My article in Newsmax: “Rethinking Social Media in the Era of Hatred”

If Hitler had access to social media like there is today, he would have been allowed to buy ads, reflected British actor Sacha Baron Cohen in a recent thought provoking statement, calling internet platforms “the greatest propaganda machine in history,” ruled by money.

I concur, but beyond the speeches, real changes will demand unprecedented measures in times of extraordinary challenges to face bigotry, discrimination, and the most deeply-rooted form of hatred: anti-Semitism.

Social media has been deliberately built to influence our emotions, preferences, decisions, impulses, energy, attention span, and interactions. There is a well-established process to influence our minds and pockets. The internet was created for the purpose of serving humanity, says its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, who 30 years later laments how the opposite has been achieved and “communities are being ripped apart as prejudice, hate and disinformation are peddled online,” suggesting that the web needs “radical intervention from all those who have power over its future.”

Is the Future of Humanity for Sale?

Social media and the media in general have become the ruling power where everything is permissible regardless of the veracity or positive benefit to society. The current communication systems are handled according to monetary interests, a reflection of human nature that is innately egoistic, i.e., aiming at self-benefit and exploitative relations. We will eventually need to realize that any technological innovation or means failing to advance humanity toward greater positive connection only harms it. But how can we achieve such a lofty goal considering that it is against the way we are built: egoistic?

It will happen when we eventually feel there is no other alternative to thrive but to change direction.

The world is rapidly moving toward a dead end, a turning point in social evolution: power structures are shaking in multiple countries around the planet, as we have witnessed in the last few weeks. Global economic debacle is predicated by international analysts. Such a scenario is showing us that self-centered perceptions and actions are reaching maximum capacity. If money can now buy anything, it will gradually lose its value, and social media as well as political, economic, and social actors will have to find a way to stay afloat.

Here is precisely where the Jewish people can contribute to society’s betterment. It is not by chance that the main social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, and others have been created by Jews. It gives us a hint of our true identity, our purpose, and role in the world: to unite humanity as a whole. We currently have the tools; now it is time to learn how to use them for a higher purpose.

New Principles for a New Society, the Role of the Jewish Nation

About a century ago, Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag wrote: “Do not be surprised if I mix together the well-being of a particular collective with the well-being of the whole world, because indeed, we have already come to such a degree that the whole world is considered one collective and one society.”

The Jewish nation can pioneer the correction of what needs to be fixed in the world: human relations — the way we relate to one another and the purpose of what we have created to either belittle or support each other. The use of social media to enhance mutual concern and a more holistic perception will positively shape the world of today and tomorrow.

In order to do so, every society could follow the model established by the Jewish people centuries ago, similar to what was called in ancient Israel, a Sanhedrin, an ideological body responsible for the nation’s right direction, to achieve balance and harmony. Similarly, in today’s world, the model of such an ideological body, a pluralistic watchdog where all the ideas are represented and discussed, until a common agreement is reached and only then disseminated, could help monitor the correct use of social media.

Such a body should be comprised of representatives from the entire political spectrum, as in Congress, in charge of evaluating media if harmful or malicious information is disseminated to the general public, instead of only facts.

As the world becomes increasingly interdependent, people will have to expand their circle of concern. We need to enhance our social sensitivity, broaden our worldview, better understand our nature as human beings, our limits and responsibilities, and most importantly, learn how to tap into our inherent wiring for human connection.

If the world started feeling an upgrade in consciousness, a positive change in their lives through this new model to find balanced communications and human interaction, the tendency toward anti-Semitism would invert: the Jewish nation will be perceived as the conduit of the good that fills people’s lives.

Such a sense of fulfillment can be achieved if we start using the web as a common umbrella of mutual understanding and support that would help us unite above all of our differences, divisions, and conflicts.
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The Times of Israel published my new article “Nuremberg Trials Fast Forward: Israel’s Role Against Anti-Semitism”

A trip to a past with a striking resemblance to today’s reality toward Jews. That is how I would describe my recent visit to Berlin and Nuremberg, where I could experience a dense atmosphere against Jews, so common these days in basically any part of the world. However, my most recent encounter with anti-Semitic feelings was actually in Bulgaria.

Our annual European Kabbalah Convention took place in Borovets, Bulgaria two weeks ago. We arrived from Israel a few days before the beginning of the event, which gathered hundreds of my students, to do some sightseeing. We rented a modern house in a rundown and sleepy village. It was an isolated house placed between a cemetery and a monastery. It was a very quiet place, with one store and one café, where elderly people spend their days. When I first approached them, I could immediately feel a hostile attitude and notice how they clammed up. Even though there was no external sign that could reveal my origin, I felt a warning light turned on inside them in relation to the fact that a group of Jews had entered their village.

