states the book Maor VaShemesh.

Currently, we are nurturing the opposite of love and unity. Each community cares for its own interests in the narrowest, most self-centered manner. We are completely indifferent to the fate of Jews in other communities. In fact, we prefer to see them gone so that the world’s attention will turn elsewhere from the Jews.

It will not help us. We are in the spotlight because we are held responsible for everything that’s happening in the world, that is, everything that’s wrong with it. It does not matter that we can prove that we are not responsible for anything because in the eyes of the world, we are, and reason does not change people’s views.

The only thing that changes people’s views is feelings. And the only feeling that can change how the world views us is unity—our own unity. If we unite, the world will change how it feels about us. In 1929, faced with growing antisemitism in Germany, Dr. Kurt Fleischer, leader of the Liberals in the Berlin Jewish Community Assembly, stated, “Anti-Semitism is the scourge that God has sent us in order to lead us together and weld us together.” How tragic that his Jewish countryfolk did not act on his insight.

Fleischer’s contemporary, but worlds apart from the Liberal Jew, Rav Kook, who later became the Chief Rabbi of the Jewish settlement in Israel, wrote, “The construction of the world, which is currently crumpled by the dreadful storms of a blood-filled sword, requires the construction of the Israeli nation. The construction of the nation and the revealing of its spirit are one and the same, and it is one with the construction of the world, which is crumbling in anticipation for a force full of unity and sublimity, and all that is in the soul of Israel.”

Indeed, this is our only way out of trouble: to reconnect and create a force full of unity. Assimilation will not help, and neither will fawning or appeasing. Our only hope is our togetherness, since “The prime defense against calamity is love and unity” in the people of Israel.
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My new article on Linkedin “The Ceasefire Doesn’t Cease the Fighting”

As soon as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect, politicians, pundits, and a plethora of regular folk took to social media platforms, news media, and just about anywhere they could write or speak, to express their opinions on the timing of the ceasefire and the achievements of Operation Guardian of the Walls. But whether people are happy with the results or not, one thing is clear: Nothing is over. It will also never be over until we decide to stop fighting amongst ourselves.

We established our nationhood only after we agreed to unite “as one man with one heart.” Since then, the success or failure of our people has depended on our unity. When we fight against each other, we bring upon us enemies who destroy us. When we unite, we are untouchable.

The composition Masechet Derech Eretz Zuta, for example, written at approximately the same time as the Talmud, states the following: “Even when Israel worship idols and there is peace among them, the Lord says, ‘I have no wish to harm them.’ …But if they are disputed, what is it that is said about them? ‘Their heart is divided; now they will bear their guilt.’”

The book Shem MiShmuel states even more explicitly that “when unity restores Israel as before, Satan will have no place in which to place error and external forces. When they are as one man with one heart, they are as a fortified wall against the forces of evil.”

But our vocation is not only to unite, but to set an example of unity for all the nations. This is why whenever we quarrel among ourselves, even if only verbally, the nations punish us. The Talmud (Yoma 9b) explains that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Israel and destroyed the First Temple because the people of Israel spoke to one another “with daggers in their tongues.” But when the people of Israel display unity, everyone wants to learn from them how to unite. The book Sifrey Devarim writes that in the days of the Second Temple, during the three festive pilgrimages, gentiles would “go up to Jerusalem and see Israel … and say, ‘It is becoming to cling only to this nation.’”

To this day, people want to learn from the Jews how to unite. Interestingly, it is often rabid antisemites who wish it the most, and express anger at the Jews precisely for not setting a good example from which they could learn. Vasily Shulgin, for example, a senior member of the Duma, the Russian Parliament, before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, dedicated almost his entire compilation, What We Don’t Like About Them, to disparaging the Jews. However, he also details what he and everyone else would do if Jews were to change their selfish ways and rise to the level they once possessed: “Let them … rise to the height to which they apparently climbed [in antiquity] … and immediately, all nations will rush to their feet. They will rush not by virtue of compulsion … but by free will, joyful in spirit, grateful and loving, including the Russians! We ourselves will request, ‘Give us Jewish rule, wise, benevolent, leading us to the Good.’ And every day we will offer the prayers for them, for the Jews: ‘Bless our guides and our teachers, who lead us to the recognition of Your goodness.’”

