My article in Newsmax: “Hate Causes Viruses”

We really don’t understand why COVID struck. People blame it on China, blame it on the Jews, blame it on bats, minks, deforestation, corrupt pharmaceutical companies, and so on and so forth. But no one blames himself. No one blames the eruption of COVID-19 on our own mistreatment of everything and everyone around us.

It’s understandable; we don’t see the overall system. Although scientists have known for at least a century that the world is interconnected and that all things are built from the same few particles, we don’t experience it in our daily lives so we behave as though it isn’t true. But behaving as though we’re unrelated to each other is just as responsible as drinking water that we’re told is contaminated with listeria, but not believing it because we can’t see the bacteria. By the time the symptoms show, it’s much harder and more painful to recover.

Not only are all parts of reality connected, they are connected correctly. The mineral, flora, and fauna in our world function according to the natural laws imprinted in them and have no freedom of choice. Wolves are not bad because they eat other animals, and deer are not good because they feed on plants and not on other animals. In fact, were it not for carnivores, herbivores would become unhealthy, overpopulate, deplete the plants they live on, and eventually suffer and die out since nature would find another way to balance their population. When you look at nature, you realize it keeps a perfect balance where every element guarantees the integrity of the entire system.

There is only one exception in all of nature: man. Humans are the only element in nature that can behave as though it’s unrelated to anything and get away with it, for a while. Until now, we have fought against nature, grew in strength, and for the past two centuries or so, we thought we almost beat it. Worse yet, we fought against each other, and our hatred for each other made us ruin nature even more in our race to mine, pump and cut off nature’s treasures in order to outdo human competitors.

COVID-19 stopped us in our tracks, stymied the economy on Our hatred and desire to exploit, rule, and humiliate have caused such harm to nature that it generated a natural remedy for human nature: the novel coronavirus. all its branches, stopped the arms race and much of the hostilities that countries were executing or planning to execute against each other, and even distanced us from other people so we wouldn’t have to tolerate the tensions of hostile workplaces or competitive schooling.

But because we don’t see the system, we think it’s not our hatred that caused the virus to appear; we think it’s something or someone else — whom we hate — that caused its emergence. We are wrong. It’s our own attitude to one another that has generated this, and other soon-to-come pestilences that will strike if we don’t reverse course.

E pur si muove (“And yet it moves”) said Galileo Galilei when he was forced to recant his claim that the Earth moves around the sun. Today we know that he was right. But when it comes to truths that concern our hatred for each other, we are as ignorant and obstinate as Galilei’s tormentors. It is a shame, since Earth’s orbit around the sun is important, but not as important as the fact that hate creates diseases. Ignorance of the former fact is a shame; ignorance of the latter fact can cost us our lives.
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Medium published my new article “The Future of Tech: Learning the technology of connection”

In one way or another, our daily lives are deeply influenced by the biggest U.S. tech companies. The information we are exposed to, what we consume, and our virtual interactions all depend largely on the online platforms that recently faced a Capitol Hill grilling on the way they do business. The CEOs of Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple tried to refute accusations of biased content moderation, privacy intrusion, and market domination stymieing competition. But the question still unanswered is how much are they contributing to bringing people closer together. Any hearing that fails to initiate such change will be superficial and meaningless.

The prodigious minds behind the tech companies can and should apply their skills to developing software dedicated for connection, including simulators of desirable human relationships and how to achieve them. The idea is to visualize a perfect coexistence and interdependence in which individuals function like cogwheels learning the steps for realizing this vision of ideal integration among people. In order to attain this goal, the player will follow a gradual process over multiple levels of advancement until each one feels comfortably connected.

The depth of American distrust toward such tech giants was revealed in a study conducted by a Pew Research in June. 72% of U.S. adults consulted in the survey said big tech companies have too much “power and influence” in politics. Earlier this year, another poll found that 65% of the people did not regard the industry’s expansion over smaller competitors as beneficial to users.

The way social media manages what is considered unreliable and harmful information is also controversial. In protest, more than a thousand companies have pulled their ads from Facebook to boycott allegations of inaction from the media platform against hate speech.

Ignite the Fire of Love

American public life is dominated by hatred and lack of social cohesion from all sides. The escalating unrest in Portland and other major cities, in addition to the severe political schism that has ignited America in recent years is a fire that will not be appeased until all stakeholders find a common ground where they can rise above their differences and build mutual trust and understanding.

