My new article on Linkedin “The Russian Jewish Mind”

There is life before and after the appearance of social media for the majority of the world’s population. The younger generation does not even know any different reality, but little is known that behind Silicon Valley’s technological explosion are Jews, particularly those from the former Soviet Union. State of the art inventions and software have transformed the world, but the most important Jewish contribution to humanity is yet to be revealed.

Google, WhatsApp, and PayPal, co-founded by Sergei Brin, Jan Com, and Max Lebchin, are only some of many tech giants created by Jews who emigrated from the former Soviet Union to the USA. Other Jewish pioneers from Russian-speaking countries are also part of the fast-paced innovation and tech revolution in the United States, Israel, and Europe.

What is the secret of Jewish success? It began with the destruction of the Second Temple when the Jewish community living in the Land of Israel was forced to abandon it and went into exile in different places including Europe where they also suffered persecution and discrimination. Job opportunities for Jews who lived in Russia and Poland were restricted by the non-Jewish society largely through legislation. Since their work options were highly restricted they sat and studied.

A small number of them nevertheless managed to do business, settle, and give financial help to those who wanted to study. This is how life was arranged. The rich believed that they should have people who would sit and study for them. Although they paid them pennies, at least they prevented them from starving.

The tradition of studying from morning to night was well suited for Kabbalists throughout the centuries like Baal Shem Tov, father of the Hasidic movement, and his successors. The appreciation for knowledge has become a basic tenet among all Jews. The approach to learning, patience, dedication, and diligence are imprinted in the fabric of the Jewish people, and were reflected in the fields of technology and medicine as soon as the anti-Jewish occupation restrictions were removed and Jews were allowed to work like any other citizen. Prominent Jews and scientists in various fields emerged from the same geographical area, Russia and Poland. This began in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Jews again were oppressed, fled, and scattered everywhere according to the occupation they chose. I, who was born and raised in the former Soviet Union, can tell that long after work restrictions were removed, Jews adhered to Yiddish, the language they learned. School subjects, including geography, history, and math, were taught to my parents in Yiddish. Their childhood passed without a word in Russian.

Only later around 1935 did Stalin pass a law requiring the study of the Russian language only. Imagine what a revolution this was for children! Parents had to move on and learn all subjects in a language new to them, according to a different curriculum. But they succeeded. Thanks to the same approach to learning that flowed from their ancestors, they overcame obstacles and were admitted to universities.

By the way, the same urge and importance for higher education is typical of every place in the world where Jews live, but especially in Russia, because since then the custom of studying all day had become an integral part of their being. They realized that learning was their most valuable asset, something they had at hand that no one could take from them. They realized that it was their unique quality when they wandered from country to country, thrown from one place to another like they experienced in the Middle Ages.

And there was something else special about Jews from this region, not just knowledge, but a kind of willpower, an impulse that made them pioneers in every field. Revolutionary winds always blew around them. Whether as pioneers who preceded their time by hundreds of years when they opened the then closed and forbidden wisdom of Kabbalah and offered it to the world when it was needed, or during the Russian Revolution when they were Marxist, Socialist, Trotskyist, and Kropotkinist activists, or as pioneer immigrants to Israel were they established kibbutzim, similarly they are pioneers of technology anywhere in the world.

Every part on earth, as it is written in the wisdom of Kabbalah, has a special force that acts on those who live on it. It’s really interesting, I also feel it about myself coming from the same Eastern European region where everyone from there has an urge for change, progress, revolution, new technologies, or economics. Eastern Europe is a kind of space that does not allow a person to sit in peace.

But today the same special and distinct identity that Judaism developed in all the countries of the Diaspora is no longer in Jews. Other than purely technical breakthroughs, there is not much left of that human spirit that aspires to be at the top of the world. As long as we, Jews, were scattered among the nations of the world that pressed us against the wall, we had to be good and united in order to survive. But as soon as the pressure dropped we became the toughest, most stubborn, and disunited. We are made of a kind of special material from which stress and torture bring out fine things and unity, and relaxation degenerates, corrupts, and alienates us.

