Medium published my new article “The Facade of Internet Neutrality Exposed”

After years of avoiding this sensitive issue, the US Supreme Court finally agreed this month “to decide whether social media platforms may be sued despite a law that shields the companies from legal responsibility for what users post on their sites,” writes The New York Times. “The case, brought by the family of a woman killed in a terrorist attack, argues that YouTube’s algorithm recommended videos inciting violence. …Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law intended to nurture … the internet. …The law said that online companies are not liable for transmitting materials supplied by others. Section 230 also helped enable the rise of huge social networks like Facebook and Twitter by ensuring that the sites did not assume new legal liability with every new tweet, status update and comment.”

However, the freedom from liability seems to have been abused. “A growing group of bipartisan lawmakers, academics and activists have grown skeptical of Section 230,” continues the story, “and say that it has shielded giant tech companies from consequences for disinformation, discrimination and violent content that flows across their platforms.” However, according to the plaintiffs, “The platforms forfeit their protections when their algorithms recommend content, target ads or introduce new connections to their users.”

This may sound like a legal battle over power and control, but Section 230 can cost lives. “In one case,” continues the newspaper story, “the family of an American killed in a terrorist attack sued Facebook, claiming that its algorithm had bolstered the reach of content produced by Hamas.” The lawsuit was rejected but one judge said “Facebook’s algorithmic suggestions should not be protected by Section 230.”

Freedom of the internet is a problem. Because human nature pushes us to exploit whatever we can for our own good, when tech giants can exploit a platform by promoting content that will increase their income, no morals will inhibit them. As a result, they promoted videos of ISIS beheadings, and other gruesome acts of terror to people they identified as potential sympathizers. The lawsuit claims that promoting such content not only boosts sales for tech giants, but also encourages potential terrorists to act.

There is certainly a need to restrain circulation of violent videos or content that incite to violence. Also, one of the arguments against social media is that if they target specific content to specific people, they are no longer uninvolved “billboards,” as they claim, but active players in shaping the minds of those using their platforms.

On the one hand, it is impossible to return to the days when there was no targeting. On the other hand, who will decide to what extent to target and by what criteria? After all, we are all subject to the same weaknesses that tempt social media giants to misuse their platforms. How, then, can we guarantee that whoever is in charge of monitoring content will not fall prey to the same errors as the owners of social media platforms?

The only solution I can see is to launch a comprehensive, thorough, and long-term educational process that will make us aware of our interconnectedness. Only if we realize, at the deepest level of our being, that when we hurt others, we hurt ourselves, will we stop exploiting, oppressing, bullying, and otherwise harming one another.

At the moment, we are nowhere near the understanding that we need this process. We are persistently and insistently pushing ourselves down a tunnel that will end in a nuclear world war. If we launch this educational process in time, we will reverse the trend that we are on. If we do not, we will inflict inconceivable suffering on each other until we realize that we are dependent on each other.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “A Hard Awakening – There Is Antisemitism on the Left”

The 2022 report by the policy planning think tank Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), titled Annual Assessment: The Situation and Dynamics of the Jewish People, has revealed many things about the current state of world Jewry. Particularly, it has acknowledged a painful truth: While there is antisemitism on the Right, there is more of it on the Left, it is more sinister, and more institutionalized. Now we can talk about the peril that lurks for the Jews in the “enlightened” Left.

It may be surprising but the US, France, the UK, and Germany, certainly among the strongholds of democracy, are also today’s most active hotbeds of antisemitism. This is true not only in terms of antisemitic attacks, but also, and perhaps mainly, in terms of ideological justification for hatred of Jews, the Jewish state, and excommunicating them from the circles of society.

For example, the report talks about “Normalization of the antisemitic discourse,” where “Antisemitic discourse is becoming normalized and is penetrating mainstream national politics on university campuses and on the street,” with “a clear rise in anti-Israel or anti-Zionist expressions from progressive groups that have significantly crossed into antisemitic territory.”

