From my column in Ynet: “Europe Is Catching A Ride On Trump”

France is the ticking time bomb of Europe: the economic crisis, the wave of immigrants and Islamic terror are threatening to disintegrate Europe from inside. Brexit and Trump’s election have only empowered the right-wing parties that threaten the integrity of the European Union. Rav Laitman examines the global system of nature and offers a plan for coping with the turmoil the world is facing.

Who among the leaders contending for presidency in France is more dangerous for Europe and for the world? Fillon or Le Pen? A close look at the views of both candidates reveals that their views are not so different,
Marie Le Pen, the leader of the far-right party in France, hopes to do what Trump has done in America. In opposition to her is Francois Fillon, former Prime Minister of France under whose peaceful façade hides a radical revolutionist.

The two leader are expected to run against each other in the 2017 elections for presidency in France, but their common inclination is already obvious, both favor restricting immigration to a minimum and a total war against radical Islam. The main struggle between the two will focus on economic policy. Fillon has promised to adopt the right policies including reforms to encourage the free market, cuts in manpower in the public service and in government expenses, while Le Pen opposes globalization and supports the state’s intervention in the economy. One thing is certain, they will both do everything in their power to buy the hearts of the middle class voters who are afraid of losing their jobs.

Everything that will take place in the French Republic in the coming year will symbolize what the future holds for the other countries in the crumbling continent. The economic crisis, the waves of immigrants, and the loss of personal security are threatening to dismantle the French interior. The Brexit of the neighbors on the British Isle and the Americans’ choice of Trump have heightened nationalism and only encouraged the radical right to rise and to fight for their home.

American Rules of the Game

It is for good reason that the American President Barak Hussein Obama made his last round of visits to European heads of state last week. This is another step in preserving the status of the elite he represents, under the banner of global economy and worldwide politics. In fact, this is a diplomatic charlatan, whose sole purpose is to oblige the countries to continue to dance to the financial interests of America. With or without them, the world economy is stagnating, and it is already obvious that if no significant change is made soon, the next step is global chaos.
America is interested in preserving its dominance at any cost and not all the European elite agree to play by the rules that America dictates. These rising leaders in France, which is more associated with Europe and who feel less cosmopolitan oppose the familiar move and are inspired by Trump’s meteoric rise.

I have already written a lot that the EU will eventually disintegrate and that the Brexit will be the first step in this process. I also predicted that Trump would be elected and bring a new spirit, but in the end, after the upper 10% exploits the middle class in Europe and the US, a huge social vacuum will be created. Even now a quarter of the European youth, which are called Europe’s lost generation, are unemployed…

Class Conflict

The egoistic nature of man is developing rapidly, and it will not leave a penny in another’s pocket. Baal HaSulam wrote extensively about how the wealthy in communist Russia will leave not a penny for the proletariat, “not even to ensure their daily bread and cover the nakedness” ( “The Last Generation”). In America this trend is taking shape, and about 60% of the population falls below the average standard of living to the lower class. One out of every eight Americans today lives on food stamps of $1.60 per day. The same thing is happening in Europe, even though the US moved extensive manufacturing to Europe and China where new plants were built.

But now when we are in an economic slump, there is hardly anyone to sell to or to buy from, and the right is rising: Trump in the US, Le Pen in France, and in Germany, Hungary, Greece, Poland, and Spain voices call to restore nationalism. Everyone wants to steer the global economy so that it will serve the interests of any country locally and not the international elites.

This crystallized humanity into two clear camps: the international elite that dominates industry, banks, and the stock markets that are feeding on the profits of the middle class’ hard work; and the people, a huge camp whose standard of living is declining because resources have been stolen from them and that are becoming increasingly more nationalistic.

It is impossible to return to the prosperity of 30 years ago—a global world that is mutually dependent with borders closed between countries, or trying to replicate the prosperous industry in Asia, to the US and Europe. Industry has changed tremendously and is not profitable anymore. An Asian worker can live on a dollar a day, which is not enough for an average Western worker to live on. And so when dark clouds appear on the horizon, what has the European or the American citizen got to lose? Suddenly joining a Nazi party in protest against the waves of immigration or expressing a nationalistic and even a racist view in public against a foreign culture is seen as a normative act. How far can these movements go? How extreme can the situation get? Unfortunately, in such cases, the economic crisis and the social conflicts usually lead to a terrible world war, as history has already proven to us twice, but then… surely we all lose.

A New Meaning For Humanity

We must realize that the fact our civilization is crumbling before our eyes is inevitable. The world is in a deeper crisis that we realize. The era of coarse capitalism, based on our abusive egoistic nature that began to grow back in the days of ancient Babylon about 3,500 years ago, is over. It was then that the first foundations for trade and the use of money and taxing were laid and fanned out across the globe. But today money is losing its value in the eyes of those who are looking for the meaning of life. If you add globalization, advanced technology, and 3-dimensional printers occupying the world to the equation, you will discover that there will be very little need for a labor force to produce what we need.

What people lack today is a sense of happiness and economic security and not a few more dollars in the bank account, so all the attempts to carry out artificial changes in the global economy will not help. The question world leaders should engage and which demands an immediate solution is how to take care of millions of idle unemployed people who are day by day joining neo-Nazi groups or dictatorial regimes.

As we have seen in the past, specifically the apparently “pure” bleeding hearts, those who have previously described themselves as liberals, might lose their human side and become the cruelest of all. Baal HaSulam said back in 1942 in “The Writings of the Last Generation” that the world mistakenly attributes Nazism to Germany only, but it actually stems from democracy… the Democrats must also reject religion, justice and peace, and that all nations are the equal in this. When the democratic elections in the US ended, we all saw how millions of “liberal Democrats” went to the streets trampling the ideology they were raised on, opposing the candidate who was lawfully elected, ready to shatter shop windows since they were not happy with the outcome of the elections. On the other hand, the supporters of the extreme right are rising, spreading hatred and fear, and the American nation is more divided than ever before and fears for its future.

We are facing a new era, a generation that is advancing toward far-reaching changes that are of crucial importance to its future and the future of its children. If we don’t hurry, we will face great turmoil especially the State of Israel, which strongly depends on Europe and the US. Any slight change there will immediately lead to actual destruction in Israel.

A New Human Industry

The solution to the crisis that haunts us is a universal recovery plan. In other words, a national, social and educational program to unite the divided humanity, which will include a permanent solution to unemployment, the erosion of the middle class, and the disappearance of the working class, an empiric profound multi-phase plan that will even attempt to enact laws and offer principles of connection as the basis for healing human society.

The Law of Connection is actually a government plan that will find the way to impact society and create an environment that is a “must” for the American and European people. Its goal is to give people tools and to establish a supportive environment for them that will help them learn to connect to each other and to be considerate of others. It is an educational process that will impact all of society and by which we will know ourselves and the environment we live in, and will be able to share the knowledge we have and establish a common consciousness and a feeling of belonging to one system.

Imagine sitting at a roundtable every day all day long, learning about the global world and human nature, speaking about how to tighten the internal communication between us, connecting to each other, and letting the warmth spread in the relations between us. The spirit of unity will be the new product, and the participation it, the huge educational project that will prepare us for it, is actually man’s new job. The positive force of connection that we will be produced between us will become the new human industry and it will provide everyone with an existence, both emotionally and mentally, in the form of joy and happiness, peace, and tranquility. In such a society, people will not worry about food, clothing, healthcare, education, housing, transportation, entertainment, and any social service. Everything will be provided by the ten percent of the best people in every area who will take turns.

