My article in Newsmax: “Why Is Coronavirus Different From Any Other Pandemic in History?”

This is not the first time humanity faces a frightening pandemic, but COVID-19 or coronavirus is undoubtedly one of a kind. No other health crisis in the past washed over the entire world like a tsunami leaving basically no corner of the planet unaffected.

The reason for this is that never before has the world been so interconnected and interdependent as now. Such a closed and entangled system in nature is teaching us that we will either succumb separately or thrive together. This is the strong lesson the coronavirus crisis is showing us.

The Black Death, SARS, and the most deadly pandemic so far, the Spanish flu, which killed around 50 million people worldwide in 1918, were widespread disease outbreaks that deeply impacted humanity. But there has never before been a blow such as the coronavirus, so broad and global in scope, grabbing everyone together, turning our lives upside down in a blink of an eye.

The travel bans that immediately swept the world froze our obsession with globetrotting, no matter where, just as long as we were able to escape. Our perspective on money has also changed since the crisis, making us reevaluate our priorities in life. Our endless consumerism and compulsive quest for leisure suddenly paused and, most likely and fortunately, will never return to what it was. We will need to adapt to a new lifestyle, more basic, settled and wise.

The War on Our Nature

In addition to pandemics, wars have also left devastation behind them in various parts of the planet generation after generation. Previously, the world divided into camps to fight its conflicts: Germans and those against Germany, Russians and Americans, Chinese and Westerners, Iranians and Israelis.

Now, the entire world has become one village, and the coronavirus has proven just that. In comparison to previous ones, this crisis is affecting all of humanity without making any distinctions of background, origin, beliefs or status in society. Simple people, government officials, spouses of world leaders, and celebrities — no one is immune to the contagion.

The situation is showing the whole world how weak and vulnerable humans are in the face of nature. It is a lesson in humility, when we previously felt that reality was at our fingertips for our own use, and that we had the right to exploit anything and everything around us without consideration of others.

Nothing in nature happens by chance. The current situation offers humanity a new direction and fresh outlook since now the problem is not aimed at any specific country, region, or leader, as was the case in the past. This time, we are all navigating the troubled waters in the same boat, and we need to recognize that the only enemy to fight is our selfish, egoistic nature, the source of the world’s imbalance.

Viruses and other problems of the ecosystem are the direct result of the damage that humans inflict on the system of nature through reckless and abusive behavior, both to the system and to others. In truth, all are integral parts of the same world, which functions as an enormous mesh of interconnected cogwheels.

A Cure for Mankind

There is no prohibition on enjoyment and pleasure in life. Our desire for pleasure is the fabric of our nature and its fulfillment is precisely the purpose of creation: to do good and bring contentment to its creations. The question is: To what purpose do we enjoy, and more importantly, at expense of what or whom?

Therefore, as painful and unnerving as the pandemic may seem, the coronavirus can really become a cure for humanity’s ills if we learn its primary lesson: The only angel of death is the human ego, and until we rise above it, we will never enjoy a good life. We have been given an awakening to change paths and connect with each other so that together we can unleash the positive force of nature that becomes revealed through our harmonious relationships.

This world-changing revelation is a reason for gratitude.
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Thrive Global published my new article: “Coronavirus — a Blessing in Disguise?”

We’ve needed these reflections and today that I see so many people asking them, or sympathizing with those who ask them, and it makes me optimistic.

Soccer Football – Campeonato Gaucho – Gremio v Sao Luiz – Arena do Gremio, Porto Alegre, Brazil – March 15, 2020 Gremio players wearing masks before the match is played behind closed doors as the number of coronavirus cases grow around the world REUTERS/Diego Vara

Life will return to normalcy after Coronavirus, but normalcy will not be what we know today. After the withdrawal symptoms from consumerism abuse subside, people will wake up to a new reality. The longer it takes for humanity to overcome COVID-19, the more different our post-Coronavirus lives will be.

The best case scenarios predict that a vaccine to the virus will be available to the public toward the end of 2020. How many businesses will survive a forced closure for that long? How many recreation and entertainment venues can stay out for that many months? And most important, what will our lives look like without them?

In my view, there will not be complete annihilation of recreation and entertainment, but there will be far less of it and in different ways. Can you picture it? Can you picture a life that does not consist of chasing assumed pleasures that almost always end up in dismay, which makes us look for the next promised bliss, only to find the next broken promise? What will satisfy us when the endless, futile pursuit of satisfaction is halted by force-majeure?