Worse yet, “Identity politics in the progressive discourse places Jews into the ‘oppressors’ camp (white skin color, social privilege, and power). On this basis, Jewish support for Israel is sometimes equated with complicity with racist policies.”

Western Europe, too, is experiencing “progressive” antisemitism. In France, Muslims and progressives rise above the ideological chasm between them and unite for the “noble” cause of bashing Israel and Jews. “The growing recognition of the cardinal role of Islamist antisemitism in the resurgence of Judeophobia is challenged by ‘woke’ ideology and the intersectionality movement, which jumped from academic theory into left-wing political activism,” details the report. “This ideology incorporates a post-modern corpus of theories, a fusion of the Frankfurt school’s neo-Marxist ideas and the ‘French theory’ that garnered considerable academic truck (sic) in the United States beginning in the 1980s. The common fight against imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and widespread class stratification has thus manifested itself in a convergence of struggles between the radical left and radical Islam, and has in some cases translated into virulent antisemitism.”

Across the channel, the UK is experiencing its own wave of woke antisemitism. “Jewish communities perceive a lack of support in combating antisemitic phenomena,” says the report, “particularly within progressive left circles. British Jews grapple with a frequently imposed framing of Jews in progressive discourse. This framing is an obstacle to fighting antisemitism and contributes significantly to failures to recognize and stand against antisemitism among the broader left.”

I am glad that the cloak of civility has been lifted, or is at least beginning to be lifted from the face of the Left. The “civilized” and “enlightened” nations have always been our worst oppressors. This was true in antiquity, when Babel demolished the first Kingdom of Israel, and Rome demolished the second. It was also true in the late Middle Ages with the Spanish Inquisition, and in the previous century with Germany’s Third Reich.

As the report details, public figures on the Left do not portray themselves as antisemitic. Instead, they disguise their venom behind highbrow contentions of injustice to Palestinians, migrants, people of color, underprivileged population groups, gender equality, and everything and anything related to identity politics. However, the implicit, and sometimes explicit culprit will almost always somehow turn out to be Jewish, the Jews as a whole, or the Jewish state.

This is not antisemitism from the street, from the populace; it is institutional antisemitism, antisemitism as a policy and as a political instrument. Antisemitism from the street is violent, and can be homicidal. Institutional antisemitism is suave, and can be genocidal.

Besides noting the rising antisemitism on the Left, the report also notes the disunity within the Jewish community, particularly with regard to dealing with antisemitism. I will address this issue in one of my coming posts, but I should point out here that joining the ranks of the Left will not save Jews from the whip when it lashes. Now that it is clear that antisemitism is spreading through all parts of society, and especially in democratic countries, it is time for Jewish unity as an antidote for Jew-hatred.

You can find more on contemporary antisemitism and its history in my books, New Antisemitism: Mutation of a Long-lived Hatred, and The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism.
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Medium published my new article “With a Grain of Salt”

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin meet for the U.S.-Russia summit at Villa La Grange in Geneva, Switzerland, June 16, 2021. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

US President Joe Biden said Thursday that “the risk of nuclear ‘Armageddon’ is the highest it has been in 60 years after Russian President Vladimir Putin renewed his threats as his military retreats in Ukraine.” However, according to a story published in the Los Angeles Times, the statement “appeared to go beyond U.S. intelligence assessments.” In fact, “National security officials say they have no evidence that Vladimir Putin has imminent plans for a nuclear strike.” In this case, I too believe that we should take both leaders’ statements with a grain of salt.

In the end, the Russians, too, fear the consequences of using nuclear weapons. Humanity has never seen what a nuclear world war looks like. The precedents in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as horrific as they were, are nothing compared to the massive and prolonged destruction that a nuclear world war will inflict, especially given the power of today’s atom and hydrogen bombs.

The threats by Russia and its allies are unnerving, but I think that this is their intention — to demoralize and frighten. I do not think that there is a genuine intention to employ tactical nuclear warheads or any other kind of nuclear weapons.

If humanity plunges into a nuclear world war, we have no idea where it will lead us or how it will end. I think that everyone realizes this and will act accordingly. There is simply too much at stake, too much to lose to gamble with a nuclear war.