A system of classes rich in content will operate as part of the daily education program, through workshops and practical experiences like sports, music, art etc., which will fill the time of both children and adults and will impart tools for creating the right connection with others and how to behave in a corrected society. The greatest evil between people stems from ignorance and from not knowing. “If people knew about the human form, they would refrain from inflicting any harm on themselves and on others,” as Rambam wrote in “More Nevochim” part 3, item 11.
This project is similar in scope to the academic study, and will include lectures, online courses, experiential workshops, and discussion circles, which will increase people’s awareness of the global world we live in. The study will include tests, questionnaires, and homework assignments, which will enable a person to assess his progress in improving his relationship with society. At the same time, the media will also be used, publicizing content that will promote the values of unity and create televised and digital environments that will support the process.

The Process: Unity

This educational initiative is based on the laws of the global nature that the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches. Unity is the underlying structure in nature. Nature aspires for balance, equality, and wholeness, and because people are part of nature, we too have a duty to act in equality and be mutually considerate. The only difference is that in our case we have to do this consciously through an educational process. If we establish the mutual connections between us, which will be compatible with life in the global world that we discover today, we will undoubtedly spur the positive force of connection that is between us and thus will reach the understanding and the feeling that will help us make the right decisions and succeed in everything that we do. According to Baal HaSulam in his article “The Freedom,” “Social unity may be the source of all our happiness and success.”

The byproduct of this initiative may help the world leaders find a solution for the growing unemployment problem and they can use it to create many jobs in establishing an extensive, uniform infrastructure that will include all the sectors and will operate in a variety of social frameworks including kindergartens, schools, universities, workplaces, employment agencies, the media, hospitals, and nursing homes. People who will participate in this social-educational program will be rewarded with an incentive and benefits from the state—a move that will pay off financially for any leader and will help in maintaining social order.

Another advantage for leaders is that people will cease to produce useless products only in order to keep consumerism alive. The good relations will create a positive social atmosphere that will lower the rate of crime and violence and will thus diminish the need for law enforcement agencies like the police, court houses, and prisons. The state will save millions. By promoting the ideology of unity, “all the wars will disappear from the world since everyone will care not about his own wellbeing but about the wellbeing of others,” as Baal HaSulam writes in “The Last Generation,” and the state will become one big family-like community,national and individual problems will gradually be solved, and the force of connection will heal the injured states and bring them together again. So who among the world leaders is the most dangerous to our world? The one who will be the last to implement this method in his country…
[198587]
Ynet: “Europe Is Catching A Ride On Trump” 12/1/16

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, New Publications, News - No Comments →

In my regular column in Haaretz, my new article: “Theresa May’s Effort to Eradicate Anti-Semitism Needs Our Help“

There is a good reason why anti-Semite Henry Ford said that today we would do well to look into our past society.

In a bold and gallant statement issued a few days ago, Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May declared, “The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is wrong; it is unacceptable, and this party and this government will have no truck with those who subscribe to it.” In reference to the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which Great Britain pledged to help build in the Land of Israel “a national home for the Jewish people,” Prime Minister May concluded, “It is one of the most important letters in history. It demonstrates Britain’s vital role in creating a homeland for the Jewish people. And it is an anniversary we will be marking with pride.” But perhaps the icing on the cake was her assertion that the UK was now adopting an internationally backed formal definition of anti-Semitism in a “ground-breaking step towards eradicating anti-Semitism.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May vowed to take a “ground-breaking step towards eradicating anti-Semitism.”

I am very much in favor of defining anti-Semitism in a manner that allows everyone to see where he or she stands on the issue. That said, we cannot ignore the fact that Jews have been singled out for praise or condemnation (usually the latter) throughout the history of our people.

Hatred toward Jews has been around since the inception of our nation at the foot of Mt. Sinai. There, when we became a nation after having pledged to be “as one man with one heart,” not everyone responded favorably to the idea. Those who did not subscribe to it began to loathe those who embraced it. They remained outside the Jewish people, and thus began the hatred of the Jews.

The Talmud (Masechet Shabbat) writes that Mt. Sinai “is a mountain from which sina’a [hatred] descended unto the nations of the world.” The book, Kedushat Levi (Sanctity of the Levite), specifies, “that hatred came only after the reception of the Torah [which requires that we love each other as ourselves],” and the acclaimed Noam Elimelech adds that it is called Sinai, meaning “hatred,” because “miracles happened to Israel and sina’a descended unto the nations of the world.”

Consciously or not, Jewish unity has always been a sore in the eyes of some non-Jews. They argue that the Jews are using their close ties with one another to gain unfair advantage over people from their host nations. Others, such as Winston Churchill, sensed that the “corporate spirit, the spirit of their race and faith,” as Martin Gilbert quoted him in Churchill and the Jews, has a special role in Judaism. Churchill believed that this corporate spirit gives Jews a “special power which … nothing else would ever give.”

For the past 2,000 years, since the ruin of the Temple, we the Jews have not kept our vow to love our neighbors as ourselves. Yet, the hatred toward us has remained and for a very good reason. When we became a nation through our unity, we were also tasked with being “a light unto nations” by passing on that special “corporate spirit” to the rest of the world. As I wrote in “Why Do People Hate Jews,” even if we are not told so to our faces, the fact that we are neither practicing nor passing on that spirit is the reason for the hatred toward us.

When times are good, anti-Semitism stays on the back burner. But as soon as trouble begins, it reemerges and the Jews take the heat.

As crises change, so change the accusations. Over the years, we have been accused of everything you can think of, and then some. We have been blamed for manipulating the media to our needs; we have been accused of usury, blood libels, well poisoning, dominating the slave trade, disloyalty to our host countries, harvesting organs, and spreading AIDS.

Wait, it gets better: We Jews are often accused of conflicting “crimes.” Communists accused us of creating capitalism; capitalists accused us of inventing communism. Christians accused us of killing Jesus, and French philosopher, François Voltaire, scolded us for inventing Christianity. We have been labeled as warmongers and cowards, racists and cosmopolitans, spineless and unbending, and so on and so forth.

The only conclusion we can draw from the above is that we are to blame for everything that is wrong in the world. As Prof. of Quranic studies Imad Hamato put it: “Even when fish fight at sea, the Jews are behind it.” While it is tempting to snub such declarations as demagoguery, we should not be so reckless; they reflect people’s true emotions toward us. Israel’s international isolation and the disheartening results of the ADL’s international survey on anti-Semitism prove that Jew-hatred is not a whim; it is mainstream. Mrs. May, I regret to admit, is in the minority.

Sir Winston Churchill believed that the corporate spirit of the Jews gives them a “special power which nothing else would ever give

The Ball Is in Our Court

The good news is that the ball is in our court. If we want to abolish anti-Semitism, we can do it. In fact, we are the only ones who can. When the wickedness of human nature takes the helm, people seek a cure for it. However, they will not find it because that cure is the unique unity that our nation had achieved at the foot of Mt. Sinai and struggled to maintain until we lost it some two millennia ago. The memory of unity is still buried deep within us, but we cannot “switch it on” at will. Nevertheless, this is the cure for human nature that humanity is seeking, and deep down, or even openly, they know it and demand this of us.

The most notorious anti-Semite in American history, Henry Ford, recognized the role of the Jews in his book, The International Jew—The World’s Foremost Problem: “Modern reformers, who are constructing model social systems, would do well to look into the social system under which the early Jews were organized.” Ford did not stop there. Concerning the importance of ancient Jewish society, he added that the Jews are “a race that has preserved itself in virility and power by the observance of those laws the violation of which has mongrelized so many nations.”

To truly understand what Ford sensed, we need look no further than our own sources. The Book of Zohar writes (Aharei Mot), “And you, the friends who are here, as you were in fondness and love before, henceforth you will also not part … And by your merit there will be peace in the world.” In Tikkun (correction) no. 30, The Zohar, in one of its most blatant declarations about the responsibility of the people of Israel, unequivocally asserts that when we are not in “fondness and love,” as we just read, we “cause poverty, ruin, robbery, killing, and destruction in the whole world.” Indeed, as the Talmud tells us in Masechet Yevamot: “No calamity comes to the world but because of Israel.”

