My new article on Linkedin “When the Levee Breaks”

It was not at all surprising to discover that Jacob Blake Sr., father of Black American Jacob Blake Jr., who was shot on August 23 by a White police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has a long history of racist, antisemitic posts on social media. Antisemitism is growing everywhere; the tension is in the air, and even where it is still quiet, it feels as though the ground is shaking under our feet. When the levee breaks and the flood begins, no one will be sorry to see the Jews drown.

The level of antisemitism is skyrocketing not only in America, but the world over. But the US, where the Jewish community is the most prominent and powerful in the world, will be the epicenter of the cataclysm.

It’s hard to tell when the critical point will come, but if the trajectory does not change, it will come for sure and American Jewry will experience what every Jewish diaspora has experienced since the exile began two thousand years ago: extinction and expulsion.

In a world so full of hate and so devoid of humanism, we cannot ignore our obligation to the nations: to be “a light unto nations,” to set an example of unity and mutual responsibility. We do not need to please the nations or appease them. They don’t judge us by how we relate to them; they judge us by how we relate to one another! When we hate each other, they blame us for spreading war among them. Simply, without an example of unity, they cannot unite and begin to fight. And deep inside, they feel that it’s because of us.

We have given the world science and technology, art and culture, knowledge and wisdom, yet the world hates us more and more and does not show us any gratitude. It is time we realize that these are not what it expects from us; it expects from us to set an example of Arvut Hadadit (mutual responsibility).

We became a nation only once we united “as one man with one heart” at the foot of Mt. Sinai (the mountain of hatred). Immediately thereafter, we were ordered to be “a light unto nations,” to bring the world the unity that we have gained. The absence of that light of unity is the cause of the chaotic world we live in, and our obligation is to bring that unity by setting an example.

We can deny it but denial won’t discharge us from our duty or convince the world that we are not to blame. So we can choose to unite above our hatred, do what the world expects of us, and win its favor for the first time in history, or take the flogging of humanity as we did in Europe eighty years ago.

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Crisis, New Publications - No Comments →

My new article on Linkedin “The End of The Ego Era And The Decline Of The Ego Kingdom”

The United States is a unique country. Its people immigrated there with the sole purpose of building a good life for themselves and to escape from the bad lives they’d had in their homelands. In many ways, its pioneers were escapees. They came from England, the Netherlands, and Germany, and built a country that idolized such values as “To each his own” and “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours.”

The virus told us that our exploitative civilization, where people are alienated from each other, cannot go on, that we must change how we relate to one another and to nature, and that the predominance of the ego must end. Naturally, the country most influenced by egoism suffered the worst blow: The United States of America.

And America succeeded. While other countries were chained by religion, tradition, manners, and culture, Americans were free to build their own lives for themselves, and they did it with vigor. They made religion one’s personal business with which the state must not interfere, sanctified private property more than the sanctity of life, and the country kept growing as more people from more nationalities and cultures kept pouring in.

Eventually, even slavery was abolished, ethnic diversity peaked, and America thrived. It seemed as though hard work would grant each person a house in the suburbs, a car in the driveway, and a picket fence around the lawn, or simply, the realization of the American Dream.

But something’s changed in the last few decades. The wage gaps grew, prices rose, and tuition fees spiked. Gradually, the Land of Opportunity became a land of disappointment, frustration, and despair. The ego, which the Bill of Rights crowned as the ruler in America, is failing to keep its promise of lush and easy living. Now, in the third decade of the third millennium, life in America has become hard, harsh, and hopeless.

But it’s not because Americans did anything wrong. For a long time, the American way has been the way to go. For a long time, America was proof that diverse ethnicities and cultures could live side by side (more or less) peacefully. The diversity of American society was a testament to the American motto of unlimited possibilities, and gave it strength and flexibility that no other country had.

But the ego isn’t passive. It is a monster that keeps growing and unless you tame it, it will rise against its owner. This is one part of America’s woes. The unbridled ego made inequality grow to such levels that while some people cannot feed their children, others have more billions of dollars than they can count. Such a society is unsustainable.

