My article in Newsmax: “What a Hanukkah for Humanity (Not Just Jews) Looks Like”

While the Hanukkah party at the White House caused ripples with Trump’s new executive order, and Jews around the world prepare for one of their major holidays, let’s take a look at what a Hanukkah for humanity, not just Jews, would look like.

Hanukkah is a pit stop on life’s race track, coming from the words “Hanu” (“park”) and “Koh” (“here”).

The more we advance in our lives, the more we encounter such stops. They let us discern what we’ve done, and whether we should change our direction in order to progress more optimally.

At one point or another, we find ourselves in situations that make us stop and rethink our lives’ entire course. Also, sometimes we need to forcefully stop ourselves, even if we want to continue, recalculate where we’re headed, and whether we should impact a change for a better future.

Therefore, we should see in the words, “Hanu” and “Koh” (“park here”), a desire brewing in humanity to cry out and stop the current way we’re running our lives, and change to a more fruitful direction.

Our current individualistic, consumerist and materialistic lifestyles are leading us into greater debt. Our debt is not only monetary, it’s our lag behind our balance with nature’s increased demands on us: to connect our attitudes to each other in order to match nature’s connectedness.

It is impossible to pay back the massive debt we have accumulated, but one way or another, we’ll have to pay it. In the meantime, we continue extracting from nature as much as we possibly can.

Essentially, society today needs to stop for a moment and think of how it can achieve more balance with itself and nature. Hanukkah is much more than a holiday marked on a few calendars. It is what humanity as a whole needs to undergo.

However, we can make no such stop until we recognize the cause of our individualistic, consumerist and materialistic lifestyles, gaining awareness of how the consumerist cycle — manufacturing products we don’t need, advertising them so that we want them, buying, selling and disposing of them — ultimately does no good to ourselves or to our planet.

We are overdue in making this pit stop.

If we continue business as usual, then we can simply count the days it will take till nature will activate a major blow upon us: pressures and disasters that would make life unbearable.

However, what is the alternative?

If we stop our current consumerist race, what would be able to replace it?

And how would we know its replacement would be better?

The alternative to rampant consumerism is positive connection.In order to understand this alternative, we need to first understand the importance of social influence.

Society determines our values according to what it promotes to us as enjoyable, worthwhile and important. The fact that we compare ourselves to others, then since we are incessantly promoted consumer goods, seeing celebrities, influencers, friends and acquaintances enjoying and discussing them, we thus also want them.

Therefore, we need to determine what is most advantageous for us all to enjoy, so that we won’t live our lives in a way where we empty our pockets to fill richer pockets, whenever we make a transaction to buy something else we don’t need.

For instance, instead of Black Friday, we could advertise a “Global Picnic Day,” a day where families and friends meet up in a park, at the beach, in nature, or go to the cinema or a trip somewhere — to promote a fun day together with family and friends.

It all depends on what we decide to promote to ourselves.

If we saw people around the world posting about themselves on Global Picnic Day, on the news and social media, celebrating it in different ways, we would find ourselves also wanting to participate. We would also find that such a day would give people much more enjoyment than a global day of buying and selling.

So why don’t we do that?

Instead of wasting our money buying a whole bunch of things that we’ll mostly discard, we would instead focus on enjoying ourselves in positive connection with other people.

Therefore, if we parked ourselves on the side of our life’s race track for a moment, we could pop the consumerist-materialistic bubble that we have blown up around ourselves, and start to advertise a new approach to life that we could ultimately enjoy a lot more from: one where we focus on positively connecting to each other, and which would bring us to greater balance in our relationships and with nature in general.

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The Times of Israel published my new article “The Light of Hanukkah to Heal a World of Divisiveness”

The commemoration of the miracle of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, comes this year at troubled times, when the darkness of anti-Semitism again targets Jewish people worldwide. Our very existence is a miracle after being persecuted throughout history and surviving, and now should be no different. We again will be able to overcome all difficulties the moment we unite. However, this unity will not be achieved through presidential decrees or sympathy from political leaders. Such measures only give us time to realize what we truly need to do to thrive and live safely.

“I am proud that Jews are part of my family” declared President Trump at a ceremony for Hanukkah at the White House days ago. On that occasion, he signed an executive order to combat anti-Semitism, recognizing Judaism as a national identity and not just a religion, thus making it possible to withhold federal funding from institutions that provide Jews with no protection against discrimination and racism. The measure brought some relief to a large section of the Jewish community in America, where the world of academia has become a bastion of hatred toward Jews and Israel. A sense of relaxation was also experienced by British Jews after the victory of Brian Johnson over the anti-Semitic Jeremy Corbyn. But this calmness is for a limited time only.

Despite the slaps on the shoulders and the outpouring of holiday gifts, the boiling anti-Semitism will not cease. The phenomenon will increase and the hatred for Jews will become stronger and more salient until we come to terms with the root cause of the problem: the lack of realization of what makes us Jews. Our core essence as a nation is to attain unity above divisions and to be a “light unto the nations,” the victory of light over darkness and unity over division. This is precisely what the festival of Hanukkah symbolizes, the victory of the Maccabees (symbolic of the forces of unity) over the Greeks (symbolic of the forces of divisiveness).