Besides, such an attack would turn the entire world against the aggressor. No superpower, however strong and however weaponized, can stand against the entire world. Therefore, threats to use nuclear weapons and disheartening declarations ‎ about a possible nuclear Armageddon are, in my opinion, unrealistic, at least at this point in time.

That said, as a whole, the world is certainly moving in a negative direction. If we cannot understand that war is not the way to achieve political or economic benefits these days, we will eventually plunge into a third world war.

The developments in Ukraine should worry all of us, and encourage us to nurture stronger ties among all parts of humanity in order to avoid a possible breakdown of global society.

If we can learn the lesson from this painful war, perhaps it will give some meaning to the misery that millions are experiencing. If we cannot learn from it, we will need another war, most likely a crueler one, to accept that we must lay down our arms and treat humanity as it really is — a single entity whose parts are interconnected and interdependent.

Eventually, we will learn that war is not the way. I only hope we learn it not through a nuclear ordeal.
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My new article on Linkedin “Nine UC Berkeley Law Students Sign Illegal Bylaw”

Antisemitism is racism, which is illegal in the United States. Anti-Zionism, that is, “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity,” according to the US government, is a manifestation of antisemitism, and therefore illegal. Yet, this did not stop nine student groups at the UC Berkeley law school from signing an openly racist statement against Zionists, anyone who supports them, and the State of Israel collectively. The nine organizations pledge to ban “speakers that have expressed and continued to hold views … in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine,” and to support the BDS movement. They signed it, purportedly for the purpose of “protecting the safety and welfare of Palestinian students.”

You could argue that nine student organizations out of more than a hundred that exist in UC Berkeley’s law school is a small minority, but only a few years ago, the very idea of composing such a statement would have been unthinkable, let alone signing it.

Also, if you consider that even though antisemitism is illegal in the US, no one has taken any measures against these groups, other than condemning them, and that, too, was voiced mainly by Jews, it is clear that antisemitic views are far more prevalent under the surface. If this trend continues, and it seems to be accelerating, it will not be long before the observation of Berkeley Law alum Kenneth Marcus comes true, that the incident is a sign of “ university spaces go[ing] as the Nazis’ infamous call, judenfrei. Jewish-free.”

When I spoke to students in California in 2004 and warned them that this is where things were going, they did not believe me. When I spoke in 2014 to organizations trying to fight against antisemitism on US campuses, and warned them that this is where things were going, they did not believe me. Now they are alarmed that it is happening, but they still resist the only solution to their plight: their own unity.

It needs to be said in plain words: If American Jewry does not unite, and unity may well begin with Jewish students, the demand to make Berkeley Zionist-free will spread throughout the country. The demand will not confine itself to banning explicit Zionists, but also those who might be covert supporters of Zionism, namely all the Jews.

Just as Spain expelled all the Jews because it suspected them of secretly aspiring to convert Christians to Judaism, anyone who supports, or might support Zionism will become a suspect, and therefore an outcast. Just as it did not help the Jews to declare, sincerely by the way, that they were not trying to convert Christians, it will not help American Jews to state that they do not support Zionism or the State of Israel.

Antisemitism is already omnipresent in the “Land of the Free.” If an Arab student shows support for Palestine, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, or any other explicitly Muslim country, that support is fiercely protected by human rights groups and by university faculty and administration as a legitimate expression of free speech. But on campuses, that same right is denied of Jewish students who support Israel; they are afraid not only to show support for the Jewish state, but even to identify as Jews or wear Jewish insignia such as the Star of David.

The best lesson that Jewish students should learn is why they are hated. They feel that they did nothing wrong, but this is clearly not the view of many of their peers, and many more are joining their indicters. The cycle of Jewish history has not changed since the inception of the nation: They are welcome, tolerated, hated, and finally expelled (or exterminated) everywhere they go.

The only antidote to Jew-hatred is Jewish unity—not against antisemitism, but caring for the sake of caring. Solidarity has been our only source of strength, since our vocation is to show exemplary unity, mutual responsibility, and caring for others as ourselves.