The Role of the Jews in the World

It was clear to me that it wasn’t them, it was me. They had no real choice to love or reject, to embrace or hate. I felt what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches: Humanity is like a machine that follows absolute laws of nature, and we, Jews, are responsible for operating this machine for the world’s betterment or the contrary.

That is why I felt ashamed. The attitude of the elderly Bulgarians reflected the lack of the correct action on my part, on our part, the Jews.

Why does such responsibility rest on the Jewish nation?

As it is written in the seminal book in Kabbalah, The Book of Zohar: “As the organs of the body cannot exist in the world even a minute without the heart, all the other nations cannot exist in the world without Israel.”

Similarly, in the words of the book Sefat Emet [True Language], of Yehuda Leib Arie Altar (ADMOR of Gur):

“The children of Israel became guarantors to correct the entire world … everything depends on the children of Israel. To the extent that they correct themselves, all creations follow them. As the students follow the teacher, the whole of creation follows the children of Israel.

What Is Israel’s Task in the Correction of the World?

Correction, according to our sages, means to become united, as a precondition to deliver that unity to the rest of the world. Until we implement our role, humanity’s demand for a better life with more social cohesion manifests as anti-Semitism that will never rest.

74 years ago saw the beginning of the Nuremberg trials, the prosecution of the heads of Nazi Germany leadership who were tried for planning and carrying out war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Back then, Germany was the most developed culture. It was easy to point out and condemn the guilty. Today, however, due to our living in a much more interdependent global world, if we were to place Israel’s haters in the dock, we would probably need to indict the whole of humanity. The number and range of anti-Semitic incidents is beyond comprehension, both percentage-wise and also in its expansion to faraway corners of the world.

With an instinctive will, the world feels that the springboard to a better, happier and more positively connected world is in the hands of the Jews. The Jews, however, disregard the nations of the world. We deal with selfish trifles that have nothing to do with our role to spread a spirit of unification to humanity. This angers the nations of the world. It is an animosity that is increasingly showing itself to reach abysmal hatred, and it explodes in our faces more and more.

However, I blame no one. I do not accuse any nation. I only judge one person: myself – myself and my people – the Jewish people. We have the choice. We assume the responsibility because we were given the method that can bring about a significantly positive shift in the world. The Israeli nation is a substantial part of the human puzzle, a part that has a role to unite, and then through our unity awaken the power of love and spread it to humanity, to be a “light unto the nations.”

The Israeli nation has to become aware of its duty and accurately interpret what the world wants from us. We must learn, analyze and internalize it first, and then explain it adequately to the nations of the world, so they can pressure us in a correct and peaceful way to fulfill our role, and not through crimes and threats.

Such a change of attitude toward us will happen when we help humanity unite and awaken the positive unifying power. We will then all experience a completely new and improved world filled with goodness.
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My article in Newsmax: “New US Israeli Settlements Policy Could Foster Peace”

Setting the record straight, the reversal of a four-decade old U.S. position on Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank as being “inconsistent with international law,” is a meaningful and positive declaration.

First and foremost, if it helps repair the breakage in Israel’s social fabric, it will help ease the road to peace. After mending the connections of the people of Israel, tranquility with our neighbors will follow naturally and smoothly.

The shift in American foreign policy announced by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo agrees with President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 assessment that the settlements in territories conquered by Israel in the 1967 war were not “inherently illegal.”

However, this assessment contradicts U.N., European, Mideastern and Palestinian positions on the matter. The international community generally deems the settlements to be illegitimate, claiming that they erode the possibility for a future Palestinian state that would include disputed areas in Judea and Samaria.

Washington’s declaration has been rejected by Russia, Jordan, Turkey, and the European Union representatives, which comes as no surprise. The nations of the world consistently hound Israel, with no hesitation to unmercifully pressure Israel in comparison to what they demand from its neighbors or any other country.

Why Is Israel Always the World’s Focal Point?

We might wonder why Israel is treated differently than other nations, grabbing such global attention. It is so for a reason. The world subconsciously feels that Jews hold the keys for a good future but are somehow withholding the secret to a better world.

Therefore, the nations of the world goad us from behind and will not rest until we deliver what is expected of us.

Our Jewish nation was founded by our forefathers based on adherence to the condition of being “as one man with one heart.” Together, our people discovered and refined the method to rise above personal interests, the ego, to nurture genuine concern for one another.

They discovered a positive unifying force that guided their every move, and for centuries succeeded in uniting above divisions.