It is precisely the turbulent atmosphere in America that offers a compelling opportunity for people to open their eyes to the urgent need for unity above all that divides them, because the alternative is hazardous for everyone. It is written, “Hate stirs strife, and love covers all crimes” (Proverbs, 10:12). In other words, time is of the essence for creating the conditions to get closer to each other without erasing our differences by building a canopy of brotherhood and respect above them to enable calm and peace.

The information technology giants could play a paramount role in facilitating closeness, empathy, and mutual support among people, although the current conditions created by these platforms serve the opposite purpose. They have fallen prey to political interests, slander mongering, and repulsive bullying and shaming. But nature itself is drawing a red line over anything that does not promote qualitative connection above separation and gaps.

The Technology of Connection

The current pandemic has shaped a new reality in which balanced human relations emerge as the only way for humanity to achieve stability and thrive. Therefore, the world has entered the era for a new vision of mutual giving in all its endeavors.

We need technological platforms that will illustrate for us in a user-friendly way how to become properly connected. A company’s business failure or success will hinge on its ability to fulfill and facilitate humanity’s need to reach the crucial goal of achieving unity.

The prodigious minds behind the tech companies can and should apply their skills to developing software dedicated for connection, including simulators of desirable human relationships and how to achieve them. The idea is to visualize a perfect coexistence and interdependence in which individuals function like cogwheels learning the steps for realizing this vision of ideal integration among people. In order to attain this goal, the player will follow a gradual process over multiple levels of advancement until each one feels comfortably connected.

Businesses that develop software and means for advancing humanity are the future since the old paradigm of reckless competition has become irrelevant in an increasingly interdependent reality. Thus, what the world needs most right now is a more cohesive existence. Our common vision and work in that direction are what will guarantee prosperity and peace for all.
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My new article on Linkedin “Where We Are Going with COVID in the Driver Seat”

It is now the height of summer and COVID is still spreading ever faster. In a couple of months, as temperatures cool, it will spread even faster. This will not be another flu season; it’ll wear us out.

At the moment, governments can still execute relief programs, but they are bleeding cash fast and soon there won’t be any left. When that happens, we’ll regret having burnt it on saving hopeless businesses, but those businesses will be gone for good, as will the money, and we will have to get back to the basics.

Machines will do the vast majority of all the work humanity needs for its sustenance, and people will be free to socialize. Gradually we will realize that the reason for our illness, all illnesses, as a matter of fact, is our negative connections. With so much ill-will and bad thoughts about each other, it was impossible to build a sustainable civilization, so the coronavirus came along and forced us to reboot the system. If we insist on running it again the way it was, it won’t work. If we accept the situation, even if involuntarily, and follow COVID’s dictate to see that everyone gets the basics they need and we spend our time connecting with each other, everything will work and the virus will not affect us.

This, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, is the whole idea of COVID-19: It’s scratching out the previous century and sending us back to the basics: Get what you need and be thankful you got it.

But it’s not going to keep us there. We can produce much more than we need, but we keep it to ourselves so it gets stuck and goes nowhere, people go hungry and manufacturers go bankrupt. COVID will teach us to produce only what is needed and see that everyone gets it. Then things will run smoothly.

At first, we will do it because it will be the only way to survive. But once the system begins to run, we will realize that this is a much more rewarding way to live. Machines will do the vast majority of all the work humanity needs for its sustenance, and people will be free to socialize. Gradually we will realize that the reason for our illness, all illnesses, as a matter of fact, is our negative connections. With so much ill-will and bad thoughts about each other, it was impossible to build a sustainable civilization, so the coronavirus came along and forced us to reboot the system. If we insist on running it again the way it was, it won’t work. If we accept the situation, even if involuntarily, and follow COVID’s dictate to see that everyone gets the basics they need and we spend our time connecting with each other, everything will work and the virus will not affect us.

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My new article on BIZCATALYST “What Does it Take to Build a Successful Startup in these Uncertain Times?”

At the outset, we need to grasp the extent to which the world has shifted to a new program over the past few months. Today, we live in a completely different world. It is as if aliens visited us and implanted a new chip into our reality, changing our surrounding conditions, our behaviors, and our ways of thinking.