The Role of the Jewish People

Bringing a positive light to the world is what humanity identifies as our Jewish role. Therefore, until we unite and lead humanity to positive connection, the nations of the world will continue pressuring us, which is expressed as threats, condemnation and hatred.

How can we halt animosity against Jews? We can do so by utilizing the current period of political grace to become a positive conduit of unity toward the world. We must start moving in that direction. Trump and Johnson will not be eternally in power, and when new leaders replace them, the help we now have will be gone.

It is our responsibility to change and be changed. By simply shifting our awareness, we can correct the world and bring about the unity of the nations, to be “as one man with one heart.” All of us without exception are required as Kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag writes, “It is certain and unequivocal, that the purpose of creation lies on the shoulders of the whole of the human race, black, white or yellow, without any essential difference” (The Arvut).

Our grace period has an expiration date and we have to hurry up and organize ourselves to bring about closeness among us. It is our task to deliver and make available the method of connection—the wisdom of Kabbalah to the people of Israel, and through them to all the nations of the world. The method of connection will bring about the proper balance of the world, the healing that will make things better.

If we shirk our duty, there is a danger that the current support from some world leaders could give us an exaggerated sense of confidence, and history might repeat itself and strike another blow. We shall not forget that in the past, the Nazi regime initially had pro-Zionist consultants close by who later flipped and became ferocious anti-Semites leading to the Final Solution, as documented here.

The Healing Process

The illusion that we have unwavering supporters is similar to the deadened feelings of a person with a disease who has been given a painkiller. He feels fine even though the disease continues spreading. In the meantime, he lies in bed, talking and laughing with others around him, everyone thinking everything is okay, while he is merely desensitized to the disease festering under the surface toward an irreversible outbreak.

Today we have a breather period where we need to digest the process unfolding in front of our eyes, our role in the process, and act accordingly. We must not simply think that everything is business-as-usual, because nothing will heal that way.

The illness of division is rampant in the body of the people of Israel, and the healing is in exactly the opposite direction, in our unity. The cure is found in the love of the other, in building positive relationships based on the great rule, “Love your friend as yourself.”

The more we internalize and uncover the secret of the wisdom of Kabbalah, the more we will find that we only need to take a small step to bring us closer to a unity above our differences and the relative equality that will safeguard the uniqueness of each individual, while at the same time joining all parts into one.

Therefore, we must not become tired, despair, or give up. Our focus must be on internalizing and passing on the fact that a good life depends on the positive ties between us. Unity is the only remedy to mend ourselves and heal the world.

Happy Hanukkah!
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The Times of Israel published my new article “How to Eliminate Anti-Semitism in the United States”

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The way to eliminate anti-Semitism in the United States is the same as how to solve anti-Semitism anywhere in the world: to raise awareness of the root cause of anti-Semitism in order to invert hatred into love.

Kabbalistic sources explain both such a cause and solution to anti-Semitism. It is because Kabbalists perceive developmental processes unfolding in our world, and can both warn people of oncoming threats, as well as offer a remedy to prevent such threats from materializing.

For instance, Kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), the most renowned Kabbalist of the 20th Century, tried convincing European Jews in the 1930s to leave Europe because he foresaw the oncoming disaster. Both following his example, as well as taking heed to the alerting recent rise in anti-Semitism worldwide, I also feel the need to communicate the message about the root cause of anti-Semitism and its solution both to Jews and non-Jews, and I extensively write and speak on the topic with the hope that, at the very least, a future mass tragedy can be prevented.

In relation to the United States, I have lectured to Jewish communities in the United States at various intervals over the last 20 years. During the 2000s, I was laughed at when I mentioned that anti-Semitism was going to become a growing issue in America. Now, in the 2010s, after anti-Semitism’s immense exponential growth, both in the amounts of anti-Semitic crimes and threats, as well as in anti-Semitic sentiment, I am saying that the all signs are pointing to the next Holocaust emerging in America.

However, as much as I write and speak about this topic, I see little response to this message from the Jewish people. It is written about us, that we are a stiff-necked people, i.e., we have a tough skin that makes it very hard to penetrate such awareness into our perception.

In any case, in order to prevent a future dystopian scenario for the Jewish people in the United States, as well as elsewhere, the message is the same for all Jews: we need to unite, according to the tenet “love your friend as yourself,” in order to become “a light unto the nations,” i.e., a conduit that passes the positive unifying force dwelling in nature to the world. If the message doesn’t become accepted through education, explanation and promotion, then anti-Semitic blows and suffering will rise, “softening our stiff necks,” undesirably increasing our ability to absorb such a message.

That is the state we first reached some 3,800 years ago in ancient Babylon, under Abraham’s guidance, which granted us the name, “the people of Israel” (“Israel” from the words, “Yashar Kel,” which means “straight to God” [“God” being the same as “Nature” according to Kabbalah, i.e., a positive force that connects all elements of reality]). Also, according to the same unifying tendency, we were later named “Jews,” from the word for “unity” (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]).

Today, we are reaching new global proportions of anti-Semitism that the world has never seen, since today’s world is more globally-integrated than ever before. Due to anti-Semitism emerging as a natural phenomenon in non-Jews, toward a subconscious expectation for the Jews to pioneer a process toward more positive human connection, then we can expect a future where everyone other than a few Jews will be anti-Semitic.