However, around 2,000 years ago, the Jewish nation succumbed to unfounded hatred, which led to their exile and eventual dispersion.

The shattered state of separation still rules in our hearts, and it is the root cause of myriad problems today.

Therefore, rebuilding our Jewish unity is the key solution that can restore a state of harmony profound enough to permeate everything around us and the entire world.

This is precisely our moral and spiritual obligation as a people, to “be a light unto the nations,” serving as a positive example for the world. It is the mandate for our existence as a nation, as well as for the Land of Israel upon which we reside.

As Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, the first chief rabbi in the Land of Israel, wrote, “In Israel is the secret to the unity of the world” (Orot Kodesh).

Peace Should Start At Home

Until we reconstruct our state of cohesion, which humanity direly needs today, the nations of the world will not accept our existence as individual Jews or as a sovereign Jewish nation. Therefore, peace must begin at home, among Jews. When we rise above our differences and attain a certain extent of unity, everyone will benefit. Otherwise, the world will continue blaming Jews and Israel for their woes.

We are the carriers of the method of the ego’s correction and of the division destroying our world. First, however, we need to learn how to implement correction among each other in order to be able to pass it on.

That method for “covering all crimes with love,” as King Solomon put it (Proverbs 10:12), always was and always will be our weapon for our survival and prosperity.

Reinstating the connection we once achieved is the peace process we need most.

The sooner we begin, the faster we will find calm and quiet for all.

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The Times of Israel published my new article “From Rockets to European Labeling of Israeli Products”

When Will Threats Against Israel Stop?

Around 450 rockets have been fired at Israel in the last few days and still counting, despite the announcement of a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Beyond the headlines, residents in the south and center of the country, the areas directly under attack, are paying a heavy price, living in constant fear and uncertainty about the future.

Are we on the road to an escalation or is the current menace one that will die out soon? Either way, we have not solved the root of the problem, nor does it seem that a solution looms on the horizon. Our fate depends only on us, the people of Israel, on our unity.

Mounting Pressure Against Israel

Life in Israel is similar to living in a fortress, always on the alert against enemy attacks. However, we do not enjoy protection from any enemy: not Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the south, not Hezbollah in the north, or even from a Russian submarine that was recently located off the shores of the center of the country. If we widen our gaze, we will realize that the attacks come from all fronts. The European Court of Justice decided not to allow us time to even recover from the wounds of the current rocket attacks before inflicting a new blow. The EU’s highest legal court adopted a resolution stating that the European countries are obliged to mark any product originating in the Israeli settlements—territory that Israel captured, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, areas disputed by the Palestinians—so consumers could make “informed choices” when they shopped.

The court’s ruling has been considered anti-Semitic and discriminatory by Israeli authorities and producers, since Israel is the only country that has been singled out, despite the fact that there are over 200 territorial disputes around the world; the labeling measure only applies to Israeli goods.

How Should Israel React?

Wars in the field and in judiciary courts, ground attacks and psychological warfare, will be of no help. Nor will idleness. When the nations of the world rise against the people of Israel in one way or another, the only viable solution is to access our common arsenal: the power of unity. Therein lies a more supreme power, stronger than all our current forces. As the sages wrote:

“The prime defense against calamity is love and unity. When there are love, unity, and friendship between each other in Israel, no calamity can come over them.” (Maor Vashemesh)

We ought to listen attentively to the message the world is screaming at us. We need to peel off our thick layers of stubbornness and absorb the essence of the demand coming at us, the reason an accusatory finger is pointed toward Israel. What is the world requesting? They are asking only for good and fulfillment.

Access to that good depends on the Jewish people. The key is in our hands. If we are united in one heart, we will be like a conduit of supreme power to the nations of the world. It will be through us that the good, the abundance, and the love for all will pass, without exception. In this way, without a lot of words and without noise, we will be recognized as “light unto the nations.” This is our unique virtue and role as the people of Israel. As the Kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) wrote:

“The Israeli nation had been constructed as a sort of gateway by which the sparks of purity would shine upon the whole of the human race the world over.” (The Arvut – Mutual Guarantee)

Light on the Horizon

We do not need another day of rockets or more sorrow of children crying in shelters before we react. We must undertake an incisive analysis now in the spirit of the saying, “the end of the action lies in the initial thought.” And the final outcome should be to unite as one, above our origins, ideologies, and preferences, to foster unity as a nation showing a positive example to the world.

Repairing the world on all levels begins with our connection, the connection within the people of Israel. If we establish unity as a distinct trend, we will bear witness to a positive transformation throughout the world. As the wisdom of Kabbalah describes, the solution to our situation, whether negative or positive, belligerent or friendly, depends exclusively on us. The solution lies in our hearts, in our desire to either unite or not unite.