Right now, there are more questions than answers surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond the obvious ones, such as when will a vaccine be found, there are very deep questions that this germ awakens. For example, it stops us from polluting the planet. By curbing flights, transportation, and production so radically, it drastically reduces our carbon imprint, improves the air quality, minimizes our depletion of natural resources, and generally makes humanity a dream come true for environment enthusiasts like Greta Thunberg and the millions who ache over the harm we are doing to our planet. So, is the virus all that bad? Or, maybe it’s bad for us and good for the rest of reality? But if that’s the case, then we’re at odds with reality, which is certainly not a good thing. How have we come to this?

As I said, it is still too early to answer these questions; we’re still in what the papers call “a developing story.” But when the dust sinks, there is no doubt that we will see a different picture from before it was kicked into the air.

Some Points of Reflection

Here are some of the things I reflect on these days:

#1 – If left alone, Nature is harmonious and balanced. When the balance is broken, such as when there is an overpopulation of one species, Nature finds a way to balance it either by increasing the number of predators of that species or by culling the excess number of animals in some other way. If Nature seems to attempt to cull us, I think we should ask why it is doing this. Have we become so deleterious to Nature that it is forced to discard of some of us?

#2 – If the virus is Nature’s way of culling humanity, would that imply that if we didn’t misbehave so badly, the virus wouldn’t happen?

There are even deeper questions we can ask:

#1 – So far, Coronavirus has been quite “gentle” with us. The number of casualties is relatively low and the symptoms are mostly mild. At the same time, we see that somehow, the virus has managed to disentangle all of our ties to one another; it is isolating us from each other, disassembling our previous way of life, yet does not threaten to altogether starve us. What does that mean for us? Could this be Nature’s way of telling us that the problem lies in our connections? If we were more empathetic to one another, more considerate, how would that impact the disease? Perhaps it wouldn’t since we should have been more empathetic and considerate to begin with and now it’s too late and we’re just going to have to ride out the storm and try to be different when it’s gone. But then, perhaps it would…

#2 – Also, Nature, as just said, is balanced. Humans are evidently not. We patronize Nature, patronize each other, and never stop playing “King of the [Dung] Hill.” We think what no creature thinks—that we are superior to Nature, that we can defeat it if we only try hard enough and long enough. Could this incongruence between the general nature and human nature be the cause behind the outbreak?

One way or the other, the virus, in its way, is a blessing in disguise. We’ve needed these reflections and today that I see so many people asking them, or sympathizing with those who ask them, and it makes me optimistic. We will find a vaccine to Coronavirus, but the question that bothers me the most is whether we will find a vaccine to the illness that has plagued us for centuries—our selfish human nature.

— Published on March 15, 2020

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The Times of Israel published my new article “Coronavirus and the New Humanity”

The outbreak of COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease) caught us off guard. Initially, the majority of the world didn’t really care because it was in China, and the West sees China mainly as a big factory. Next, we thought it was little more than a new strain of flu. When it started to spread, we thought it wouldn’t come to our neighborhood/city/country. So when governments declared mandatory quarantine on people returning from abroad, or shut down all entertainment businesses, or canceled sports leagues, schools, and universities, we thought that they were panicking for no reason.

But we should already know better. If we don’t want our countries to look like Wuhan or Lombardi, we’d better be attentive to the instructions.

Almost a Positive Message

If it weren’t sad, the message the coronavirus is sending us could sound almost positive: It tells us “We are all in this together.” It is a universal message of mutual responsibility, where the measures taken by one government impact every person on the planet. Just think about how it started: Someone in Wuhan, China, got a strange flu in November, and three months later, thousands of people are dead, the world is going out of business, hundreds of millions are jailed inside their own homes or ghettoed in their city, Russia and OPEC have declared an oil-war, and the U.S. thinks they’re both out to get it, and all because of that one person with the strange flu.

Indeed, we are all in this together, universally connected.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is a concept called “the last generation.” Basically, it means that when the generation is selfish to the core, a new paradigm will emerge, one of unity and mutual responsibility. Now, according to The Book of Zohar, the seminal book of Kabbalah, we are in the beginning of that last generation.

The Birth of a New Humanity

Admittedly, we are in the midst of a global crisis. But the word “crisis” doesn’t deserve its bad reputation. In English, a crisis is “the turning point for better or worse in an acute disease or fever,” or “an emotionally significant event or radical change of status in a person’s life,” according to Webster’s Dictionary. So it isn’t necessarily bad, but it is certainly a dramatic situation.