We see today, when there is almost no external pressure on us, how Israeli society is becoming a wild, quarreling lot. A nation where everyone thinks only of how to succeed materially and escape from here, where each cares for nothing but himself. Although this is a gross generalization, in general, we should see that this is our situation; it is contagious and will continue to deteriorate if we do not find the pioneering and revolutionary spirit of the Jewish nation within us. If we re-acquire the knowledge and wisdom found in the connection between us, in our unity, we can give the world something really good, the breakthrough of lasting peace, tranquility, and fulfillment, the light humanity so desperately needs.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “On Jewish Unity and Anti-Semitism – The Rise and Fall of the First Temple”

(Article No. 4 in a series) In the previous article, we described Israel’s formation into a nation and how they were given the task to be “a light unto nations” by becoming a model of unity above differences. This article is the first to explore Israel’s attempts to maintain their unity after establishing nationhood, their failure to do so, and the consequences of that failure.

Once they became a nation by vowing to unite “as one man with one heart,” the people of Israel set out to Canaan. Along the way, they had many internal struggles, as well as struggles with external foes. Their growing egos kept challenging them in new ways and they had to find new tactics to overcome them. However, as it is written in The Book of Zohar (BeShalach, item 252), “Anyone who wages a war in the Torah is rewarded with increased peace in the end.” In other words, the wars that the people of Israel fought were over keeping the vow of complete unity.

Still, soon after Israel conquered Canaan and made it the Land of Israel, the disputes grew so fierce that the nation divided into two kingdoms: the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judea). The Northern Kingdom was weaker spiritually and its people quickly abandoned their commitment to unity. The Talmud (Yoma 9b) describes the leaders of the Kingdom of Israel’s malevolence toward each other very poignantly: “Rabbi Elazar said, ‘Those people, who eat and drink with one another, stab each other with the swords in their tongues.’ Thus, even though they were close to one another, they were filled with hatred for each other.” With such relationships, it did not take long for the Kingdom of Israel to dissolve into obscurity to this day.

Meanwhile, in Judea, our forefathers did not behave much better than their now vanished relatives. The 1st century Jewish-turned-Roman historian Titus Flavius Josephus details the misconduct of our forefathers. While the list of misdeeds is far too long for the scope of this article-series, it is important to realize how brutal was the hatred of the Judeans for their brethren. In The Antiquities of the Jews (Book IX, Chap. 5), Josephus offers some gruesome details on the foul manner with which the kings of Israel treated one another. When writing about the anointing of King Jehoram, who ruled merely seventy years after King Solomon, who taught that “Hate stirs strife, and love will cover all crimes” (Prov. 10:12), Josephus says that “As soon as [Jehoram] had taken the government upon him, he betook himself to the slaughter of his brethren and his father’s friends.”

King after king, the rulers of Judea murdered one another in an astonishing display of depravity. Josephus writes that King Manasseh “barbarously slew all the righteous men that were among the Hebrews. Nor would he spare the prophets, for he every day slew some of them, till Jerusalem was overflown with blood” (Book X, Chap. 3).

Clearly, this demeanor was not sustainable, and when the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II invaded the land of Israel, Judea was far too weak to defend against him. Although we are taught that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judea and destroyed the First Temple, it is important to note that our sages and all the ancient texts do not attribute the fall of the Temple to Nebuchadnezzar, but to our own vices against each other.

Incidentally, this pattern of pointing the finger to our own sins as the cause of our misfortunes, rather than to external foes, was the predominant mindset in antiquity. This changed only in recent centuries, when our arrogance and self-righteousness grew to such levels that we could not see any fault in ourselves and blamed all our troubles on others, despite millennia of our own sages telling and writing otherwise.

The exile in the Babylonian captivity was short but eventful. We will cover the events that led to the threat of destruction and eventual liberation through the Cyrus Declaration in the next article, where once again, we will see that unity brings freedom and happiness, and separation brings misery to our people.

—

For much more on this topic, please see my latest publication, The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism: Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “All Eyes Will Turn to the Jews”

Over the past week, two antisemitic incidents caught the attention of Jewish media in the US. Algemeiner reported that in New Jersey, “the carcass of a dead pig was left on the doorstep of a rabbi’s home in the town of Lakewood,” and Tablet Magazine released an intriguing story about a closed Facebook group of liberal women who expel anyone who expresses any support or understanding for Israel. Tablet quoted a Korean American Jewish woman named Skylar Cutler who said, “What I saw and experienced in that group was Jew-hatred cloaked in the veil of social justice. I had to speak out.”

