Michael Laitman, on The Times of Israel: “What Are Some Noteworthy Quotes About Education?”

“Teach a child according to the child’s way.” – Proverbs 22:6.

There is also a noteworthy quote by Swiss teacher and publicist Adolphe Ferrière that explains how we fail to follow this principle, i.e.

“And they created the school as the devil commanded.

The child loves nature, so he was locked in four walls.

He can not sit without moving, so he was forced into immobility.

He likes to work with his hands, and he began to teach theories and ideas.

He likes to talk – he was told to remain silent.

He seeks to understand – he was commanded to learn by heart.

He would like to explore and search for knowledge himself, but he was given them in ready form.

And then the children learned what they would never have learned in other conditions. They learned to lie and pretend.”

This quote dates back to the beginning of the previous century, but it is just as accurate today. It shows how children have natures to be like free birds, but we place them into cages.

Why? It is simply easier and clearer for us to coercively make children stay within our four corners. And by doing so, we rob them of their soul’s, mind’s and heart’s free development, and even disrupt their bodily development.

The principle “teach a child according to the child’s way” means that children should be raised in ways that let them freely develop. In practice, it means that they should listen to adults, but adults should adjust themselves to be as interesting and as relevant as possible to the children. Also, children need a lot of time outdoors with their friends, and to be simultaneously with their friends and their teachers. That is, they should engage in several activities that involve creating, inventing and fixing things together, as well as in ongoing discussions with their peers and with adults where they need to debate certain topics and reach conclusions.

Such an approach develops children in the natural course of their activities. It liberates them and gives them the freedom to think and to develop new ideas. We have yet to see an educational system that develops children to their fullest potential in such a way. Instead, we pack them into cubes that constrain their thinking and optimal development.

In order to upgrade education to “teach a child according to the child’s way,” we need different teachers, or more specifically, teachers themselves need to initially undergo a different course of education over several years, and only then will they accordingly become ready to cater to children. We will then start seeing completely different results to the current ones.

I think that the move to this kind of education will come when we become completely disillusioned with the ways we currently raise children, when we see that our current systems serve to create a world of increasing depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness, and other problematic phenomena across the board on personal, social, economic and ecological scales.

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

Michael Laitman on The Times of Israel: “How to End War”

In 1914, during World War I, an amazing event happened. At a time when half a million people were killed near the Belgian city of Ypres, on December 24, before Christmas, suddenly soldiers began to decorate the German trenches with garlands and various lights. Later, they moved onto neutral territory. Both the French and the British also came out to the neutral territory from the enemy trenches, making a gathering of about 100,000 people. They had been killing each other up until that point, but on that day, they got together and connected: they exchanged souvenirs, sang songs, traded buttons, tobacco, wine and sweets, and played football with cans. In 2014, a football monument was built to commemorate the event.

It was an incredible spectacle. Those who fought to the death and hated each other suddenly started bonding. Naturally, the generals were instantly alarmed. Under threat of death, the soldiers were forced back into the trenches, and war continued. It lasted four years and 20 million people got killed.

A key question that arises from this example is indeed, could it be possible to stop war from the level of the soldiers themselves? We see that the soldiers could end the war if they wanted to, but since they follow their generals’ commands, then it would require the generals to also wish to stop the war, which in turn requires each successive higher level, which makes it impossible.

However, the example is etched in history: People who were killing each other in cold blood, with bayonets, fighting hand-to-hand, where everyone was faced with so much blood and it was not just distant firing of guns and missiles. They literally faced their enemies, felt hatred for them, and in a single moment, it all shifted to a state of bonding.

It shows that even the strongest hatred can be inverted in a moment. A fight could continue for a long time, and then all of a sudden, poof—the hatred dissipates. The reason behind the hatred suddenly disappears.

It is no miracle. It is simply how a program that runs our desires plays out. There is no point in our hatred, nor in our love. We can see similar examples of people who were once seemingly in love, and all of a sudden, they stop loving each other. That love that held them together instantly disappears. It is common to hear divorcees say about their partners, “What did I ever love in them?”

The fact that our emotions can suddenly shift from one moment to the next shows us that any unity we establish should be based not on our feelings, but on an idea. That is, if we circulated an idea of the need to unite in order to reach a complete merging among each other as the most desirable state we could possibly achieve, then we would have a strong basis for uniting.