The other part of America’s woes is nature itself. It has become intolerant to egoism. If, until recently, you could get away with polluting as much as you want, mining and drilling as much as you could, and extinguishing species left and right, this year, nature has stopped humanity’s celebration through a tiny servant with a big name: SARS-CoV-2, aka. Covid-19.

The coronavirus stopped civilization in its tracks and showed us for just a few weeks of quarantine how beautiful the world could be if we only stopped destroying it. Moreover, the virus told us where to start, by watching out for each other’s health through wearing masks and staying six feet apart.

The virus told us that our exploitative civilization, where people are alienated from each other, cannot go on, that we must change how we relate to one another and to nature, and that the predominance of the ego must end. Naturally, the country most influenced by egoism suffered the worst blow: The United States of America.

All the countries suffer, and all the countries will continue to suffer from the economic, social, physical, and emotional blows wrought by Covid-19. But America, whose population is the most diverse, and whose culture is the most individualistic, will suffer the most.

We are witnessing the onset of a new era, where people learn to cooperate and think of one another, where care and consideration take the helm, and self-absorption and entitlement become contemptible. Naturally, the country that led the world in self-indulgence will be the last when the new era sets in.

But all hope is not lost. America is a land of pioneers, brazen people who dared the unknown and beat the odds. It will need to reinvent itself, restructure its society, and reeducate its people, but if any country can do it, it is America.

At the moment, the U.S. is undergoing civil disintegration that could become a civil war. But if there is a will, there is a way. If the American people want to save their country, they must pull together and change their society into a cohesive, mutually accountable entity that serves as an example of the right way to live in an era of mutual dependence. The only question is whether Americans have the will.

Filed under: Coronavirus, Crisis, Egoism, New Publications - No Comments →

My new article on BIZCATALYST “Faith and Belief in Times of Crisis”

hen things go wrong, people look heavenward for answers and comfort. Since ancient times people have looked for something to hold onto in moments of crisis and distress, so it is only natural that this pandemic has triggered a search for an upper force, as studies confirm. This outcry will accelerate our discovery of the meaning of life and help us internalize an answer that will be found in the power of love between us.

A quarter of Americans say COVID-19 has strengthened their religious faith, while just 2% claim it has weakened it, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Other studies confirm a direct link between natural disasters and moments of crisis and an increased tendency to turn to a higher power. The number of Google searches for the word “prayer” in 75 countries has nearly doubled since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.

People need to feel that they have an anchor, that there is something to trust or hold on to.

Like a child grabs its mother and does not let go because she is perceived as the safest place, we too, grownups as we are, need a source of security. In the world around us, we find no such source.

Humanity once turned toward the inanimate forces of nature such as the sun and moon as ruling powers. Today, with nowhere left to turn and nothing left to believe in, only a higher power remains. But exactly who or what this is, we are not sure. There are endless discussions, hypotheses, perceptions, and beliefs surrounding these questions. After all, our hearts yearn for certainty that something is managing and arranging everything in life.

At the end of the day, we may ask whether the exact nature of a supreme power matters, as long as its very existence helps us feel safer in our short lives in this world. As long as our faith calms the weary psyche, we choose to cling to it.

And when one person feels better, it is good for those around him because calm people are kinder to one another. They are less willing to quarrel or hurt others. Although specifics and customs around belief may differ, each of the eight billion people in the world believes in something, and this faith is accepted as normal by almost every person.

This notion of faith is also related to the concept of prayer. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, people’s beliefs have brought them together in common prayers that have been broadcast live to masses on social media. The consequences of collective prayers are also positive because when people believe that they can access a powerful force by uniting in a common plea, they do it through the process of connecting together and asking as one. And if there is some trouble in our lives, this trouble binds us to each other. When we are more unified, our unity certainly draws a response.

When we overcome the distance between us and express willingness to gather to unite in a common request, transcend above the individual ego—the single factor that keeps us apart—we thereby improve everyone’s fate.

As long as we ask for everyone’s sake, and not for the detriment of anyone, our prayer is accepted. In the end, it does not matter at all why we believe, to whom we turn, the specific religion or method we practice, or even in what language we pray. What matters is our common desire and request.