The vast majority of American Jews were delighted that Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election, and I have no doubt they cannot wait for him to take office. I, too, think it will be good for them, but for a different reason: They will have a very sobering experience. With Biden as president, they will have no one to blame. After all, they picked him themselves and did everything they could, and beyond, to get him elected. But the antisemitism that will come from the Left, from the liberals and progressives, will show them very clearly that antisemitism has nothing to do with the identity of the president.

The majority of American Jews espouse liberal and progressive values. When antisemitism hits them, as it did in that Facebook group, they will understand that they are not hated for supporting Israel or for being white and privileged, but for being Jewish. As that Korean American Jew said, it is “Jew-hatred cloaked in the veil of social justice.” When it comes to Jews, there is nothing progressive about the views of “Progressives,” and American Jewry is about to realize it, if it hasn’t already.

When the final outcome of the elections is declared, both sides will turn their anger to the Jews. The liberals and progressives already harbor deep anti-Jewish feelings, and conservatives, who aren’t inherently anti-Jewish, have been given far too many reasons in this campaign to come to the conclusion that all their troubles come from the Jews.

Currently, Left and Right cannot unite in America. But when both sides come to think that all their troubles come from the Jews, they’ll find the common grounds they need. Just as we saw fascists and Muslims demonstrating in concert against Israel in Europe, we will see Liberals and Progressives, White Supremacists and Black Americans finding new unity in their hatred for the Jews.

Then, when American Jews find that all this is eerily similar to what happened in Europe less than a century ago, it may well be too late.
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My new article on Linkedin “At the Mall Today, in the Morgue Tomorrow”

Corona deniers abound in every country. You can see them demonstrating against government initiated lockdowns, walking around maskless, bragging about their carelessness and indifference to the harm they can inflict on others by infecting them, and packing public places as if it’s 2019. So what if more than a quarter of a million Americans died and countless others suffer from post corona complications that no one can explain, heal, or say how long they’ll last? So what if my “freedom of expression” jeopardizes someone else’s life? In a free country, I’m free to do what I want, right?

Wrong. We’re free to do what we want as long as it doesn’t inflict harm on others. When it comes to Covid-19, irresponsible behavior in public doesn’t fall into that category; it risks other people’s health, and possibly their lives.

I would like to suggest an idea to authorities that wish to contain the plague: Start a campaign and title it, “At the Mall Today, in the Morgue Tomorrow.” Take security camera footage of people in public places, how they have fun and hang out with each other carelessly, how they disregard safety precautions, don’t wear masks, don’t keep the required distance, and don’t avoid contact. Two weeks later, go over these data and cross-check them against registrations of new confirmed Covid cases. I’m sure the results, despite all the privacy laws protecting personal data, will show sufficient evidence that Covid is very real and people do suffer the consequences of their actions.

There is no intention to revenge inconsiderate behavior, but simply to prove that the danger is real. This act, as cold as it may seem, may save numerous lives by exposing the truth that so many people are trying to deny: Covid is real, and it is here!

Once people realize that there really is a problem, that the 270,000 odd Covid deaths were real people who are not with us anymore, they will be more open to contemplate ways to resolve the situation. This is when we need to start talking about mutual responsibility, solidarity, interdependence, and all those beautiful and true ideas that seem so insubstantial to people until interdependence hits them in the face because they or someone they love was infected by a careless person.

We need to realize, and start acting accordingly, that there is one basic rule to all of nature: All beings are one system, one entity. Just as there is no such thing as one organ being sick but the rest of the body is healthy, there is no such thing as one person being sick and the rest of humanity is healthy. A sickness anywhere is a sickness everywhere. The fact that we don’t feel it doesn’t mean it’s not true; it means that our senses are flawed, that we are sick with alienation, and that in order to heal the rest of our illnesses, we must first heal the condition of alienation.