Therefore, if we want to defeat Hamas, we must first defeat the hatred we feel for one another. If we do this, we will discover that Hamas is no longer our enemy, nor is anyone else. And if we cannot believe this simple message, it is a sign that our hate-filled hearts are blinding us to the truth that hatred of each other is our worst, and only enemy.

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It has been another difficult day in the life of Israel. It is not enough that we have to fight a war on the front line, against missiles aimed at us.

Now the war has broken out right inside our home, dispelling the illusions that we know how to act and keep the situation under control. In fact, we do not draw the right conclusions about the current state: where it comes from and why it occurs.

We are already used to the fact that the entire world is against us, but we do not solve this problem, we do not feel that it depends on the unity of the people. We must finally understand the source of this centuries-old hatred and how to correct it. Yet, we again want to put a temporary patch to continue in the old way. We hope that the problem will resolve itself or we do not think that it is possible to solve it at all. Meanwhile, our opponents are getting even stronger and more skilled.

We need to understand the principles of the founding of the State of Israel, of the unification of the people. All the natural foundations on which other nations are based do not work here. After all, we do not come from the same father and mother, from the same ethnic root, like all other nations; rather, we were assembled from different nationalities. Therefore, there can be no natural unity between us. We need to connect above nature, but we do not want to.

Our connection must take place above our roots because there are the seventy different roots in us of the nations of the world existing on earth. We need to connect all of them together within one nation. After all, our nation was gathered from the natives of ancient Babylon, and we are the physical and spiritual consequence of this assembly.

Therefore, our connection can be implemented only on the principles of “They helped every one his friend” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” that are laid down in the Torah. If we do not enshrine them in our foundation, then as we develop, we become more and more separated and we will not be able to exist in this form.

Safety must be provided for us from above, from the Creator. To the extent that we unite, even if only a little, we will suddenly feel what strength, safety, and wisdom we are acquiring, which will convince even our enemies of our right to this land. In that case, they will even come to us and be happy to join us.

All conflicts have only one reason: the fact that we do not fulfill our purpose. No matter what claims are made to us by different groups, nations, and governments, in fact, behind all the words there is only one claim that we are not fulfilling our duty to the entire world, which is to bring it to unification.

There is only one solution: to understand quickly what the historical mission of the Jewish people is. Then we will understand our role in this geographical place, in the land of Israel. From all this, we will understand that only connection between us for the sake of fulfilling our historical mission, that is, to be an example of how it is possible to connect above egoism, will make us the light for all the nations.

Nature pushes us by the latest events and awakens us to think about our destiny. If our hearts are deaf to its calls, it puts us between life and death and forces us to find a solution.

This issue should be at the top of the agenda and put up for public discussion. Otherwise, the situation will become aggravated again and again and get worse and worse.

There will be a respite for a while, but then the conflict will return with a new force. After all, we have created a country as if we want unity, peace, and connection in it, but we do not want to come to this. It turns out that other nations who found themselves together with us in this country are opposed to it and hate us, and at the same time live next to us.

Imagine that you let a couple of your enemies into your apartment. Would it be possible to live in such a house, or will you always be in fear and tension? It is impossible to establish order in such a country, and none of the politicians have any plan for how to resolve this conflict.

Time after time, it will escalate further. Yet, the Creator still gives us some time to think and start acting. However, we are not moving in the right direction, toward the connection of the people, which is the only place for us to draw strength from, as it is written in our sources.

Connection should be not just in words, but in thoughts, in awareness, in understanding of our mission, our common goal. Then it will be a true correction of the people of Israel, and through it, the correction of the entire world, which is also in a difficult situation with the pandemic. There have already been times in history when a smallpox epidemic claimed the lives of half of the European population. Do not wait for such disasters.

The situation in Israel is such that everyone remains with their own opinion and there is no agreement. We are not even trying to reach a consensus. On the contrary, we will find more and more differences between us that do not allow us to unite. But at the same time, we will look for a way to connect above all the trends and opinions, and that is where it will be a true unity.

We should not hope that we will understand each other and feel each other and in this way we will unite. Everyone should rise above himself, not so as to connect one opinion with another, but to rise above all of them and there find a point of connection between all of us.