By virtue of our connection we will awaken great, unifying forces dwelling in nature that will affect our surrounding world in a harmonious way, and everything will calm down. Forces that currently oppose us will be reversed. Today’s enemies will approach us with love, and peace will reign.
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The Times of Israel published my new article “What the World Has Learned from the Fall of the Berlin Wall”

Bricks have fallen, but a stone remains in people’s hearts. 30 years following the fall of the Berlin Wall, almost nothing has changed. I remember vividly the moment on the 9th of November when I watched on TV how the crowds stormed the border crossings separating East and West Germany, and the outpouring of joy that engulfed people worldwide. For a moment, we thought that the unification will expand to Russia and China in the Far East, that it might even reach the entire world.

The illusion of unification, however, blew up in our faces.

The borders between the East and the West have been removed, but the gaps did not vanish. When the Berlin Wall was taken down, there were 15 walls or so in the world. Today, there are 77: on the US-Mexico border, between India and Pakistan, Slovenia and Croatia, North and South Korea, Austria and Slovenia, Greece and Northern Macedonia, and the list goes on and on.

Walls create partitions between people, borders separate countries, and fences tear down nations, all of which are typical phenomena of the 21st century. Even if we tore down a wall or removed a border, everything has returned to a prior state, and the walls have returned.

Why Has True Unification Failed?

Tearing down a wall or building it anew solves nothing, because the real walls are in our hearts.

It is true that there was a real desire to tear down the Berlin Wall. There had been yearning for liberty and many worked to advance it. East Germany wanted to unite with West Germany, but strong desire notwithstanding, the citizens were unprepared for the merger, and its defects are visible till today.

Unification should begin in the heart and mind, at the level of consciousness, in preparation for proximity between nations. A common language is insufficient. For instance, until today, there are differences between native Germans and those ethnic Germans who had lived on the Volga in Russia or in Kazakhstan and later returned to Germany.

Despite the common language and the fact that the Russian Germans came from a cultural background, they still found proper absorption to be difficult. Their weltanschauung (worldview) is different, and those differences are very obvious.

The significance is that it is not enough to break walls made of stone and cement in order to bring people together. It is necessary to tear down the blocks of the walls in our hearts. It is necessary to increase awareness about desirable human relation, to unify goals and purposes, to merge cultures and education systems into one, to develop a lifestyle based on consideration, and to agree on values and principles.

It cannot be expected that a broken stone wall will cause an essential change to occur, not after 30 years, and not even after 50 years. After all, it carries over from one generation to the next.

Even a cursory look at Europe will reveal that it is immersed in a deep crisis. It is not the unified continent that was aspired to following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today’s Europe is devastated, broken and covered by liberal democracy, in a degraded Westernization.

The project of the European Union, which aims to advance toward integration of open borders and a common currency, is a failure. A collection of nations are enclosed together in a disintegrating continent faced by swarms of immigrants who gradually change its unique European character.

Building Lasting Connection between People

In order to unite Europeans, first of all, they need to prepare their hearts and minds in such a way that they each will internalize what is a correct form of unity, including:

• How can people become closer according to the law of connection in nature?
• What should and shouldn’t be compromised?
• What can be gained by positive and healthy connections?

Without facing such questions, there will be no success or remedy for the continent.

The European tendency for altruism is the mother of all lies. The significant step now is to recognize the evil, that is, to accept that human egotistical nature plays with us, to expose people’s bitter and narrow interests, and to accept that no one has the power to bring down the walls between people, whoever they might be. Therefore, we require a power that we do not possess—a so-called “higher power.”

Above human nature, above the ego that constantly desires to benefit at the expense of others, above everything we currently perceive and sense, is an altruistic unifying power. It is nature’s own power. We can awaken this power by making efforts to unite. The method of how we can unite above the ego is what the ancient wisdom of Kabbalah teaches.

It is also the reason for Kabbalah’s widespread revelation in our era. That is, unity in human society has become a pressing need in times when social division, xenophobia and anxiety of wars and conflicts have risen immensely.

The efforts to unite among us will give us renewed forces: understanding, feeling, common sense, and healthy logic that will guide us to unity. Then, we will be able to overcome any wall, and all borders will be eliminated.
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The Times of Israel published my new article “The future of Europe and the Jews”

November marks the memory of two major events in European history that still resonate in today’s continent: Kristallnacht, the beginning of the systematic persecution of Jews that culminated with the Holocaust; and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the beginning of Europe’s reunification process. But how much has the continent advanced toward unity in the last few decades? Is it going backwards? Do Jews feel safer? Amid rising anti-Semitism and sociopolitical challenges in Europe, it is evident that the glass walls of the continent’s security and stability can be broken any time.