If we work on this together, we can change reality. We can learn to feel each other, feel our connectedness and our mutual dependence. We can discover the benefits of mutual responsibility and solidarity, but first we must make a joint commitment to do it. When we are sick of isolation and loneliness, we will be able to heal ourselves from our senseless pride and start connecting. When we are sick of alienation, we will be able to see that alienation is our real sickness.

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My new article “The Fountain of Eternal Youth” appeared in Medium.

Throughout centuries, countless methods and treatments have been created that claim to stop or diminish the aging process, as people experience deep physiological, psychological, and social changes associated with growing older. Israeli scientists claim to have found the secret to looking and staying younger forever. Even if that turns out to be possible, it means nothing without exploring the subject from a deeper level, one that answers the most important question of all, “What do I live for?”

Scientific research from Tel Aviv University and Shamir Medical Center in Israel placed a group of healthy 64 year-old people in hyperbaric chambers and supplied them with sessions of high levels of oxygen for three months. Scientists responsible for the experiment claim that the therapy delayed the aging process, “reversed” it, and transformed those individuals’ performance to levels similar to people 25 years younger.

Aging scares and troubles most of humanity. Since the natural aging process relentlessly brings a person closer and closer to the end of life and to the unknown, it can also involve anguish. Old age and death are not necessarily a pleasant thing, but everything that happens in nature has a definite purpose and benefit that we may not realize. So it would be ill-advised to run to tamper with or change any natural state.

It is far wiser for us to go hand in hand with the natural aging process and learn to adjust comfortably to our situation, instead of artificially fighting the natural phenomena of getting older. People age; it happens naturally. The question is whether we as a society behave properly with people throughout the entire lifecycle process. We must scrutinize, “Are the elderly busy and feel that society needs them?” Indeed, a healthy society should consider their contributions as important!

If I did not have my daily teaching schedule, I would happily go out and clean the street. I would gather friends who live in my neighborhood and offer them to clean with me around the buildings. Why not? It’s healthy to move outside, breath fresh air, make a physical effort and in the process be in the company of others. Upon finishing this joint activity I would sit down together with my friends on the neighborhood’s bench and drink coffee. Any self-respecting community leader can offer such a social enterprise and many others to its elderly residents. Our senior citizens have a lifetime of experience and wisdom to share as mentors and help those just beginning their path.

And if the example of cleaning seems to someone as not worthy or dignifying, the problem is within the person himself. It is important to train all members of society to take care of the environment and serve the community. From this principle it is clearer that society must be properly educated in order to respect and appreciate old age, to give it a place, to devote thought to it. Society’s right attitude should be to discover how much it needs its senior citizens. Ask the children, they understand this well because this premise is naturally built in them.

Grandparents, parents, and children should maintain bonds of connection that flow from generation to generation, giving birth to a spirit of youth within the elderly among the family. The elderly already understand that one should accept life as it comes and have learned how to strive to be above all worries and project such attitudes to grandchildren. The youngest ones receive so many invaluable gifts from grandparents, an example of love that is unconditional, simple warmth without calculations.

In a nutshell, aging should not be a scary prospect. Instead of thinking that we have nothing else to contribute, the golden years should open a plethora of opportunities for new attainment when we realize that the most important aspect of a rich and meaningful life is found in human connection. Precisely the questions: “What is the meaning of life” and “Why do I live” are the gateways to a boundlessly better world.

With the knowledge that the answers to those questions can be found in our human relations, in our connection, and in actions that have lasting benefit to others, we transcend our corporeal life. We understand that there is a colossal mechanism surrounding our life and our world that surpasses existence in our temporary physical body. This reckoning prepares us in great depth to enter the wide, eternal world, a higher level of existence beyond the limits of time and space.
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My new article on Linkedin “He Who Comes to Kill You, Kill Him First”

Our sages wrote, “He who comes to kill you, kill him first” (Midrash Rabbah, 21:4), and “If one comes to kill you, kill him first” (Midrash Tanchum, Pinhas, Chapter 3). A few days ago, the top Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, considered the mastermind of Iran’s nuclear program, died after his car was apparently ambushed in a district east of Tehran. Although most fingers point to Israel, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that this is a feat of American forces. Either way, I am wholly in favor of it. A person who dedicates his life to the destruction of others should be eliminated. This is not only Jewish ancient law, as just stated, it is the reasonable thing to do in the eyes of every sensible person. Fakhrizadeh devoted his life to developing an atom bomb that would destroy the state of Israel and kill its people. This makes his killing a classic act of self-defense.