Such a unity will eradicate all external threats because there will be the upper force in it. The Creator gathered us from seventy sources, human roots, and therefore we cannot find a connection and understanding between us. Only by rising to our special and single root can we succeed and connect in it.

To do this, it is necessary to fulfill what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches: everyone annuls himself and tries to connect with others, in which, “They helped every one his friend.” And all together we will connect with the upper force, the force of bestowal and love, above the personal egoism of everyone. Then we will feel that it is in this form, as if soaring above the earth, that we can exist, and this is our eternal and happy life.
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From KabTV’s “A Conversation with Journalists” 5/13/21

Related Material:
To Become One Nation
Why Do Jews Hate Each Other?
Opposition To Unity, Part 1

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My new article on Linkedin “Coexistence with Arabs? We Can’t Even Exist with One Another!”

The current wave of violence has exposed the fact that the coexistence between Arabs and Israelis within Israel was an illusion. There were economic benefits that both sides enjoyed, but the hatred has festered all those years until a trigger set it off. The painful truth that the riots of Arabs in Israel exposed is that they hate us no less than the Palestinians in the West Bank or in Gaza. The numerous lynching attempts, that miraculously have not taken someone’s life, yet, the burning of Jewish homes, synagogues, businesses, cars, the shots fired into people’s homes, and the stoning of cars on highways leave no room for doubt: The days of tolerance are over.

If we want to stop the violence against us, we must rise above our mutual hatred. Our military edge can buy us time, but if we don’t use the time we are given to build brotherly love above all our differences, the time will run out and we will suffer calamity after calamity until we learn that there will be no peace with our enemies until we make peace with one another. But when we achieve this, we will have no enemies.

Yet, anyone who knows the message of our sages, knows that they do not attribute our woes to our oppressors. Our sages do not attribute the ruin of the First Temple to Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon, although he was the one who destroyed it. Instead, they attribute it to us, to how we treated one another. They explain that the bloodshed and slander among us brought upon us the conquest of Nebuchadnezzar.

Similarly, our sages do not blame the Seleucid Empire for the war against the Maccabees. They blame the Hellenists, the Jews who insisted on installing the Greek culture and belief system in Judea.

And most notably, our sages don’t blame the ruin of the Second Temple and the two millennia long exile on the Romans, who did the physical conquering of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple. Rather, they blame it on a single culprit: baseless, unfounded hatred among us, Jews.

This truth has not changed since. We bring our woes upon ourselves. When we hate each other, the nations hate us. When the Talmud, for example, explains the reasons for the ruin of the First Temple, it writes that people would “eat and drink with one another,” yet “stab each other with the swords in their tongues” (Yoma 9b). Moreover, the Talmud further states that “Even though they were close to one another, they were filled with hatred for each other.”

Why do we expect things to be different now? Why do we think that the verbal swords we use against each other today won’t translate into physical knives and guns now? The fact is that this is what is happening. As then, so now.

Therefore, if we want to stop the violence against us, we must rise above our mutual hatred. Our military edge can buy us time, but if we don’t use the time we are given to build brotherly love above all our differences, the time will run out and we will suffer calamity after calamity until we learn that there will be no peace with our enemies until we make peace with one another. But when we achieve this, we will have no enemies.

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My new article on Linkedin “Where Do We Go From Here?”

We haven’t even recovered from Covid-19, and already, we are at war with our neighbors. And this time, it is not only with our neighbors across the Gazan border, but literally with our next door neighbors: Israeli Arabs who have been living peacefully with Israelis for more than five decades. In fact, most of the youngsters rioting now have never known anything but peaceful living alongside Israelis. They work in Israel, with Israeli Jews, went to Israeli universities with Israeli Jews, and send their representatives to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. Yet, now they are rioting against Jews, raising flags of Palestine, where they do not want to live, and burning the Israeli flag, where they do want to live. They are lynching, shooting, and stoning Jews, burning Jewish owned shops, synagogues, and cars, and they are chanting “Death to the Jews.”

From day to day, our hatred for each other is growing more intense and venomous. Accordingly, the passion of our neighbors to throw us out of here is proportionally intensifying. The equation is clear and simple; we just have to be honest enough to see it: When we hate each other, they hate us; when we want to destroy each other (as we did in the Second Temple), they want to destroy us.