The foundation of this idea is in a higher root, that humanity was originally created as a single unified consciousness that underwent a process of shattering and dispersion until we found ourselves in a reality where we perceive ourselves separated from each other. While we are in this state of separation, we undergo a certain development until we reach a point where we start waking up to our unified state once again. That is, at a certain point, we start feeling that we are opposite to our most desirable state, that we have suffered enough in our divisiveness, and we develop a new desire to undergo a major shift back to complete unification.
[311997]

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, on The Times of Israel: “The Secret to Living Beyond 100 – A Kabbalist’s Response”

In Australia, a 100-year-old woman shared what she considered the secret to her long life, that longevity stems from a calm attitude to any tumultuous life events. She recommends not holding onto grudges and to live in the here and now. Her credo is, “Don’t worry about things that may never even happen.”

While it might seem like good life advice, a Kabbalist views it as lifeless to not worry about yesterday or tomorrow, and only to live in the here and now. It is how the animate degree of existence lives, but not the human.

Take any animal: it lives in the here and now. It is another matter if they have premonitions, but if they do not receive that sensation, then they live with what they have. An animal’s movements are quite simple, whereas humans burden themselves with all kinds of cosmic problems. For instance, stars might be exploding in another galaxy, and there would be people worrying about it.

Our worries with where we are gives us a feeling of life. On the contrary, a calm bodily existence, where we live with only what we have, is an animalistic life.

A Kabbalist is a person who opens himself to the world by coming out of himself and participating in it. He absorbs the world’s desires and problems and then processes them in order to activate his correction, in order to seek the optimal response and intention to everything that he absorbs. He thus feeds back into the world a corrected response to what he absorbs.

Such a life is far from being free of problems. Yet, it gives the Kabbalist a feeling of happiness because he feels that he carries out a necessary duty. Otherwise, it is not a human life. A Kabbalist can live in no other way.

However, in relation to the lady’s statement about not holding onto grudges, it is indeed important. It also comes naturally to a Kabbalist because if we accept everything as coming from a single force—nature’s force of love and bestowal—then everything that plays out among us is a picture of the world that nature directs. If we hold onto such a picture, then our attitude to it becomes correct and practical.

We can then no longer hold onto any grudges because we involve ourselves in the world’s correction, in the absorption and manifestation of the world, and we engage in the system together with nature. In other words, we not only observe and absorb what is around us, but we understand that it is being done for us, and that it is processed in our perception of reality.

We then need to act in a way that justifies this picture that projects within us. Living in the here and now is thus correct, but in the sense that the “here and now” is the reality that we create. We receive our impressions from nature’s output toward us, which we process as our input. We then constantly correct our impressions and reflections of the world, and we do so in order to justify nature on all degrees of our perception.

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, on The Times of Israel: “Abundant milk, meat, and fish, but no animals in sight”

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood by a sleek tablet-like touchscreen of a big meat-producing machine, chose the percentage of fat he wanted in his steak, and pressed “Print.” A few minutes later, his order was ready. Printing a fish took only one minute. Soon, cultured meat and fish will be available in Israeli supermarkets. Even sooner, cultured milk will be on the shelves. The machines are ready, distribution agreements have been signed, the medical tests were successful, and the regulatory procedures have been completed. The dream of consuming animal protein without breeding or killing animals is months-to-a-few-years from becoming a reality. Has Israel solved the world’s food problems?

Especially when it comes to food and drugs, caution and prudence are critical. But with all the due caution, we may indeed be able to solve the world’s food problems. However, as with every breakthrough, we should not jump to conclusions before commercial distribution is underway, and the general public begins to consume these products. Especially for deprived areas such as parts of Africa and Asia, mass machine-production of meat, fish, and milk can be a life-saver in the full sense of the word.

But will it be a life-saver? Regrettably, human nature will stand in the way. Man’s evil inclination will run ahead and cease the opportunity to make another buck, to exploit, humiliate, demean, and abuse more people and in new ways. In all likelihood, humanity will waste yet another great opportunity to end its misery, and the rich and powerful will only become more so, while the indigent become even more deprived.

Theoretically, one of the ways in which society can mitigate the potential exploitation of such potentially life-changing innovations is by creating social wealth funds such as the one Norway has established, which uses some of the profits from its oil industry for the common good. Another way to balance the expected gargantuan profits is to modify the royalties that the state collects from manufacturers of cultured proteins. The State of Israel did this when natural gas was discovered off its shores, and everyone seems to be content with the agreement.

