The largest portal Basic Income Earth Network published my new article “Basic Income Should Benefit Mothers First“:

There is no controversy about the benefits of breast milk, but its politicization is giving us food for thought. The New York Times claimed that the US government unsuccessfully threatened to retaliate against nations backing breastfeeding to favor the $70 billion-dollar infant formula industry, an accusation fervently denied by the current administration. Beyond the sensational headlines, the key factor is that such an important health-related topic for mothers and children has been put back on the table. It is also time to open the discussion about practical measures to encourage breastfeeding to benefit society.

Breast milk is rich in nutrients and includes antibodies to fight off viruses and bacteria protecting the baby from infections and allergies. It boosts the immune system, reduces infant mortality, and helps for a quicker recovery from common childhood illnesses. A Harvard study in 2016 estimated that 3,340 premature deaths a year among both mothers and babies could be prevented in the US alone given adequate breastfeeding. It also lowers a mother’s risk of breast and ovarian cancer, and osteoporosis.

Besides the physical benefits and what laboratory experiments show, breastfeeding is one of the best ways of bonding with a baby. It releases oxytocin, which is the hormone responsible for other loving behaviors that make us feel good about a person.

Extended breastfeeding for the first two years of life allows for the child’s proper development, and women express more maternal sensitivity well past the infant and toddler years, according to a study by the American Psychological Association. Beyond such findings, there is also a natural inner connection between the mother and the child that allows for positive biological and internal development, which starts inside the womb.

The Need to Support Stay-at-Home Mothers

Considering the vital role mothers play in each individual’s development from the earliest of ages, it stands to reason that stay-at-home mothers should be given all the support possible to raise the next generation. They need to be entitled to receive financial assistance that will let them perform their remarkable duties without worrying about how to make ends meet, giving them a sense of freedom and control of their lives.

In today’s world, however, this is not the case. The bulk of the burden falls on the mother, who is usually expected to prioritize her career over her family, juggling tasks and becoming increasingly exhausted and unsatisfied. With the massive rise in cost of living, mothers in most societies struggle to manage a balanced life, considering work as an economic necessity rather than liberation and personal progress and fulfillment. Mothers get caught in an ever-tightening entanglement of commitments at work and home with very little restitution at any level. In extreme cases, there have been situations where work-stressed mothers abandoned their children while they rushed to work, e.g., a hospital CEO forgetting her child in a hot car where the child died, or a McDonald’s employee leaving her child alone in a public park while she worked her entire 9-hour work day.

Moreover, childcare can be extremely expensive and many women usually work just to cover its costs, challenging the whole purpose of going to the workplace. The so-called advancement of women’s rights to choose is in practice an oxymoron. At the end of the day, women who decide to fulfill a traditional role as stay-at-home mothers do not receive enough recognition, value, and economic support from society, as if raising a new generation were not the most important enterprise of all.

The same way science has been unable to create an artificial uterus that brings an embryo to life, a mother’s role of nurturing and educating the child is irreplaceable. We cannot pretend to be wiser than nature. If we really want to empower and foster women’s self-determination, society should create conditions for a comfortable motherhood.

Why UBI Should Prioritize Mothers

This is precisely where UBI can enter to encourage mothers who wish to raise their children full-time. UBI should benefit women first and foremost, particularly mothers who based on their own personal preference choose to leave the workplace in order to raise their children. Basic income should be provided for mothers without preconditions: not as welfare or charity, but as a remuneration for a crucial job in society.

Prioritizing UBI for mothers would be a win-win situation: it not only would help mothers, it would directly boost support for the entire next generation of society that mothers are now raising. Many personal and social problems, such as depression, anxiety and mental illness later in life, can be traced back to phenomena such as childhood neglect, stress, and traumas. Therefore, UBI would let mothers live with reduced economic stress, freeing them up to focus on caring, bonding with, and raising their children.

Likewise, as I’ve mentioned before, basic income for mothers would allow their participation in pro-social, connection-enriching activities, such as groups for pregnant women, parenting and home economics, among others, to enhance their motherly abilities with a supportive social climate. Naturally, such engagement in society would also positively influence their children.

Instead of treating mothers as second-class citizens, they should be recognized as “society’s CEOs”—the ruling force in creation, the only ones capable of giving birth to and nurturing a whole new generation. Keep in mind that the world is our roof, humanity is our home, and women are the pillar of this structure. Motherhood plays a critical role in giving birth to a new humanity. Therefore, taking a step forward in promoting UBI as critical support for mothers is a decision of utmost importance for a more promising future to all.
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The Times of Israel published my new article “Tisha B’Av 2018: A Day of Reckoning in Israeli Society”

Let’s conduct a social exercise and see our reality through two worldviews.