Therefore, we Jews first and foremost need to show everyone how unity above the growing hostile divisions in society is not only a possibility, but that there is a method of connection to guide our every step of the way. By implementing such a method on ourselves, we send positive unifying ripples throughout humanity’s consciousness, and invite an opposite attitude from anti-Semitism upon ourselves in return. In other words, by witnessing increasing positive connection, and subsequent rises in happiness, support and confidence in society at large, the general attitude toward a unified Jewish people would become favorable and encouraging.

However, if the Jewish people will continue rejecting, ignoring or remaining unaware of the message of the need to unite, then instead of seeing unity form in society’s mainstream, we can expect unity to form more and more in society’s fringes, i.e., as Nazi and fascist unity. Such unity is dangerous, since it is built on uniting around the hatred of the other, and it becomes the infrastructure that can lead to the manifestation of horrific events, as exemplified by the Holocaust.

Therefore, I hope that Jews in general, and especially American Jews, will start noticing that the ball is in our court, and that we need to play the game well: to prioritize our unity in order to spread unity onward. If we do so, we will experience a better general state in America and around the world. However, if we fail to realize what the wisdom of Kabbalah is saying on this pressing issue, then the state will become much worse.
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The Times of Israel published my new article “Israel’s 3rd Elections: Fateful Wake-Up Call for the People of Israel”

A third election round has been announced in Israel for the first time in history due to our inability to form a government.

What can I say? All I can say is that we need something to shake us. I’m sorry to write such words, but it hurts when you love the people of Israel and the State of Israel. After all, it is my home.

I have lived on this land for decades and never once thought about leaving. However, I see no positive future if we continue business as usual, without a thorough scrutiny and decision to change the way we go about our lives.

It is our duty to provide every citizen with the method that initially connected us as a nation, and which would grant us an undeniable right to live in this land. It is as Kabbalist Rav Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (Rabash) opened the first of his many writings on how a society can make the shift from division to unity: that we have gathered here to establish a society in order to rise and become human, in the fullest sense of the word (the word for “human” in Hebrew, “Adam,” is also the word for the collective soul that we discover when we unite according to nature’s integral laws).

In other words, the purpose of our gathering in one place is not to merely continue living mindlessly in the currents of life here instead of in the diaspora, but to realize the method we were given: to unite and pass the force that unifies us to humanity.

Today’s divisive atmosphere in Israel is a sign that we will be unable to find peace among each other if we fail to understand and implement nature’s integral laws. It is what unified us in the first place, i.e., an inclination to unite upon the divisions of the ancient Babylonian society from which we emerged as a nation.

It is our purpose and role in the world to reach such unity, and without moving in that direction, our purposeless squandering, where we each focus on building our lives at the expense of others, brings about the opposite: social division.

Our disunity then receives a negative reaction from the nations of the world. That reaction is known as anti-Semitism, and its widespread awakening today is because we are in a developmental stage where we need to make a step toward uniting as a single nation, according to the tenet that brought us together in the first place: to unite (“love your friend as yourself”) above divisions (“love will cover all transgressions”) in order to spread this unifying tendency to the world (to be “a light unto the nations”).

According to the laws of nature—integral laws of interconnectedness and interdependence—the people of Israel have a key role: to spread positive connection among humanity. We were given a method to do so, the same method of connection that Abraham guided us with in ancient Babylon, and which has undergone upgrades over the generations to suit us in our time.

Essentially, it is a method of how to actualize connection between us to the same extent and quality as nature’s connectedness, gradually discovering the immense unifying force of nature the more we connect.

Also, our revelation of nature’s unifying force spreads among humanity’s collective consciousness, inverting our current increasing divisive tendency—where we behave like cancerous cells taking as much as we can for ourselves at society’s expense—to a unifying, peaceful and loving tendency that benefits humanity.

I will never leave Israel. I will remain here and do everything in my power for its success. However, its materialistic achievements as a startup nation is no sign of success to me. Success for the people of Israel can only be spiritual: that we realize our role to be a conduit of unity for the world.

Ever since our ancestors achieved the sublime unified state under Abraham’s guidance some 3,800 years ago, our role has remained unchanged. We have since detached from that awareness, but as explained by Kabbalists, the time has come where the need for unity is not only pressing on us within our current borders; it is also expressed worldwide as a growing divisive tendency increasingly tearing societies apart. Thus, not a day goes by where I cannot speak or write about this phenomenon, as a peaceful or painful future depends precisely on the people of Israel’s unity or lack thereof.

Once we clarify and establish our exalted, spiritual and eternal goal to ourselves, our lives will then shift in a positive direction. The shambles we find ourselves in today is due not to a few politicians who failed to form a government, but we—the entire people of Israel—are responsible for it.

Therefore, we must lift our heads out of the water, recognize that we are all one family, interconnected and interdependent, and we must all address the problem together. In the meantime, not only do we suffer, the entire world suffers as it depends on our inner spirit to rise as a united people of Israel.

I thus hope that we will start feeling the great responsibility upon us, to ourselves and to the world, and start implementing the method of connection that we have at our fingertips.