In light of all the above, it is easy to understand the moving words in the letter of the first Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rav Kook, who cherished the Balfour Declaration: “Any turmoil in the world comes only for Israel. Now we are called upon to carry out a great task willingly and mindfully: to build ourselves and the entire ruined world along with us.” Rav Kook knew that only if we restore our unity, we and the world will have peace. In Orot Kodesh [Lights of Sanctity], he went on to write, “Since we were ruined by unfounded hatred and the world was ruined with us, we will be rebuilt by unfounded love and the world will be rebuilt with us.”

The Surprising Benefits of Hatred

The most notorious anti-Semite in American history, industrialist Henry Ford: “Modern reformers would do well to look into the social system of the early Jews.”

Anti-Semitism is indeed hatred of Jews. However, as The Zohar, the Talmud, and all of our sages throughout the generations have been telling us, we are not hated simply because we are Jews, but because we are divided and therefore do not act as “a light unto nations.”

Having said that, we should know that the hatred between us is not our problem; it is in fact necessary for our success. If we did not hate each other, we would not be able to serve as a role model of overcoming divisions. Only when we rise above our hatred can we be an example. This is what the world desperately needs yet cannot find. We, who carry the recollections of our triumph in uniting above hatred, are the world’s only hope. Therefore, when we do not live up to the nations’ hopes, they hate us.

The more the state of the world deteriorates on the personal, societal, national, and international levels, the more anti-Semitic people will become. In an interview for Channel 2 in Israel, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times said that he recently asked Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, “What’s the most prevalent disease in America, is it cancer, diabetes, heart disease? He said, ‘None of those; it’s isolation.’” It seems that people simply cannot stand to be with one another.

Yet, if we the Jews unite above our divisions and animosities, the world, which constantly examines our moves, will find that there is an alternative to hatred. If we did not hate each other, we would not be able to serve as proof that we can rise above it. But now that the world is deep in hate and we are hateful of each other, this is our time to shine the light of unity.

“As Israel correct themselves,” writes the book, Sefat Emet [Truthful Words], “all creations follow them.” And as Baal HaSulam said, “It is upon the Israeli nation to qualify itself and all the people of the world to develop until they take upon themselves that sublime work of love of others, which is the ladder to the purpose of Creation,” for all of humanity to be “as one man with one heart.”
Read the complete article.
[198975]

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

The largest news source for English speaking Jews The Jerusalem Post recently published my article “Why Universal Basic Income can’t work on its own.”

On its own, giving “free money” is a terrible idea. But universal basic income can work if it’s part of a greater plan.

In my last column, “How Trump Can Save American Democracy,” I wrote of the importance of finding creative, forward-looking solutions to the unemployment problem in America, specifically of rural Middle America, that has been most affected by economic decline and deindustrialization. I stressed that this is paramount to directing the course of American society towards positive change and calming the currents of nativism that have been arising. I suggested that if Trump is to succeed in fulfilling the unattended needs of his core constituency, he must not rely on bringing back industry or trying to create new jobs where robots and machinery have been replacing working hands. Rather, I recommended a focus on education and personal development that would train those who have dropped out of the current job market, to lead the way into the creation of a new reality.

The same day the column was published, The Economic Security Project (ESP)—a coalition of over 100 technologists, investors, and activists—announced that it is committing $10 million over the next two years to explore how a “universal basic income” (UBI) could ensure economic opportunity for all in the US. In the face of automation, globalization, and financialization changing the nature of work, they believe that we are now urgently required to take bold steps to guarantee economic opportunity for all. With populist uprisings that are sweeping the Western world, many other people across the political spectrum are now considering UBI as such a step, which basically means giving everyone a guaranteed minimum payment as a means to, theoretically, reduce poverty and improve health and education.

It is very clear to me why people who understand the future of technology and how it will influence the work force and the economy, are deeply concerned and seeking breakthrough, out-of-the-box measures to ensure everyone is taken care of. They are absolutely right that we are at the brink of devastation, with growing worldwide unemployment and social upheaval leading directly to further escalation of tensions and eventually to war. However, the concept of giving away money for free is not the way to achieve balance. On the contrary, it is a mistake that will cost American society heavily if implemented on its own.

Free Money is Debilitating

Human beings and human societies need to continuously develop in order to thrive. We are naturally inclined to be in a state of constantly striving for increasingly greater goals and achievements. A person who is not committed to a purpose in life, who has nothing to live or die for, becomes numb. There is nothing worse than giving something to someone before they actually want for it, as it blocks their very will to act in pursuit of their desired outcomes.

We are pleasure seeking creatures. We all want to enjoy things on different levels: food, sex, family, money, recognition and knowledge; but each of us yearns for these different fulfillments to different extents. Most people have the basic desire for food, and also sex, though to a slightly lesser extent. Even fewer people are interested in having a family. The higher you go up this pyramid of desires, the fewer people you will find seeking to fulfill them. So if you take away the thirst for money, there will be droves of people out there who won’t have much to motivate them to develop themselves. Not knowing what to do with their time will make them miserable and drive them crazy. This can actually increase drug intake and violent mayhem.

UBI Is a Good Idea Only if We Induce Development

As many are beginning to sense, universal basic income WILL be necessary as machines take over more and more jobs. Only a few days ago, “Amazon revealed its latest plan to automate American workers out of existence” with its futuristic machine controlled grocery store. According to a study by Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research, the use of robots and other manufacturing efficiencies were responsible for 88 percent of the 7 million factory jobs the US has lost since peak employment in 1979. With all of this evidence piling up, it’s difficult to ignore the future consequences. Elon Musk, the iconic Silicon Valley futurist, predicts “There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income or something like that, due to automation.”

But people should also be able to strive for what they are passionate about. They just shouldn’t have to work in order to pay for shelter, food, clothing, and so on; these things will be provided for. But that doesn’t mean people will be idle. Musk foresees that UBI will give people time to do other things, more complex things, and more interesting things. Others believe that without the uncertainty about being able to pay for rent and other basic necessities, people will be unmotivated to advance themselves, nor will they spend their free time productively. Research has corroborated these latter notions.

So how can the benefits of giving free money be maintained, while also making sure that people will use the money to actually better themselves, rather than buy alcohol and drugs, for example? We need to create alternative motivation that will keep people busy and developing. As I wrote in my previous column, replacing external monetary motivation with time filling educational activity and training, can actually turn this otherwise frightening change, into a blessing.

A New Deal

To effectively deal with unemployment, we need to help people spend their time constructively by creating programs that will enrich and develop them as human beings, upon which receiving basic income will be contingent. These programs should occupy people’s days with courses of their choice, helping them expand their education. They should be given tools to better themselves: personal skills, relationship and marital skills, psychology and parenting – everything one needs in order to live their life well. Today, we don’t educate people. We only give them knowledge. There is no one that leaves high school knowing how to educate their children, or how to treat a woman or a man. People don’t know enough about the world, about life. You are basically just taught to read and write, forced to learn things you will hardly remember, and then thrown out into the world. This must be corrected.

Another important aspect to having people attend public courses is that we are social creatures, and without being intermingled with others as we are at our jobs, we will lose our ability to relate to one another. On top of that, the American society, like many others, has become increasingly fragmented and torn by political and racial divides. And so, creating places for people not just to meet but also truly connect, through cooperation and cohesiveness enhancing workshops and seminars, is imperative. This can lead to gradual healing of the societal fabric. As a final result of this enrichment, people should be encouraged to reach out to society and give back, expressing themselves creatively while doing so. Just as we now have mediators, lawyers and police officers whose jobs are to prevent and treat conflict, people should be paid to spread their acquired connection skills onwards, creating further social transformation.

Along with the many positive effects of such a social-educational process, improving relations also has great economic benefits that could relieve the cost of UBI. With less stressful home and social environments- crime rates, violence and substance abuse will diminish, enabling states and municipalities to spend much less on policing and social services. The alleviation of loneliness and depression can greatly improve health and save the healthcare system billions of dollars. A general increase in mutual care and consideration can save a lot of the wasted resources we spend every day in efforts to regulate, enforce and organize our societies.