The Reappearance of Hatred That Never Vanished

If we forget the atrocities of the past, we constantly get reminders. Jews were murdered, synagogues were torched, thousands of Jewish-owned businesses, homes and schools were plundered by the Nazis on Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) 81 years ago. This month, right in 2019, the commemoration of the pogroms was marked by a wave of anti-Semitic attacks across Scandinavia attributed to neo-Nazis. More than 80 graves were desecrated at a Jewish cemetery in Denmark, and, stickers resembling yellow stars that Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust were placed on multiple Jewish sites in Denmark and Sweden, including on the Great Synagogue in Stockholm.

In Germany, hundreds of neo-Nazis marched on the anniversary of the anti-Jewish riots, while a multitude of demostrators against the rally questioned why German officials turn a blind eye to such events promoted by extremists.

Massive immigration, economic challenges, and increasing political and social divisions in Europe are fueling radical movements from the right and from the left. And as we have learned from history, that is fertile ground to hatred against Jews. This is precisely the reason why the current state of affairs should matter to us.

The Berlin’s Wall Fell But the Tower of Babel Stands Strong

A call for European unity was the key message of an article recently published in 26 EU countries by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, commemorating the fall of the Berlin’s Wall 30 years ago. Conversely, today’s Europe resembles the period of upheaval in ancient Babylon when social division prevailed.

In fact, the downfall of the EU within the next one or two decades is perceived as a possible reality by more than 50% of Europeans, according to a survey conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations earlier this year.

How Jews Can Contribute to Europe’s Future

Knowing our background is crucial to understanding how the Jewish people can contribute to a prosperous future not only for itself but for Europe and the entire world. The people of Israel was not born as a nation in the common sense of the word but as a group of people who subscribed to an idea, the idea of unity. It was formed by Abraham the Patriarch from representatives of different tribes and cultures, just as today’s Europe.

They were an eclectic amalgamation joined only by the idea that there is one force that governs the universe. They also grasped that this force is one of mercy, love, and unity, and that only this force can connect us above our differences and give us the power to agree to unite “as one man with one heart.”

Humanity is now discovering that separation is leading to a dead end, therefore, it is more aware of the need to achieve the opposite state, the state of unity. The nations of the world instinctively feel that Jews, who once attained connection above internal rifts, have the solution to achieve a harmonious existence.

Since Jews are currently not delivering such example of positive connection through Abraham’s method, the nations of the world manifest their pain and discomfort as growing anti-Semitism.

Our role and our most important contribution to the world, according to Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), the most renowned Kabbalist of the 20th Century, is to be a conduit to transfer the goodness of unity to humanity. However, in order for that to happen, we must first implement it on ourselves.

Once we return to a unified state, we will be able to submit to humanity as a whole the method of unity and love among human beings. “And when they do that, it is plain to see that with His work, all envy and hatred will be abolished from humanity” (Baal HaSulam, “The Peace“).

The paramount role of Jews to a promising future for all was also highlighted by Rav Kook, as it is written: “In Israel is the secret to the unity of the world” (Orot HaKodesh).
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The Times of Israel published my new article “The Rise of Anti-Semitism in Germany and the World, and Its Solution”

“We have a Nazi problem in Dresden and have to do something about it,” said a city council member who succeeded with local lawmakers in passing an initiative to declare a “Nazi emergency.” This story is not a throwback to the 1930s in Germany, but a recent occurrence. It is a symptom of the larger problem of white supremacy spreading in major European and American cities, which raises the question: Why are Jews treated by many as a stone in humanity’s shoe? Solving this enigma is a pivotal step to finding a way to remove the uncomfortable annoyance.

But why Dresden in particular? Dresden happens to be a bastion of the far-right political party, “Alternative for Germany,” (AfD) and the birthplace of the movement PEGIDA (“Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident,” in German), which are described as anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and xenophobic.

However, anti-Semitism is certainly not limited to radical right-wing groups. It is prevalent in German society as a whole. More than 25% of Germans agree with classic anti-Jewish tropes, including that Jews have “too much power over the economy,” according to a study revealed last month by the World Jewish Congress. Over 40% said they think Jews “talk about the Holocaust too much,” yet one in four respondents also said it is possible that “something like the Holocaust could happen in Germany again.”