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The Times of Israel published my new article “How Germany Can Help Prevent Another Holocaust”

“I bow my head before the victims of the Shoah,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel in her first visit to Auschwitz in the 14 years she has been in office. Her gesture emerged amid the backdrop of the debate between upholders of the belief that Germany cannot ignore its past, and the extreme right calling for minimizing Nazi atrocities in the Second World War.

Neither option, however, can prevent a new tragedy for the Jewish people. Doing so requires a deep investigation into the root cause of Jewish persecution, and its solution.

Merkel also referred to the alarming level of anti-Semitism in Germany in the last few years, and announced donating $66 million to preserve the memorial site. However, solving anti-Semitism requires much more substantial action.

If Germany truly wants to contribute to the world and avoid returning to the darkest chapter of its history, it would do better to establish and advance its own research institute, led by non-Jewish Germans, which examines anti-Semitism: its causes, and efforts toward a solution.

Anti-Semitism Still Rampant in Germany

Last year alone there were 1,646 anti-Semitic incidents in Germany, a ten percent increase compared to the previous year, reaching a record high in a decade. Following a neo-Nazi attack on a synagogue in Halle, and a wave of recent violent attacks against Jews, leaders from the German Jewish community feel “under siege.” They also have additional reasons to be worried. For instance, one in four Germans show anti-Semitic sentiments and thoughts according to a recent survey conducted by the World Jewish Congress.

The current reality shows that 75 years after a million Jews were murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz-Birkenau, anti-Semitic manifestations have not vanished. They are still embedded in German society.

Why? Understanding the core reason behind anti-Semitism felt among many millions of people starts with understanding anti-Semitism as a natural phenomenon.

How Anti-Semitism Is a Natural Phenomenon

Anti-Semitism is a natural phenomenon that awakens at any given moment in every person and nation, both in Jews and non-Jews.

If Germans scratch the surface of this problem, they will be surprised to find that their sentiments of hatred, as well as the world’s animosity, stem back thousands of years. They will read in the sources how since the dawn of history “Esau hates Jacob,” meaning the nations hate Israel, and how from the time the Torah was given from Sinai, hatred toward Jews was enacted with regular legality.

Every time Jews were united, there was brotherhood and peace among the nations of the world, whereas when they were separated and Jews used their egoistic inclination only in their own favor and at the expense of the other, there was internal unrest among the nations. Consequently, negative feelings arose in human beings or in whole nations, which encouraged them to hate Jews wherever they were. It often also transformed into intolerable acts of violence.

The Cause and Solution to Anti-Semitism

Jews have an intrinsic attribute, a sort of DNA, to connect and bestow, called the “point in the heart.” When we develop this point through the study of the method of connection, the wisdom of Kabbalah, we can then unite above our differences, and pass the sense of unity and fulfillment onto humanity.

Anti-Semitism emerges when we Jews separate from each other, which is our current state, instead of uniting. Our separation sends ripples of a divisive mindset throughout humanity’s collective unconscious, adding to the division that tears societies apart around the world. In return, the nations of the world point at us with resentment and complaints. Therefore, unless we undergo a major transformation and implement the unifying principle of “love your neighbor as yourself,” connecting through our hearts, attacks against us will continue.

Thus, thorough scrutiny, research and awareness about the true cause of anti-Semitism is a fundamental and significant first step to solve the problem once and for all. The more that the idea of the need for Jewish unity spreads, together with the understanding of anti-Semitism as a natural response to a lack of Jewish unity, then the more we would be on a new path to a safer and friendlier Germany, Europe and even world.
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My article in Newsmax: “NATO’s 70th Reminds All Problems Are Global Now.”

A new year is about to begin, and a guarantee of global security is not appearing on the horizon. On the contrary, the world is facing an unprecedented amalgamation of challenges on cybersecurity, wars, massive migrations, and rising nuclear and military powers.

A flamboyant 70th anniversary of NATO recently celebrated in the UK intended to show unity among the almost 30 nation members to deal with the most pressing global security problems, but as an ailing septuagenarian whose health and balance is dubious, the Western military alliance showed more fractures than cohesion.

Should We Lose Hope in the Vision of a Safer World?

We cannot lose hope.

It’s the planet we live on, and any crisis and threat will eventually affect us one way or another. Thus, we cannot simply ignore what is ahead of us.

However, we cannot expect meaningful changes from international organizations that have proven themselves to have a limited capacity, or lack of commitment to act toward a comprehensive solution.

The true solution to peace and stability is not in organizations.

It’s in people, i.e., in changing our human nature — from self-concern to mutual concern, self-benefit to benefiting others, and self-aimed reception to positively connecting with others.

In such a way, we can envision a harmonious and safe future for humanity as a whole.

The World Is Not a Playground

Instead of a common ground, the current international arena resembles a battlefield.

The tense environment in the last NATO summit showed a clash of personalities and incendiary reactions from world leaders playing honor games as small children throwing tantrums. However, no solutions to global threats will come from acting like toddlers on a playground.

A more serious, in-depth approach is required.

In the summit’s final statement, the countries represented in the alliance, including the U.S., Canada, France, and Great Britain, among others, pledged to take “stronger action” to combat terrorism globally and concurred on what they called “challenges” posed by China and Russia. But when it came to the question of money, the ongoing discussion of who pays the bills to keep afloat NATO’s operations remained inconclusive.