The Hebrew word for “crisis” is even more interesting. Mashber, which is Hebrew for crisis, is the word that ancient Hebrew texts used to denote birth. The mashber was the special chair on which the woman in labor sat until she delivered (Talmud, Arachin 1:4). Also, in the Bible (Isaiah 37:3), the word mashber denotes the opening of the birth-canal right before the newborn baby emerges to the world.

In the case of the current crisis, and in fact the current process that we have been undergoing for some decades now, the newborn baby is a new humanity. The difference between now and, say, ten years ago, is that significant portions of humanity are beginning to acknowledge that mutual responsibility and interdependence are not merely fancy words that they can use to decorate their social media posts; they are the painful truth that we must take into account in our daily lives. Previously, it didn’t matter to anyone if I wanted to go to a discotheque or to the movies to take my mind off life’s burdens. Nowadays, other people’s lives could depend on my decision, literally! It doesn’t get more mutually responsible than that.

Willing vs. Unwilling Collaborators with Reality

Reality has made its choice for us: We are all dependent on each other. But we can choose how to relate to it. Like a crisis, interdependence is not a bad thing in and of itself. Imagine what our lives would be like if we had no one to make our food so we could buy it in the supermarket, no one to make our cars so we could go anywhere we want, and no one to make our clothes, homes, appliances and gadgets that we so enjoy. What would our lives look like?

The problem is not with mutual dependence in itself, it’s in the fact that we are trying to use it to our personal benefit instead of everyone using it for everyone’s benefit. When we use our interdependence selfishly, the results are the financial crisis from twelve years ago, the depression that we feel due to our dissatisfaction with life, which then causes substance abuse that claims tens of thousands of lives every year in the U.S. alone, and the current pandemic that who knows when or how it will end.

But if we use our interdependence for the common good, then we will be happy to contribute our very best skills and efforts to society because everybody else will be doing likewise. Can you imagine a society whose members all work for the common good? Can you imagine sadness there? Can you see sickness there? Will you find loneliness there? Will there be crime, illiteracy, or drugs in such a community? A community that implements mutual responsibility will never allow any of that to happen in its midst.

COVID-19 is a stern teacher. But however painful are its lessons, we had better learn them now—the lessons of our interconnectedness and mutual responsibility, our new paradigm of life. Reality has already decided that now is the time for the birth of a new humanity; it is our choice to make it smooth and happy, or resist it and endure nature’s methods of assisted delivery…
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The Times of Israel published my new article “How to Transform Anti-Semitism in US Campuses into Healthy Dialogue”

“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lay down with the kid.” (Isaiah 11:6)

The seeds of anti-Semitism are being methodically planted and harvested on US campuses. American universities have become epicenters of Jew-hatred dressed as so-called “legitimate criticism” of Israel and its policies. Instead of being places for ideological progress and enlightenment, US colleges and universities have been transformed into hotbeds of fundamentalist political agendas of vicious anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment sponsored by special interest groups.

Pro-BDS activists claim that adopting the definition of anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism, as marked by The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), infringes on free speech. The same claim was leveled—including from Jewish groups—against President Trump’s executive order to limit federal funding to universities accused of discriminating against the Jewish nation.

However, if we delve deeper, we will find out that there is a very thin line that separates between free speech and anarchy. This line is a quality of our very human nature and we should understand it well so we can use it properly and succeed in establishing unbiased educational institutions and healthy societies.

Ego, the Root Cause of Hatred

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the material of creation in all its stages and parts is the will to receive enjoyment. This will to receive is inherent to human nature and there is nothing other than it in the world. As opposed to the inanimate, vegetative and animal levels of nature, which behave instinctively, humans are ruled by the ego: the will to receive at the expense of others. This same ego, if we can change its direction from self-benefit to benefiting others, from receiving to giving, is intended to be used as the driving force to elevate creation to its highest point. However, if we persist in the unchecked selfish use of the desire to receive commonly seen today, we will continue to experience social decline, prejudice and bigotry in every sphere of life, and higher education institutions will be no exceptions.

Is it possible to maintain a positive environment on US campuses without canceling or oppressing any opinion?

This is where the law coined by one of our greatest sages, King Solomon becomes indispensable: “Hate stirs strife, and love covers all crimes.” This rule indicates that in order to build a healthy and strong society which takes into account different opinions and positions, a society that grows and flourishes, we need to overcome the ego and cover it with love. That is, to overcome the desire to exploit one another and instead, cultivate feelings of love, respect and consideration, the feeling that we are one.