One shows us the alienated world we know, with social division, cruelty and discrimination that leaves no choice besides taking to the streets. On the other hand — and here is the exercise — let’s aspire to see a different reality where we are all one family, linked by threads of love, and equally respecting the will of all members of society.

From day to day, the need for this new reality becomes clearer than ever before, the need to feel connection above the daily sense of separation. This is not about fake smiles and niceties. It’s about a whole new spiritual space of human relations — living in conjunction with the binding force of nature that ties all of us together into a single fabric of humanity.

The sense of equality that will emerge is a new perspective we haven’t seen before. We will discover how there can be room for everyone. The sense of a higher force of connection between us will provide us with the importance of preserving our differences, and the recognition that our conflicts and differences enable us to see the harmony and wholeness that lies in nature.

But in order for such a dream-reality to take shape, we have to make room within us. We have to shape a new perception of reality, opposite to the narrow, egoistic one that rules us. It takes practice and we have to play with it like children. We have to envision ourselves living in a warm and loving family, in the embrace of a loving society. We have to awaken latent feelings of connection between us, which will illuminate the dark spaces between us.

Then, nature will work its magic: the game we play will change our perception of what’s realistic. It’s not that reality itself will change before our eyes, but our perception of reality certainly will.

On Tisha B’Av, the day that symbolizes our unfounded hatred to each other, there is no shortage of attempts to elevate the value of social unity. But whether it’s through discussion circles in city squares, on social networks, or in protest tents, the discourse doesn’t rise above the limited, earthly level.

Surely, today we are not afraid of social disagreements and no longer try to blur them. We are well aware that the secular people will never agree with the religious, and those on the right will remain in dispute with those on the left.

However, acknowledging the differences between us is not enough to take us to a new space.

We lack the genuine urgency to break through the barrier of our worldly perception. The ego holds us captive, chains us to a dividing worldview in which we can never rebuild our society. At the moment, it seems like the need for change will only come with intensifying troubles, wars, struggles and protests.

But there is another way. Shorter, faster and more pleasant to all of us. It is through consciously playing, through practice, through education.

For two thousand years the Kabbalists have been pointing to unity as a solution to all our troubles. They warn us in every way they can that if we don’t connect to our common spiritual root, the events of life will teach us to do so in a very difficult and long-winding path.

Therefore, we must begin relating to the better future we want for ourselves and our children, to the positive relationship between all of us. We are not required to let go of our opinion or give in to others. We are only required to play with a new worldview, where above our differences, we are connected as one family.

The brotherly love that we will gradually build will be called “the third Temple.”

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The Jerusalem Post published my new article: “We Mourn The Ruin Of The Temple, But We Extol Its Cause”

Each year come Tisha B’Av, we mourn the ruin of the Temple due to our baseless hatred. And yet, each year we make our mutual hatred more entrenched. So what good are our tears?

A Bad Day for the Jews

The Talmud (Masechet Taanit) tells us: “Five things happened to our fathers on the 17th of Tammuz, and five on the 9th of Av [the days marking the beginning and end of The Three Weeks (Bein Hametzarim)]. On the 17th of Tammuz the First Tablets broke, the everlasting fire quenched, the city wall was breached, Apostomus burned the Torah, and placed an idol in the Temple. On the 9th of Av our fathers were banned from entering the land, the First, and Second Temples were ruined, Beitar was conquered, and [on the same day a year later] the city was razed.”

The horror-filled history of the 9th of Av does not end with the ruin of the Temple. Throughout history, this day of the year has been fraught with calamity. The 1290 expulsion of the Jews from England and the notorious 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Spain both happened on the 9th of Av. Closer to our time, on the 9th of Av, 1942, the Nazis began a mass deportation of 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp.

Since the birth of our nation, the 9th of Av has been a bad day for the Jews.

Why Specifically That Day?

The Hebrew calendar reflects more than our history. On a deeper level, it reflects a process of transformation from self-centered beings—whose hearts are evil from their youth, as the Torah narrates (Genesis 8:21)—into a connected, mutually responsible nation, whose members are united “as one man with one heart.” On this cycle, the 9th of Av marks a crisis point, when we turn our backs on unity and condone self-centeredness.