Its annual budget is $1.84 billion, according to official figures. Just over 22% of the total is paid by the US, the main contributor. Only 7 out of the 29 members are meeting their spending obligations, a reason for sharp and unsolved disagreement between the American administration and other allies. With the funding still in question, the meeting was rich in photo opportunities and poor in practical conclusions.

Positive Human Connection Is the Only Worthwhile Investment

Billions can be spent on defense globally, but it will be wasted until we tackle our real problem: our self-centered, egoistic attitude toward everyone and everything around us.

Humankind has evolved into a globally interdependent and interconnected human network.

The new reality of an increasingly intricate global system clashes with our past and present egoism, causing tension and conflicts at a larger and more complex scale.

Today’s multifaceted crisis indicates that we need an inclusive and holistic approach to solving our myriad problems. In an interconnected world, there are no local problems.

The need for solutions that favor humanity will call for consistent deliberation among representatives of all countries as equals. We will increasingly see how it’s impossible for any country to overcome a crisis on its own, and that instead of advancing personal or local interests, every problem should be addressed as a global problem.

Treating Every Problem as a Global Problem

By addressing global issues in the spirit of our connection, will we find the right way to face our many problems. Ahead of us is the most important choice humanity has ever faced: Do we adapt to the conditions evolution has placed before us proactively, by increasing our understanding and awareness, or will we be forced to adapt by blows and suffering?

There is no need for humanity to reinvent the wheel in order to find peace and harmony. We can use an example from nature, which acts according to integral laws.

All problems and differences emerge between us in order for us to seek their complementarity and balance by finding our common point of connection upon them: the intention to benefit the whole system of humanity and nature that we live in.

From Egoistic Competition to Positive Integral Connection

Global challenges and threats present opportunities to change our current direction, based on egoistic attitudes and interests, which is leading to a dead end. We need to realize that the only way out of this sinking ship is to connect into a single organism upon our differences.

As the human body contains a diverse array of cells and organs performing different duties in mutual complementarity to sustain its health and functionality, so we as a common body of humanity need to also develop such an overriding attitude to benefit the whole system that we are parts of.

In the past, we progressed by means of egoistic competition. However, we have now entered a period of development where nature is increasingly showing how it treats us as a single organism.

We can thus no longer enjoy our lives by trying to struggle with one another, each on the account of others. Doing so only leads to more problems, and ultimately, more suffering.

On the contrary, the way we can progress to greater happiness, confidence, and harmony is by positively connecting to each other.

The fundamental principle of living harmoniously in our era is to relate to humanity as a single organism. The reason that our inborn egoistic nature does not let us see the interdependent and interconnected reality is so that we voluntarily apply ourselves to positively connect above all our egoistic differences, and by doing so, realize a peaceful, joy-filled.
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Medium published my new article “Media Thriving on Increasingly Egoistic Society.”

Take a step back to view human society worldwide as a human body for a moment, and what would you see? You would see its immune system hardly functioning, and the organs that should be forming a unified and healthy body disintegrating.

Problems on personal, social and global scales are on the rise, from depression, stress, loneliness, emptiness, anxiety, xenophobia, drug abuse and suicide, through to income equality, poverty, climate change and natural disasters, and despite countless efforts to deal with these problems, there is an enveloping deeper layer to them all that demands attention.

What is that deeper layer? It is none other than the human ego, i.e., self-love and self-concern overblown in every organ, bringing about the degeneration of the entire organism.

The human ego has undergone a recent growth spurt, reaching record levels: it has detached itself from all previously accepted norms, broken free from law and order, and it cruelly runs over established frameworks.

Who can resist the ego when it proudly inflates its chest? What law will block it? What factor can deter it?

The Media in an Egoistic Society

The ego has a strong backing: the media.

Today, the media, and social media in particular, enjoys widespread influence and power that it never had before. At any given moment, public opinion can be swerved one way or another. With a bag full of cash, you can buy advertising spaces, sponsored posts, and other media slots, slapping whatever you like in front of people’s faces.

Money can buy fame, and fame can overwhelm everything. Day after day, one washes the other, until all are gradually weakened and surrender, and the awareness of all the organs — the police and the lawyers, the educators and the judges, the leaders and the citizens — all fall before the media. Day in and day out, the illness of the body increases; the care for other people lessens, hatred for other people becomes greater, and the cancer eating away at the body of human society proliferates toward the body’s death.

A Positive Direction for the Media Heading into the Future

The media around the world needs to be informative and objective, not captive in the hands of people and groups with wealth and power interests. It should know its limits. The media has a role to bring us together and serve as an instrument designed to connect all organs in a single healthy body.

How good would it be if all different parts of society would sit together — the left and the right, the religious and the secular, representative of all different interest groups and those at the margins of society — and all work together for one boss: the benefit of the public. All their decisions would answer to it and it alone. Every opinion would have its own space, no opinion would be subjugated, and no voice would be silenced. They would sit and discuss in a wide forum, discuss positions with experts, delve into the data, quarrel and make up until they would reach a common decision and a common message to be disseminated.