Pluralism, Not Anarchy

The more opinions are shared among us, the more blooming results we develop and achieve in all forms of communications between us. As my mentor, Kabbalist Rav Baruch Ashlag (The Rabash) wrote, “As their faces differ, their views differ.” (The Writings of Rabash). We can learn from the Jewish sages how they brought forth a discussion and pertinent debate, precisely to strengthen unity, find out the truth, and bring about conciliation.

Without the filters of love for the other, without the desire to bestow, every debate turns into a cruel war of opinions and conflicts that is irresolvable until one side vanquishes the other. Therefore, before any opinion is expressed we should ask: is my opinion accompanied with the proper intention? When we come to negotiate, is the conversation held above and beyond considerations of personal benefit?

If the answers are affirmative, then we can engage in any discussion, even the most stormy and controversial, with no holds barred. In the ideal complete structure in which humanity exists as one body, all the organs and parts of that body have their specific functions and are completely unique yet interact harmoniously for the benefit of the whole. Similarly, society should make space for and preserve the differences between people while rising above them to maintain balance.

Regarding this matter, the book Likutey Etzot (Assorted Counsels) describes the correct approach toward such balance:

“The essence of peace is to connect two opposites. Hence, do not be alarmed if you see a person whose view is the complete opposite of yours and you think that you will never be able to make peace with him. Also, when you see two people who are completely opposite to each other, do not say that it is impossible to make peace between them. On the contrary, the essence of peace is to try to make peace between two opposites.”
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Thrive Global published my new article: “Coronavirus and the Value of Life”

We like to think of ourselves as conscientious, moral people. But COVID-19, or Coronavirus Disease, is exposing our true nature: selfish to the core.

2019 was a record year for Dengue Fever in Latin America. Some 3 million people were infected, and 1,500 of them died. Each year, the disease is claiming more and more lives but hardly anyone outside Latin America knows about it. Why? Because it’s Latin America, and in the eyes of the West, Latin American lives are worth less than West European lives or North American lives. If we in the Western World valued Latin American lives the way we value our own, the media would give it due coverage.

Likewise, the coronavirus aroused very little interest as long as it remained inside Mainland China. Would we really be alarmed if the virus killed, say, 100,000 people, or even a million people in China, but did not migrate to other countries? What would it take for us to move uncomfortably in our seats? The answer is not a number, but the identity of the affected.

We like to think of ourselves as conscientious, moral people. But COVID-19, or Coronavirus Disease, is exposing our true nature: selfish to the core. This is why the world started panicking over the coronavirus only when it spread to the rest of the world; this is the sad reality of our lives.

Two Lessons from the Virus

So far, the coronavirus has taught us two very important lessons:

We are all equal in the eyes of nature. Whether you are rich or poor, a tyrant or a servant, the tiny bug could not care less; it’ll hit you just the same.

We are all mutually dependent. We are passing the germ from one person to the next and one person’s irresponsible behavior, even if inadvertently, can cost other people’s lives and numerous others pain and agony.

What the virus will not teach us is how to turn this negative interdependency into a positive one. This, we will have to learn on our own, through our efforts to build a new paradigm of living. If we focus our efforts on improving life for everyone rather than only our own, and often at the expense of others, we will transform our environment, the social and ecological ones.

The pandemic is an opportunity for us to develop a new outlook on ourselves, to envision success not as a triumph over others, but as empowerment of society as a whole. True, this thinking goes against our nature, but nature itself is going against our nature nowadays, so we had better start thinking outside the box. If we don’t change our mode of thinking, reality will force us to, and much more painfully.

Coronavirus Disease is a prelude to a stream of ordeals that will befall humanity until we’re willing to become mutually responsible on the social and ecological levels. It does not take a lot to see that the virus is a test to our mutual consideration. Look at how China reacted in the beginning of the outbreak, pretending that the virus was no big deal, and look how it has managed to slow down its spread—by placing everyone in quarantine until the spreading dwindles. And it worked. Look at how Italy initially dismissed the danger, and look at the catastrophic results.

Now we need to take the mandatory mutual responsibility to the next level and start reaping its fruits. We can do much more than heal society from the virus. We can heal it from the spreading alienation, loneliness, and depression that have plagued our societies long before the virus. All it takes is our willingness to accept that we are responsible for one another.