Still, we are in a transition phase, and likewise, many people continue trying to operate according to the outdated program of our pre-coronavirus world, a program that prioritizes values of self-benefit over benefiting others.

If we understood nature’s evolutionary tendency to guide all of its parts to perfect connection and interdependence, then we would see how today’s changes are for our ultimate benefit: they come to bring us closer to each other, not necessarily physically, but to a more heartfelt closeness.

And when we feel closer to each other, we feel happier, more confident, safer, and healthier.

Therefore, what we need more than anything else today is an environment that can support, encourage and guide our connection, so that we can balance our relationships with our new program of development—conditions that demand increased cooperation and care for each other.

If we fail to upgrade our attitudes to each other in order to match the mutual dependence and responsibility required by today’s new program, then we will feel an increasingly heavier weight on our shoulders the more we plod on from one day to the next.

Nature, by means of the coronavirus, has placed us into new conditions precisely in order to transform us.

Today’s startups thus need to take that into consideration.

If our past startups ended up in a marketplace that pitted them up against each other, now everything needs to change. We will still need to compete, but our competition needs to shift from egoistic, where we try to reap as much of the market for our business as we can, to a competition where we each aim to contribute as much as value as possible to humanity.

And what does “value” mean today? It means caring that everyone’s needs are met, as well as helping everyone genuinely become happy, safe, and healthy via upgrading the quality of human relations.

Therefore, anyone bold enough to initiate a startup in this period should first be equipped with sufficient knowledge and an environment to understand the transition the world is in, and then create tools that help people feel closer to each other.

For instance, there is plenty of room for technology to develop means by which we can feel ourselves together in one room, and even more so, as parts of a single whole where our every breath and contact is sensed by everyone.

In other words, as we head toward the discovery of our tight interdependence, we can develop technologies that help us sense what it means to feel as one with others, and which will thus help guide our fateful transition much more positively and harmoniously.

We thus need startups that authentically fill the human need for connection, which will serve to smoothen our transition from our current degree to greater mutual support and consideration.

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My new article on Linkedin “A Merry Requiem to an Old World”

The old world has died, and I couldn’t be happier. Everything we’ve known will not be the same: relationships between couples, children, workplaces, international relations, everything will change. The ego that reigned in all those contacts is dying, smothered by recurring lockdowns and other fetters imposed on it by a virus.

Humanity is chanting a requiem to the old world, and I am cheering for the new one to come. I have been waiting for it for decades, and now it is finally arriving. Naturally, it is not an easy transition. There will be many pangs and pains along the way, but any person who understands like me that the world to come will be governed by love and mutual responsibility is very happy these days.

Once we are free from the chains of egoism, we will understand what freedom really means. Every person will not only be able, but encouraged to develop one’s potential to the fullest. Society will actively support each person in fulfilling one’s dreams, as the realization of these dreams will contribute to society, make it richer, more united, and more vibrant.

The first stages are already happening: No jobs are coming instead of the ones that have faded, and more and more people are realizing that the coronavirus is not a crisis; it’s a transformation. They are recognizing that they won’t only have to change their jobs, or even careers. They are realizing that they will have to change their entire lives.

But even this is still only part of the truth. The whole truth is that they will have to transform how they think about life. People will learn to perceive everything differently: themselves, other people, and their relationships with other people and the world.

Instead of an individualistic, self-centered perspective, where each person cares only about oneself and (in the best case scenario) about one’s loved ones, people will transcend their egos and form a realm where every person is equally important, equally contributing, and equally caring about everyone else.

People will develop group consciousness that will override the individualistic one. That group consciousness will determine what happens in their lives, rather than the ego, which knows only how to fight for survival until it loses and we give up on life. There will be no losers in the approaching world, since winning will mean making everyone feel valuable, worthy, deserving, or in short, happy.

Material worries will be people’s least concern. Machines can do these jobs better than humans, so why should humans trouble themselves with them? People will be concerned with building the new society, something that only humans can do.

Everything we know today, and which is based on restraining the ego, will change dramatically. Law, education, the job market, healthcare, housing, every realm where we currently express our egos will be revolutionized as we will use our skills to express concern for others.

If we feel resentment when we think about such a world, it is our ego that resents it. Once we are free from the chains of egoism, we will understand what freedom really means. Every person will not only be able, but encouraged to develop one’s potential to the fullest. Society will actively support each person in fulfilling one’s dreams, as the realization of these dreams will contribute to society, make it richer, more united, and more vibrant.