A new rule would guide their work: publishing news and content that contributes to the public’s well-being, which strives to unite human society. No one would have the right to debilitate another opinion, but only to balance it with other positions and guide the varying points toward mutual complementarity. If the media would reach no agreement, then no public announcement would be made. On the other hand, only when the information benefits all would it come out. Such media pluralism would begin the process of healing the illness of a fractured society.

A Positive Direction for Leadership Heading into the Future

However, not only should the media act in unison, but also leadership. If all views seek to complement each other, they would pave a golden path. Representatives of all different sectors of the public would sit around a round table, and aim to become a unifying model for today’s society. Such a leadership would be considered a true democracy: the rule of the people, the rule of the majority, the rule of the elected representation.

The essential and decisive stage would be to lead participants to feel unified and to create synergy upon the differing opinions. Precisely when opposites reach mutual acceptance, society reaches a new stage of development. Such leadership is what our global and interconnected world needs today.

The introduction of a just and equal rule can make decisions for all based on the knowledge that they would benefit the entire body. In such a society, there would be no need for a star who would rise today and fall tomorrow, but it would suffice to have a circle of as many diverse opinions as possible. It would be the brain of the body of society, and all would follow it willingly.

With such leadership no one would be asked to give up his or her private opinion. It would remain and be enriched by other diverse and even opposing ideas. The new situation, which would include every possible contradiction, would give birth to a new development, giving everyone an equal place in society. Everyone’s unique contribution would be there for all to see. This is the wonder of mutual creation.

Just as every cell, organ or system in the human body wisely acts together to insure the sustenance and health of the entire body, all opinions would weave together to ultimately benefit the whole body of human society.

While it seems like a utopian fantasy to envision the media and society’s leadership working in such unification, it is only due to the fact that we haven’t yet implemented any method to connect in such a way. The method that can make such positive connection possible rests in the method that Abraham brought to the world some 3,800 years ago: the wisdom of Kabbalah. Just a little effort to look into this wisdom with a fresh mind, and it will soon become evident that there is a method capable of positively connecting human society, both diagnosing the root cause of all modern-day problems, and offering a method to solve them, thereby bringing about a harmonious existence for all.
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KabNet published my new article: “How to Reach Fulfillment That Money Can’t Buy”

The last couple of weeks, everybody has been talking about Black Friday, but I wasn’t moved to shop. Retailers reported record sales, the largest in US history, on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which reached a combined $16.8 billion this year.

American consumerism has also influenced the world, but I was done with the madness to acquire endless amounts of stuff 20 years ago, after a first-hand experience of society’s powerful influence over a person to purchase items.

It happened in Las Vegas. I was standing at the entrance to a posh hotel. In front of me tourists rushed into the main hall where new stereo systems were on sale for $99, an unprecedented occurrence back then.

“We are currently undergoing a major transitional process. In this process, we feel the failure of trying to fulfill ourselves with material goods and travels.”

I didn’t need a stereo, and I was sure that I wouldn’t use it. But as I looked around and saw striking red letters flickering the word “Sale!” on enormous signs, and the announcer calling incessantly that it was a $200 saving, I momentarily lost my self-control, and found myself waving a $100 bill. This was all while dozens of tourists around me converged on the packages of stereo systems, as if they were canned foods being advertised before a war.

Black Friday, or Cyber Monday, or any major sales event points to a deeper phenomenon than just buying cheaper goods: society’s influence over a person.

How Social Influence Can Awaken a Person Who Is Not a Regular Consumer to Enjoy Seeking and Buying Items on Sale

The satisfaction of buying awakens the sensation of renewal and happiness which justifies every cent. We buy the feeling of confidence. It breaks our feeling of loneliness and emptiness.

In retrospect, when the monthly statement arrives, we quickly realize that most of our purchases arose not from real needs, but from competitive social needs that were “floating in the air,” so to speak, overwhelming us in a momentary fervor. In fact, if it were not for the social pressure, our desire for buying would decrease.

However, there is no problem with shopping. It is great to see people enjoying a collective activity, because by doing so they learn how their participation gives them a sense of enjoyment and empowerment. However, beyond materialistic cravings, if we dig into a deeper layer, the shopping holidays express signs of communication among people: the tendency for connection latent in every person. This tendency awakens when there is an opportunity to execute a collective activity that we can enjoy from.

In a matter of days or weeks, most of the items would be returned, stored or thrown out, as the data shows, but the challenge of the joint effort remained engraved in people’s memory.

Therefore, we can hope that various shopping-focused days will leave an impression on us, through which we will recognize the need to strengthen our connections. We will then be able to say that we have harnessed the culture of consumption to the service of the people, and not vice versa.

The Endless Quest For Pleasures

Human nature is a desire to receive pleasure. It drives us to constantly seek sources of pleasure, and it leads us to a trap: as soon as the desire is fulfilled, a bigger desire surfaces, and once again, emptiness and lack dominates our lives.

In the past, people found pleasure not only in the act of shopping, but in the very process of yearning for and acquiring things. In travel, too, regardless of the places visited, the simple tasting of different places was exciting.

The difficulty we went through to experience certain pleasures made us value them more. In the modern era, however, the world can be accessed instantly through our smartphones. Therefore, the accumulation of material possessions becomes less attractive when the anticipation toward the purchase is cut down into an impulsive instant.