Cherish the Difference

If we accept mutual responsibility, we will learn to cherish each other’s differences. Our unique characters will no longer separate us; they will connect us and will give each of us unique ways to contribute to society, which no one else will be able to give.

Questions of race or gender equality will become extinct since each person will be priceless. How can you evaluate a person who has unique qualities that no one else has, and who is ready and willing to use those qualities to benefit all of society? Will it matter if that person came from Latin America, China, or Germany? Will it matter if that person is well educated or not, rich or poor, black, white, or yellow? None of it will matter. All that will matter is that that person has a priceless gift to give to all of us. This is the reality of people living in mutual responsibility.
— Published on March 11, 2020

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My article in Newsmax: “Sooner We Learn Coronavirus Lesson, Sooner We’ll Heal”

We’re still not getting what’s coming.

COVID-19, or coronavirus, is messing up our lives and we have yet to grasp the consequences. The masks, the quarantine, but mostly, the fear, are telling us that a new phase in our existence is emerging.

So, the sooner we get a grip on things, the better it will be for everyone.

Imagine this:

You’re sitting at home, cannot go to work because your employer went out of business, cannot buy food because the stores have all been emptied and there’s no supply to refill the shelves, and supply shipments have virtually stopped. But you have children to feed. What will you do? You can’t even send them to school where they can get a meal since all schools have been shut down by the virus!

What will you do, grow vegetables in the bathtub?

If it sounds mad, it’s because it is. But in a matter of months, this scenario could be the reality of tens of millions of Americans, Europeans and people in every country in the world.

The simple reality is that we cannot exist without provision from the outside, and the coronavirus is decimating that provision. If we don’t find a way to reboot the chains of supply that have been frozen still by fear, we could be facing hunger of a magnitude that will destroy our society and claim the lives of millions of people who aren’t even sick with the virus.

The Key to a Successful Reboot

Why is all this happening?

Because we are ignoring one simple, natural law: interconnectedness. Interconnectedness means that everything in nature is connected to, and therefore dependent on everything else.

We, on the other hand, live under the assumption that we needn’t recognize anything other than our own needs. Herein lies the problem: While the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels of nature function in harmony and balance, the human level seeks only to exploit: We use nature and abuse each other simply because we can.

Now, in what seems like the first time, but certainly not the last, nature is saying, “Enough!” Reality is demanding that we become responsible, mature, but mainly, considerate of one another and of the environment.

Now we are called upon to raise our eyes, acknowledge the world around us, and begin to think more in terms of “we” and less in terms of “me.” This is how all of nature operates, and it demands that we do, too.

Becoming More Like Nature, and Less Like People

In order to start balancing our approach to reality, we should begin to work more like nature, and less like people, or at least less like the people that we used to be until the outbreak of COVID-19. To do that, we should start including other interests in our thoughts. What animals and plants do instinctively, we are required to do consciously.

While it is much harder for us to do than it is for animals and plants, it holds a unique reward: an enhanced perception of the whole of nature. The more parts of reality we include in our awareness, the broader our perception of reality becomes. It is an endless process of growth with infinite rewards, bound only by our willingness to exert in it.

As nature is interconnected, so we can become, if we set our minds and hearts on it. In that sense, the coronavirus is an unprecedented opportunity for growth, and it would be a horrible mistake for us to miss it.

By disconnecting our supply chains, the virus has reminded us that we are inseparably connected. By thinking about this interconnectedness and what it requires of us, we can defeat not only COVID-19, but also the “viruses” that sicken our society, pollute our minds, and make us destroy each other and the world around us.

In that sense, the coronavirus is a vaccine, not a pathogen, and the sooner we learn what it teaches, the sooner we will all heal.
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Thrive Global published my new article: “Coronavirus: A Lesson in Mutual Responsibility”

In less than three months, COVID-19, a.k.a. Coronavirus disease, has taught us a lesson in humility before the forces of nature that we had refused to learn for more than a century.

Staff in protective suits spray disinfectant on the Light Rail Transit (LRT) train after Indonesia confirmed new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia March 10, 2020 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. Antara Foto/NovaWahyudi/ via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. INDONESIA OUT.

Who would have thought that a virus, and not a particularly deadly one, would press the world’s kill switch? Who would believe in the beginning of this year that a measly flu-like germ with the name of a beer brand would paralyze aviation the world over, crash stock markets globally, start an oil-price war between OPEC and Russia, put entire countries under quarantine, shut down schools and universities the world over, cancel major sports events, and all within ten weeks?