Our strength is in our unity because the universe is a united entity, and only people feel apart. The Jewish people became a nation when they managed to unite above their separation and become similar to the rest of nature; this is why they were tasked with being an example.

Since then, humanity has fixed its eyes on us and follows our example. When we are apart, we are willy-nilly an example of division, so the world accuses us of inciting conflicts. When we are united, we are an example of unity, so the world embraces us.

This is the message I have been trying to convey to Jewish students in America since 2004. If they embrace the message and unite, it will be the most valuable lesson they will ever learn, and the world will thank them for it.
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My new article on Linkedin “The Legacy of a Giant”

Today, October 7, sixty-eight years ago, Rav Yehuda Ashlag, the greatest kabbalist and thinker of our time, and one of the greatest of all time, passed away. He became known as Baal HaSulam (author of the Sulam [ladder]) after his Sulam commentary on The Book of Zohar. He lived through both world wars, predicted them well in advance, and warned his fellow Jews in Poland that a calamity awaits them long before the Holocaust. He wrote about it, talked about it, and organized the escape of hundreds of families from Poland to what was then Palestine and later became the State of Israel. His efforts were thwarted. The families were intimidated into staying in Poland, and his writings were banned.

Subsequently, Baal HaSulam moved to Palestine on his own and toiled just as diligently to spread the message of unity among Jews and unity throughout the world. Yet, in Palestine, too, his writings were banned and he was threatened that he would be imprisoned if he continued to spread his ideas.

Fortunately, many of his writings survived so we can learn of his greatness and realize his message. Today, it is imperative that we understand his legacy and realize his teaching because, among other things, he detailed how we can avoid a third, nuclear world war.

In the latter years of his life, Baal HaSulam dedicated his time to writing his monumental commentary on The Book of Zohar, the only complete commentary since the writing of The Zohar nearly two millennia ago. In the years prior to his work on The Zohar, he divided his time between writing a comprehensive commentary on the writings of the ARI, which became known as The Study of the Ten Sefirot, and writing essays on contemporary events and processes that shaped the world’s history.

In the 1930s, long before people spoke of globalization or the interconnectedness of nations, Baal HaSulam wrote a series of essays warning against exploitation because we are dependent on each other. Two essays in particular, “The Peace” and “Peace in the World,” analyzed the state of humanity, where it was headed, and what needed to be done.

In June 1940, he published a paper which he sold on the street like a regular newspaper. It contained opinion pieces in which he analyzed the situation in the world in view of the world war that was raging in Europe and elsewhere, and outlined the peril that awaited Polish Jewry. Alas, it was too late to save them. Had they listened to him in the 1920s, things would probably have been very different.

In the 1950s, shortly before his passing, he wrote what he predicted for the world, but never managed to publish it. He hoped that now that the world had seen the horrors of nuclear weapons, people would be willing to rise above their ego and unite. He also warned that if they did not, humanity would plunge into a third, and even fourth world war, both of which would be nuclear, and the relics would still have to rise above their ego and unite in order to put an end to hatred and war.

Baal HaSulam’s legacy is his efforts to help humanity unite. Today we see how essential it is that we understand his message of unity and spread it, as it is the only message that can prevent a third world war.

Kabbalists have always been ahead of their time. Baal HaSulam’s predecessors, too, were misunderstood during their lifetime. It is my hope that we understand the message of Baal HaSulam not centuries after his passing, but now, while there is still time to avoid a global tragedy.

For the writings of Baal HaSulam (not including The Book of Zohar and The Study of the Ten Sefirot), read The Writings of Baal HaSulam, Vol. 1, and Vol. 2.

To learn more about the travails of kabbalists and resistance to their message throughout the ages, read A Very Narrow Bridge: The fate of the Jewish people.
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My new article on Linkedin “When Nature Speaks, We Should Listen”

Hurricane Ian left a trail of devastation that will take weeks to assess, years to repair, and who knows what new adversities will happen in the meantime. According to scientists, climate change likely did not cause Ian, but it did intensify it. Unless we implement far more fundamental instruments of correction, we had better prepare for much worse, since when nature speaks, we should listen.