The ruin of the Second Temple is certainly the most traumatic event that happened on the 9th of Av. However, it is not the catastrophe itself that we should mourn, but rather our loss of love for one another, which induced it.

Between Love and Hate

On the cycle of our development, we begin as pure egoists. We want nothing but what is good for us, without any concern for others. “Sin crouches at the door,” the Torah tells us, and so we all behave.

However, if our life’s purpose were to settle for being the species at the top of the food-chain, we would not seek immortality, superiority, renown, and other uniquely human ambitions. We would not need to invent everything we have created over the centuries; spears and arrows would suffice. Humans constantly aspire for perfection and eternity. We want to know what created the world, how it operates, and why. In a word, humanity wants to be like the Creator of the world—its owner. While this may not be true for you and me personally, without these basic drives we would not develop science, critical thinking, athletic competitions, or pursue all of the engagements that pertain to our human existence, beyond our physical survival.

The human ego is different from that of animals. It is the driving force behind our development. And while nature balances the self-interest of animals, balancing human self-absorption requires our own conscious effort.

Abraham, the man of mercy, was the first to find a method for containing human egoism. He and his descendants developed it until a nation based on mercy and unity was formed. But at the foot of Mt Sinai, the mountain of Sina‘a [hatred], we succumbed to our egos and instead of receiving the Torah, the power of connection, we turned toward the idol of the ego—the golden calf. Thus, the Tablets broke.

Yet, our nation emerged from that crisis. We vowed to be “as one man with one heart,” thereby received the Torah, and were given the task to be “a light unto nations” by spreading the power of unity.

In the battle between love and hate, the method that the ancient Hebrews developed was intended to lead the world to the ultimate victory of love over hate. This method very simply states that if we balance our egoism with love of others, we allow each person to realize his or her full potential, while using that realization for the common good. In this way, we “cover” our egos with love, or as King Solomon put it (Proverbs, 10:12): “Hate stirs strife, and love covers all crimes.” By doing so, we tap into the power of connection that created the world, and now sustains it. This is the inner meaning of receiving the Torah.

The Final Frontier

Each year come Tisha B’Av [9th of Av], we mourn the ruin of the Temple due to our baseless hatred. And yet, each year we become more entrenched in our mutual hatred. So what good are our tears?

What is the point of crying over our past ruin if at the same time we are preparing our own destruction due to the exact same reason that demolished us before? Have we really learned nothing from our past? How many more ruins due to mutual loathing do we need to experience before we finally wise up?

The looming extermination of the Jewish people will dwarf anything we have ever experienced, including the ruin of the Second Temple, and including even the Holocaust, which, incidentally, extinguished the vast majority of my own family.

We are on the last leg of the journey, the final frontier in the battle between love and hate. The hatred that is appearing now will be the most intense ever, and it will turn its wrath against the Jews. We cannot mitigate it whatsoever, but we can, and must, cover it with love, as we had done before.

This is our vocation as Jews. It is the realization of our mission to be “a light unto nations.” As I have said numerous times before, on the internet and in the pages of The New York Times, we must cover our hatred with care for one another, and thereby set an example of unity for the world. We can do this willingly and pleasantly, or we will be forced into it by the fury of the world. One way or the other, we will do it.

So this Tisha B’Av, let us think more about our future and our role, and less about our past. Let us focus on building the time to come, and make the ruin of the past the cornerstone of our safe and happy future.

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The portal Medium published my new article “What Happens When We Die?“

Where do we go immediately after death? What happens to our mind, our spirit and our soul when we die? Do we fly up into an eternal heaven, or fall into an eternal hell? Do we reincarnate in this world as other people, or even animals, plants or rocks? Do we keep living the life we led over and over again? Do we simply disappear into nothingness?

Different teachings offer different answers to these questions. Science details how the body decomposes when we die. In general, the discussion around this topic falls into two main categories:

1. People who have had near-death experiences and lived to describe what they saw and felt;
2. Religious beliefs, philosophies and other theories offering concepts about the afterlife, reincarnation and consciousness.

This article is dedicated to investigating the question — “What happens when you die?” — from the perspective of the wisdom of Kabbalah, which offers a fundamentally different approach to the current discussion. We will look into Kabbalah’s take on:

• What is common to all near-death experiences and what we can learn from them?
• What is the soul? Do we have a soul, or do we get one when we die, or can we can attain one during our lifetime?
• What happens to our corporeal existence when we die?

What Can We Learn from Near-Death Experiences?