Vast amounts of energy and funds will become available, since they are currently tied up by authorities that have to keep our reckless egos at bay. But when we work for the benefit of society, these entities will not be needed, and the abundant human and monetary resources dedicated to keeping them running will be at the service of society.

We have no idea how much wealth humanity produces. Every person produces each day several times over what he or she consumes. Currently, that surplus goes to the state and the wealthy. But COVID is forcing everyone to act more socially; it will teach everyone that unless everyone is happy, no one will be happy.

In fact, we can accelerate the oncoming of the transformation through simple and helpful exercises. For example, if we start wearing masks not in order to avoid catching the virus, but to avoid transmitting it, it will already create a shift in our perception of the world. This is just an example, a first step, but as the saying goes, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Humanity has seen plenty a revolution in its time, but it has never seen a transformation. We are the first generation that gets to morph into a new being—kinder, wiser, better.

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Medium published my new article “The Good Reason that Human Society Is So Bad”

King Solomon already told us, “Go to the ant, O sluggard, observe her ways and be wise” (Prov 6:6). Not only ants, but any animal society is more caring and orderly than any human society. They have clear laws, mutual responsibility, and they respect and love one another.

When we shift from self-centered existence to caring for others, our worldview expands and we begin to experience the world on a much deeper level.

We, on the other hand, have unclear laws, which is just as well since we don’t obey them anyway. We are resentful toward our governments, careless to our neighbors, competitive and cunning toward coworkers, and feel alone and insecure in a cruel world.

But there is a good reason for the mess we make of our societies. Human society and animal societies have completely different purposes. Animals operate on instincts. They don’t need to decide on the laws of their society, which rules are right, and which are wrong. Their social behavior is encoded in their genes and they feel no need to change them since those rules protect them.

Human societies were initially built for the same purpose, but that purpose is no longer relevant. Contemporary human societies are not built to protect us from enemies; they are built to elevate us above our egos. Our social relations reflect the self-centered nature of our relationships, and if we are brave enough to look at ourselves in the mirror, we will see who we are and begin to change.

When we shift from self-centered existence to caring for others, our worldview expands and we begin to experience the world on a much deeper level. As long as we are confined to our own needs, all we see is our own wants. But when we see the needs of others, we feel their thoughts, hopes, challenges, and how they deal with them. Just as we perceive ourselves as entire worlds, so do everyone else. The more people we care about, the more worlds we “absorb” into ourselves, and the richer our own world becomes.
For this reason, human society was not built to run on instincts, but on people who nurture interconnections in order to gain deeper understanding and awareness of themselves, the people around them, and the world at large.
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My new article on Israel Hayom “Don’t overlook message of Tisha B’Av”

We should not be mourning the destruction of the Temple but rather the ruin of our unity, our brotherly love, and the abandonment of our task to unite as one and be a role model for the nations.

This Wednesday, July 29, will be the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av, when the Temple was destroyed and the Jews were exiled from their land. Although historians attribute the exile to the commander of the Roman army Titus, Jewish sources pin the ruin and the exile on “sina’at hinam” (unfounded/baseless hatred), the hatred of the Jews for one another.

The Jewish people gained their nationhood when they united “as one man with one heart” at the foot of Mount Sinai. When they united and became a nation, they were also tasked with being “a light unto nations,” namely to make their unity an example to the rest of the nations, so they, too, would be able to unite.

The demand that Jews would be role models of unity has since become the kernel of all Jewish hatred, both emanating from other nations, as well as from Jews who resented the idea of unity and wanted to pursue individualistic (later to become Hellenistic) agendas.

Two thousand years ago, the hatred within the Jewish people became so fierce that they locked themselves inside their capital, Jerusalem – with the Roman legion camped outside the walls – slaughtered one another, burned each other’s food reservoirs, and made Titus’ work much easier when he finally decided to conquer the city and destroy the Temple.

The day when the Romans marched into the Temple and sealed the Jewish defeat was to become a day of mourning. But we should not mourn the destruction of the walls or the breaking of the altar. We should instead mourn the ruin of our unity, our brotherly love, the abandonment of our task to unite as one man with one heart, and be a role model for the nations.