Hatred Against Jews in America

The first anniversary of Pittsburgh’s synagogue attack was commemorated last month. It is a vivid reminder of how hatred against Jews is much more than a matter of hate speech these days. Jew-hatred can materialize in a split second as deadly violent attacks. A man accused of plotting to blow up a Jewish temple was arrested just days ago by the FBI in Colorado. We see close parallels between events in America and Germany with the Yom Kippur attack at the Halle synagogue at the hands of a Neo-Nazi.

“This hatred is real, comes from multiple sources, and is growing,” said the American Jewish Committee’s CEO, David Harris, in response to a recent survey conducted by the Jewish organization which revealed that nearly 9 of 10 American Jews now consider anti-Semitism a problem in the US.

In order to combat the sharp rise in Jew-hatred in both America and worldwide, the Jewish Agency recently announced a far-reaching plan to bolster security systems in 50 Jewish institutions, such as Jewish schools, synagogues and community centers in 24 countries this year in response to global requests for safety support. The goal is to extend this security upgrade to include 40 countries by the end of 2020.

No Jewish Safety Until the Cause of Hatred Against Us Is Solved

Today, we discover our human society to be closed-in on all sides, trapped between global interdependence that connects us, on one hand, and competitive, egoistic interests and indifference that separates us, on the other. This is the exact juncture where anti-Semitism is rooted and where the people of Israel enter the picture.

We were established as a Jewish nation at the foot of Mount Sinai when all our members committed to unite “as one man with one heart.” Immediately thereafter, we were commanded to be “a light unto the nations,” namely to spread the light of unity throughout the world. Since we once experienced brotherly love in the bonds between us, we have the ability to once again unite above our differences and set an example for others who so desperately need such guidance. This is what makes the Jewish people unique, and this example is precisely what the world demands of us during our current times of division and rifts.

Humanity subconsciously feels that we Jews hold the key to a better life for every person on this planet. Such interdependence between the role of Jews and the fate of humanity amounts to the fact that the more we delay in actualizing our role, the more we will be hated.

The Jewish people are essentially a mini-model of humanity, a prototype for universal connection between people. The degree of connection we establish between us is destined to spread and shape the conditions for the rest of the world. When we return to brotherly love between all Jews, the demand against us that manifests as anti-Semitism will vanish.

Rav Kook summed up this essential role of Jews as follows: “The purpose of Israel is to unite the world into a single family.”

Our Life Insurance Is in Our Unity

When our enemies strike they do not ask what denomination of Judaism we belong to, or what our origin is, or whether we are right-wing or left-wing. They simply strike out against us, convinced that the world’s problems will be solved by erasing Jews off the face of the planet. This overriding force of anti-Semitism constantly resurfaces in various guises to compel us to unite during times when we become increasingly remote from being a united people.

Today, instead of exemplifying unity, we radiate divisiveness to the rest of the world. In such a state, the world will always find reasons to hate us and feel justified in trying to destroy us. The precise point upon which our prosperity depends was succinctly expressed by Samuel David Luzzatto: “The success of our nation depends only on our brotherly love, on connecting to one another as members of a single family.”

First and foremost, Jews must be a conduit to transmit an example of cohesion, mutual understanding and solidarity above differences to humanity. By providing a method for uniting above differences and divisions, we will become an enlightening force for the rest of the world. As stated in The Book of Zohar: “Just as the organs of the body cannot exist for one moment without the heart, so all nations cannot exist in the world without Israel.”

Our thoughts and efforts that draw us to unite and in turn soften critical attitudes about each other have the power to evoke a positive force between us, one capable of gradually neutralizing hatred and bringing about balance. This is the power that can protect and lead us toward a good and safe future.
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The Times of Israel published my new article “Beyond Statistics: A Way Out of the Wave of Violence Against Women in Israel”

Globally, almost 4 in 10 murders of women are committed by a male intimate partner, and Israel is no exception. In the last few days, crimes against women at the hands of their sentimental partners have shaken Israeli society, which is wondering how could it be that women are safer in the streets than in their homes? Without a deep scrutiny of the causes of such a phenomenon, people can just wait until the next victim is added to the list of domestic violence fatalities.

Recently, Esti, 70, was shot at her home in Talmei Eliahu, Southern Israel. The alleged killer, her husband, is an Israeli doctor who worked at John Hopkins and Sinai Baltimore hospitals in the US and volunteered in multiple international charities. Similarly, Maria, 29, was found lifeless in her home at Kiryat Bialik, in the northern part of the country. Michal, 32, a mother of an eight-month-old baby girl, was found stabbed in her home in Moshav Beit Zayit in Jerusalem.