The Agenda of Happiness

Last but not least, when people spend their days connecting to others, expanding their skills and knowledge and serving society, they will become much happier. This should be the purpose of making any changes in our society. Alleviating poverty is part of the deal, but meaning and happiness are no less important. A new Landmark study found that most human misery can be blamed on failed relationships and health rather than money problems and poverty, and that eliminating depression and anxiety would reduce misery by 20% compared to just 5% if policymakers focused on eliminating poverty. It’s time for the race for increasingly unachievable wealth to be replaced with a much more feasible and healthy race for happiness.

This is what our societies need. After all, if we look at the way Western society has become, we can see that working so many hours has not made us happier; it’s been very taxing on families and children who hardly see their parents. We have become addicted to cell phones and the fake life on social media, while loneliness, depression and anxiety are skyrocketing. In short, we have created our life so that few actually enjoy it. We will have to change this because our societies are disintegrating. Instead of working ten hours a day only to see our children for a few moments before bedtime, we will finally be able to truly take care of them and organize our environment so that it will suit our personal and family goals. Let the printers and robots take care of necessities, while human beings get busy improving our relationships and our lives.

Read the complete article.
[198860]

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, New Publications - No Comments →

From my column in Ynet: “Is There a Future for Capitalism?” 

In Europe and in the United States, extreme right-wing movements are becoming stronger, in Asia fundamentalist Islam is growing, Nazism is permeating Russia. Besides that, millions of people are out of work, this trend continues to become stronger, and the world is heading toward war. How far will the world deteriorate? Rav Laitman answers in the spirit of the wisdom of Kabbalah

As a last convulsion before the death of the capitalism of today, it is flourishing and prospering, but underneath the surface, it is dying. The writing is already on the wall: purchasing power and sales capacity are fading, social mobility is frozen, technology is led by robotics, nanotechnology, and three-dimensional printers take over the job market, and the most distinct sign of all is rising unemployment. The UN’s International Labour Organization estimates that world unemployment will grow to at least another 11 million people in the next three years—and this is without considering the data on hidden unemployment and the unemployment of youth throughout the world, which is breaking new records and distort the measurement method.

It is clear that a lack of jobs accompanied by low wages will increase inequality, which is liable to force many of the young to postpone establishing a family unit, buying a home, and raising children and will encourage migration to developed nations. The economic downturn will necessarily cause the spread of the epidemic of depression and an increase in drug use and could lead to hundreds of thousands going out to the streets demanding social justice—a global trend that is growing before us.

In a world that is continuing to change and is in economic uncertainty, the question can be asked: Is it possible to prevent mass exodus to huge violent protests? Who will provide work for the millions of unemployed? And where is the world economy deteriorating to?

Capitalism’s Swan Song

The fundamental assumption of economics is that people aspire to maximal benefit with minimal investment (the assumption of rational expectations) with egoistic motives. Yet people who make a living off each other cannot exist separately from the other individuals in society. Throughout history, human development reflects the development of connections and interdependence between people. Which is to say, economics is just a copy of the system of connections and relationships between us.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, these relationships between people are a deeper expression of the egoistic nature of humanity—the desire to receive maximal pleasure and enjoyment even if they are at the expense of others. The egoistic nature began to grow even in the days of the ancient kingdom of Babylon around 3,500 years ago. So the foundations for the methods of trade and the use of money and taxation were laid down for the first time, modern agriculture began to take shape, and alongside them the methods for governance and control and classical processes of order and management were founded for the first time. Civilization, which had been conducted as a single family, was overthrown in an instant. The ego, which drove the Babylonians to develop, transformed them into being more self-centered and separated them. Social changes gave birth to class disparity among the populace and the phenomenon of exploitation of others began.

That created periods of slavery and feudalism one after the other, based on farming, and it split society into two classes in the Middle Ages, the prominent nobles and the serfs. The egoistic nature intensified the search for twisted ways of profiting more, and people began to develop new measures that brought far-reaching changes, known as the Industrial Revolution.

On the eve of the revolution, at the end of the 18^th century in England, the steam engine was invented. For industry, this was a springboard into the modern world. Mechanization and industrialization continued to develop at a dizzying rate and caused the masses to leave their pastoral villages and move to the big cities in England, France, and later, the United States—cities that developed around modern industry.

Marx’s Mistake

The Industrial Revolution gradually changed the nature of society. It led to the development of two new urban classes: The bourgeoisie—the financiers, who were leaders of enterprises, banks, and commerce, and the working class (the proletariat)—simple peasants who came to the city without any education, worked hard for the wealthy and suffered alienating and exploitative employment conditions.

Karl Marx, the father of the doctrine of Socialism, who was exposed to this phenomenon firsthand, described it this way: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

“Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes” (The Communist Manifesto).

The process of the development of egoism did not stop, and in the middle of the 19^th century it reached the peak of its prosperity and was wearing a new socioeconomic name of capitalism. The Capitalists demanded their own private property and free-market trade. They placed the individual at the center and formed a liberal position to justify their higher status. Their claim that when their income increased and their taxes were lowered, wealth would trickle down and provide benefit for the less established strata, has become a fiction. Marx believed that when the generation of working masses would understand that their situation was very bad, they would join together, make a violent revolution against the bourgeois regime, and bring a new egalitarian society. But he was mistaken about this turning point….

A hundred years ago, Baal HaSulam wrote that, “However, in this last point, where he promises us that after the ruin of the current bourgeois government, a proletariat government will immediately be instated, here is the flaw in his method: The new reality before us denies it. He thought that the proletariat governance would be the subsequent step to the bourgeois governance, and hence determined that by negating the bourgeois government, a proletariat one would be established instantly. Yet, reality proves that the step following the ruin of the present government is that of Nazis or Fascists. Evidently, we are still in the middle stages of human development. Humanity has not yet reached the highest level of the ladder of evolution. Who can assume how many rivers of blood are yet to be shed before humankind reaches the desired level?” (Baal HaSulam, the newspaper, The Nation).

The negative force of the egoistic nature is operating as usual, and if we don’t rein it in, it will lead us into uniting in Neo-Nazi and Fascist movements, a trend that is taking place these days in Europe and the United States. While the economy helps us live, it is not life itself. We must see how we build a new society according to the process of development through which humanity is moving, and as society changes—the economy changes.

While economists and policymakers think about how to reverse the cycle and return capitalism to its golden age, we learn from the wisdom of Kabbalah that this is something that is impossible. Capitalism made its own laws, and the laws of nature are advancing us toward a new socioeconomic model, and it is good that this is so.

A New Human Industry

There is increasing interest in the model of universal income, through which a country pays every citizen a basic subsistence allowance without any connection to his employment status; the detachment of payment from labor, is not accidental. It reflects stuttering attempts to prepare for an era in which there will be no work, but provision will be in abundance thanks to advanced robotics. But the failure of a national referendum to assure an income in Switzerland in the beginning of the year and the opposition to the new model throughout the world reflects a lack of maturity or even a denial of the fact that the entire labor market is standing before dramatic changes that are liable to undercut the entire social-political-economic order, and it is incumbent upon us to prepare in advance to avoid shocks and much human suffering.

How do we do this? Just as today, we are all the product of a formal and informal educational system, that through lectures and the memorization of principles prepare us for life in a capitalistic system, so much so that it seems natural to us. So we just have to adjust the relationships between us, which are the basis for every economic system, to the new reality and the challenges of the 21^st century. Such adjustment can be carried out only by means of mass education. The public-school system was established with the rise of the Industrial Revolution in the 19^th century in order to train workers to work in factory assembly lines. So it is precisely up to us to generate an unprecedented educational revolution in the 21^st century, toward the formation of the new society.