When Hitler explained in Mein Kampf why he hates Jews, he expounded on his disgust with their dislike for one another. “The Jew is only united when a common danger forces him to be or a common booty entices him; if these two grounds are lacking, the qualities of the crassest egoism come into their own,” he wrote.

Numerous other antisemites wrote and spoke similarly about the Jewish people. They would not dedicate such attention to Jewish hatred of each other if they did not expect Jews to feel otherwise toward their brethren.

These days, once again, division and internal hatred are rampant, both in Israel and outside of it. Jewish anti-Jewish groups and individuals once again decry with righteous indignation that only their way and views are right, that Jews with other views are ignorant and inferior. They do not realize that winning the nations’ hearts, for which they so desperately yearn, depends not on their ideology, but on their unity precisely with those brethren they hate.

From the perspective of the world, nothing has changed. We are still tasked with being a light unto nations by setting an example of unity, and we are still hated for showing the opposite. Vasily Shulgin, a senior member of the Russian Parliament before the 1917 revolution and an avid self-proclaimed anti-semite wrote in his book What We Don’t Like about Them: “Jews in the 20th century have become very smart, effective, and vigorous at exploiting other people’s ideas. However,” he protested, “this is not an occupation for teachers and prophets, not the role of guides of the blind, not the role of carriers of the lame.”

Deep inside, every Jew feels indebted to the world. Deep inside, we feel the call of our vocation. But we will never live up to our task by hating one another. We will do so only if we show the world that above our fierce disagreements, we love each other like family. Although we cannot agree on anything, we form a union that is stronger than any dispute.

The divisions between us are the vehicle through which we can show the world what unity means, but only if we rise to the challenge and unite above them. If we do so, the world will see that unity is possible however deep the chasm between people and nations. If we keep avoiding unity, the world will keep blaming us for spreading division and will make us pay for its suffering.
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My new article on San Diego Jewish World “The #Jewishprivilege Trend’s Major Takeaway”

The maelstrom of a global pandemic has recently kept worldwide antisemitism relatively quiet, but it does not mean that Jew haters are resting. On Twitter, the antisemitic hashtag #JewishPrivilege, which was originally used to accuse Jews of racism and control over other minorities, rapidly became a top trending hashtag.

In an attempt to push back against the hashtag’s antisemitic sentiment, Jewish celebrities posted personal stories of discrimination, bigotry and persecution suffered directly by them or their families throughout generations. But, as expected, it failed to ease the animosity.

In another instance of “special treatment” of Jews, Twitter accounts of users displaying a Star of David became locked by the social media platform, which deemed the Jewish symbol as “hateful imagery.”

Surprisingly, this is all happening at a time when social media giants face boycotts from international corporations, which are pulling multimillion dollar advertising budgets from what they call a permissive hate-speech culture by those platforms. Apparently, antisemitism is a more powerful exception to the rules against online hate speech than both advertising dollars and boycott threats, since it is still widely tolerated and the responsible regulators look the other way.

Hatred of Jews, however, does not depend on our actions.

It is a sensation embedded in nature that can emerge in people instantaneously. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that antisemitism first surfaced together with the emergence of the Jewish people around 4,000 years ago in ancient Babylon.

While Babylon was experiencing a crisis of social division with conflicts and hatred tearing up society, Abraham, a Babylonian priest who discovered the path to unity above the growing divisions, began openly teaching his method to anyone who wanted to learn.

Those who felt that social discord was the burning issue of the time flocked to study with him. He guided them to the discovery of the single uniting force necessary to rise above divisiveness. The group he led became known as “the people of Israel,” meaning “straight to God,” (Yashar-El in Hebrew), i.e., straight to the single force of love and bestowal that exists in reality. Later, the group also became known as “Jews,” which derived from the Hebrew word “yehud,” meaning unity.

Since the Jewish people were the first to attain unity above division, they received the mandate to act as “a light unto the nations.” This meant that their role was first to connect, and then, to spread the light that emanated from their connection like rippling waves to the rest of humanity.

Why is this role so important today?

It is because in today’s world the overblown human ego, social division, conflicts and hatred are all rising exponentially, causing myriad problems and crises, and thus there is a renewed urgency and necessity for the Jewish people to carry out their role. The more people suffer, the more they subconsciously blame the Jews for holding the keys to fix the problems, but failing to do so.