The ferocity of storms is growing, wildfires are becoming more frequent and intense, and droughts are vanquishing rivers and lakes. The more we interfere with nature and disrupt it through wanton exploitation, the more we trigger aggressive and extreme phenomena.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, “nature” is synonymous with “God.” This does not mean that we should bow down to the wind or the sun like the pagans did, but that we must understand that we are dealing with superior forces here, far stronger than we can ever be. Therefore, we should follow their directives rather than try to dominate them as if we were superior to them.

Their directive is simple: Stay balanced. Nature is telling us that we cannot take for ourselves more than we need because we create deficits that nature takes back with a vengeance. The more we take beyond our needs, the more intense is nature’s revenge. This is why natural disasters are growing more intense.

We should not deny ourselves of anything we need. However, we have become accustomed to getting not what we need, but what we want, and there is a big difference between what we need and what we want.

I believe that America as a country, and the American people, are resilient enough to come through the adversity and make the necessary changes. Florida will recover from the aftermath of Ian, but what happens beyond repairing the physical damage depends on the entire country.

America, the world champion in consumerism, should reroute and lead the world toward a new paradigm: more balanced and sustainable. The focus in the 21st century should shift from improving material life to improving social life. Our material needs have been met; now it is time to meet our emotional needs, and these will be met when we create a society where people enjoy living.

The only way to create an enjoyable society is to foster good connections among people. Consequently, if America can focus on mending the growing alienation among people, it will give people a sense of contentment. This, in turn, will reduce people’s focus on materialism, which will effortlessly curb excessive consumption. People will not feel dissatisfied since their satisfaction will come from social connections rather than material possessions.

There is no limit to the amount of social bonding that people can form; it is the ultimate sustainable resource. If we tap into it, we will find an abundance of power and joy in social connections. Then, instead of exploiting nature to try to satisfy our insatiable wants, we will naturally take only what we need, and direct our positive energies toward each other.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Far Right Is Close to People’s Hearts”

Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy right wing party has won Italy’s general election, and left wing media in Europe and beyond are up in arms with worry. CNN described Meloni’s party as “the most far-right government since the fascist era of Benito Mussolini.” France 24 declared that “A ‘seismic’ shift” was happening in Europe. Vox announced, “The far right is having a moment in Europe. Actually, everywhere.” And the Wall Street Journal is concerned that “Right-Wing Populism May Rise in the U.S.”

There is certainly a shift in Europe. Besides Italy, Sweden also recently elected a Right leaning Riksdag (Swedish parliament), which will likely elect a right leaning prime minister. Bulgaria, too, just had its general election, and there, too, the Right seems to have won the majority.

Even where the Right has not won majority votes, it is gaining popularity. France, Spain, Poland, Austria, the Netherlands, and several other European Union countries are seeing rapid strengthening of the Right.

However, I think that what the left wing media, as well as some politicians, describe as “far right” or even leaning toward fascism, is neither “far” nor fascist. It is a natural outcome of people’s resentment to Russia, and a natural shift that is happening anyway. The weakening Russian influence in Europe will instigate more changes and shifts, as many arrangements that were put in place after World War II are disintegrating, so we can expect many more changes to happen. These shifts may well initiate renewed border debates, and conflicts that have been latent until now may resurface.

That said, the newly elected right wing leaders do not see themselves as fascists or extremists. Rather, they regard themselves as conservative and more inclined toward the nation-state than toward the pan-European idea. Either way, I do not see a Mussolini-type leader rising in Italy or in Europe; too many forces would impede such a development.

Europe is facing many challenges: social problems, unabsorbed immigration, economic challenges, shortage of gas, and many other challenges that should worry Europeans more than the political affiliation of this or that leader. By and large, Europe should stay united, but it should improve the unity they are already in and not break it apart. They should work together on their future, or they might find themselves on par with Third World countries.