There are reports of some Jewish organizations that denounced his killing. Even if their words are mere groveling to powerful anti-Israel forces whom they wish to placate and propitiate, such a position proves that they have no wish for the existence of the State of Israel.

A decision to take someone’s life, even if he is your worst enemy, does not come easy. It requires months, if not years of deliberation and weighing of all the options. But once it is clear that only eliminating that person will stop the progress of a plan for genocide, even if only temporarily, it becomes justified to kill him and disrupt the ploy.

In the case of Iran, it is obvious that its goal is to use nuclear weapons to destroy Israel. It is also obvious that they do not have any plans to arrest or slow down their efforts to build such weapons. Therefore, eliminating the Iranian chief nuclear scientist is a wise and required move.

In fact, even considering the possible Iranian response, such as attacks on embassies or using its proxies in the Middle-East to attack Israel, I have no doubt that the costs were calculated and the right conclusions were drawn.

It is true that Israel is in danger now, but when has it not been, when Fakhrizadeh was alive? Israel has been in danger since the first Hebrews left Babylon following Abraham and decided to build a new nation on the basis of love of others, opposite from the rest of the world.

The latest incident does not change anything in the big picture. All it does is buy Israel time to get a grip on its role in the world: unite its ranks and set a model of solidarity above disputes.

If the people of Israel unite among themselves above all their differences, they will become the role model that the world desperately needs. This is the only circumstance in which the nations will consider Israel’s existence as legitimate, and even desirable. Internal solidarity and mutual responsibility are the only cures to the hatred against us. They are our only true defense against nuclear bombs, as they will neutralize the hatred that creates them.

But until we wise up and rise above our hatred, targeted operations are required in order to give us more time to complete our task. The only questions are how much time can we buy, and how much longer can we take until we wise up and do what we were intended to do in the world.

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Chance We Were Given Today, 73 Years Ago”

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted in favor of a resolution, which adopted the plan for the partition of Palestine, which paved the way for the establishment of the State of Israel. For the Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, that resolution meant hope of a safer life in a Jewish state. For the world powers, it was a way to ease the burden on their conscience after having done nothing to save the Jews throughout the war, and even prevented their escape while it was still possible. For the world, it was an unwritten, unspoken, and perhaps inadvertent contract between the Jews and humanity, where the world was to give the Jews a sovereign state, and the Jews would build in it a role model nation that would serve as “a light unto nations.”

After a heroic battle, the Jewish settlement paramilitary organization in Palestine repelled the six invading Arab armies from Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, which joined the armed forces of the Arab residents of Palestine, and established the State of Israel. It was time to start carrying out Israel’s commitment to the world.

This is when troubles began. Israel had been fraught with division from the very beginning. Zionist groups strove among themselves over power and over the way to run the struggle for the establishment of the State of Israel. Once Israel received sovereignty, these struggles did not abate but rather escalate. Waves of immigration from Arab countries and war ravaged European countries created new cultural enclaves, and every sect mocked the other sects. Many Jews from poorer countries, mainly Muslim countries such as Morocco, Libya, and Iraq, were sent to towns far from the center of the country and became what is known as “the second Israel.”

In June 1967, another misfortune struck Israel: After being threatened and harassed by its neighboring countries, and after realizing that there was no hope of avoiding another war, Israel opened fire. Within six days, and with relatively few casualties, Israel defeated and conquered territories in Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, including the Old City in Jerusalem. While the military triumph was a much required blessing, the hubris that it brought with it has been a plague we haven’t been able to shake off despite all the years that have passed, and all the failures we have suffered since then.

That hubris has only made our separation worse, and Israel has become a model of divisiveness, alienation, internal hatred, and slyness, the opposite of our intended goal in being here. Instead of mending the separation that inflicted on us the ruin of the Temple and the exile two millennia ago, our return to Israel seems to have revived the enmity within the Jewish people, and the ancient unfounded hatred is resurfacing.