However, in practice, I think that such arrangements will not hold for long. In the end, humanity will follow the way of the ego, as it always does, and the abuse of knowledge and technology in service of the rich will continue.

A side note regarding the breakthroughs in food-tech in Israel is that many believe that these technologies will improve Israel’s international status. Over the past ten years or so, Israel has become a world leader in some of humanity’s most pressing issues: It is the world leader when it comes to water conservation and desalination, and a world leader in agriculture. It has become an exporter of gas, and from a country that was dependent on oil for its survival, Israel has become almost energy independent. Its military industry has leaped forward and today, Israel manufactures and exports almost everything except for fighter jets. And now with the advances in food-tech, it is jumping to the head of the bandwagon in food production, too.

However, all these boons have not made Israel any more popular among the nations, nor will they make it popular. Some nations may want its knowledge and technology, so they are willing to put on a friendly face to get a discount, but this is where Israel’s “favor” in the eyes of the nations ends. The only way Israel can truly be accepted by the nations is if it “exports” unity and social cohesion. For all the glitz and glory of sophisticated weapon systems and advanced food-tech, the only thing that the world needs from Israel is an example of unity. Social cohesion is the only “product” that all the nations want, that no one knows how to form, and that Israel can, must, and is expected to provide. If Israel delivers this, it will not need weapons, hacking tools, or any other protection to secure its place among the nations.

Additionally, if it delivers unity to the world, humanity will know how to use technological innovations for humanity’s sake, and not solely for the rich, powerful, and abusive few.
[311951]

Filed under: Israel, New Publications - No Comments →

Medium published my new article “What Is the Most Important Advice You Would Give to Someone to Live a Long Life?”

In Australia, a 100-year-old woman shared what she considered the secret to her long life, that longevity stems from a calm attitude to any tumultuous life events. She recommends not holding onto grudges and to live in the here and now. Her credo is, “Don’t worry about things that may never even happen.”

A Kabbalist is a person who opens himself to the world by coming out of himself and participating in it. He absorbs the world’s desires and problems and then processes them in order to activate his correction, in order to seek the optimal response and intention to everything that he absorbs. He thus feeds back into the world a corrected response to what he absorbs.

While it might seem like good life advice, a Kabbalist views it as lifeless to not worry about yesterday or tomorrow, and only to live in the here and now. It is how the animate degree of existence lives, but not the human.

Take any animal: it lives in the here and now. It is another matter if they have premonitions, but if they do not receive that sensation, then they live with what they have. An animal’s movements are quite simple, whereas humans burden themselves with all kinds of cosmic problems. For instance, stars might be exploding in another galaxy, and there would be people worrying about it.

Our worries with where we are gives us a feeling of life. On the contrary, a calm bodily existence, where we live with only what we have, is an animalistic life.

A Kabbalist is a person who opens himself to the world by coming out of himself and participating in it. He absorbs the world’s desires and problems and then processes them in order to activate his correction, in order to seek the optimal response and intention to everything that he absorbs. He thus feeds back into the world a corrected response to what he absorbs.

Such a life is far from being free of problems. Yet, it gives the Kabbalist a feeling of happiness because he feels that he carries out a necessary duty. Otherwise, it is not a human life. A Kabbalist can live in no other way.

However, in relation to the lady’s statement about not holding onto grudges, it is indeed important. It also comes naturally to a Kabbalist because if we accept everything as coming from a single force — nature’s force of love and bestowal — then everything that plays out among us is a picture of the world that nature directs. If we hold onto such a picture, then our attitude to it becomes correct and practical.

We can then no longer hold onto any grudges because we involve ourselves in the world’s correction, in the absorption and manifestation of the world, and we engage in the system together with nature. In other words, we not only observe and absorb what is around us, but we understand that it is being done for us, and that it is processed in our perception of reality.

We then need to act in a way that justifies this picture that projects within us. Living in the here and now is thus correct, but in the sense that the “here and now” is the reality that we create. We receive our impressions from nature’s output toward us, which we process as our input. We then constantly correct our impressions and reflections of the world, and we do so in order to justify nature on all degrees of our perception.
[311818]

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Are Some Noteworthy Quotes About Education?”
“Teach a child according to the child’s way.” – Proverbs 22:6.