In less than three months, COVID-19, a.k.a. Coronavirus disease, has taught us a lesson in humility before the forces of nature that we had refused to learn for more than a century. It taught us that our protections, safety nets, and struggles for power and dominance are useless when nature decides to play its tricks on us.

“Most of all, Coronavirus is teaching us a lesson in mutual responsibility. It is forcing us to recognize the painful fact that we are interconnected and interdependent the world over.”

But most of all, Coronavirus is teaching us a lesson in mutual responsibility. It is forcing us to recognize the painful fact that we are interconnected and interdependent the world over. Because when a virus that started in Wuhan, China, can kill your loved ones in Chicago, Illinois, don’t you wish your countries would not be embroiled in a trade war? Wouldn’t it be nice if countries could collaborate just once and take collective action to stop the spreading of the virus? Wouldn’t it be much more helpful if we realized that we are responsible for one another even when we are half way across the world and don’t want to hear about it?

A Wonder Drug for Earth

Ironically, this pathogen is like a wonder drug for Earth. For decades, we have been warned about the harm that overconsumption is doing to our planet. For decades, we have been told that we must restrain our greed, excessive depletion of natural resources, and the shopping frenzy that has become our favorite pastime. For decades, we have ignored the warnings. Now, nature is forcing us to simply stop: no flights, no shopping, no entertainment. Quarantine yourselves at home and reflect on your actions, your commitment to others, and theirs to you.

In truth, nature is kind; it could have taught us the same lesson with far more aggressive measures. It could have caused a nuclear disaster like the one in Chernobyl or an earthquake like the one that devastated the nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. It could have made Ebola far more contagious and destroy half of humanity. It could do a million things we cannot even imagine that would all but obliterate humanity. But it is not; it is giving us a chance to reflect on how we live and start living more responsibly toward each other and the planet that is our common home.

Now it is time for us to help each other learn to care for one another. It cannot happen if we try alone, but since we’re all trapped already in one boat, much like the passengers on the virus-hit Diamond Princess in Japan and the Grand Princess in California, we should all embrace mutual responsibility and start building a more balanced and considerate way of life. Evidently, nature has a far greater cache of penitentiary measures than we can ever counteract. So far, it has been merciful and gentle with humanity; we do not want it to pick up the stick.

The world we live in now is the brainchild of our egocentric mindset. If we do not change our thinking, the world will not change for the better however we may try to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy and diminish deforestation. But if, instead of our current attitude, we will begin to nurture mutual consideration and responsibility, our world will reflect it and will transform in sync with our new state of mind.

It is written, “They who sow the wind, reap the storm” (Hosea 8:7). If we sow egoism, we will reap its consequences many times over. The current crisis is but a sample of what might happen. But likewise, if all of us aboard the ship called Planet Earth, sowed mutual care and mutual responsibility, what would we reap? Can we even begin to imagine the benefits?

Maybe now, when everything is put on hold, we should take a moment to reflect on our mindsets and start reforming the relationships in our lives. Maybe now is our chance to reverse course, to start imagining different courses for our lives. Maybe now we should start thinking less in terms of me and mine, and more in terms of community, society, and humanity. After all, who knows how many more breaks nature will give us?

— Published on March 10, 2020

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Medium published my new article “When Purim Meets International Women’s Day”

The events described in the Purim story hint at humanity’s spiritual corrections. Translating these corrections from the poetic and colorful language of legend to the language of qualitative inner change lets us see how they describe connection among people, and how we can strengthen such connection. We can then find ourselves, our inner states, our attitudes to each other, and our various relationships as the characters and situations taking place in the Purim story.

International Women’s Day, which falls on Purim this year, draws our attention to two women in the Purim story: Esther and Zeresh, the symbolic representations of two forces at work in the world, which are in fact one.

Every woman has a Queen Esther (wife of King Ahasuerus) side: the quality of righteousness, which justifies the actions of nature and its laws, the laws of love. Every woman also has another Zeresh (wife of the wicked Haman the Agagite) side: a threatening quality, which condemns the power of nature and denies its laws.

How can we discover the attribute called “Esther” within us?

We first need to traverse the attribute of Zeresh, a mind state that focuses our thoughts on how to squeeze the most out of the world: to buy and sell, to receive and control. It is this feminine quality that prods men to strive for power and honor. Without the claims and demands of such a quality, men would be satisfied with much less, fulfilling their basic needs.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, Zeresh is also known as “the corrupted Malchut,” the egoistic desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone, prior to being corrected with an opposite intention to love and bestow. She wants to be above others and to erase them, having no concern for any meagerness and mediocrity that she influences upon them.