The Jewish people are very opinionated and intransigent. This is our nature and nothing will change it. Nor should it change. We have been given this obstinacy not for ourselves, but precisely so as to serve as a model to the world. We must give up the notion that we can ever change each other’s mind. Instead, we must focus on nurturing unity above our different views. We need to focus not on this or that moral or ideology, as these only separate us. Rather, we should strive to elevate the value of unity itself!

Only if we focus on uniting above our differences, we will find the real merit of the differences, the real value in each distinct view, and the benefits of uniting above them. If we unite above our opposite opinions, we will create an entity that functions like any organism does, where the different, and often opposing, organs work in harmony to create a solid, healthy living being. If any part of that body were to grow weak or disintegrate, the living being would die. If all the organs operate to the fullest, this is when the organism is the healthiest and strongest.

If Israel makes peace among its vying sects, the world will look and learn from its example. If Israel does not do it, the world will regret having agreed to the creation of the Jewish state in the first place and will take whatever measures are required to eliminate it. Israel, in that sense, depends on itself. Its internal relationships will determine its external future. No other country in the world is in that position.

In Hebrew, the word “shalom” [peace] comes from the word “hashlama” [complementation]. If the struggling factions in the Jewish people learn to complement each other rather than compete and wish to annihilate each other, they will benefit, the world will benefit, and there will be peace, both in the sense of complementation, as well as in the sense of tranquility and good relationships. If the factions in Israel do not manage to unite above their differences and complement each other, then we will miss the opportunity that the world had given us on November 29, 1947, and the State of Israel will not be able to survive.
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My new article on Linkedin “On the Merits of a Three-Generational Family”

Today’s family often has only one adult living at home with the kids. But come Thanksgiving, I’d like to take a moment to discuss the merits of a full-size family. And by full size, I don’t just mean two parents and children, but rather grandparents, parents, and children all together. That is, they needn’t all live in the same house, but the benefits of keeping close family ties are something we should be aware of, especially today when it is so easy to find ourselves socially isolated and not realize that this is the reason for our sadness and irritation.

In spirituality, the three generations have a special meaning: They represent the full process of the ascent of a prayer. It begins with a person raising a prayer, sending it through a “medium” to the top level, and the top level returns the answer through the medium down to the beseeching individual.

This spiritual root manifests in many phenomena in our world, but one of the most vital ones is the three-generational family. This is why it is so mentally and emotionally healthy to maintain ties with all the generations in the family.

In addition to the spiritual benefits, grandparents can give to children what parents cannot. By nature, parents are more judgmental and demanding. Being the primary educators, they have to be that way. Grandparents are more accepting and give the children a place where they can always feel that they are loved the way they are. This is very important for children. Additionally, when children see that their parents treat their own parents well, they, too, will treat their parents well when they grow up, since example is the most impactful and lasting mode of teaching.

To the elderly, time with their grandkids is no burden; it’s a gift (to a degree, of course, as much as their health and energy allow). They enjoy being with their grandchildren, it connects them to their own children, the parents, and gives them vitality and health. To the parents, the children’s time with their grandparents is an opportunity to be with one another or do other things that they have no time or energy to do otherwise.

When parents get an occasional break from their kids, it helps them relax and allows them to be more thoughtful and patient when they are with the children. It also increases the longing of the children for the parents and the parents for the children, and nothing bonds people more strongly than the right amount of longing.

This Thanksgiving, I wish everyone a happy holiday, with lots of love and with the whole family.

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My new article on Linkedin “A Legacy That Will Keep Rolling”

During a visit to Argentina years ago to chair a Kabbalah congress for my South American students, I vividly witnessed firsthand the impact of the gifted football player Diego Armando Maradona on his fans—a deep impact made not only at his birthplace, but around the world. At only sixty years old, his heart blew the last whistle in his ultimate match called “life.”

This is why such cultural heroes of the world who have reached the top of their fields all too often become addicted to drugs, fall from grace, and divorce and remarry countless times. Pleasure and pain are linked together, and without pain they do not feel real pleasure. Inside this duality they frantically and desperately search for the meaning of life.

He is considered by many as the greatest football player of all time. I do not know all his amazing skills on the field, but I am aware that he had a special attitude toward his profession, a huge passion and enthusiasm for the game, a great love for football that captivated the masses, as well as an unmatched commitment to bring fans joy and connect with them. In that sense, professionally speaking, he set a great example for many athletes around the world.