As a result of the pandemic, we have reached a new stage in our development, which will propel us to a new degree of life, a new worldview of humanity as one family. The problems we face are pushing us forward. They are helping us discover that the supreme power is one and is for all and that it can be accessed through the connection between us. Humanity is discovering the power of love that is revealed in our unity.
[270297]

Filed under: Coronavirus, Crisis, New Publications - No Comments →

My new article on Linkedin “On Borrowed Time”

A few hours after the results come in, the winner of the 2020 presidential election will come on stage, thank his supporters, thank his rival for a tough race, and promise that he will be everyone’s president, not just of those who elected him. But when a country is so deeply divided between them and us, it is doubtful any president can patch up America.

I realize that an election year is always tense, but the convergence of the elections, the Covid-19 pandemic, natural disasters, escalating racial tensions and distrust between law enforcement and citizens, have created a perfect storm that puts America at risk of collapse. I believe that the country is on borrowed time, and it is running out fast.

To make America one again, you need more than words, you need a common goal. When people of differing views share a common goal their different viewpoints contribute to the attainment of the goal, since they can cover more angles, look at things from different perspectives, and reflect problems that the other party did not think of before they materialize. But when each party sees the country as its own possession and cares about making its own constituency happy in order to be reelected, you’re bound to deepen the chasm and exacerbate the anger.

Currently, America is en route to mayhem. There is complete distrust between Democrats and Republicans, Conservatives and Progressives. The trust was already broken four years ago, but this year it has become overt enmity and hatred. I’m all for frankness, but when you take pride in your derision of another and do not intend to mend it, you are sowing wind, and you will reap the storm.

I realize that an election year is always tense, but the convergence of the elections, the Covid-19 pandemic, natural disasters, escalating racial tensions and distrust between law enforcement and citizens, have created a perfect storm that puts America at risk of collapse. I believe that the country is on borrowed time, and it is running out fast.

The only way out of the plight is to put the benefit of the overall American society first, and with that approach see how to assist each segment of the country. No segment will thrive if not all of them thrive. But if the American people can rise above centuries of division and come to feel as one nation, they will become a beacon of hope for humanity. If not, the world will watch as America falls.

Filed under: Coronavirus, Crisis, New Publications - No Comments →

Medium published my new article “The Sharp Message of Demonstrators to Bezos”

This week, demonstrators constructed a guillotine outside Jeff Bezos’ mansion in Washington, DC, and demanded a raise. Indeed, when you have a crooked economic system, you have crooked wage gaps. If the rules allow and support the creation of such unjust social structures, then it’s not the people who use it that you should change; it’s the system itself that needs changing.

Instead of waiting for a breakdown to happen, we must set up a line of courses that inform people about the situation we are all in. People must know that destroying the wealthy will not be helpful to anyone, since we are in an era where everyone is responsible for everyone else.

When the system is built to create inequality, you cannot blame those who are smart enough to exploit it, since each of us, and each of the demonstrators, would exploit it just as readily if we had Bezos’ guts, resourcefulness, and wit. Nevertheless, the super rich must know that unless they develop a pro-social attitude, the mob will get to them regardless of the rules. We’ve seen it happen elsewhere, and it can easily happen in America.

It’s true that the whole system is rigged, and crony capitalism is the basis of politics everywhere, including in America. If that’s the case, why shouldn’t people like Jeff Bezos take advantage of their clout to bend the rules in their favor? After all, he truly built his empire with his own two hands; he is the epitome of the realization of the American Dream, so why shouldn’t he enjoy it?

While this is the truth, people can no longer accept it. We have entered an era where injustice and inequality are unacceptable even in a country that puts personal success on a pedestal. People on both sides of the political map are becoming more socially aware and demand social accountability from leaders and from powerful individuals. People are beginning to feel that they are truly one system, one society, and therefore any kind of inequality is unjust, be it racial or financial. Without proper treatment of this growing intolerance, it will lead to violence, and eventually to social breakdown. We can already see it happening in many places in America, but it is still reversible.

Instead of waiting for a breakdown to happen, we must set up a line of courses that inform people about the situation we are all in. People must know that destroying the wealthy will not be helpful to anyone, since we are in an era where everyone is responsible for everyone else. In such a time, there must be mutual support, and destruction of the rich without building a just and sustainable system will only exacerbate the problems. After all, the rich are also the job providers. There needs to be justice, but there also needs to be common sense.