There is also a noteworthy quote by Swiss teacher and publicist Adolphe Ferrière that explains how we fail to follow this principle, i.e.

“And they created the school as the devil commanded.

The child loves nature, so he was locked in four walls.

He can not sit without moving, so he was forced into immobility.

He likes to work with his hands, and he began to teach theories and ideas.

He likes to talk – he was told to remain silent.

He seeks to understand – he was commanded to learn by heart.

He would like to explore and search for knowledge himself, but he was given them in ready form.

And then the children learned what they would never have learned in other conditions. They learned to lie and pretend.”

This quote dates back to the beginning of the previous century, but it is just as accurate today. It shows how children have natures to be like free birds, but we place them into cages.

Why? It is simply easier and clearer for us to coercively make children stay within our four corners. And by doing so, we rob them of their soul’s, mind’s and heart’s free development, and even disrupt their bodily development.

The principle “teach a child according to the child’s way” means that children should be raised in ways that let them freely develop. In practice, it means that they should listen to adults, but adults should adjust themselves to be as interesting and as relevant as possible to the children. Also, children need a lot of time outdoors with their friends, and to be simultaneously with their friends and their teachers. That is, they should engage in several activities that involve creating, inventing and fixing things together, as well as in ongoing discussions with their peers and with adults where they need to debate certain topics and reach conclusions.

Such an approach develops children in the natural course of their activities. It liberates them and gives them the freedom to think and to develop new ideas. We have yet to see an educational system that develops children to their fullest potential in such a way. Instead, we pack them into cubes that constrain their thinking and optimal development.

In order to upgrade education to “teach a child according to the child’s way,” we need different teachers, or more specifically, teachers themselves need to initially undergo a different course of education over several years, and only then will they accordingly become ready to cater to children. We will then start seeing completely different results to the current ones.

I think that the move to this kind of education will come when we become completely disillusioned with the ways we currently raise children, when we see that our current systems serve to create a world of increasing depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness, and other problematic phenomena across the board on personal, social, economic and ecological scales.
[311811]

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Israel – a country under an anxiety attack”
Following the wave of terror attacks, the ongoing demonstrations against (and for) the judicial reform, and the barrage of interviews in the media warning that Israel is on a precipice, there has been a sharp increase in calls to emergency centers reporting states of anxiety. People are worried about their future and the future of their children. Gradually, we are discovering that the haven we sought to build in the State of Israel is no longer safe. It is time we realize that we will not feel safe anywhere. We will be surrounded by hatred until we realize that the key to stability and security is not our economy or our military, but our unity.

Just as it was during the exile, when we were constantly surrounded by hostile neighbors, the countries of the world will do the same to our country. As former director of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman said, Israel is indeed “the Jew among the nations.”

Israel is one of the most advanced countries in the world. A world leader in high-technology, cybersecurity, a military industry and an army that are the envy of many of the most developed countries on the planet, an economy that is strong, solid, and continuing to develop, and an abundant supply of natural gas, Israelis should have felt safe and confident, even complacent. Yet, none of these advantages will provide us any confidence as long as we are weak inside. We will be defeated internally and externally not for lack of power, but for lack of ability or will to defend ourselves due to inner division. Our worst enemy, therefore, is not Iran or any of its proxies; it is our own division, our hatred of each other.

We can never hope to eliminate the differences between us. Our ancestors came from different tribes and nations, and the cultural differences between them broke the nation over and over again until we were dispersed throughout the world two millennia ago. Since then, the differences between us have only grown and deepened. Currently, the abyss between some of the factions and sectors in Israel is so deep that they literally regard themselves as members of different nations, and even state this explicitly.

However, just as the differences between us did not matter to the Romans 2,000 years ago, or to the Nazis and their accomplices eighty years ago, and they slaughtered us indiscriminately, today these differences do not matter to the rest of the world. Humanity regards us as one nation, so until we begin to behave as such, humanity will punish us collectively, irrespective of our political views, religious orthodoxy, cultural background, or any other distinguishing criterion.

But why does humanity hate us? Every country has its own professed reason for resenting the State of Israel and its Jewish residents. However, the root cause behind all those grievances, and the fuel that feeds the fire, is our own disunity.