People who have survived clinical death have reported a range of feelings, such as a sleep-like nothingness, a peaceful floating sensation in the sky or in a tranquil scenery like a garden, a bright light or a tunnel heading toward a bright light, seeing and speaking with loved ones who had passed away, as well as out-of-body experiences where they could see what was happening in the room where they were pronounced clinically dead.

What do all these sensations have in common?

They are all sensations of freedom from the corporeal body. In near-death experiences, the corporeal body is no longer a disturbance. People feel as if they belong to something other than what they identified as their body. The mind continues working and processing corporeal information, albeit differently.

Near-death experiences express a boundary between our corporeal life and its death. It is a boundary where we end our contact with information we received through our body, mind and corporeal senses.

In such states, our desire diminishes, and its disappearance equates to the person’s disappearance. In other words, the feeling of life we experience in our individual desires (food, sex, family) and social desires (money, honor, control, knowledge) fully vanishes and we agree with its withdrawal, ceasing to receive, feel, live and enjoy.

The sensation of freedom from the corporeal body marks a shift to a new state. This new state, however, is still not death, neither is it spirituality nor eternity.

According to Kabbalah, it is purely psychological. Whatever we feel in such states is limited and miniscule compared to the sensations of eternity and wholeness, which Kabbalah states we can attain a lot more vividly while we’re still alive in this world.

How? It is by attaining our soul.

What Is the Soul? Does It Belong to Our Body? Does the Body’s Death Mark the Soul’s Birth, or Can We Attain Our Soul While We’re Alive?

According to Kabbalah, the soul is not something we enter after our body’s death. Instead, it is something we need to attain a clear perception and sensation of while we’re alive. If we don’t attain our soul while we’re alive, then it’s considered that we don’t have one.

The soul is a desire above our egoistic, corporeal desires. That is, above our desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge, there is a small desire that asks about the meaning and purpose behind everything we experience: the meaning of life. This desire is a small point, called “the point in the heart” in Kabbalah, which we have an opportunity to develop. The full development of this point is considered the attainment of the soul.

Attaining the soul is like feeling an additional life to our current one, a life that was hidden from us. When we attain contact with the soul, it becomes the center of our life. We reevaluate our current life and start relating to it on a completely different level. Death of the physical body then becomes like changing one’s shirt. In other words, when our physical body dies, we continue reincarnating in a new body until the full extent of the soul is attained, called in Kabbalah, “125 degrees of spiritual attainment.”

If we don’t attain spirituality, then all that remains is a Reshimo (a “reminiscence” or “record”). It is a spiritual informational gene, similar to DNA. This Reshimo clothes in new bodies until it surfaces in us as the question, “What is the meaning of life?” This question eventually urges us to seek its answer: to find a method and an environment for the soul’s development.

What Happens to Our Corporeal Existence When We Die?

When we die, we lose awareness of everything we sensed in our corporeal lives. However, does it mean that we lose it all? No. It is being passed on in the form of personality attributes. This explains why, in every new generation, children are better adapted to life than adults. For example, children are instinctively proficient with the latest technologies and gadgets, while the older generation finds them more complicated.

In each successive generation, the will to receive undergoes an upgrade. If the will to receive fails to bring a person to spiritual development, then it shifts to a new stage, to another opportunity. All the problems, pains and knowledge gradually accumulate from one generation to the next, toward the need for spiritual development.

That is what the wisdom of Kabbalah was made for. Through the wisdom of Kabbalah, we can gain access to the eternal and whole system of the soul, discover its inner power, and become its active part, revealing spirituality as a clear perception and sensation, and this is the purpose of our development.

Today marks a very significant moment in humanity’s development toward this purpose, one which Kabbalists described as the time when humanity en masse would start awakening with questions about its meaning and purpose, and when Kabbalah would be revealed and open to everyone to allow us to realize this opportunity in our lifetime and gain eternal life.

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The largest portal Breaking Israel News published my recent article “Gaza Flare-Up: How To Turn Darkness to Light”

“As long as we do not raise our goal above the corporeal life, we will have no corporeal revival.” (Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Exile and Redemption”)

It was a dark Sabbath in southern Israel, with 200 rockets and mortar shells fired from the Gaza strip, 173 red alert sirens and 30 iron dome interceptions.

Any other country would respond immediately and aggressively, as written “if one comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first.” But not in this case. The state of Israel is between a rock and hard place. Flaming kites are coming from just dozens of kilometers south to Israel, while the international community and global media are sending flames of hostility towards the State of Israel.