If we separate the athlete from the man, off the field Maradona had a special relationship with life itself. With all the noise around him, he remained a simple and unassuming person, warm and cordial like many of the Latin people. It’s easy to judge someone’s deeds on the surface, but after visiting the slum in which he grew up, one must tip their hat to him and say that, despite being raised in a difficult environment, he did much more good than bad to others.

Therefore, there is no point in harping about the way he conducted his private life, his behavior or personal attributes, but to focus instead on his professional achievements, on his unique excellence and his positive contribution to others. His love of sports and privileged talent transformed him into a legend that will live on in the admiration of generations to come.

One may ask why so many talented stars and celebrities with phenomenal success behave erratically throughout their careers, sometimes even showing a tendency toward self-destruction. It stems from the fact that they touched the pinnacle of fame, tasted world prestige, felt like revered idols, and once they felt the sweetness of global recognition and wealth, realized these accomplishments provided very little fulfillment. This is why such cultural heroes of the world who have reached the top of their fields all too often become addicted to drugs, fall from grace, and divorce and remarry countless times. Pleasure and pain are linked together, and without pain they do not feel real pleasure. Inside this duality they frantically and desperately search for the meaning of life.

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Why I Care (and Write) about the World”

Recently, I have received some questions about my interest in “worldly” matters. These readers seem to believe that kabbalists should take no interest in the material world and current affairs. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Kabbalists care a great deal about the world, and for very good reasons.

But before I elaborate on the reasons for writing and speaking about the world we live in, it is important to realize that in doing so, I am in no way the first. Great sages throughout the centuries were very interested in the events of their time. They often wrote about it, too. In the 20th century alone, two spiritual giants expressed themselves on various occasions regarding the world around them. When the great Rav Kook saw that the Jews were in danger abroad, he wrote a plea for their arrival at the land of Israel. In a declaration published in the book Essays of the Raaiah, he asked them, “Assemble one by one, wait not for formal words and orders; wait not for permits from renowned ones. Do what you can, flee and gather.” After a few more sentences, he adds, “Amalek, Petlura [anti-Semitic Ukrainian leader], Hitler, and so forth, awaken for redemption. One who did not hear [the call] … for his ears were blocked … will hear against his will.”

A contemporary of Rav Kook, the great Rav Yehuda Ashlag—known as Baal HaSulam for his Sulam [Ladder] commentary on The Book of Zohar, and the father of my teacher, Rav Baruch Ashlag (RABASH)—wrote in great detail about current affairs. His essays “The Peace” and “Peace in the World,” and his extensive composition The Writings of the Last Generation are some of the publications where he expressed his views on current affairs and politics, both in Israel and around the world.

But Baal HaSulam worked tirelessly to circulate his ideas, and mainly his warnings. He published a newspaper titled The Nation, in which he dealt only with current affairs, and predicted the outcome of WWII, Israel’s conflicts with the Arabs, and much more.

In “The Peace,” Baal HaSulam analyzes Russian communism and predicts its downfall. Even though he wrote the article in 1932, he was already convinced of Russia’s ultimate collapse. In his words, “Go and see what has become of [Russia]: Instead of rising and exceeding the achievements of the capitalist countries, they have sunk ever lower.” Note that in 1932, he already wrote in past tense, as though it was a done deal. “Now,” he continues, “they not only fail to benefit the lives of the workers a little more than in the capitalist countries, they cannot even secure their daily bread and clothes on their flesh.” Later in the essay, Baal HaSulam explains that this has happened to them because they failed to educate their people about the importance of unity and solidarity.

Baal HaSulam does not stop his explanation with Russia. In The Writings of the Last Generation, written shortly after World War II, he explains once more why communism did not succeed, and what will follow it: “Soviet Russia has already proven that an insufficiently developed society will invert the cooperative governance into the worst governance in the world. Moreover, [Marx] assumed that the subsequent phase to the ruin of today’s [capitalistic democratic] governance is the governance of the workers, but reality has shown [perhaps a reference to Weimar] that the subsequent governance to today’s governance is the Nazi or fascistic governance.”