The current atmosphere in most places in America is toxic; people hate and suspect anyone who isn’t from their “side.” This is an extremely dangerous situation. People must become aware that destroying one side will only lead to their own destruction too, since everyone is mutually dependent. If people aren’t aware of it, they will seek to destroy anyone they disagree with, and the road to mayhem is paved and quick.

Today’s foremost task for the rich is to establish the line of courses that teaches this, as this is the only road for America to save itself and its citizens from harm’s way, including the wealthy. The famous playwright Anton Chekhov wrote that if a gun appears in the first act of a play, it will shoot in the final act. We are clearly in the first act of the demonstrations, and already, a guillotine appeared. I think it is unwise to ignore the message.

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

Medium published my new article “Fall Is Here, and So Is Covid”

August is over, fall is here, and so is Covid, stronger than ever. The coronavirus has become an inseparable part of our lives. Not so much the disease as the changes it brings with it. Gradually, we are acknowledging that it is here to stay. While we are afraid of catching Covid, the impact of the virus goes far beyond our health; it has affected every aspect of our lives.

The virus will teach us that we are dependent on each other and will make us think of one another. But when we learn it, we will uncover the joy and strength in unity, in having a solid community.

The public sphere has been transformed. Cafes look different, movie theatres, shopping centers, schools, everything is different, odd. Many people are working from home; many are not working at all, and for those who have kept their old jobs, the jobs themselves seem different. And underneath those changes, a transformation is happening; we are changing our relations to each other and to all of reality. We are changing our relation to life.

We still want to return to the old “normal,” to make plans for a Covid-free future, but nature has said its piece, and we must comply. We must accept that life has changed for good.

The approach of fall will prompt us to change our attitude to life, to society, to everything. However, in the end, it will be a positive change that will make it easier for us to understand one another, feel one another, and grow closer in our hearts, if not yet in our bodies. Gradually, we will become more aware that things have changed radically. There will be no, or virtually no physical attendance at schools or universities, many parents will have to stay home with their kids, and people will become more “sedentary” than ever.

If we can overcome the aggressiveness that has taken society by a storm in recent months, we will discover that in fact, we are all in the same boat. The differences between people are much smaller than we think because in the end, we all want the same simple things: food and shelter, health, and a good environment for our kids. The virus will teach us that we are dependent on each other and will make us think of one another. But when we learn it, we will uncover the joy and strength in unity, in having a solid community.

When we develop mutual responsibility and consideration, we will conduct ourselves in ways that do not put others at risk of contagion. And when we do that, we will find that the virus has left. Without vaccination and without medication, it will simply be gone when we look out for each other. When we are clear of the virus, we will need no (anti)social distancing, no masks that hide our smiles, or alcohol gel to disinfect our hands after we hug. Then, and only then will we realize why Covid came, to teach us how to care.

Filed under: Coronavirus, New Publications - No Comments →

Medium published my new article “Schools Were Already Dead, and Covid Came to Bury Them”

On the one hand, we want children to go back to school so we can get back to work and return to normalcy. On the other hand, there is no doubt that schools will become places of mass infection since social distancing is completely unnatural for children. They will not be able to comply with such rules, and it is emotionally harmful for them to keep physically apart. The outcome of the clash between opening schools and boosting the economy, and closing schools and keeping the children and their families safe will be the permanent and long overdue breakdown of the education system.

What schools give in the way of knowledge, they will teach through online or recorded classes. For children today, online learning is as natural as physical learning is for us. In fact, it is physical learning and the compulsory classroom attendance that are unnatural for them.

School as we know it is a defunct system that’s been dead for decades. More than knowledge, it “teaches” children obnoxious behaviors, exposes them to drugs, extreme sexual promiscuity, bullying, violence, addiction to anything from computer games to hard drugs, and alienates them from their families.

Covid-19 did us all a big favor by closing down the “education” system, and will do us another favor when it stops us from reopening it. In the end, we will learn what social frameworks we do need to open and what kind of activities we want them to conduct, but it is up to us to decide how quickly we want that good end to come.