To us, Jews, this is a major shock. Most Israelis did not imagine that this was how their Arab neighbors felt about them. The situation calls for some serious reckoning. We need to contemplate where to go from here, and why we are here in the first place. No other nation needs to ask these questions, but we, Jews, must. Because if we cannot explain to ourselves, and even more important, to the world(!), why we exist, and why specifically here in Israel, then we will have no moral right to be here, or to be at all.

Telling ourselves that we are here because we needed to save ourselves from antisemitism in the wake of the Holocaust is not the answer. Already, the nations regret voting in favor of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine in November 1947. They haven’t decided to reverse that decision, yet, but if they had to vote on it again, they would vote overwhelmingly against the whole idea.

So, what should we do? We must remind ourselves that we are here not to build a shelter from antisemitism, but to reestablish our peoplehood. We became a nation at the foot of Mt. Sinai, when we pledged to unite “as one man with one heart,” and we were immediately tasked with passing on that unity to the rest of the world, or as the Torah phrases it, with being “a light unto nations.” This is why Old Hillel told the man who asked him what it meant to be a Jew, “That which you hate, do not do unto your neighbor; this is the whole of the Torah, and the rest is commentary” (Shabbat, 31a). This is also why Rabbi Akiva, whose disciples wrote both the Mishnah and The Book of Zohar, said that “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the principal law of the Torah (Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim, 30b). We should ask ourselves if we are keeping this law, because if we aren’t, then we don’t deserve to be here.

I think the truth is evident. From day to day, our hatred for each other is growing more intense and venomous. Accordingly, the passion of our neighbors to throw us out of here is proportionally intensifying. The equation is clear and simple; we just have to be honest enough to see it: When we hate each other, they hate us; when we want to destroy each other (as we did in the Second Temple), they want to destroy us.

But the opposite is just as true: When we love each other, they love us. We determine our fate by determining how we relate to one another. I don’t know where we will go from here, but I do know what we need to do if we want to go anywhere good: We need to start developing love for one another. The harder we work on this, the faster our situation will improve.
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[Image: People walk next to burnt vehicles as they enter a building after violent confrontations in the city of Lod, Israel between Israeli Arab demonstrators and police, amid high tensions over hostilities between Israel and Gaza militants and tensions in Jerusalem May 12, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun]

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My new article on Linkedin “Where Israel’s Real Might Lies”

The rockets from Gaza are frightening, and they are certainly disrupting our lives. However, the real monster that’s emerged in this round of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the violence of Arabs who are Israeli citizens against Jews. Last night, rioters went through all the Jewish businesses in Old Acre, in Northern Israel, and torched every one of them. Attempted lynches were carried out in Lod, Tamra, and Acre. Jews were also injured from gunshots fired into homes in Lod, as well as from rocks and stones, and Molotov cocktail bottles. In Haifa, 60 Jews were hurt by smoke inhalation after Arabs torched cars owned by Jews, and the list goes on and on. All this comes on top of the hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, killing several people, wounding many more, and destroying homes and property.

Let me be clear, we must have military power. We must protect ourselves to the best of our ability, and attack those who attack us. However, if we base our confidence on military edge, it will fall apart, as we are seeing now. Israel’s only might always was, is, and will forever be the unity of its people, and nothing else.

Such mayhem is enough to shake up the confidence of anyone, and indeed it has. The Israelis are losing their confidence, but I believe it’s for the best, since now we can begin to base it on a solid foundation.

Let me be clear, we must have military power. We must protect ourselves to the best of our ability, and attack those who attack us. However, if we base our confidence on military edge, it will fall apart, as we are seeing now. Israel’s only might always was, is, and will forever be the unity of its people, and nothing else.

It doesn’t matter how divided we are; it doesn’t matter how deeply we hate each other for our different views or cultures. If we spread a canopy of solidarity over all our differences because of the simple fact that we are Jews and the essence of our peoplehood is unity above division, then no harm will come to us. On the contrary, by doing so, we will win the world’s respect and favor. Below is a piece of Jewish history that tells the tale of unity, division, and ultimate unity, and how it impacts other nations.