We might think that this was a slip of the pen, so to speak, but Baal HaSulam makes his point very clear. In his writings, he mentions the word Nazi, Nazis, or Nazism 27 times, and the word “fascist” or “fascism” 11 times. In the excerpt below, he warns that the Nazi regime is likely to emerge from the Left rather than from the Right: “We should also take into account that all those who are ruining the natural process of the just governance actually came from the proletariat and emerged from their midst, and not necessarily the Soviets, but the majority of Nazis were also initially pure socialists, as well as the majority of fascists. Even Mussolini himself was initially an enthusiastic socialist leader.”

Further below, Baal HaSulam returns to Marx and writes about the danger of Nazism emerging specifically in democratic, capitalistic countries: “[Marx] thought that the subsequent stage to the bourgeois [capitalistic] regime would be a cooperative workers’ regime, but in the end, we are living witnesses that if the democratic bourgeois government were to be ruined now, a Nazi and fascist regime would promptly rise in its stead.” Worse yet, “Whenever the democratic government is ruined, a fascist, Nazi regime will inherit it.”

Baal HaSulam did not settle for writing about his predictions. He participated physically in political assemblies and parades in Poland before he moved to the land of Israel. Here, he met with political and social leaders and tried to convince them to include education toward unity in their platforms, speeches, and writings. He met with David Ben Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel; Zalman Shazar, the 3rd president of Israel; Moshe Sharett, the second prime minister of Israel; Haim Arlosoroff, head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency, renowned poet Hayim Nahman Bialik, and many others. In all those meetings, he strove to promote the agenda of unity above differences. Regrettably, they would not listen, and today we are faced with the consequences.

My teacher, RABASH, Baal HaSulam’s first born son and successor, spoke to me at great length about current affairs and where they would develop. He knew that I would continue his path and the path of his father; we had talked about it many times, and it is my commitment to him and to Baal HaSulam to carry on with my efforts to warn humanity about the approaching cataclysm.

We need to understand that a kabbalist relates to the world in a very different way than other people. A kabbalist’s one and only goal is to help everyone develop the quality of love of others. Kabbalists strive for connection above all the differences, knowing full well that these differences all come from the singular, benevolent force that has created the world, and are implanted in the world precisely so that we will be able to develop the quality of love of others to counter the natural rejection we feel toward those who oppose our views. Were it not for the existence of opposers, we would not feel hate and would therefore have no impetus to develop love in order to counter it. It turns out that even those we hate, the Creator—the force of love and giving—put them there in order to help us grow and become loving individuals.

The countless conflicts in our world are opportunities to bridge hatred by building love between us. This is why these conflicts occur in the first place. If we acknowledge this and work on building love, our bonding strengthens and our society thrives. If we do not seize the moment and succumb to our hatred, the force of giving will have to give us even greater hatred in order to compel us to build love above it. It turns out that the more we avoid our work, the more we bring upon ourselves increasing pain and hardships.

We need to understand that spirituality means giving, love. It is not some parallel universe or an “elevated” state of consciousness where you become aloof and indifferent to material life. On the contrary, spirituality is an approach to life in this world that changes our perception of it. A kabbalist’s task is therefore to help all people see the force of giving acting behind everything that happens, and help them connect with it. A kabbalist must take interest and write about current affairs as a means to explain the operations of the giving force, the Creator, and advise people how to direct their lives, establish their own connections with the Creator, and achieve happiness and confidence in life.

When kabbalists observe the world, they look for the easiest, quickest, and most pleasant ways for people to achieve the positive transformation that they want to advance. If this way requires support for a certain political entity or direction, they will support it. They have no personal benefits to gain as a result of their support, or any other ulterior motive. Their only motivation for supporting any entity or organization, political or not, is the advancement of humanity toward connection, mutual responsibility, and solidarity. Kabbalists will support anyone who champions it, and oppose anyone who hinders it.

Because kabbalists want everyone to be connected and acquire the quality of love, they care about the entire world: all the people, animals, plants, and planets. Rav Kook once said to the renowned author Alexander Ziskind Rabinovitz (AZAR): “I wish the whole of humanity could be placed into a single body, so I could embrace them all.” This is the attitude of a true kabbalist.
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