To emerge from the crisis, Europe must establish real union, unlike the “union” that currently exists, with one or two domineering countries and the rest being forced to obey dictates. Real union means that people in different countries feel united despite the differences in language, culture, and sometimes even faith.

It should not be unity against an external element, such as against Russia’s military or against the American economy. It should be unity because unity itself is a noble value that makes life easy and safe for everyone. Borders, eventually, should be all but eliminated, and economies should be integrated.

Also, the US should become more involved in Europe, but not in an authoritarian manner, but more as an assistant in bringing Europe together. I realize that this is not an immediate scenario, but the direction is clear and the sooner Europe heads toward it, the better it is for the Europeans.

Another interesting point is that the newly elected leaders, and generally Right leaning people in both Europe and the US, maintain more favorable views toward Israel. I believe this is so because they see Israel as a partner in what they would like to do in Europe, namely consolidate the nation states rather than disintegrate them, which is where the Left seems to be headed in recent years.

This does not mean that the Right leaning parties strive to break up the EU, but only to cure it from the excessive power held in the hands of a few at the expense of the nation states. Ironically, it seems as though the Right is the one aspiring for equality these days, while the Left is headed more toward endowing a few dominant figures with the power to govern the rest of Europe. For these reasons, I think that the Right is not far, but actually nearer to people’s hearts, to people’s real sentiments, and presents a healthy process that Europe is experiencing.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “On the Possibility of Nukes”

Last Friday, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of four regions in Ukraine. A day later, Ukrainian forces recaptured the key city of Lyman in the region of Donetsk, one of the annexed regions. In response, Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Russia’s region of Chechnya, said that Moscow should consider using a low-yield tactical nuclear weapon in its war against Ukraine, Reuters reported.

This was not the first, or second time that the idea of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine came up. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, also warned that Russia might use nuclear weapons, but Kadyrov’s statement is the most explicit and presents an escalation in the level of aggression.

I am not surprised that the idea of a world war is on the table, or that it is expected to be a nuclear one. My teacher’s father, the great thinker and kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (aka Baal HaSulam), wrote shortly after the end of World War II that humanity has learned nothing from the past, and that a third, and even fourth world war was possible, and that they will be atomic wars. Clearly, Baal HaSulam’s ideas were not accepted and people thought that humanity would not dare repeat the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just as clearly, people were wrong, and the possibility of nukes seems very real today.

However, I do not think that humanity has forgotten World War II altogether. Even if nukes are used, it will probably not be an all-out nuclear world war, but more along the lines of tactical weapons, and the horrific results of even these nukes will revive the trauma of the past. Hopefully, this will be enough to stop humanity one step before destruction.

Additionally, people are more aware today that the root cause of our woes is our division, the mutual hatred that infests people and nations. The notion that our survival depends on our unity, or at least on the level of our solidarity, is gaining ground throughout the world. This, too, at least somewhat inhibits people’s passion for blood.

In his writings, which he titled The Writings of the Last Generation, Baal HaSulam detailed why solidarity is the key to preventingV a third world war. Now that it is clear that democracy, international agreements, treaties, and sanctions are helpless before hatred, perhaps people will be more open to try the only antidote to mutual destruction: mutual construction, or in simpler words, solidarity and unity.

Everyone realizes that there will be no winners in an atomic war. I hope and believe we have enough sense to remember this before we pull the nuclear trigger.
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My new article on Linkedin “Reflections on Self-Hatred”

One of the things that election campaigns in Israel highlight is self-hatred. Some parties in the Israeli parliament are overtly and explicitly anti-Zionist. That is, they oppose the very existence of the Jewish state. The fact that they even exist proves more than anything the freedom of expression that exists in Israel, but what is truly unique is the fact that there are quite a few Jews among the leaders of these parties. They support terrorists and terrorism, deny Israel’s right to defend its civilians, mourn the loss of every terrorist, and do not mourn the death of unarmed civilians in terrorist attacks.

In any other country, they would be considered traitors. In Israel, they continue to express themselves freely and openly in the name of free speech, and the State of Israel does not feel it has the right to stop them.