This scenario is the origin of Jew hatred—the sensation that the Jews have a special calling to unite in order to pass unity to the world, but don’t. If we Jews make no effort to connect, we block the positive unifying force from reaching humanity, and hatred pressures us to perform what is expected of us.

Humanity’s positive future depends solely on us.

If we have a privilege, it is in our role to deliver human society the abundance and fulfillment that comes from uniting “as one man with one heart.” As is written by the most renowned Kabbalist of our generation, Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “It is the wisdom of faith, justice and peace which most nations learn from us, and this wisdom is ascribed to us alone.”

When we as Jews unite, even slightly, we will act as a conduit for the force of unity to spread throughout human consciousness. As soon as we realize our unique role in the world, we will spare ourselves and all humanity much suffering, since only the power of unification can enable human society to rise above its narrow egoistic nature, and to discover the vast space of happiness that stems from unity.
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The Times of Israel published my new article “Don’t Overlook the Message of the 9th of Av”

This Wednesday, July 29, will be the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av. On that day, both Temples were ruined and the Jews were exiled from their land. On the first exile, they were deported to Babylon, from which they returned after 70 years with the blessing of the Persian king, Cyrus the Great, and a letter granting them imperial support in resettling the land and rebuilding the Temple.

The period of the 2nd Temple is more complicated than the first. In the midst of it, Jews began to fight among themselves as Hellenized Jews tried to root out traditional Judaism and install the Greek culture and mythology, and the Maccabees fought against them, striving to oust Hellenism and restore authenticity to Judaism. In that period, Jews lost control over the Temple but regained it after the Maccabees won the war. But finally, the internal battles and hatred among belligerent Jewish factions destroyed the country, ravaged Jerusalem, and demolished the Temple. Subsequently, the Jews were exiled for two thousand years.

Although historians attribute both exiles to external conquerors, ancient Jewish texts attribute very little influence to external factors, if any. Instead, they pin the troubles of the Jewish people on their own disunity.

As Though We’ve Never Learned

The Jewish people gained their nationhood when they united “as one man with one heart” at the foot of Mt. Sinai. According to Jewish ancient writings, the Hebrews who came out of Egypt were told that if they united, they would be declared a nation. If they did not, the mountain would cover them like a vault and would become their tombstone. The Jews, according to the sources, united and became the Jewish nation, or Israelites. But at that time, they were also tasked with being “a light unto nations,” namely to set an example of unity to the rest of the nations.

That demand that Jews would be role models of unity has since become the kernel of all Jewish hatred, both emanating from other nations, as well as from Jews who resented the idea of unity and wanted to pursue their individualistic (later to become Hellenistic) agendas. Two thousand years ago, the hatred within the Jewish people became so fierce that they locked themselves inside their capital, Jerusalem (with the Roman legion camped outside the walls), slaughtered one another, burned each other’s food reservoirs, and made General Titus’ work much easier when he finally decided to conquer the city and destroy the Temple.

The hatred of the Jews for one another was so evident and abominable that it denied the triumphant Titus the thrill of victory. When Queen Helena offered him a victory wreath after he took Jerusalem, Titus declined saying that there was no merit in vanquishing a people deserted by their own God.

The day when the Romans marched into the Temple and sealed the Jewish defeat was to become a day of mourning since then. But we should not mourn the destruction of the walls or the breaking of the altar. We should instead mourn the ruin of our unity, our brotherly love, the abandonment of our task to unite as one man with one heart and be a role model for the nations.

When Hitler explained in Mein Kampf why he hates Jews, he expounded on his disgust with their dislike for one another. “The Jew is only united when a common danger forces him to be or a common booty entices him; if these two grounds are lacking, the qualities of the crassest egoism come into their own,” he writes. Numerous other antisemites wrote and spoke similarly about the Jewish people. They would not dedicate such attention to Jewish hatred of each other if they did not expect Jews to feel otherwise toward their brethren.

Today, nearly a century after the rise of the most diabolic, genocidal leader of the most advanced, modern, and civilized nation at the time, Jews have still learned nothing. Once again, division and internal hatred are rampant, both in Israel and outside of it. Jewish anti-Jewish groups are once again becoming increasingly raucous and yell out with righteous indignation that only their way is right, that Jews with other views are ignorant and inferior. They do not realize that their affirmation in the eyes of the nations, for which they so desperately yearn, depends not on their ideology, but on their unity precisely with those brethren they hate.