We are like no other nation; we are dependent on ourselves, on our unity since this is exactly what the world wants to see from us. We did not win our independence only by war. Before the war broke out, the world explicitly expressed its consent to the establishment of a Jewish state in the land of Israel. We were given a chance to carry out our historic role of being a model nation. If we do not live up to the task, the world will revoke our right to live here and banish us from Israel to who knows where. In fact, our international status is so poor that already, if the vote on the establishment of the State of Israel were to take place today, it is clear that we would not get two thirds of the votes, which was the minimum required in November 1947 to confirm our statehood. The truth is that we would be lucky to get one.

Yet, as I said, we are dependent on ourselves. If we become a model nation, whose members agree on nothing, yet maintain, and even solidify their unity above the chasms in their views, lifestyles, and cultures, we will win the world’s respect and affirmation. If we succumb to hatred, the world will intensify its pressure on us, we will become increasingly isolated, the country will disintegrate, and who knows what will become of us.
[311697]

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “2,000 Years of Hatred with No Sign of Relief”
Yesterday was Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices during World War II. Today, April 19, is the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the longest and most intense rebellion of Jews against their oppressors. The heroic, yet hopeless resistance was crushed, but became a symbol of the resilience of human spirit. The Holocaust itself, however, highlights the question of the persistence of antisemitism, and why its ferocity and deadliness has not subsided throughout the centuries.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Roman general Titus destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and exiled its remaining Jews to Rome. The Roman emperor Hadrian changed the name Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, a city dedicated to Jupiter, and when the Jews revolted against him, he brutally crushed the revolt. To erase the connection of Jews to their land, he changed the name of Judea to Syria Palestina.

Since then, every year, Jews commemorate the fall of the Temple. Likewise, since the Holocaust, every year, we commemorate the slaughter of European Jewry almost in its entirety. In between the cataclysms, we were expelled from Spain, murdered in Ukraine, driven out of England, and basically persecuted everywhere we lived, and in every generation. Why has there been no relief from Jew-hatred?

There has not been a relief, there is no relief, and there will be no relief from antisemitism until we acknowledge that the root of the hatred, its wellspring, is not with the nations of the world, but with ourselves. We are creating and swelling their hatred toward us through our own hatred of each other.

History proves that before every major cataclysm that befell the Jews came an extended period of growing division and internal enmity among the Jews themselves. When their inner hatred climaxes, so does the brutality and violence that their persecutors inflict on them.

Nothing about our nation resembles the making or the history of any other nation. The whole world sees us as different, and the only ones who cannot accept this are we, ourselves. Nevertheless, we are indeed different, and until we understand in what way and what for, we will not uproot the hatred toward us.

Abraham, the father of our nation, was not born Jewish, or even a Hebrew, as he is the one who engendered the nation. Likewise, many of our nation’s greatest were either converts to Judaism or the children of converts.

In fact, despite centuries of communal life, we were not regarded as a nation until we stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai and pledged to unite “as one man with one heart.” Immediately after, we were told that our nationhood, forged through unity, was not for our own sake, but for the sake of the nations, to be a light to the nations, a model nation that will prove that unity and peace among nations are possible, even when they seem locked in conflict.

Since then, division among us and the nations’ hatred toward us have been linked. When we are separated, we betray our duty to the world. As a result, the world resents us and blames us for its woes.

It makes no difference that we do not understand why humanity hates us, or that humanity does not understand its grudge against the Jews. As long as we are disunited, every nation in every generation will find its contemporary pretext to vent its hatred, which is ever fermenting in their hearts. We should not be misled by momentary pretexts; underneath them lies the same old anger at the Jews for not being a model nation, a show of unity and peace despite coming from different nations.

We have experienced 2,000 years of hatred with no sign of relief because we have not uprooted division from our midst. If we want to prevent the next cataclysm from unfolding, the only thing we can and need to do is reunite among us and become the model nation that the world expects to see.
[311663]

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “How can I cope with the general dissatisfaction I feel about my life?”
Thousands of years of human progress, and what do we get?

We can get any material thing we want, but remain dissatisfied.

In any case, we play the game and chase transient pleasures. What else can we do?

We look at each other and thoughtlessly follow the current trend. We think that if we act like everyone else, we’ll feel good. So we select our goals from a smorgasbord of material forms of food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge. We pursue them, hoping to escape the emptiness.