Imagine that every morning we will go out to the workplace where we worked in the past or to a community center close to our homes, and throughout the entire day we sit around a roundtable learning about the global world and human nature and discuss how to strengthen positive relationships between us. The positive power of connection that is created and stabilized between us will balance the negative force of egoism and will provide every person with a life, emotionally and psychologically, in the form of happiness, joy, serenity, and peace. “social unity…can be the source of every joy and success” is what Baal HaSulam wrote in the article, “The Freedom.”

With the help of promoting an ideology calling for unity, we put an end to the problem of increasing unemployment: many workplaces will be created, as I have specified here at length, whose entire purpose will be to generate the power of positive connection. The citizens will not be concerned at all about food, clothing, health, education, housing, cars, entertainment, or any additional social services. The nation will become a big family community; the problems of nationalism and privacy will gradually be solved, and the power of connection will heal the dying human society to its complete recovery. The new social economy will finally release us from the constant concern about making a living, engaging in excessive materialism, and will free our time for personal, social, and spiritual development.
[198738]
Ynet: “Is There a Future for Capitalism?” 12/6/16

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Globalization, New Publications - 5 Comments →

In my regular column in Haaretz, my new article “The History of Exploitation – and Why It Must End”

The exploitation of neoliberalism must end. We know the harms of egoism; we know how to mend it, but it requires our resolve.

When the UK voted in favor of breaking off from the European Union, the world was in shock. When Donald J. Trump stunned the media with his victory, people’s jaws dropped, but they began to realize that times are changing. When Italy’s premier, Matteo Renzi, was defeated last week in his country’s referendum and announced his resignation, the EU suffered another blow, as Renzi is a staunch supporter of Italy remaining in the crumbling union. In the coming year, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and several other European countries will all hold general elections. In many of them, France and the Netherlands in particular, the voices in favor of departing from the EU are growing by the day. As Marcus Walker and Anton Troianovski of The Wall Street Journal put it: “For Europe’s unity, 2017 will be a year of reckoning.”

Harvard Professor of Government, Yascha Mounk, is right to declare, “How stable are democracies? Warning signs are flashing red.” Fascism and Nazism are on the rise throughout the Western world, and unless we take swift and resolute action, the world will plunge into another war, and in all likelihood, with full use of nuclear weapons.

Neoliberalism Is a Painful Symptom, But It is Not the Illness

When you see how the dominant countries in the EU exploit and impoverish the smaller and weaker economies of their fellow members, or the clout that Wall Street has in Washington, it is easy to blame neoliberalism for our ills. It is also justified, to an extent. There is a good reason why members of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Research Dept., Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Davide Furceri wrote about the harms of neoliberalism: “The increase in inequality engendered by financial openness might itself undercut growth, the very thing that the neoliberal agenda is intent on boosting.” Farther down, they add, “policies should be designed to mitigate some of the impacts [of neoliberalism]—for instance, through increased spending on education and training.”

However, saying that neoliberalism is “the ideology at the root of all our problems,” as did columnist George Monbiot, is misleading because neoliberalism is a symptom, not the illness in and of itself. To cure ourselves from fascism, neoliberalism, Nazism, and all the other “isms” threatening to take down civilization, we must reach their common root—the pathogen that causes us to exploit and possibly destroy each other—and cure it.

The Oddity of Human Nature

Without humans, life on planet Earth would run far more smoothly. Even in areas that humans have polluted with nuclear radiation, animals thrive simply due to the absence of people. In the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, “nature flourishes when humans are removed from the equation, even after the world’s worst nuclear accident,” says Jim Smith, an environmental scientist and author of a new study of life near Chernobyl.

The harmony of nature is disturbed when humans are around because we are driven by a single wish—to receive as much pleasure as we can and for the least effort. Moreover, over the generations, this aspiration has evolved in us to such an extent that we are ruining our planet, and ruining each other.

In prehistoric times, our desire for pleasure was very natural and primitive. We were satisfied when we had food, shelter, and could raise our offspring. Even then, some wanted more than others, such as a bigger cave or more (human) females, but it was a natural desire that animals have as well, and did not disrupt nature’s balance.

The problem is that unlike animals, in us the desire to receive consistently intensifies and develops. Our sages said (Midrash Rabah, Kohelet), “One does not leave the world with half one’s wish in one’s hand.” In other words, the more we have, the more we want.

As their desires grew, people began to congregate in villages and towns. Soon, social classes appeared and people began to enslave one another. Submitting to slavery was a good way for people to secure their daily bread, but in return they gave away their freedom and risked subjugation to cruelty and exploitation. At that point in our history, when we began to subjugate our fellow human beings, our natural wish for a good and secure life became egoism—the desire not only to enjoy what we have, but also to take pleasure in superiority over others and the ability to harm them.

Our egos drove us to improve technology and production, not just for our own sake, but in order to overpower others. As we became less social and more exploitative, the slave masters began to realize that it was less profitable to keep slaves than to tax them. This marked the beginning of feudalism.

Yet, as technology continued to advance, it became clear that people needed training in order to be efficient at producing wealth for the feudal lords. To accommodate the need for workers’ proficiency, the rulers built schools, which were essentially factories for creating factory workers. The educated workers produced so much wealth for their masters that feudalism was completely abandoned and, with the help of the Industrial Revolution, capitalism emerged.

For awhile, it really seemed like the ideal socio-economic structure. Most people worked, became better-off over time, and even though the elite still ruled and grew richer and more powerful than everyone else, the growing middle class enjoyed freedom and could afford pleasures that even the mightiest kings could not enjoy a mere century earlier.

And yet, that oddity of human nature—our egoism— kept growing. The more capitalists gained wealth, the more they turned it into power and political clout. Today, a politician cannot get elected without the help of the super wealthy.

To secure their power, the financial elite has instated a policy of laissez-faire, which does away with regulation and allows them to do whatever they want, whenever they want it. They even found a positive-sounding name for it: neoliberalism.

However, there is nothing liberal about neoliberalism, much less humane. As Manuela Cadelli, President of the Magistrates’ Union of Belgium, wrote in a piece she published in the online magazine, Defend Democracy Press: “Neoliberalism is a species of fascism. The state is now at the disposal of the economy and of finance, which treat it as a subordinate and lord over it to an extent that puts the common good in jeopardy.”

As the recent political developments have shown, Mrs. Cadelli is absolutely right. If we do not act fast, the overblown egoism of the elite will drive them toward nationalism and fascism, and finally their incessant craving for domination will drive the world to war.

Ending Exploitation Peacefully

We already said that we cannot arrest the evolution of the ego. Also, we can already see what will unfold if we continue to let it grow unchecked. Therefore, to cure the ills that litter the surface of society the way plastic litters our beaches, we need to learn how to funnel our egos in positive directions. Until now, we have only been dealing with the symptoms of the evolution of our egos. Now we must work with our egos themselves, and redirect their evolution from the current anti-social mode to one that is beneficial to society, yet supports the fulfillment of our desires. Any other way will only result in suppression of the ego, which will later burst with horrific results.

I mentioned earlier that the IMF researchers recommended “increased spending on education and training.” The problem is that when we think of education, we think of learning new trades and accumulating information. These may be useful and required, but they do not mitigate the ego’s desire for control or redirect it toward pro-social ends. Therefore, they do not solve the problem at its root. The solution to our social problems will come when we achieve two goals: 1) educate ourselves about the need for, and benefits of, pro-social behavior, 2) train ourselves toward developing communities that foster positive relations among their members.

Since nature did not endow us with an ego that is naturally balanced, we must “produce” this balance by ourselves. By doing so, we will learn how nature operates and will be able to operate as harmoniously and peacefully as nature. In a recent column titled, “New Economics Is Dead; Long Live New Economics,” as well as in several books, in particular, Bail Yourself Out and Self-Interest vs. Altruism in the Global Era, I detailed how we can achieve this balance. Here I would like to point out some of the benefits that we will reap once we achieve it.