The Source of True and Lasting Fulfillment

We are currently undergoing a major transitional process. In this process, we feel the failure of trying to fulfill ourselves with material goods and travels.

The more abundant our world becomes with gadgets and products, the emptier, lonelier, more depressed, anxious and stressed we become. We experience more and more negative sensations today because we see the purposelessness, meaninglessness and emptiness of our accomplishments.

Myriad problems in human society will play their role to raise awareness of why we fail to achieve an authentic and lasting form of satisfaction. Eventually, we will realize that the solution is in a fundamental shift of our values: from competitive, individualistic and egoistic values to cooperative, connected and altruistic ones.

When the desire to enjoy is redirected, when we stop aiming to fulfill ourselves individually, and start aiming to fulfill others, although we see no direct benefit in fulfilling others, it is the key to never-ending happiness.

Kabbalists discovered that behind what we envision as pleasure, there is a source of happiness, an opposite desire to our own nature, which is a quality of giving, love and connection. When we try to emulate this quality, by trying to give, love and positively connect with others, then it operates on us, gradually changing us, balancing us more and more with the original nature of giving, love and connection.

Moreover, the more we balance ourselves with others, the happier we become. Such happiness is no passing fad.

It is boundless and eternal.

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KabNet published my new article: “Media Thriving on Increasingly Egoistic Society”

Take a step back to view human society worldwide as a human body for a moment, and what would you see? You would see its immune system hardly functioning, and the organs that should be forming a unified and healthy body disintegrating.

Problems on personal, social and global scales are on the rise, from depression, stress, loneliness, emptiness, anxiety, xenophobia, drug abuse and suicide, through to income equality, poverty, climate change and natural disasters, and despite countless efforts to deal with these problems, there is an enveloping deeper layer to them all that demands attention.

“What is that deeper layer? It is none other than the human ego, i.e., self-love and self-concern overblown in every organ, bringing about the degeneration of the entire organism.”

What is that deeper layer? It is none other than the human ego, i.e., self-love and self-concern overblown in every organ, bringing about the degeneration of the entire organism.

The human ego has undergone a recent growth spurt, reaching record levels: it has detached itself from all previously accepted norms, broken free from law and order, and it cruelly runs over established frameworks.

Who can resist the ego when it proudly inflates its chest? What law will block it? What factor can deter it?

The Media in an Egoistic Society

The ego has a strong backing: the media.

Today, the media, and social media in particular, enjoys widespread influence and power that it never had before. At any given moment, public opinion can be swerved one way or another. With a bag full of cash, you can buy advertising spaces, sponsored posts, and other media slots, slapping whatever you like in front of people’s faces.

Money can buy fame, and fame can overwhelm everything. Day after day, one washes the other, until all are gradually weakened and surrender, and the awareness of all the organs—the police and the lawyers, the educators and the judges, the leaders and the citizens—all fall before the media. Day in and day out, the illness of the body increases; the care for other people lessens, hatred for other people becomes greater, and the cancer eating away at the body of human society proliferates toward the body’s death.

A Positive Direction for the Media Heading into the Future

The media around the world needs to be informative and objective, not captive in the hands of people and groups with wealth and power interests. It should know its limits. The media has a role to bring us together and serve as an instrument designed to connect all organs in a single healthy body.

How good would it be if all different parts of society would sit together—the left and the right, the religious and the secular, representative of all different interest groups and those at the margins of society—and all work together for one boss: the benefit of the public. All their decisions would answer to it and it alone. Every opinion would have its own space, no opinion would be subjugated, and no voice would be silenced. They would sit and discuss in a wide forum, discuss positions with experts, delve into the data, quarrel and make up until they would reach a common decision and a common message to be disseminated.

A new rule would guide their work: publishing news and content that contributes to the public’s well-being, which strives to unite human society. No one would have the right to debilitate another opinion, but only to balance it with other positions and guide the varying points toward mutual complementarity. If the media would reach no agreement, then no public announcement would be made. On the other hand, only when the information benefits all would it come out. Such media pluralism would begin the process of healing the illness of a fractured society.

A Positive Direction for Leadership Heading into the Future

However, not only should the media act in unison, but also leadership. If all views seek to complement each other, they would pave a golden path. Representatives of all different sectors of the public would sit around a round table, and aim to become a unifying model for today’s society. Such a leadership would be considered a true democracy: the rule of the people, the rule of the majority, the rule of the elected representation.

The essential and decisive stage would be to lead participants to feel unified and to create synergy upon the differing opinions. Precisely when opposites reach mutual acceptance, society reaches a new stage of development. Such leadership is what our global and interconnected world needs today.

The introduction of a just and equal rule can make decisions for all based on the knowledge that they would benefit the entire body. In such a society, there would be no need for a star who would rise today and fall tomorrow, but it would suffice to have a circle of as many diverse opinions as possible. It would be the brain of the body of society, and all would follow it willingly.

With such leadership no one would be asked to give up his or her private opinion. It would remain and be enriched by other diverse and even opposing ideas. The new situation, which would include every possible contradiction, would give birth to a new development, giving everyone an equal place in society. Everyone’s unique contribution would be there for all to see. This is the wonder of mutual creation.