Naturally, we don’t buy the truce. It is clearly pure fiction and only a matter of time until we begin another round of war. And from one round to the next, we are pushed closer to a critical point: Either we do whatever needed to end the terror against us and live with whatever sanctions it may bring; Or we find a way to fundamentally change the world’s view of Israel.

The only way to do that is to understand the root cause for the world’s attitude to Israel. We have to see the forces working within the network of humanity, and most importantly, our role in it.

According to The Book of Zohar, which describes the core structure of the whole of nature, all the world’s nations are interconnected and interdependent, through an intricate web of connections. And Israel is a central hub.

It’s not for nothing that the nations of the world treat Israel differently. Subconsciously, they feel that the nation of Israel is obligated to fulfill a central role in the body of humanity. “Israel among the nations is like a heart among the organs,” writes The Book of Zohar, “And as the body’s organs cannot exist without the heart for even a moment, so the nations cannot live in the world without Israel.”

Israel’s role within the body of humanity is to enable the unity of all peoples and nations, as parts of a single, integrated system. And they do so by creating unity among themselves, above all conflicts and differences, thus being “a light unto nations.”

But as long as Israel lags behind in spreading the force of unity, the conflicts around it rise to new heights. Hamas activists are taking positions in international and academic organizations, promoting the de-legitimization of Israel. From year to year, our enemies become more certain that the international community will justify their actions and condemn ours. Ultimately, things will escalate to the point where Israel is pushed to the sidelines of human society, becoming like a ghetto at the center of the world.

Rather than waiting for this critical point to come, we should open our eyes now and see where things are headed. The way to reverse the trend of hostility towards us is only to fulfill our role within the network of humanity.

It’s nice to see Israelis around the country downloading apps that notify them about red alert sirens to show solidarity, and it’s heartwarming when we open our homes to southern residents. However, unity in times of trouble only holds in times of trouble, just as unity against a common enemy can only last as long as the enemy does.

The nation of Israel must be unified from within, connected “as one man with one heart.” The force of unity that we generate today will be the example for the world of tomorrow. Even a small movement towards a true unity of hearts in Israeli society, which is divided to numerous tribes and factions, will awaken a healing force that comes from the depth of nature itself. And this will begin to mend the rifts in the network of humanity.

This is what the world expects from us, and until we do it, we will increasingly find ourselves between a rock and hard place. We live here in the land of Israel, but we will only truly earn our right to be here when we begin fulfilling our spiritual role.

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The largest portal Breaking Israel News published my new article: “Israel Complacent Amidst Earthquakes and Fire Kites”

The LORD said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, they are a stiff-necked people.’ Exodus 32:9 (The Israel Bible™)

Israeli firefighters extinguish a fire in a wheat field. (Credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Over a hundred days of fire in Southern Israeli areas surrounding the Gaza strip, and almost no one cares. Twenty fires break out each day, consuming thousands of square meters of agricultural areas, fields and crops, while most of the Israeli public remains unconcerned. Why do we remain complacent?

And as the southern land is aching, the northern land is shaking. More than a dozen earthquakes at various intensities took place around Tiberias over the last week or so, and the public remains indifferent. What kind of wake-up call do we need? What level on the Richter scale will shake our hearts? How far do the fire kites need to fly so as to awaken us from our coma?

Symbolically, the Hebrew calendar shows we are right “between the straits” – the three weeks of trouble and distress that struck the people of Israel leading up to the ruin of the Temple. And just as people in the kingdom of Judea were indifferent to their collective fate, the Israeli people of 2018 are mostly concerned with their narrow interests.

Yet things seem to be different in 2018. Israel holds the reputation of being one of the world’s strongest countries – both militarily, diplomatically, and economically. But our temporary success hinges on a worrisome reality: the hostile countries around us have yet to unite and join hands in an effort to destroy us.

Sure, we are a nation that doesn’t like listening to worrying reflections about ourselves. But we are also “a stiff-necked people.” We latch onto what we have got, oblivious to lessons we have already learnt from the tougher times of our history. We are indifferent to our indifference.

The boys trapped in a cave in Thailand worry us far more than putting out the fires a few meters away from us, and this indicates that something in the Israeli nationhood is completely out of whack. We can’t see the main reason for concern, right under our noses.

“The poor of your city come first,” says the Torah. Our main concern should be those close to us, from north to south. And our elected officials should start fixing the country, instead of putting all their efforts in trying to “fix” each other.