Women are mostly unaware of the desires that Zeresh represents, because the surfacing of those desires can bring about much anguish. Can a woman fulfill the aspirations to be more beautiful, talented and successful than other women? By nature, such egoistic desires can never be completely fulfilled, as there will always be someone more beautiful, talented and successful. Why, then, would any woman want to hurt herself for no apparent reason? Therefore, such desires mostly lurk repressed within, beyond the reach of conscious awareness.

This is the way of Zeresh, one that lacks self-awareness. Moreover, such a woman can feel righteous, that she wants only good for everyone, while in fact, her attributes are the polar opposite of goodness.

The attributes of goodness are represented by Esther.

Discovering the loathsome inner urges to be better than others illuminates the spiritually elevated form of sincere concern and love for others, Esther’s qualities. When women reach the high spiritual level that Esther represents, they rise above the competitive games and materialistic trappings of the ego.

Esther is concealed and humble. She acts behind the scenes, moving the world with transparent threads of love for others, not self-love and never for herself. She runs the world by exemplifying how to live by loving others. Esther represents the desire to enjoy created by the Creator, but includes the quality of love and bestowal, the desire to give. Esther uses all of her power and skill to lead society to unification, peace and love.

The Purim holiday and International Women’s Day show us the paramount role of women for the betterment of the world. Both feminine forces, Zeresh — the driving progressive force — and Esther, its corrected state — the force of compassion, love and care — are indispensable to bring about unification, peace, love and balance among humanity.

It is possible to reach a balanced state in humanity when female qualities and male qualities complement one another. Therefore, instead of focusing on how men or women can independently rise, we need to learn how to rise together.

It is no coincidence that the drive to find new balance between the genders has become so prominent in our time. Humans are evolving toward a higher experience of life, and for this reason, we have a yearning for a greater sense of wholeness. Lasting harmony, however, can only emerge when opposite forces complement each other.
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KabNet published my new article: “The Meaning Of Purim”

Purim, which takes place on the 14th of Adar, is the holiday of opposites. It connects between happiness and despair, concealment and revelation, Mordechai and Haman, exile and redemption.

Purim (which stems from the word “Pur” [“lot”]) is the ideal spiritual situation, the final correction (Gmar Tikkun). It is a state where a person’s desires are corrected with the intention in order to bestow, and one becomes united with all desires, thus filling one’s desire with the Creator’s revelation (i.e., the revelation of the quality of bestowal and love that connects among all desires).

THE SPIRITUAL MEANING OF PURIM

Megillat Esther (The Book of Esther) describes forces that unfold in the person. These forces are what a person attaining spirituality discovers in connection with the Creator. They manage everything taking place in everyone’s lives, and have been given the names Mordechai, Esther, Haman, as well as many others.

The story of Purim unfolds before the construction of the Second Temple, soon before the Aliyah (ascent) to the land of Israel. It depicts the final battle before the final correction (Gmar Tikkun). At this stage, the people of Israel, the innermost desire within the person that aspires to spirituality, live calmly and peacefully in the kingdom of Ahasuerus.

Mordechai, the spiritual desire that wants only to adhere to the Creator (the quality of bestowal and love), lived happily and the kingdom was at peace.

The people of Israel represent the majority of the desires that want to go straight to the world’s leader to learn the law of the universe (the word “Israel” comes from the words “Yashar Kel” [“straight to God”]).

Indeed, in the beginning of the story, the narrative suggests that there is something wrong: “There is one nation that is scattered among the nations.” This passage can also be read as “There is one desire that is scattered among the desires.” It is this nation, Israel, the desire for spirituality (a desire of bestowal and love), that is supposed to be united against all other nations, which are desires for self-gratification. The strength of the desire for spirituality (Israel) comes only from its unity, so when it is dispersed, it signifies that the person has not yet fulfilled his destiny, for only the people of Israel (the united desire for bestowal and love above all other desires) can lead the other nations (all other desires for self-gratification) to the common goal, adhesion with the Creator.

The evil Haman, who represents the egoistic desires in the person, wants to exploit the situation for personal gain. He eventually wants to overthrow the king from his throne. Haman believes that the fact that the people of Israel, the Jews, are dispersed testifies to their weakness, confusion and lack of faith. Therefore, he finds the situation to be a rare opportunity to eliminate the Jews from the face of the earth, as they are the sole force that stands between him and exploiting the Creator.