During the reign of Antiochus III the Great (222 to 187 BCE), Judea was ruled by the Seleucid Empire but enjoyed almost complete autonomy, as long as they paid their (reasonable) taxes to the king. In fact, in Antiquities of the Jews, Flavius Josephus writes that Antiochus the Great considered it his duty to guard the autonomy of the Jews. To show his appreciation for their assistance and his reverence for their way of life, he wrote a formal letter permitting the Jews to live according to their way: “On account of their piety toward God, [Antiochus decided to] bestow on them, as a pension for their [Temple work] … twenty thousand pieces of silver, in addition to abundance of fine flour, wheat, and salt.” His successor, Seleucus IV Philopator, kept the status quo with the Jews, who continued to live untroubled in Judea.

Even Antiochus Epiphanes, who succeeded Seleucus IV, initially had no intention to change the status quo in Judea, were it not for certain Jews who had decided to incite him against their brethren. Those Jews wanted to force the Hellenistic culture on Judea and take control of the country. To achieve this, their leader, Yason [Jason], paid Epiphanes a hefty sum of money, who, in return, ousted the incumbent High Priest in Jerusalem and handed the position over to Jason.

Jason quickly turned Jerusalem into a polis, renamed it Antiochia, and constructed a gymnasium at the foot of Temple Mount. In addition, the Hellenistic Jews abandoned ancient customs that related to the Temple and began to sow division in the country. In fact, the Hellenists sowed so much division that they even fought among themselves, between supporters of Jason and supporters of Menelaus (who in 170 BCE paid off Antiochus to oust Jason and make him the High Priest). By the time Antiochus Epiphanes wrote his infamous decree that demanded all Jews to become Hellenists, many of the Jews were already in agreement with his demands. In fact, according to The Book of the Maccabees (Vol. 1), “many of the Israelites consented to his religion and sacrificed unto idols.”

But we know the end of the story: The Hasmonean family in Modiin revolted against the decree, and under the leadership of Judah Maccabee, the Jews united and ousted the Hellenists. Moreover, Antiochus V Eupator, who succeeded Antiochus Epiphanes, restored the agreement of freedom to the Jews that his great grandfather, Antiochus III, had signed, and put the final seal on the Hasmonean Revolt when he executed Menelaus as a punishment for luring him into a war he did not want to fight.

Today, twenty-three centuries after the saga, it seems as though we haven’t learned much. As then, so now, we have to fight for our freedom because we didn’t fight for our unity before. Had this been our one and only focus, we wouldn’t have had to worry about anything else, just as the Jews in Judea enjoyed their freedom as long as they had kept their unity.

As long as we still have a country, we must shift our attention to our solidarity, to our unity, as this is our real weapon. While fighting against our enemies, we must fight the separation among us even more, since this, in the end, will determine the outcome of the war against the Arabs.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is Israel technically becoming an apartheid state?“

I’m not interested in all these labels people apply to Israel. My view of Israel is guided solely by authentic Kabbalistic sources that I have been studying for over forty years now.

Nonetheless, taking into account the vast amount of Arabs in Israeli society who share equal rights as Israeli citizens, whom you will find studying at universities and in a whole range of respected professions, such as lawyers and doctors, I would not consider Israel an apartheid state. Apartheid is something completely different.

Yet the various categories that people place Israel into do not matter to me. What does matter is the growing need for the people of Israel to realize their role in the world: to unite (“love your neighbor as yourself”) and be a conduit for unity to spread worldwide (“a light unto nations”).

If the people of Israel would observe this condition, then both the people of Israel and the world would experience a whole new kind of harmony, peace and happiness enter into their lives. If the people of Israel fail to make any motion toward more unification among themselves, then the attitude toward Israel will continue worsening.

Whether you define Israel as an “apartheid” or a “terrorist” state makes no difference because it will not change reality. What matters is our attitude to the law of nature that determines everything: to learn how it determines everything and how we are in relation to it.

I need to realize that as a Jew, I ignite the hatred that others have toward me. In other words, if I fail to work on connecting positively to others, starting from a positive connection to the people of Israel, then I stimulate the massive human ego—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others—which brings division and hatred to humanity. Accordingly, negative sentiment toward Israel and the Jewish people grows from one day to the next, leading to decisions that are based on this growing hatred. Therefore, what do I have to fight if I myself give rise to that hatred against me?