Using the training described in the column I just mentioned, instead of suppressing our egos, we will find new and meaningful ways of expressing ourselves, from which the whole of society will benefit. Our desire to realize our potential will continue to develop, but it will no longer threaten society or induce fierce competition over limited spots at the top.

In the new society, exploitation will be obsolete because it will not serve our interests. Our self-interest and the interest of society will converge because society will support us as much as we will support society.

In such a society, where mutual responsibility is the name of the game, our various needs will be met in full because they will not come at the expense of others. The entire mode and spirit of our actions will be toward connection rather than isolation, so we will naturally engage in activities that contribute to society, as well as to ourselves.

We are at a point in time where the history of exploitation must end, and it must end here. Now we know the harms of human egoism, yet we also have a way to mend it. All we need is firm resolve and prompt action.
[198513]

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

In my regular column in Jerusalem Post, my new article “Comment: How Trump Can Save American Democracy”

[198455]

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

In English:

The Jerusalem Post:

“Trump’s America Can Be Good for Jews”
“The Return of Sane Capitalism?”
“Beyond Trump and Clinton”
“A Bird’s-Eye View of the US Election“

Haaretz:

“What Liberal Jews Can Learn From Henry Ford”
“Dear John (Doe): Reply to an Anonymous American”
“From Watchdogs Into Dogs—How the Media Became a Fraud”
“The Demise of Totalitarian Liberalism”
“We’ve Probably Been Spared, For Now…”
“Trump vs. Clinton—Two Worlds That Never Meet“

Blogactiv:

“The Demise of Totalitarian Liberalism”
“The Return of Sane Capitalism?“

In German:

The Huffington Post:

“Die Rückkehr des zurechnungsfähigen Kapitalismus?”
“Von Wachhunden zu Hunden: Wie Medien zum Betrug wurden”
“Absurde Entscheidung der UNESCO spiegelt die ehrliche Meinung der Welt wider”
“Die selige Unwissenheit der israelischen Öffentlichkeit kann uns teuer zu stehen kommen“

In French:

The Times of Israel:

“L’Amérique sous la direction de Trump peut être bénéfique pour les juifs”
“Les élections aux États-Unis : une vue d’ensemble“

Blogactiv:

“Ce que les juifs libéraux peuvent apprendre de Henry Ford”
“Cher Monsieur Untel : réponse à un Américain anonyme”
“Le retour du capitalisme raisonnable ?”
“De chiens de garde à chiens tout court : comment les médias sont devenus une imposture”
“La chute du libéralisme totalitaire”
“Au-delà de Trump et Clinton”
“Les élections aux États-Unis : une vue d’ensemble“

In Italian:

Blogactiv:

“Da cani da guardia della democrazia a cani servi di un solo padrone: come i media sono diventati un imbroglio”
“La fine del Liberalismo totalitario”
“È il ritorno ad un sano capitalismo?”
“Probabilmente siamo stati risparmiati, per ora…”
“Al di là di Donald Trump e Hillary Clinton“

The Huffington Post:

“Con Trump siamo stati risparmiati, per ora…”
“Al di là di Donald Trump e Hillary Clinton, la natura ci porterà al nostro stato finale completo“

In Spanish:

Blogactiv:

“Parece que nos hemos salvado, por ahora…”
“Elezioni americane: il punto di vista di un osservatore”
“De supervisores a supervisados: cómo los medios se han convertido en un fraude”
“¿El retorno del capitalismo sano?“

The Huffington Post:

“Elecciones en EEUU: un vistazo panorámico“

[198244]

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

In my column in Ynet: “The Guide To Trumpist America”

The United States of America is divided, showing itself clearly cut into two distinct camps. If Trump has serious intentions to unite America, he must build a social national educational plan to unite the American people. No more nice proposals, but a law that will be approved by the House of Representatives. And who is a better man for the job than Trump?

“I want a country that loves each other, I want to stress that,” said Donald Trump in the first interview he gave the media after the elections. While the President-elect speaks about uniting the nation and declares in a conciliatory tone that it is important for him to be everyone’s president, thousands of people have been protesting against Trump in the streets, carrying signs and calling “he is not my president,” for a whole week now.

During the turbulent campaign, Trump was accused by the Democrats of using messages filled with hatred that divided the American nation during his campaign. But in fact, Trump’s provocative and not politically correct slips of the tongue are not the cause for the breach in American society. They do indeed illuminate and emphasize some of the roots of the malignant disease that has been incubating in America for years, but it is nothing but hypocrisy and disingenuity to claim that such expressions are the ones that have created it.

Whites and blacks, Christians and Muslims, local citizens (who emigrated to America years ago…) and new immigrants, inhabitants of big cities and of small towns, liberals and conservatives, rich and poor, and of course religious and non-religious people all refuse to accept each other. According to a survey conducted by the PEW Institute, half of the American people loathe those who have an opinion opposite to theirs and even see the other side as an actual threat to their nation. This polarization reminds me to a certain degree of the atmosphere during the American Civil War in 1861-1865. But in order to prevent the split into two Americas, Trump suggests mitigating the problem by creating more jobs.

Trump has undoubtedly changed and will continue to change some of rules of the game. There is no doubt about it. But still, if I were asked to advise the President-elect as to how to pave the golden path that will unite the torn American nation, by integrating a sustainable solution to the unemployment problem, the erosion of the middle-class, and the disappearance of the working class, I would advise him to build and lead a national plan for social education to unite the American nation. This isn’t just another nice proposal on paper, but a multi-phase plan, that is comprehensive and empiric, which will include changes in the legislation, and will try to formulate a law to suggest and in some cases even enforce unity as one of the principles of the American Constitution.

The Way to Heal the Schism in America

The law of connection is in fact a government policy that will find the way to impact and create a compelling environment for every American citizen, which aims to give people the tools and creates a supportive environment for them that will help them learn how to connect to one another and to care about others. It is about an educational process that will impact the entire society, will help us know ourselves and the environment we live in, and will enable us to share the knowledge that will create a common consciousness and a feeling of belonging to one system.

A by-product of this initiative can help solve the unemployment problem through establishing an extensive infrastructure nationwide across all the sectors operating in a variety of social frameworks from kindergartens, schools, universities, workplaces, employment agencies, the media, to hospitals and nursing homes.

Such a project should be accompanied by online courses and experiential workshops that will increase people’s awareness of the global world we live in, including questionnaires that will allow a person to measure his advancement in improving his relationships with society. Later we can make use of the media to convey ideas that reinforce the values of unity and use the tremendous influence of the American media to create a digital televised environment that will support the process. In the more advanced stages, communities that have already assimilated the importance of connection and unity as the solution to national problems will naturally develop and they will also be able to find solutions to their personal problems. This kind of learning can take place in different ways and lead the wounded US through a process of socialization and offer the torn American society an ideology of unity.

Gradually whole populations and communities will get to know the story of “the other”; they will undergo practical workshops and acquire tools for building the right connections with others and learn how to behave properly in society. One of the options is to offer people who take part in the social education plan a kind of an incentive and benefits from the state.

The law of connection will first and foremost soften the heart of the nation and bring together and connect the two camps that are dividing America today and are struggling in the town squares. It has been 150 years since Lincoln, the Republican President, led the Union to victory over the seceding Confederate States, but in the 21^st century, when our egoistic nature is reaching the peak of its evolution and naturally deepens the breach between us, no intra-national treaties will help. The values of liberalism, pluralism, mutuality and freedom of every kind have gone bankrupt, and it is enough to say that you are not inclined to agree with someone else’s opinion in order to feel threatened by the environment. The bad and violent spirit that has taken over America today is different from the unity negotiated during the reconstruction at the end of the Civil War that served as the foundation for the united American nation, the United States of America.