Rather than waiting for the next trouble to come down from the skies or from under the ground, we must begin to recognize our collective fate by seeing all these blows as clarions. Every blow tells us to further tighten our bonds, raise our concern for each other, and begin to live by the crux of our nationhood, being “as one man in one heart.”

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, rebuilding the Temple is not about laying bricks and erecting walls. It’s about building a solid connection between our hearts. That is what we need to build both for ourselves and the world. We have to demonstrate a new level of mutual care and human bonding that will ultimately spread “light unto the nations,” but it has to start right here, between us.

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My new article on KabNET: “When Did Breastfeeding Become a Bargaining Chip”

It is, and always has been, the best food for babies. There is no controversy about the benefits of breast milk, but its politicization is giving us food for thought.

The New York Times claimed that the US government unsuccessfully threatened nations backing breastfeeding with punitive trade and military cut offs to favor the $70 billion dollar infant formula industry, an accusation fervently denied by the current administration. Beyond the sensational headlines, the key factor is that such an important health related topic for mothers and children has been put back on the table.

Breast milk is rich in nutrients and includes antibodies to fight off viruses and bacteria protecting the baby from infections and allergies. It boosts the immune system, reduces infant mortality, and helps for a quicker recovery from common childhood illnesses. A Harvard study in 2016 estimated that 3,340 premature deaths a year among both mothers and babies could be prevented in the US alone given adequate breastfeeding. It also lowers a mother’s risk of breast and ovarian cancer, and osteoporosis.

Besides the physical benefits and what is shown through laboratory experiments, breastfeeding is one of the best ways of bonding with a baby. In addition to nutrition, it provides comfort and relaxation. It releases oxytocin, which is the hormone responsible for other loving behaviors that make us feel good about a person.

“There is a natural inner connection between the mother and the child that allows for positive biological and internal development, which starts inside the womb, belonging to an inner layer in nature that our studies and research tools still cannot pinpoint.”

Extended breastfeeding for the first two years of life allows for the child’s proper development, and women express more maternal sensitivity well past the infant and toddler years, according to a study by the American Psychological Association.

Beyond such findings, there is also a natural inner connection between the mother and the child that allows for positive biological and internal development, which starts inside the womb, belonging to an inner layer in nature that our studies and research tools still cannot pinpoint.

Considering the vital role mothers play in each individual’s development from the earliest of ages, it stands to reason that stay-at-home mothers should be given all the support possible to raise the next generation.

However, in practice, this is not the case.

“Women who decide to fulfill a traditional role as stay-at-home mothers do not receive enough recognition, value, and economic support from society, as if raising a new generation were not the most important enterprise of all.”

In today’s world, the bulk of the burden falls on the mother, who is usually expected to prioritize her career over her family, juggling tasks and becoming increasingly exhausted and unsatisfied. The so-called advancement of women’s rights to choose is in practice an oxymoron. At the end of the day, women who decide to fulfill a traditional role as stay-at-home mothers do not receive enough recognition, value, and economic support from society, as if raising a new generation were not the most important enterprise of all. 

The same way science has been unable to create an artificial uterus that brings an embryo to life, a mother’s role of nurturing and educating the child is irreplaceable. We cannot pretend to be wiser than nature. If we really want to empower and foster women’s self-determination, society should create conditions for a comfortable motherhood.

“Mothers should not continue being treated as second-class citizens. Instead, they should be recognized as “society’s CEOs”—the ruling force in creation, the only ones capable of giving birth to and nurturing a whole new generation.”

In most societies women struggle to have a balanced life, considering work as an economic necessity rather than liberation and personal progress. Women get caught in an ever-tightening entanglement of commitments at work and home with very little restitution at any level.

Nowadays, certain governments are considering the distribution of an unconditional basic income sufficient to meet a person’s basic needs. Such programs, if implemented, should benefit women first and foremost, particularly mothers who decide to leave the workplace in order to raise their children.

Mothers should not continue being treated as second-class citizens. Instead, they should be recognized as “society’s CEOs”—the ruling force in creation, the only ones capable of giving birth to and nurturing a whole new generation. Keep in mind that the world is our roof, humanity is our home, and women are the pillar of this structure. Nature is showing us the perfect mechanism of the human body. And motherhood in particular has a crucial role in giving birth to a new humanity.

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The largest portal Newsmax published my new article “Why Social Platforms Are Making Us Less Social“

Is the social media you use made with good intentions? Far from it.