All I see in such negative stereotyping of Israel is that we fail to act as we need to. I attribute nothing to Israel’s critics and haters. If the people of Israel would operate according to what made them the people of Israel to begin with—a group that aims at its increasing unity according to “love your neighbor as yourself” in order to spread unity and love to the world—then the world would respond positively to Israel. By uniting and generating a positive force among themselves, people worldwide would feel a much more harmonious, balanced, happy and confident sensation surface within them, myriad problems and crises would thus subside, and the attitude toward Israel would also invert from an increasingly negative one—as it currently is—to one that respects and loves the people who bring unification and goodness to the world. The nations of the world are like a shadow of the actions of the people of Israel.

“The Israeli nation was to be a ‘transition.’ This means that to the extent that Israel cleanse themselves … so they pass their power on to the rest of the nations.” – Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “The Love of the Creator and the Love of the Created Beings.”

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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My new article on Linkedin “The Illusion of Coexistence”

Israeli cities that were once considered symbols of Jewish-Arab coexistence are on fire. Riots and lynchings perpetrated by both sides have shattered what were perceived as peaceful neighborhoods. The large Israeli cities Haifa, Jaffa, Ramla, Acre, and Lod, burn in the ongoing barrage of thousands of missiles by Hamas terrorists targeting Israeli populations and the following military response in Gaza. Why is the bridge between both communities being consumed by flames of anger? Because there really was no such bridge or real coexistence. It has never been between us.

We need to learn how to create a true friendly existence, how to build it and consistently nurture it. We need mutual desire to achieve it, otherwise it will not work. It requires readiness and a consensual decision that we are not prepared to continue in this constant life of conflict and war.

There were cops and guards who did not let resentment flare up and it worked to a certain extent until now, but this safety valve was simply released and exploded.

We like to whitewash or paint reality pink, but there is hatred toward us on the part of the Arabs, as there always has been. We need to talk about it, admit it, and understand that it is not accidental; we need to realize what the reason for it is. Only in this way will we be able to arrange a fundamentally corrected mutual relationship with the Arabs without clouding the truth with pretty tales and naive exclamations like, “Oh, how did that happen? After all, we got along with each other so nicely!”

We need to learn how to create a true friendly existence, how to build it and consistently nurture it. We need mutual desire to achieve it, otherwise it will not work. It requires readiness and a consensual decision that we are not prepared to continue in this constant life of conflict and war.

Our haters feel deep inside that we interfere with them, like a speck of grit in the eye that they must get rid of because it is unbearable. This is how they feel about us, like we are the cause of all their suffering. Even the small quarrels between them that have nothing to do with us, they still point at us to blame. And it is not just about our cousins in the mixed neighborhoods, but about all the citizens of the world.

In the depths of their hearts, Arabs and non-Arabs feel that we are the source of all their problems, even the most private ones. If they could, they would have killed us a long time ago, only they could not. Not because we are so smart and powerful, but because precisely from the small point called Israel something new needs to spread to humanity, a new form of relationship, a bond of heartfelt inner connection, which is the whole fix for the entire world.

One hundred years ago, foremost Kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) wrote that Israel “Must present something new to the nations. This is what they expect from the return of Israel to the land! …Justice, and peace. And this wisdom is attributed to us alone.

“If this return is canceled, Zionism will be canceled altogether…And its residents are destined to endure much suffering. Undoubtedly, either they or their children will gradually leave the country, and only an insignificant number will remain, which will ultimately be swallowed among the Arabs.

“This would certainly prove to the nations the rightness of Israel’s return to their land, even to the Arabs. However, a return such as today’s does not impress the nations whatsoever, and we must fear lest they will sell Israel’s independence for their needs, needless to mention returning Jerusalem.” (“The Writings of the Last Generation.”)

Today the Jewish nation is deeply divided. Nonetheless, it is incumbent upon us to be the people whose connections between its members are the most beautiful, the closest and the most corrected.