Trump’s Era

Trump chose to open his first speeches by using soft, stately, conciliatory language, which is a good thing. He has the talent of speaking directly to the public, candidly, sharply, and with humor, which if he channels to the social networks, which he used so successfully during his campaign, he will be able to appease the public by conveying  a positive unifying messages. If the American President himself sets an example and is the first to give a lesson of unity, it may be an unprecedented move that will bring him closer to the people and will shatter the myths and negative image that have sullied his character. Thus he will be able to rekindle hope even among the masses who doubt him and protest against him on the streets. They will also be affected by the public discourse, and, like it or not, will actually realize that he is there for them, in order to make a difference and lead to equality.

The times America managed to live in equality, in mutual guarantee and concern, were the most beautiful times in American history, but with time, when each one began to pull in his direction and the ties weakened,  America suffered great disasters.

The educational initiative presented here is based on the laws of global nature that the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches. Unity is the underlying structure in nature. Nature aspires for balance, for equality, and for wholeness, and because people are part of the circle of nature, we too are obliged to act in a circle, in equality, and by being mutually considerate of others. The only difference is that in our case, we have to do it consciously by undergoing an educational process. If we build the mutual connections between us that are compatible with life in the global world that is being revealed to us today, we will undoubtedly begin to understand and to feel, which will help us make the right decisions and succeed in everything that we do. This is the bond that I suggest in honor of Mr. President-elect Donald Trump.

In this way, he will be able to establish a country in which people love each other, the American people will learn to make each other feel secure, and give others a feeling of love and warmth and a feeling of life in one nation, not in 52 separate nations. This unique method of connection will not cancel the differences between Americans and will not cover them up with the familiar American pretense of politically correct discourse, but will spread a wide umbrella of connection over everyone that will cover all crimes with love.

In the 100 days of grace remaining to organize a government before the official swearing-in on the 20^th of January, I warmly advise the president to start the initiative of establishing such a plan, or at least seriously consider it and discuss it on the media channels. The success of the American nation in this process is important for the American people, but it is no less important for us and for the whole world.
[198079]
From Ynet 11/17/16

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, New Publications - No Comments →

In my regular column in Haaretz newspaper, “Trump, Brexit, Terrorism, and the Hidden Link that Ties Them” The events and processes stirring our planet are linked so deeply that their root causes converge into a single reason.

Since 2008, the world has been hit with one crisis after another. If you look at each of them separately, you might think that nothing connects the 2008 financial crisis with the 2011 Arab Spring, for example, or the rise of Islamic terrorism with the stream of migrants inundating Europe and now the US. You might also think that the victory of Donald J. Trump and Britain’s Brexit are unrelated or that neither has anything to do with all of the processes just described.

Indeed, sobering up is never easy. But luckily, most people already see, or at least feel that the shifts taking place today are all connected. The truth, however, is even more stunning than what the surface reveals. The events and processes stirring our planet are all linked so deeply that their root causes converge into a single reason.

The Pursuit of Freedom

Since the dawn of history, humanity has evolved through various stages. With some fluctuations and irregularities, we evolved from slavery to feudalism (bearing different names in different places), and from feudalism to capitalism.

Now, by all indications, we are on the brink of a new era. As we can already deduce by the emergence of reactionary and nationalistic forces in Europe and the US, the regime that will inherit capitalism will be a fascist, Nazi-style form of totalitarian governance.

Incidentally, Russian communism, in my view, was not part of the overall stream of human socio-economic evolution since it did not emerge from humanity’s natural evolution, but was imposed upon the Russian nation. In a sense, they skipped capitalism and moved directly into the totalitarian regime, which they called, how ironic, “communism.”

The engine behind every stage of development was people’s desire for liberty and justice. The more people felt that they deserved to be treated as dignified human beings, rather than as objects, the more liberal was the economic system they established. People have always been self-centered, but at some point in our social evolution, the ego has intensified to such a level that our notion of personal freedom has turned into a feeling of self-entitlement. We began to feel that we deserve everything, even to exploit others, if we could get away with it. Thus began the time we live in—the age of egoism.

Generation Me, Me, Me

In our new era, the majority of the population shows at least several symptoms of pathological narcissism. Throughout the world, people have enshrined wealth as the sole gauge for measuring the value of people. People fix their gaze on their smartphones hoping to avoid eye contact with strangers. Throughout the world, people are lonely and depressed.

Alienation is separating people and communities to the point of hatred and sectarianism. In post-election US, for example, the rifts within the American society have deepened to the point where, according to The New York Times, Clinton voters refused to celebrate Thanksgiving with kin, even of the first degree, who voted for Trump.

Indeed, when liberalism becomes synonymous with dissension and separation, and neoliberalism becomes a euphemism for exploitative capitalism, you know that a change is imminent. We have gone as far as the ego can take us. From here on, we must either find a new way to develop, or race downhill without any brakes.

Nature’s Two-Force System

Despite the apocalyptic picture just described, we do not have to go downhill; there is no law that mandates it. There is a way that has been waiting all along for us to look in its direction. As long as we believed that the ego-path would get us where we wanted, we had no reason to look elsewhere. Now that things have changed, another way is emerging from the mist.

If we look carefully into nature, we will find that we can satisfy ourselves using a completely different paradigm—one that does not induce its own demise, but guarantees our perpetuation and prosperity. With the exception of humans, all of reality runs on a balanced interaction between two forces—positive and negative. These forces manifest as giving and receiving, connecting and disconnecting, inhaling and exhaling, day and night, and all the other opposites that complement one another. Without this balance, our universe would not exist, and neither would we. By exploiting others and seeking only self-gratification, we use only the negative force, missing out on the huge power that connects atoms into molecules, cells into organs, and human beings into societies. If we could tap into the capabilities of the positive force, we would reveal a new world of interactions and possibilities that we cannot even imagine until we actually discover them.

Even better, when we understand the nature of the positive force, we will see that we need not change a thing about our lives in order to discover it and work with it. All we need is to expand our boundaries. Instead of perceiving ourselves as separated human beings, fighting our way through life all by our lonesome selves, we can think of ourselves as part of a human system consisting of people who care for one another like cells care for the organism which they form together. Just as cells tend to one another, provide each other with oxygen to breathe and nutrients to feed on, a society of human beings connected in this manner would make the life of each individual within it carefree and joyful. If an entire country worked this way, it would become a heaven on Earth.

10,000 People Caring for You

In a previous column, I described the immense impact of introducing the positive force into society, even for a brief session, proving that it can befriend even the most bitter enemies. In this section, I would like to elaborate on the benefits of employing this force in our lives.

In my latest column, I gave the example of the way a radio receiver works in order to receive the frequencies of the stations we want to hear. In a word, to receive a station, we have to create within the radio the same frequency on which the station is broadcasting, and then the radio can pick up that frequency from the environment and play whatever that station is playing.

The positive force is one of connection. This is why it connects everything, such as particles within atoms, atoms within molecules, molecules within cells, and so forth. When we think only in the “me” mode, we deny ourselves the benefits of the “we” mode of thinking. The Connection Circles shown in the links above create a special connection among people, which “resonates” with the positive force of connection just as a frequency within a radio resonates with a frequency on the outside. As a result, the positive force begins to impact the participants. This is why they suddenly feel connected, even making Jews and Arabs feel as parts of one big family.

To tap into the positive force, we need not stop caring for ourselves. On the contrary, we need to extend ourselves and “include” others in our field of vision, so to speak. When we view society as an extension of ourselves, and ourselves as part of society, our perception of reality expands and encompasses our whole environment. When this shift takes place in a community of, say, 10,000 people, you suddenly have 10,000 people caring for your well-being. Caring for the community would become effortless to you because it would be your concern for others compared to 10,000 others caring for you.

The ratio between our efforts toward society compared to the efforts of society toward us is so overwhelmingly in favor of society that it would literally liberate us from worrying about ourselves. Moreover, we would free up the tremendous amounts of energy we currently spend on protecting ourselves from physical or emotional harm at work, with acquaintances, and even with our family, and would be able to use it as we wish. We would finally be able to realize our full potential without concern of failure or ridicule.