A recent BBC investigation opens up about the meticulous work that goes into making social media apps as addictive as possible, and that roughly the third of the world’s population using social media fails to realize the problem: their inadvertent exposure to the manipulation of a powerful industry dedicated to creating a drug-like dependency for its own financial gain.

Social media has been deliberately built to influence our emotions, preferences, decisions, impulses, energy, attention span, and interactions. Leading technology experts now speak out about what has become a well-established process to penetrate our minds and pockets.

“It’s as if they’re taking behavioral cocaine and just sprinkling it all over your interface and that’s the thing that keeps you like coming back and back and back,” said a former Silicon Valley engineer, Aza Raskin, in the British investigative report.

Facebook’s founding president, Sean Parker, also publicly admitted that the company set out to consume as much user time as possible, “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.” This is what led to the design of self-validating features such as the “like” button that gives its users, in Parker’s words, “a little dopamine hit,” stimulating them to post more and more content.

A Thumb Down to Disconnection

Today’s culture measures us by the popularity of what we upload, as if it defines who we are and what we are really worth. This creates a compulsive habit of checking our smartphones far too often and ignoring the people directly in front of us. In particular, the younger generation is living proof of this broken communication link. Verbal, spoken communication with eye contact and body language has diluted in favor of looking down at our phones, tapping them with our thumbs, and sending pictures and short emoji-filled phrases to each other. Such behavior negatively affects kids’ and youths’ social development, and has been found linked to depression, anxiety, poor body image, and loneliness in youth.

It is a catch-22 situation. Social media is supposed to create more human interaction to alleviate loneliness and depression, but in contrast, people spending a lot of time using social media as a substitute for real personal connection feel more isolated, depressed, and anxious.

We constantly compare ourselves to others, pressured and obsessed with the idea of showing our perfect picture of success and fulfillment, while in real life there is a deep void that only worsens through this artificial reality.

What can we do? There is so much dependency on social media today that unplugging everyone at once would be counterproductive. Crime, violence, drug abuse, and suicides would all increase because our human capacities have been practically hijacked.

What is needed is a comprehensive social rehabilitation process. It must be carried out gradually until it becomes an alternative, positive social network, one that properly addresses human nature and promotes warm and supportive relations instead of a place always open to slander and vitriol.

Finding the Modem in Our Hearts

How can we transform social media into a space of real human connection that binds people together without competing for the greatest number of likes and shares? We can do it by focusing on the power of friendship and unity at the center of positive human relationships.

Nature already operates in a way that balances all of its interactions. For example, cells and organs of a human body each focus on the whole body’s well-being, and each receive only what they need in order to give whatever they can for the whole body’s benefit. We too can connect to this positive power of friendship and unity if we consider the benefit of others and the benefit of the whole human network we’re parts of. We just need to use technology and the available means more wisely to learn about and plug into such a positively connected system.

But how can we achieve such a lofty goal considering that human nature is innately egoistic, i.e. aims at self-benefit at the expense of others? We need to realize that any technological innovation failing to advance humanity toward greater positive connection only harms it. Organizations that can influence the spread of social media, including governments, would do society good service if they conducted investigations into the harmful effects of social platforms and regulated them to prevent further damage not only to our privacy, but also to our overall well-being.

We are not designed to process data like a computer or to store information like a cloud server. By activating the modem in our hearts, enabling deeper and more meaningful communication, we will experience more positive connection and much more satisfying social lives.

In a nutshell, social media in its current form fails to meaningfully connect us. It does, however, reveal to us the consequences of our egoistic relations. We can thus learn from the problems in the current situation and start motioning toward a positive change. Such an awakening of the public is one of the steps toward a real transformation. We can start this massive transformation by looking into the future and taking measures ahead of time to ward off deeper social media brainwash, and by investing efforts in a profound global “heartwash.”
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The largest portal Newsmax published my new article “July 4th Reminds: Independence Only Grows Rooted in Unity“

today you celebrate your 242nd birthday. You grew from various groups of settlers and separated colonies into the 50 united—and independent—states of America.

Freedom is the product you always promoted in the global arena, the brand ideal you presented to humanity, the dream you inspired in all of us.

Regrettably, the freedom you offered was exploited and turned into a weapon in the hands of your own children. As they raced toward unlimited freedom for themselves, they grew dangerously hostile and hateful toward each other.

Today, they choose a side—left or right—and wage an increasingly escalating war against each other in the name of freedom.

America, your children have mostly split into two camps of rebellious youths.