Florida, which tried to open its school system, exemplifies the cost of insistence on opening schools. The Florida Department of Health reported an increase of 9,000 confirmed cases in children in just 15 days since schools reopened in the state. It is absurd to think that it could happen otherwise. The very development of kids depends on their close contact with each other. Touching, playing together, exchanging objects, sharing and befriending are necessary for their growth. Kids need close contact with friends and peers in order to establish themselves as social beings. For them, it is as vital as food.

Even worse, the message that we send them by telling them to stay apart and obey the (anti)social distancing regulation is likely to scar them for good. We are alienating them from one another. Our healthy parental instincts make us encourage our kids to socialize, make friends, be nice to people, and be careful of bad people, since we want them to grow up to be accomplished individuals. But with the coronavirus restrictions, we have to tell them the opposite: “Stay away from everyone! Stay in your own corner; don’t give anything to anyone, and don’t take anything from anyone. Anyone can give you the virus; stay away from them!” What kind of people do we expect to grow out of such imperatives?

Under such conditions, it is better to keep kids at home and teach them online, where communication between them is monitored and minimal. The connections they will develop with peers online will be much more positive and less stressful than the social pressure they endure in class, and they will complete their need for social contacts with family and with a few close friends where they feel comfortable and safe, and where they minimize the risk of infection.

What schools give in the way of knowledge, they will teach through online or recorded classes. For children today, online learning is as natural as physical learning is for us. In fact, it is physical learning and the compulsory classroom attendance that are unnatural for them.

Children’s presence at home will not come without a cost. A grownup will have to be with them at home during their “school” hours. In households with two parents, one will have to stay with the children, see that they get food and break time, and that they are actually learning during their classes. And if it seems tough to get by on one salary, it will be much tougher on single parent households. But here, too, some arrangement will have to be found, either with government assistance, NGOs, or through another arrangement. After all, when schools are hubs of mass infection, it’s not a question of whether children should stay home, but of how it can be done. The more quickly we acknowledge the necessity to adapt ourselves to reality, the more easily we’ll go through the transition.

When I wrote months ago that people’s hopes for returning to the pre-Covid days were unrealistic, people couldn’t accept it. Now I hope they can already see that this is so, since the sooner we adapt our policies and institutions to the fact that the virus isn’t leaving, the better we’ll be able to adapt our education, economy, and all other aspects of our lives to the new world that has emerged seemingly overnight.
[270169]

Filed under: Children, Education, Globalization, New Publications - No Comments →

The Times of Israel published my new article “Aiming High at the High Jewish Holidays”

Images of profound introspection and deeply connected community depict the vivid atmosphere of the Days of Awe (yamim hanoraim), that pack synagogues every fall. This year, for the first time in history, COVID-19 will give a completely different feel to the High Holidays because they will be conducted mainly through virtual platforms instead of in massive physical gatherings. The physical distance being imposed upon us is no coincidence. It is a reflection of our internal state as Jewish people. This year’s High Holidays offer a special opportunity for transformation, to rise from our current division to unity of hearts.

Our new conditions are actually an indication and direction from Above of what our prayers—particularly during the Jewish holidays—should be about. Now is the perfect time to pause and reflect on our presence in the world as a people—so divided, full of unfounded hatred, without connection or reciprocity. A potent and effective prayer should be the united plea for the whole nation, and how is it possible if we hold each other at arm’s length in internal opposition? If this is our state, then we should also feel the distance physically. This is the message inside the unique conditions presented to us by the pandemic this year.

It is good for us to feel how much our self-centered games close each of us within ourselves, how hard it is to open the heart toward someone with different opinions, and how much we are divided into factions and parties and camps. We take natural pride in our community and denomination, but it should never be used to belittle, despise, or mistreat others. While our diversity is wonderful, there should be something that connects us all as one above all the different shapes and colors. Currently, we are missing that overarching capstone of love between us.

So this year, instead of mechanically congregating, we should sit by ourselves and mourn the splintered and wretched state that we have sunken into as a people. As soon as we realize what must be fixed—our fragmentation as a Jewish nation—a true prayer will burst from the depth of our hearts to breathe life into the empty words recited from the prayer book.