In a society that utilizes the positive force, there is no need to work in the sense that we know it. Even today, automation and robotics can do most everything for us. In the near future, human labor will become a burden on production effectivity. This will free us to engage in a new occupation: generating the positive force.

Like any new technology, we can expect the technologies designed to “harvest” the force of connection to improve the more we use them, minimizing our efforts to connect, and maximizing our benefits from it. The time that we will free up with the “demise” of labor and the improvement in our connection techniques will be used for spreading the technologies around the world and to improve personal skills and hobbies.

With a renewed sense of purpose in life, and an expansive vision of our existence, depression will disappear, and all the ailments related to it will vanish. Naturally, the same goes for war and hostilities; people have no desire to fight when they want to connect.

Currently, the future of humanity seems rather bleak. However, it is only so that we will find that there is another way—one that leads to new horizons that we could not previously imagine, yet are very, very real.
[198346]

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

From my column in Ynet: “Unity Log: What Makes Us Israelis Happy?”

The wondering of so many people about the meaning of life is what motivated me to go on a cross-national journey from north to south, to meet with local leadership and mayors, and to speak with thousands of people about how to fulfill the method of connection between us. As the holiday season ends, Rav Laitman summarizes his cross-national journey in Israel.

I have spent the last couple of years in my room, deeply engaged in Kabbalistic writings, writing articles for the world press, trying to explain the authentic wisdom of Kabbalah and its relevance to our lives through a variety of media channels. Every morning between three to six a.m., as Kabbalists have studied for ages, I give the daily Kabbalah lesson to thousands of students.

Hundreds of people sit before me in the Kabbalah La’am center in Petach Tikva and thousands more join them through the Internet from all over Israel and the world: from Berlin, New York, Moscow, Tokyo, South America, Africa, and even from Arab countries. I teach only from authentic Kabbalistic sources, and together we study this ancient wisdom of how to connect.

The flow of questions sent to me daily by students and by people who surf the web and social networks, along with the genuine concern for what is happening in Israeli society, have spurred me to get up from my desk and break my daily routine to go out on a lecture tour and meetings throughout the State of Israel to tell people everywhere about the method of connection that can unite Israel.

In this coming year, the State of Israel are facing serious dangers. The UN and UNESCO are acting against our right to exist by denying our connection to our Jewish heritage. The BDS organizations are doing their best to delegitimize the State of Israel. Anti-Semitism is raising its ugly head as Jews all over the world are being persecuted, and the world media keep defaming our name. This trend, which is threatening our very existence, will not stop and will only keep growing. There are quite a few organizations in the world today are acting in order to destroy the State of Israel, and if it were possible, the international community would strive to remove us from the historical map. The only solution we can resort to is to tighten the relationships between us, to unite forces, and fulfill our unique role. As soon as we begin to connect between us, humanity’s hostile attitude toward us will immediately change to a supportive attitude. The journey of “connecting Israel” that I went on made me feel that the nation of Israel is asking for unity and gave me hope that its people will get closer to each other.

Critical Times

We started the journey from the northernmost point, at the foot of Naftali Mount at Kibbutz Kfar Hanasi.
The audience, which included members of kibbutzes in the area and people from the upper Galilee settlements and villages, did not remain indifferent and demanded an explanation as to how I know that Israel is facing critical times. I explained that, according to the global perspective of nature, the nation of Israel has a mission. If we postpone the mission we were given to fulfill the method of connection by ourselves and to convey it to humanity, we might miss the opportunity we were given to improve and better our lives. All we must learn is how to cover all of our transgressions with love as the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us.

My journey continued to an impressive event in the “energy city” of Hadera. I had a very interesting conversation with Mr. Tzvi Gendelman, the mayor of Hadera, and we talked about the contribution of the discussion circles that my students are holding for the people of Hadera. I was happy to meet a very lively and intrigued audience at the local Kabbalah La’am center who inquired about how I believe we can change the face of Israeli society. I explained that, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the change can only come from strengthening the force of connection between us.

It was actually my encounter with the people of Tel Aviv during the third stop along my journey that I felt a kind of turning point. The city that doesn’t sleep has changed, and while the image of Tel Aviv has been the capital of egoism, audacity, and thoughtlessness for years, I actually felt a totally different spirit in the young audience who came in mass to the Kabbalah La’am center in Tel Aviv. I was asked provoking and relevant questions, but I was especially impressed by the desire to understand where our life in the 21^st century is headed. It seems that it is actually because Tel Aviv is such a global city that the awareness of what is happening in the world has a very strong impact on it and arouses doubts among the people. Therefore, my encounter with the people of Tel Aviv, such a friendly, open, modern city, revealed a great potential for the fulfillment of the feeling of unity.

I or We?

In Haifa, I held a series of meetings with several local leaders—including the mayor of HaifaMr. Yona Yahav, the mayor of Nesher Mr. Avi Binemo, and the mayor of Acre Mr. Shimon Lankri. The three leaders are very different from each other, and each understands in his own way how deep the crisis is in Israeli society. Being the public’s representatives and as a result of their daily work with people, they understand and identify with the need for unity in Israeli society as the solution for all of the problems that we are facing.

“Everyone has been against the Jews for ages, and I don’t see any change in the future,” concluded the mayor of Haifa. “Unfortunately, we are not guarding our precious state, and I am not surprised that the younger generation wants to leave the country. This is the reason that I go out to teach citizenship studies to twelfth graders. I tell the students that seventy years after they burned us in the Holocaust, history is repeating itself. We destroyed the First Temple, we destroyed the Second Temple, and in the same way, we will also destroy the Third Temple, the last chance God has given us after the blow of the Holocaust. I am devastated after every lesson. The division in the nation is growing, and the ‘I’ dominates the ‘we.’It is our duty to fight this phenomenon as soon as possible and with all of our might.”

The troubling encounter with the mayors, the opposing reactions, and the rejection that I encounter with regard to the message of connection in humanity and with regard to the articles I publish in the global press, along with the growing crisis in Europe, sharpen my understanding of how far the world has deteriorated and the extent to which its hatred of Israel has grown. No, I am not speaking only about anti-Semites, but also about the attitude of the Jews who live abroad who display an increasingly negative attitude toward the State of Israel. Unfortunately, it is actually they who are leading the organizations that are trying to delegitimize the State of Israel.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is one reason for that: the hostility that our Jewish brothers overseas display toward us stems from the fact that we are not fulfilling our role in correcting the world. Our right to exist on our land depends on the close connection between us and on bringing our hearts together. Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) said a hundred years ago that we are living here on borrowed time and that the chance we were given is only in order to allow us to fulfill our role as Light unto the nations of the world, which means to connect as one man in one heart, thus setting an example for all of the nations of the world. The choice of whether to implement it or miss the opportunity is in our hands.

The New Israeli

Despite the dangers the nation of Israel faces, I am very hopeful that we will succeed. My dedicated students in the numerous centers of Kabbalah La’am all over Israel and the public who yearn to understand the wisdom of connection, which I have met on my journey throughout Israel, make me believe that the message of connection will eventually permeate among the people and that we will all change for the better.

I continued my journey to Ashkelon, Beer Sheva, Rehovot, and other cities. I was warmly welcomed everywhere, and the atmosphere was good. I enjoyed hearing the many intriguing and advanced questions about how to implement the method of connection. At the end of the final event in Ashkelon, I received a big bouquet of flowers and wished that the people of Ashkelon and all people in Israel would celebrate the new year peacefully.

We have a very special nation and incredible people, and I hope and pray that we will wake up, connect, and understand that the key to our success is in the good relationships between us, thus restoring the prosperous life of the past, of the times when brotherly love flourished among us and the nations of the world were nourished by the force of unity between us. Now that the holidays are over, I wish the people of Israel a good new year, a year of positive changes.
[196175]
From Ynet article 10/25/16

Filed under: Israel Today, New Publications - No Comments →