What Haman fails to understand, however, is that the Jews are dispersed for a reason: The Jews’ dispersion (i.e., the dispersion of the small amount of spiritual desires among the large amount of egoistic desires) is in order for all desires to acquire the form of bestowal and love, i.e. that spiritual unity comes in integration and perfect balance with all desires, and not in separation to them. Indeed, we will see the truth of it when at the end of the story, all people reform. The meaning is that all the desires in the person, called “people,” accept the spiritual desires that leads to confidence and happiness, called “Israel.”

The Israel in a person (the altruistic part) is limited. That limitation can only be overcome by the evil Haman. That is why we need to find the Haman (the egoistic part) within us.

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The Times of Israel published my new article “Why Israel Needs to Center Its Discourse on the Need for Unified Leadership”

On the aftermath of the third round of elections to elect members of the 23rd Knesset, we need to center our discourse on the need for unified leadership in Israel.

Ultimately, Israel needs a unity government that focuses on unifying above all differing voices and opinions.

The need to unite above our differences is a tendency of utmost importance not only to the government, but to society at large.

If the government could provide a unifying example, especially when faced with a situation that appears as its direct opposite, then such unification would have the power to transmit positive forces of connection dwelling in nature through to Israeli society, as well as to humanity at large.

Why and how this works depends on understanding the role of the people of Israel.

A Unified Leadership Should Assemble the Nation’s Leaders with a Common Unifying Responsibility

As the Hebrew word for “Knesset,” the name of the Israeli parliament, is the same as the word for “assembly,” then the government should indeed assemble the nation’s leaders with a common responsibility toward spreading unity in the nation.

A sense of responsibility toward bringing about unity in the nation should override the leaders’ urges to curse each other and put spokes in each other’s wheels.

There thus needs to be constant dialogue around the topic of how to bring about unity to the people of Israel.

Why Should We Be So Concerned about Unity of the People of Israel?

The current divisive atmosphere in the Knesset is one of many examples we witness around the world, where we see a clear need for more social cohesion, mutual consideration and respect among human society.

Without more connection among human society, and Israeli society in particular, we will let ourselves get carried down a miserable path.

We’re on that path now. And while humanity accumulates more and more blows on personal, social, global and ecological scales, more and more people will subconsciously feel that the people of Israel are to blame for their misfortunes. Likewise, we see the rise of anti-Semitic sentiment, crimes and threats together with the rise of many other problems in the world.

Why Do So Many People Feel Dependent on the People of Israel?

It is due to the original ideological root of the nation of Israel, unity above division, or as it is written, “love will cover all transgressions,” that so many people hold an innate expectation on the people of Israel to unite, and not remain as a divisive example, which is currently the case.

Until we start acknowledging our role to unite above our differences in order to spread a unifying tendency to humanity, we then have no idea as to what being “the people of Israel” means.

What Does It Mean to Be “the People of Israel”?

Being the people of Israel means being a positive example of a unified people above differences.

We are a nation that needs to function in order to correct itself, i.e., to positively connect, and also to pass that unifying ability to the world. Our current behavior, however, is far from being a positive example of unity to the world.

The Uniqueness of Our Time in History

We need only turn our head a little to the side, and see how we are not on a one-way track, but at a crossroad.

Our time in history is fundamentally different to all others in that we have a connection method available at our fingertips, ready to guide our way forward to a harmonious, eternal and perfect existence, here and now in our world.

Today, we no longer need to unwillingly accept what the world throws at us. We can instead be a free nation, leading ourselves and the world in a positive direction of increasing unification above all differences.

The complex divisive entanglement we find ourselves in today shows us how if we can overcome such differences, we would indeed be a shining example of what the world needs most: unity above division.

By uniting above our differences, we become “a light unto the nations,” the role that made us a unified nation to begin with (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]).

Through our unification, we pave the way to a future of goodness, happiness, freedom, peace and love for humanity, balancing our connections with nature’s connected form.

Unity above division will save us from more of nature’s blows. Also, in addition to cushioning us pleasantly within nature, unity above our differences creates a necessary natural balance that lets us experience nature in a pure and harmonious way. Since we enter nature above the human ego that shatters and divides the sensation of nature’s wholeness, we then discover a completely new unified, eternal and perfect reality, all while alive in our world.

Therefore, society’s sheer need for unity today should be enough to make us prioritize the discourse of the need for a unified leadership, which aims at positive unification of the whole of human society above today’s blazing social and political divisions.
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