Just as every cell, organ or system in the human body wisely acts together to insure the sustenance and health of the entire body, all opinions would weave together to ultimately benefit the whole body of human society.

While it seems like a utopian fantasy to envision the media and society’s leadership working in such unification, it is only due to the fact that we haven’t yet implemented any method to connect in such a way. The method that can make such positive connection possible rests in the method that Abraham brought to the world some 3,800 years ago: the wisdom of Kabbalah. Just a little effort to look into this wisdom with a fresh mind, and it will soon become evident that there is a method capable of positively connecting human society, both diagnosing the root cause of all modern-day problems, and offering a method to solve them, thereby bringing about a harmonious existence for all.

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The Times of Israel published my new article “With or Without Corbyn, the True Solution to UK’s Anti-Semitism”

Anxiety has spread among UK’s Jews over Labour’s potential victory in two weeks. For the first time in history, a prominent voice within the British Jewish community urges to refrain from voting for the party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a politician with a long anti-Semitic background.

The spiritual leader of the UK’s 62 orthodox synagogues, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, warned that in the upcoming elections the “soul of the nation is at stake,” if Labour forms the next government. Leading rabbis also recommended that European Jews “must hide themselves and not stand out in their words and actions,” in light of today’s rampant anti-Semitism.

However, regardless of the election outcome, Jews will continue being felt as an increasing problem, since anti-Semitism is a much bigger phenomenon than any candidate.

Also, keeping our heads down, which failed to help us in the past, will likewise fail to help us today. A century ago, before the Holocaust, Jews acted in a similar fashion with terrible results. We can already see that the avoidance of wearing Jewish distinctive items like the kippah or the Star of David, has not helped diminish vicious attacks on Jews in Europe or anywhere else.

Over the last few years, anti-Semitism passed a boiling point, and it is now bubbling all around the world. Therefore, anti-Semitism demands a more thorough investigation and explanation, to penetrate through to the root of the problem, and seek a solution that would both satisfy those who hold anti-Semitic sentiment, as well as securing the acceptance, safety and peace of the Jewish people.

Today As Yesterday

Hatred against Jews is soaring worldwide, but anti-Semitism in the Old Continent seems to be spreading more rapidly across the major cities, with violent incidents reported almost on a daily basis. Such animosity is fueled by anti-Semitic tropes, as according to a recent survey conducted in 18 countries by the Anti-Defamation League, one in four Europeans expressed profound anti-Semitic sentiments.

Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), the foremost Kabbalist of our era, worked with all his strength to warn the Jews of his native Poland that the danger of annihilation was approaching. He also wrote about his concern in his 1933 article, The Solution:

I have also spoken to the leaders of the generation, but at the time, my words were not accepted, though I was screaming like a banshee, warning about the destruction of the world. Alas, it made no impression. Now, however, after the atom and hydrogen bombs, I think the world will believe me that the end of the world is coming rapidly, and Israel will be the first nation to burn, as in the previous war. Thus, today it is good to awaken the world to accept the only remedy, and they will live and exist.” (Yehuda Ashlag, The Solution)

Baal HaSulam explained to Jews that it was their role to pioneer humanity’s correction. In nature, there are two forces—positive and negative, giving and receiving, love and hatred—and the Jews’ unification would awaken the positive, giving and loving force of nature into the world. By doing so, humanity would experience a newfound harmony and happiness, and the Jews would thus fulfill their role as “a light unto the nations.”

On the other hand, if the Jews do not unite, but continue to sink deeper into egoistic quicksand, i.e., self-centered thoughts and actions, they block the light, i.e., the force of unification dwelling in nature, from shining through to humanity. As more and more problems surface from growing dissatisfaction with life, and divisiveness between people, so does increasing hatred toward Jews. At first, the negative force acts in humanity’s subconscious. Afterward, it strikes openly and violently in tragedy.

Two Ways to Unity

Baal HaSulam taught that the Jewish people have two ways to advance: positively or negatively, through unity or separation. One way is a willful striving for unity a priori. The other way is through undesirable pressure to unite through hatred and violence upon them.

Unfortunately, at the time, no one listened to Baal HaSulam, and he was instead forced to leave Europe, with his son, my teacher, Rav Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlag (Rabash), and enter the Land of Israel. After a while, his family also immigrated, and the Jewish community that remained encountered the Holocaust.

History repeats and the message remains: Jews have an essential role toward the nations of the world. However, they are remote from fulfilling their original role. Most are even unaware of the method that is available to them. But the questions increase and push to awaken the sentiments and common sense:

• Why didn’t the hatred of Jews disappear after the horrifying Holocaust?
• Why do the nations of the world have such a burning hatred toward Jews?
• Why is anti-Semitism rising globally?

The answers to these questions, together with the path to unity, rest in the method of connection: the wisdom of Kabbalah. It can help us become an example and model of unity for all people, especially for the citizens of Britain. If the Jews of Britain will start prioritizing unification above all other engagements, they will be able to awaken the attention of both Jews and non-Jews in Britain, and thus gradually anti-Semitism will become a non-issue, not only among the leadership of the Labour party, but in all walks of life.
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