What do all these cases have in common? It is that they were allegedly killed by their husbands. The list of the women murdered this week joins the names of Dianna, Susan, Lily, Zinav, Vivian and nine other women murdered since the beginning of this year. Additionally, 21 women were killed in 2018 and 14 killed two years ago. The list of victims gets longer every year. The reasons for the murders may vary, but at their root is one essential reason: egoism, the human desire to enjoy harming and humiliating others in order to feel superior. The more the ego grows, the greater the satisfaction to exploit and take advantage of others for personal gain.

Our egoistic nature has overblown to colossal proportions over the generations and continues growing at every moment. The ego doesn’t let us consider other people. It creates a barrier between our inner world and society, gradually paralyzing our healthy common sense and emotions. When the malicious ego bubbles inside an entire society, shutting us off from each other to deal with our own concerns and be left alone, it is only a matter of time before it will explode.

People with weak mental stability, or people influenced by violent content in the media or by domestic violence experienced during their upbringing, will be the first to tear down the thin veil that shrouds “sane society.” When the pervasive tension increases, when the spirit in society projects extremism and promotes polarization, when the discourse becomes aggressive and raging, the frustration felt by a person breaks an inner balance, explodes in an instant, and those closest to such a person commonly get the brunt of the blow. Therefore, we need to understand how murderers are not solely responsible for their crimes. They are largely the result of the violent atmosphere permeating the environment.

The world out there in the street, on television, and in social media molds our consciousness more than those with whom we share the same roof. The artificial and staged examples of relationships supplied by the media, fed to us by greedy executives who prioritize their own profit margins over society’s benefit, are opposite to natural relationships and the daily reality.

The defective content that aims to shock and get ratings undermines our opinions and, whether or not we pay attention to it, we act in our relationships as if we were momentary actors. When we find ourselves in stormy situations with people who live in the same home, although we are capable of honestly and directly expressing our inner truth, society’s influences are stronger, causing us to alter our natural behavior. Without a choice, we adopt and imitate the behaviors of characters we saw on the Internet, the TV or at the movies. This is the most evident sign that we have lost direction.

We cannot censure the content in the media or close this means of communication and thus solve the problem. Silencing our voices will only bring new distortions in the worst case, or will postpone the outbreak of the disease for one decade in the best of cases. As long as we fail to deal with the phenomenon of malicious egoism and not bring forth a fundamental change, we will degenerate into a situation where each person will do as he pleases, and society will suffer an irreparable crash.

Our education to be considerate of the other, to set clear moral limits and to overcome our egoistic nature should begin from a young age. Our duty should be to transmit to people in every possible way practical examples of how to be connected in a healthy and reciprocal way to the surrounding society: among family, friends and to the whole of society. We must teach ourselves and the coming generations how to change our attitude to reality and demonstrate how mutual consideration is the foundation for any healthy system of relations.

Education toward balanced relationships, meaning relations built above our self-interest with the intention of benefiting others, is the move that will calm the negative human impulses and balance our surging ego with its opposite positive force.

Education, however, is not intended to excuse a person from a heavy punishment. Rather, it is a significant step toward a healthy society. Let us start preparing ourselves for a life where we consider other people. The media can be a tool that helps us establish values calling for taking others into consideration. Influencers and decision makers should be called on to perform beneficial examples for society, and then instead of experiencing a dramatic increase in the number of murdered women, we will aspire to see headlines of supreme heroic stories that glorify examples of social contribution and benefit that lead us to a harmonious coexistence.

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KabNet published my new article: “Why Do Bad Things Happen?”

How many times in our lives have we asked ourselves, “What did I do to deserve this?” “Why do such troubles happen to me?”

A person might get fired, be stricken by a serious illness, or experience the loss of a loved one and start wondering how to receive answers to these heartfelt questions.

Sometimes, after giving our all, everything turns out wrong and it’s unclear why. So, what is the connection between our actions and the results we experience in life?

“Hardships serve to awaken deep questions about their cause and purpose, so that we would want to look outside our narrow individualistic worldview and seek to discover the true integral state we exist in.”

We live in a paradoxical world where a criminal could live a beautiful life while a simple worker, earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, could suffer. And we’re left wondering how life could be so unfair.

We all exist in a vast, intricate network of connection, and our inability to understand such contradictions in life comes from the fact that we fail to feel the full extent of our interdependence. As such, we neither perceive the far-reaching chain reaction of our influence in the world, nor do we feel the responses to our actions clearly and directly.

However, every nuance of our behavior and thought, whether conscious or unconscious, affects the system of nature we live in and enables a response. We are simply unable to connect the dots and understand exactly why things happen the way they do.

How Your Past Actions Influence Your Future

Although it is common to seek out past actions when we encounter negative experiences later in life, trying to connect the dots in such a way is an over-simplistic and incorrect approach that fails to take many variables into account.