They forged an uncompromising worldview and can no longer see each other’s point of view. They learned how to fortify their position with endless arguments claiming proof and with self-justification.

They raised accusations of guilt, slander, and now violence, against the other.

Dearest America, the land of unlimited possibilities, 31 percent of your citizens are concerned about the possibility of civil war in the next few years. The time has come to help them make up and come together, before it becomes impossible for them to hear you.

Remind them, as their loving mother, that siblings can fight, disagree, and even maintain their differences, but the American family’s well-being must remain above their feuds.

Teach them that a hostile social atmosphere enslaves them to their selfish urges and blocks their entrance to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Educate them to raise the spirit of unity above all differences, across all 50 states, and between all colors—especially between red and blue.

Set healthy boundaries to preserve the integrity of your nation, one people above all differences. Let your children know they have crossed a line when any of them incites violence and extremity against their fellow citizens.

But most of all, America, show your children the unique opportunity their raging eyes are too blind to see. Show them how strong and prosperous they can be if they work to be together! This is all they are missing.

Help them envision life beyond fighting and biting. Help them change the rules of the game, using each other’s strengths to build something new and common. This is the natural, motherly wisdom you must bestow upon your children.

Surely, the notion of unity sounds folksy, naïve and far-fetched to your children, yet it is the root from which they emerged, and the mature state that awaits them.

Help them with all the means you have at your disposal, America.

• Turn away from partisan media that profits off division and establish an impartial and objective communication channel with representatives from the entire social spectrum who are willing to demonstrate unity above differences.
• Start a research facility to draw an objective picture of the national state of the American family.
  Invest resources and quality manpower in new social initiatives with the goal of unifying communities in every part of society.
• Deep down, all your children realize that hatred and division are unsustainable, but they can’t stop: they need you to nurture their commonalities and similarities over their differences.

Dear America, on your 242nd birthday, may your children see that their true independence will only come from working on their unity.

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The portal Medium published my new article “How Misguided We Are in Thinking That God Is Anything Like Us”

Even as a child, long before I knew the wisdom of Kabbalah, I never thought about the upper force as anything similar to a flesh and blood human who consumes food and secretes waste, sweats, gets sick from time to time, and is not always “aesthetically pleasing,” to say the least.

It didn’t make sense to me that this limited, transient body somehow reflects a force that is supposedly universal, eternal and lofty.

So I was surprised to hear that a new research asked participants to describe what they thought the face of God looked like. Merging results from hundreds of American believers, the researchers assembled the “face of God.”

Now, if the image of the Creator was indeed like that of a human being, then something went wrong with that Creator…

According to Kabbalah, “God,” or “the Creator,” is the quality of complete, unconditional love and bestowal. It’s a spiritual force devoid of any corporeal depiction, a force that guides and sustains the whole of reality, and its purpose is one: to do good. To that end, the Creator created a creature who is destined to reach the ultimate goodness — acquiring the godly, eternal quality of absolute love and bestowal.

However, the path to perfection begins with imperfection. The Creator “shattered” the created being, which put him in the exact opposite state — a quality of self-reception. As a result, all of us are shattered pieces of the created being, and the corporeal reality we are familiar with is the farthest state from the Creator.

In fact, we have no connection with the quality of absolute love and bestowal. And even when we think we are giving to others, it’s an illusion; our acts of giving are mixed with self-interest.

Therefore, it’s not surprising that participants in the study chose the most beautiful and lofty image they could think of. It’s the top of what the human imagination can conjure up. It also explains why some participants chose images that reflect their position on the political spectrum.

Sorry to kill the romance, but whatever human image we come up with, as beautiful as it may be, will never have any connection with the true image of the Creator. That is, with the quality of unconditional love and bestowal.

Then how do we “draw” the correct image of the Creator?

First, erase any corporeal depiction. Second, internalize that the Creator cannot be perceived through our five senses. And third, learn how to develop inner qualities that are similar to the Creator’s qualities.

A person who learns how to develop a universal attitude of love and bestowal to all created beings and to reality as a whole, becomes internally similar to the Creator. Thus, through his new thoughts and desires, he builds the image of the Creator within himself.

The authentic wisdom of Kabbalah is a method that was weaved for generations based on the practical experience of thousands of people who detached from the corporeal depiction and acquired the inner qualities of the Creator.

Some of them recorded their findings in writing and passed them down to the next generations. Today, any person can use their method to develop a new, inner set of “brushes and color palettes,” with which one can draw the image of the Creator.

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