From the perspective of the world, nothing has changed. We are still tasked with being a light unto nations by setting an example of unity, and we are still hated for showing the opposite. Vasily Shulgin, a senior member of the Russian Parliament before the 1917 revolution and an avid self-proclaimed antisemite wrote in his book What We Don’t Like about Them…: “Jews in the 20th century have become very smart, effective, and vigorous at exploiting other people’s ideas. However,” he protests, “this is not an occupation for teachers and prophets, not the role of guides of the blind, not the role of carriers of the lame.”

Deep inside, every Jew feels indebted to the world. Deep inside, we feel the call of our vocation. But we will never live up to our task through hating one another. We will do so only if we show the world that above our fierce disagreements, we love each other like family. Although we cannot agree on anything, we form a union that is stronger than any dispute. The divisions between us are the vehicle through which we can show the world what unity means, but only if we rise to the challenge and unite above them. If we do so, the world will see that unity is possible however deep the chasm between people and nations. If we keep avoiding unity, the world will keep blaming us for spreading division in the world and will make us pay for its suffering.
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Kabbalah published my new article: ““The Meaning Of Tisha B’AV” (Kabbalah)”

Tisha B’Av (the 9th of Av) is a very significant state in human development.

Tisha B’Av serves as a memorial of the destruction of the Holy Temple. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, this ruin represents our loss of awareness of our unification as a single soul, which the Holy Temple represents. It is a state that Kabbalah also calls the “breaking” or “shattering” of the vessels.

The immense importance of the breaking of the vessels is that there can be no complete correction and unification without having undergone corruption and shattering.

Tisha B’Av thus represents two polar opposite states:

Sorrow and crying from the forecast of the impending breakage, with the understanding that we need to do everything in our power to withstand it, i.e., to hold onto our unification against the increasing pressure to shatter our unification to pieces.

Tremendous joy in the conditions that the breakage brings us, that our loss of unification is a chance at attaining a greater and more complete form of unification.

Therefore, the sorrow about the past ruins needs to be balanced with the joy in the chance that these ruins bring: to rise to a higher and more complete form of connection.

Tisha B’Av is thus not merely an annual fast day in the Jewish calendar, where a number of disasters throughout history are remembered and mourned. It is rather a state that can surface at any moment when we acknowledge our failure to actively participate in our current process of correction—the correction of those relationships that once shattered, which is considered as the construction of a new Holy Temple.

How does this work?

The 16th century, which was the period of the great Kabbalist Isaac Luria (the Ari), designated the time when the gates to the knowledge of the process of correction opened up to humanity. Until then, those gates were locked shut, as Kabbalists, who held the method of correction, knew very well that the time was still unripe.

Since the 16th century onward, and much more so in our times, the knowledge and ability to participate actively in the process of correction has become increasingly available, the more that the authentic wisdom of Kabbalah has spread.

Therefore, we need not dwell in sadness about Holy Temples that became ruined thousands of years ago. Instead, our sorrow should be directed at our negligence to willingly participate in the process of correction that is present at every moment.

In other words, each moment we fail to add our participation to the process of correction, i.e., aiming to connect positively to each other in order to bring unity to the world, and reunite on a higher level than we had in the past—or in other words, each moment we fail to add another “brick” to the construction of the new Holy Temple—then it is our unawareness, disregard and lack of concern about ours and humanity’s positive future, which we should be sorry about.

We cannot truly understand what happened 2,000 years ago. Our desires are much bigger today, and our era is characterized by the impending construction of the new Holy Temple, i.e., a state of unity above all divisions that all humanity needs to reach. Therefore, crying about what happened in the past makes us seem like righteous individuals who look back at those meager and unfortunate people back then, an approach that fails to account for the necessity of that ruin in order for a specific order to develop.

Since the 16th century, the Ari’s time, the ability to participate in the process of correction has opened up to humanity, and the meaning of Tisha B’Av can be understood according to this process: the ruin of the Temples is the shattering of human relations, the division spreading worldwide among humanity, a broken state that we have been given the ability to fix.

We thus should not relate to Tisha B’Av as history, but as a situation that we can encounter on a moment-by-moment basis as we head forth to correct our broken relations and reach a much higher and more complete unification than we have ever experienced before.

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