Hardships serve to awaken deep questions about their cause and purpose, so that we would want to look outside our narrow individualistic worldview and seek to discover the true integral state we exist in. The more we suffer, the readier we become to match ourselves to the interdependent and interconnected system of nature we live in. When we begin to uncover the vastness of this system, we will see what kind of influence we have on reality, and what actions can be considered as good or bad.

Today, we evaluate our lives according to a very limited and linear perception. Until we develop a new perception and sensation of the integral nature, we will continue walking around in circles, accumulating more and more pain. In a sense, we are like a child who eats only sweets because it appears to us as most enjoyable, not understanding the harm we are causing our body, which will catch up on us sooner or later.

How to Deal With Difficult Situations

So what should we do when we experience various forms of suffering? Firstly, we must not blame or devour ourselves, nor should we delve into the past to see what we or someone else did to cause the suffering. Instead, we must accept the inevitability of the situation, and use the question about the cause of the suffering it awakens in us in order to increase our connection with our surrounding environment. In order for this to happen, we must be in a supportive society of people who also want to rise to a higher understanding of their lives. As the wisdom of Kabbalah explains, it is the only way to positively affect the world: to find a group of like-minded people and start uniting with them.

Under this new perception, we will see how our increasing unification brings us into increasing balance and harmony with nature, increasing our happiness, confidence and comfort. In other words, the cause of any problem in life is our incomplete perception that fails to see how we’re independently connected to each other.

In the upgraded perception of reality that matches nature’s connectedness, we will perceive every situation as good, since we would see anything happening to us at every moment as a means to rise above the situation-at-hand, and reveal the force of love, bestowal and connection that acts throughout nature. All events of our lives and throughout humanity’s history are leading us toward the realization of this lofty goal.

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The Times of Israel published my new article “How to Maximize the Potential of the Elderly in Society”

‘80 and 4’ is a televised social experiment that has started being televised in Israel, based on the British documentary series, which connects preschoolers to the elderly. It examines the effects on the 80-plus-year-olds and four-year-olds, and addresses an important topic of intergenerational integration: Are the elderly realizing their fullest potential in benefiting both themselves and society at large?

Intergenerational integration is in fact merely a modern term for the natural connection that used to dwell in every household. I myself grew up in a home with grandparents on both sides. They gave me more attention than my parents. Naturally, parents are busy juggling work and family, and also play a more disciplinary role toward the children, while grandparents generally have a warmer and friendlier relationship with their grandchildren.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, familial connection spans three generations: children, parents and grandparents. In the language of Kabbalah, such connection is called Ibur, Yenika and Mochin, three stages of the soul’s growth.

Children and grandparents share a common closeness to nature: the child’s innocence with his undeveloped desires to benefit at the expense of others, and the elderly person’s sensation of living beyond the rat race, having lost interest in the pursuit of money, respect, fame and power.

Their relationship also holds the most common benefit.

It is very important for the health, well-being and vitality of the elderly to feel as contributing members of society. Children provide them with that sensation. Children always need help, can be taught about multiple aspects of life, and need to play in order to enjoy and learn.

When the elderly mingle with the children, they try to act like them, playing as if they were also children. Such activity has a vitalizing physiological and psychological effect on the elderly, as their systems start functioning like a child’s.

As for the children, they receive attention and can learn from the knowledge and experience of the elderly, whether professional expertise or wisdom from life.

Despite all of our scientific, technological and cultural progress, we are still far from realizing the immense untapped potential in society. The common viewpoint as we grow up is that we will eventually retire, go on pension, become liberated from work, and free to enjoy life.

Unfortunately, such an approach fails to take into account its detrimental effects. Retirement instead causes us to sink into ourselves, detach from society, withdraw from our contributory roles in society, feel no benefit from society in return—it’s a terrible state.

Contribution to society is human society’s metabolism.

Having a role in which you commit to express yourself and give of yourself to others, provides you with a reason to live and has long-lasting positive effects. Moreover, we do not die because our bodies get old; we die when we detach from society.

Nowadays, people live to the age of 90 and over, and instead of using their life experience for the common good, we closet them in nursing homes. In a healthy society, the elderly are treated with much more respect and genuine requests to make a contribution. If the elderly were to disappear from the world, we would immediately feel that the world had lost some power and depth. They are an integral part of nature, holding tremendous importance.

I hope that social ventures of this kind and a more active connection between the generations will become commonplace, and we will be awarded with the feeling that we all belong to a single society, one that treats every person as a very precious and indispensable being, living harmoniously together.
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