Originally, a synagogue, or beit knesset (from the Hebrew kinus, meaning congregating) symbolized a house of connection, a place where everyone gathers together to seek a supreme power of love and giving. If this year the striking circumstances do not even allow us to come together physically, it must be an indication that we have reached a dead end on our current path. But there is a bright side: when the evil is revealed, it provides an invitation to correct the course and chart a new path to a more advanced form of existence.

Moreover, the coronavirus era illuminates something that was hidden until now. If in the past we could be separated in our hearts and still sit next to each other, it is no longer so. There is a law in nature which requires us to adapt ourselves to a world that has evolved into a tightly interconnected state. Therefore, we can no longer relate to “Love thy neighbor as thyself” as a lovely but empty platitude. It is the absolute formula for mutual connection, without which it will be impossible to survive. We are entering a new evolutionary degree where everyone will feel that the other is truly a part of him, and we really will become like one man with one heart.

The pilot project for integral connection between people must take place first between us, the Jews. And when we crack the new code for connection between us, we will light the way for all other peoples. The end result will be joy, health, prosperity—a supreme abundance that will flow through our connected hearts.
[270014]

Filed under: Holidays, New Publications - No Comments →

Medium published my new article “Fate’s Punching Bag?”

No one expected Hurricane Laura to become so catastrophic, just as no one expected the California fires to become so devastating, or that Covid-19 would still be spreading and killing come September. No one also thought that the American economy, which was doing so well, would be stopped in its tracks by the virus, that the job market, which was probably the best ever, would drop to the worst ever in a matter of weeks, or that society would be torn apart by outbursts of racial tensions. No one imagined all these, yet they happened, and are happening still. America is being hit left and right, up and down, and the land of unlimited possibilities seems to have become fate’s punching bag.

America became great thanks to brave people who dared the odds. But it will remain great only if it dares to tame its own bravado.

The United States is evidently a unique country. It did not grow out of a certain tribe or a clan but formed over time as immigrants from faraway lands migrated, often from dubious circumstances, and landed in a wild no man’s land where they could make the rules. And make the rules they did. No one was to touch another’s property, or even enter it without permission. If you walked in without permission, you could be shot for trespassing and the law would be on the side of the shooter.

But privacy went far beyond property. The settlers in the newly conquered continent determined that no one may tell anyone what to do, think, or say as long as they do not hurt their fellow person. Religion — a formidable inhibitor in Europe, from which the majority of the first settlers came — was declared as one’s personal business and therefore lost its punitive power. Everyone was free to pursue one’s dream of fame and fortune, and that was indeed the dream for which most Americans lived. In many ways, it still is.

For a long time, that dream succeeded. Pursuing it, America became the world’s single superpower; its military might, economic clout, and cultural influence pervaded every corner of the world. Everyone, from America’s best friends to its worst enemies, wanted, and perhaps still want to realize the American Dream. And that dream is mainly about money and wealth. Bit by bit, America became the leader of the free world, where people were slaves only to the injunctions of their egos.

But that could only last so far. At some point, the ego exceeded its limits and began to collapse from within. The society that was built based on the ego could not withstand its increasingly self-centered demands and started to implode. When people began to give up on realizing their dreams, they sought ways to ease their painful disillusionment. Thus, America became a nation of fugitives escaping their own emptiness. Obesity, substance abuse, homicide, suicide, extremism, and any form escapism became more likely to take root there than anywhere else in the world. Simply, people needed to get away from their hopelessness.

Nature, too, of which America was so proud, and rightly so, seems to have joined the “trend” of bashing America and has been hammering the country on all sides. In its own way, it has said to its settlers, “Enough!”

Times are changing. The ego is losing steam and has lost its chokehold on the planet. Nature is kicking back, and humanity, the ego’s personal thug, is hurting. But America, where the ego wrote the constitution, hurts the most.

In the times to come, mutual consideration will be mandatory, responsibility for one another will be a given, and ego-based cultures will collapse. We are living through a civilizational shift. It is a revolution of a kind we’ve never seen. It is not a revolution in technology, governance, economics, or in all the above combined. It is a revolution in human nature. Humanity has entered a transformational stage from which it will emerge as a whole new creation: caring, considerate, and united as one.

Those who will bury their pride will come out on top. Those who will stand by their egos will fall along with it.