The beginning of repairing the rift rests within us and solely between us. From within us the power of oneness will spread in widening circles to the whole world. This is an order that cannot be changed; this is a supreme law of nature. First we need to reach the love of Israel within us, and later reach the love of the world, affection for all humanity, and adherence to the Supreme Power.
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My new article on Linkedin “No Victory without Conviction, and No Conviction without Unity”

The State of Israel is unique on so many levels it’s hard to know where to begin. But perhaps we should talk about how Israel began, because if we know how it began, perhaps we’ll be able to understand the present complicated situation a little better. The idea of a contemporary Jewish state began in the late 19th century after pogroms against Jews in Russia, combined with socialist ideals that many secularized Jews embraced, led to the creation of Hovevey Zion [Lovers of Zion], the first Zionist movement. At the same time in France, the Dreyfus affair, when a Jewish French army officer was falsely accused of espionage for Germany, shook up a Jewish Viennese journalist named Theodor Herzl and drove him to realize that only a Jewish sovereign entity would save them from antisemitism.

We, Jews, are living in the State of Israel not for our own sake. It may appear as if we are, but it is only an illusion. We are here for the rest of the world, and unless we understand this and convince the world that this is so, we will not have the world’s support or the conviction in our being here.

As a result, at around the same time, Jews began to build and settle in Palestine, then an Ottoman province, as well as build political institutions for a future state. The Russians, who were virulently antisemitic, did not oppose the departure of the Jews from their midst, and the Ottomans had no interest in the forgotten province that was mostly marshland infested with mosquitoes and malaria.

During World War I, the British Empire conquered much of the Middle East, including all of Palestine. The British, influenced by Christian values, believed in the Biblical promise to the Jewish people. Encouraged by Jewish Cabinet members, the British government declared in 1917 that it “view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish psshheople” and to “use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.”

Despite ups and downs in the relationships between the Jewish settlement in Palestine and the British authorities, the national home gradually took shape. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they aggressively urged Jews to leave Germany and go to Palestine. They even allowed German Jews to take most of their wealth with them to Palestine, which was exceptional since Germany had strict currency rules forbidding export of German Marks so as not to devalue their currency. Indeed, much of the industry required for the establishment of an independent country, such as weapons, food producing factories, roadworks, and steel industry, was established thanks to Jewish money that poured out of Nazi Germany with Germany’s and Britain’s support.

Finally, in 1948, in the wake of the Holocaust, the League of Nations voted in favor of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine, and the State of Israel was founded.

We therefore see that in the making of the Jewish state, other nations, and eventually the majority of the world, supported the establishment of the State of Israel. No other country has had such support; no other country was confirmed and recognized by the world’s key establishment even before it was established. In fact, even the victory of the Jews in the War of Independence that followed the League of Nations’ declaration was achieved with the active support of foreign countries who sold weapons and ammunition to the fledgling country, with a few even joining the armed forces.

However, for all the support that the Jewish state received in its infancy, it would not have won the war against the armies of six Arab countries—which were far better equipped and outnumbered the Jews by dozens of times—were its people not convinced that their cause was just and necessary.

Today, the situation is to the contrary. We have lost the support of the world, and, even worse, we have lost the conviction in our being here. In order to renew it, we must understand why we are really here.

We, Jews, are living in the State of Israel not for our own sake. It may appear as if we are, but it is only an illusion. We are here for the rest of the world, and unless we understand this and convince the world that this is so, we will not have the world’s support or the conviction in our being here.

Our only justification for being in the land of Israel is in being the people of Israel. In other words, in the deeper, spiritual sense of the word, the people of Israel are not those who call themselves Jews, but those who agree to unite “as one man with one heart,” just as our ancestors did after they came out of Egypt. They established the people of Israel, settled in the Land of Israel, and were expelled from it when they abandoned their unity and stopped being a spiritual people of Israel.

Therefore, our conviction depends on our union “as one man with one heart,” or at least on striving to reinstate this bonding. If we do this, we will become what we were tasked with being—“a light unto nations.” Our unity will set an example of rising above enmity and will “convince” the world that we “deserve” to be here. We do not need to prove anything or convince anyone. All we need to do is unite among ourselves.

I know that achieving unity among Jews is harder than any task, and that every Jew would prefer to unite with anyone but fellow Jews. No hatred is as deep as the hatred of the Jews for one another. This is precisely why when this hatred is resolved, all hatreds will be resolved.

It therefore turns out that unity is the basis of our success, a precondition for our conviction in being here, which in itself is a precondition for our victory. If we want peace, we must begin with peace with one another.
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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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