We keep ourselves busy so that the base question about our existence—”What is the meaning of life?”—doesn’t appear in the cracks of our self-centered hearts.

Sooner or later, however, the deepest question about the purpose of our existence will awaken to distract us from our rat race.

But what is the real distraction?

We actually built our whole lives on the real distraction—distracting ourselves from what is most important. That is what we will come to understand.

As long as we close our eyes to avoid truly seeing, we can run along with the crowd. But eventually, exhaustion sets in. We start feeling the meaninglessness, emptiness and dissatisfaction of trying to keep up with the ever-accelerating pace of the materialistic treadmill.

Welcome to the new desire that is evolving within humanity: the desire for life’s ultimate meaning and purpose.

The time has come when we need to wake up from our dreams of pursing self-interest at any expense. As we have taught ourselves to succeed and find our place in our materialistic world, we need to start learning about the new desire emerging in us: what exactly it is, why it is emerging today, where it comes from, and most importantly, how we can guide it to its fulfillment.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, this desire to discover the meaning of life is called “the point in the heart.” The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method that was made specifically for fulfilling this desire.
[311486]

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Makes People Right-Wing and Left-Wing?”

How Do People Who Have No Political Connections Become Left or Right-Wing?

Nature consists of two forces: giving and receiving, plus and minus, positive and negative.

We each also play host to these forces. They exist on all levels of our lives: material, psychological and spiritual.

As for political right-wing and left-wing inclinations, I would first stay clear of defining them as such because nowadays these terms have become very convoluted, making people confuse one for the other.

In its origin, however, a left-wing inclination leans toward completion, connection and compromise, while a right-wing approach is its opposite: leaning to defining borders, limitations and boundaries. In other words, by nature a left-wing approach is “what’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is yours,” and a right-wing approach is “what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine.”

However, in our distorted lives today, which are far from nature, we see nothing that expresses true left-wing or right-wing inclinations. This is because we live in times where an overblown human ego—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature—stands at the foundation of everything we think and do, making us far removed from any kind of natural approach to these inclinations.

There are no genuine examples of real left-wing and right-wing inclinations in today’s world because they are blended with the desire to exploit anything and anyone possible in order to fulfill egoistic pursuits. For instance, a person might naturally have a left-wing or a right-wing inclination, but due to the ego’s powerful urge for fulfillment today, then that person could very easily find themselves on the other side in practice.

I thus think that dividing people and nations into left-wing and right-wing brings us no lasting benefit. Instead, we should focus on upgrading our education around the world so that we learn how nature works, how we develop, where we are headed, and what we would like to see in a better future state. If we start elevating our awareness to understand how we can reach balance with the new globally-interdependent conditions we find ourselves in, then we would start seeing an expression of our more natural inclinations. We would then see how people and nations are left-wing or right-wing inclined by nature, and accordingly we would be able to guide everyone to a more harmonious and peaceful future according to every person’s and nation’s natural inclinations.

Part and parcel of this new educational process requires running a serious ongoing examination into how we could reach equilibrium among the differing inclinations in humanity and guide a positive course of development. We need to constantly scrutinize humanity’s and each nation’s optimal form, while understanding each nation’s different nature and thinking about how to piece all people and nations together in complementarity.

There is a need for competition and the use of power that lets the stronger win, and there is also a rightful place for the weaker desires that demand government support for their lives. Both inclinations need to find their expression, and we can each make decisions according to our respective characters.

We need to understand the complex richness of nature, which does not let us simply be good people that can agree on something and hold that agreement. We change from one moment to the next. That is why, even during the process of signing a certain agreement, we can already find ourselves thinking about how to breach it and benefit ourselves at the other party’s expense.

The human ego today does not let any person or side hold onto anything that holds us all together. Accordingly, we can expect more and more friction between the left and the right as we further develop. Moreover, if we fail to regulate the friction, then the conflicts between the two sides could lead to major destruction, like another world war.

We need to understand that these opposite inclinations are embedded in our nature and they will increasingly unravel so that we create a system that balances them. It is similar to how, in electricity, we place a resistor between plus and minus where they connect and perform some kind of work. We similarly need to approach our inclinations, but we require something common for us all to work toward.
[311017]

Filed under: Israel Today, New Publications - No Comments →