America became great thanks to brave people who dared the odds. But it will remain great only if it dares to tame its own bravado.
[270125]

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

My article in Newsmax: “America’s Slow Death by Implosion”

Where is America going?

It seems like there is not a corner in this vast country that isn’t experiencing some sort of a crisis, and often more than one at the same time. On the West Coast, the second and third largest fires in California history are burning at the same time along with more than 500(!) other fires.

The blazes started after California was hit by 11,000 lightning strikes in just three days. Incidentally, the 10 biggest fires in California history have all burned in the last 17 years, which tells you something about the changing climate. But California is not only burning.

The smoke-filled air makes it even more uncomfortable, and often risky, to wear face masks to protect from COVID-19, which is raging all over the U.S. and has so far infected nearly 6 million people and killed more than 180,000.

But a lot more is happening in America right now, or was happening until very recently (depending on when you are reading this column).

In Oregon, anarchists have taken over downtown Portland and have terrorized residents, looted stores, disrupted life and attempted to set ablaze the federal courthouse in the city.

In the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana and neighboring states are being hit by two tropical storms (one of which is a hurricane) in a span of two days.

In Chicago, the Magnificent Mile high-end shopping street has been looted and its shops destroyed by anarchists, in addition to an extreme wave of gun violence.

Many wealthy Chicagoans are trying to move out of the city but cannot find buyers for their downtown apartments. Just north of Chicago, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a white officer’s shooting of an unarmed black man behind his back in front of his children reignited the protests against police brutality.

In New York City, gun violence has spiked this year and so far, more than 1,100 people have been slain by gunfire since the beginning of the year in New York City alone.

And while all this is going on, hunger is spreading all over the U.S. According to Forbes, “At minimum, the number of households that lack … stable food supply has doubled, and possibly tripled [since April 2018], making current rates of food insecurity [nearly 30%] higher than at any point since data collection began” By a simple calculation, this means that roughly 100 million people in the U.S. alone often go hungry.

But these numbers aren’t the worst of the blow. According to Brookings Institution, as of April this year, 34% of households with children under 18 suffered from lack of food, and 41% of households with children under 12 suffered from the same.

In simple words, many millions of children are currently hungry in what was supposed to be the land of unlimited possibilities.

What is going on here?

Is it a coincidence that the worst of nature and the worst of human nature seem to be converging in one place? It is not at all a coincidence.

There are forces at play here that impact every level of our lives: physical, emotional, and social. On the physical level, they manifest in heating and cooling, pulling and pushing, spreading and converging.

On the emotional level, they manifest in love and hate, alienation and affection, apathy and sympathy. On the social level, they form cohesion and disintegration, war and peace, tolerance and extremism.

When one force becomes more dominant than the other, it pulls toward it the other force which balances it and restores the system’s equilibrium. As the system shifts from imbalance to balance, the ripples impact all levels of nature. The more abrupt and forceful the restoration of balance, the sharper its impact on all levels of existence.

The United States of America has been for many years the center of humanity’s ego-based civilization. So when the system begins to balance itself, its impact will be felt at the heart of it more than anywhere else.

There is no lack of food in America, but there is hunger everywhere. There is no lack of funds, but there is extreme poverty. There could be great education for everyone, but it is reserved for those who can afford it.

Nowhere does the ego reign so supreme as it does is in the U.S. So when nature begins to enforce balance, it hurts the most in America.

The process of rerouting from the ego-based culture has already begun and will only accelerate. There is no turning back. And America, which was on top while the ego reigned high, will be at the bottom when it falls.

Nevertheless, not all is lost for America since it still depends on itself. If Americans are brave enough to challenge their own beliefs and the system they grew up in, and go along with nature’s push to balance receiving with giving, individuality with mutuality, egoism with altruism, then once again they will come out on top. If they refuse, nature will show them “who’s boss.”

The new era does not refute the American Dream. It is against realizing it at the expense of others. The new era promises abundance, but on condition that everyone enjoys it.

If, in the future, we will advocate tyranny, bullying and superiority, nature will not tolerate it. The era of balance is not one of scarcity; it is one of abundance for everyone, but first and foremost, abundance of caring for one another equally, above all differences.

This is the only route America can take if it wants to save itself from misery.
[269938]

Filed under: Crisis, New Publications - No Comments →