For Jews, this type of self-hatred is nothing new. In the days of the Third Reich, some Jews were just as avid about the Nazi ideology as the German Nazis. In the days of the Spanish Inquisition, there were Jews and former Jews who personally persecuted Jews. In the days of the Great Revolt, the commander of the Roman army that destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple was Jewish, and the list goes on and on.

Self-hatred goes hand in hand with Judaism from its inception because the Jewish people were founded in order to correct the world. We invented the term Tikkun Olam (correction of the world), and to this day, we debate over its meaning. That is, we still feel that we must partake in the correction of the world, but we are unsure as to how we should go about it, or what correction of the world even means.

When a Jew hates Jews, it is not so much hatred for the Jews, as it is denial of one’s personal responsibility, an attempt to avoid the obligation to partake in the correction of the world.

However, just as Prophet Jonah could not run away from his vocation to save the gentile city of Nineveh, the Jews cannot escape from their vocation to save the world. The Book of Jonah became the centerpiece of the closing prayer on the Jewish Day of Atonement precisely in order to remind us of our calling.

The nations, for their part, hate us because they feel dependent on us. This is why they blame us for their woes. They may not understand how we are meant to ease their hardships, but they sense that it is our responsibility.

They are right; their woes are our responsibility. Tikkun Olam depends on our behavior. However, it does not depend on our behavior toward them, but toward each other. We did not become a nation until we pledged to love each other “as one man with one heart.” Only once we accomplished this, we were tasked with being “a light to the nations.”

In other words, all we have to do is unite among us as one man with one heart, and that will make us a light to the nations. Our responsibility to the world is to unite among ourselves.

As our history of self-hatred proves, this is far easier said than done. The last thing we want is another episode of Jews slaughtering Jews, as it happened in Jerusalem before the Jewish commander of the Roman army marched in to finish the destruction of the city.

Yet, we cannot escape our calling. Jew-hatred exists because Jews hate each other. When Jews turn away from Jews and toward their enemies, it does not appease our enemies; it intensifies their hatred even more because by hating each other and loving our enemies, we move further away from unity and deeper into division. Our only escape from antisemitism is internal unity. The cure for antisemitism does not lie in anything other than in Jews curing their hatred for each other.

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Always with Me”

Thirty-one years ago today, my teacher and mentor RABASH passed away. This post is dedicated to him because everything I know, everything I understand, everything I teach, and everything I do I learned from him, and my life’s goal is to continue his legacy to the best of my ability.

RABASH was the last in the line of spiritual giants that began thousands of years ago. From his time onward, the line does not continue because now is the time for the knowledge that was privy to a chosen few for so many centuries to spread around the world.

RABASH was unlike any of his predecessors. As the last in the line, his concern was with the realization of the knowledge, with implementing it in real life. Accordingly, he focused his teaching on one principle: The complete perception of the world is achieved only through connection with other people. And how do you connect with other people? You love them. How do you come to love other people? This is what the teachings of RABASH reveal through his writings and through the thousands of oral lessons he had given throughout his life.

By the time RABASH passed away, he had installed in me a clear and complete method for developing love for other people, who are not related to you biologically, culturally, or in any other way. He did not come up with the method out of thin air, of course. It is the same method that the people of Israel had implemented among them since the inception of the nation nearly forty centuries ago. However, like other spiritual leaders in their time, RABASH adapted the method for developing love for others to our time, to the people who live in the 20th and 21st centuries, and in his adaptation lies his greatness.

I received from RABASH and learned from him more than I can express in words. However, if I had to choose the most important lesson that I took from him, it would be this: Stick to your goal and never look aside. Even if the goal seems distant, often unachievable, never look aside. Whether you achieve your goal or not is unimportant. If the goal is worth striving for, stick with it and never look away.

I know our dreams often seem unrealistic, but we have no idea what tomorrow will bring. Therefore, I always advise my students and anyone who asks to pursue their dreams.

As for me, I will continue to work for the rest of my life to realize my teacher’s dream: that all the people in the world will come to love one another as one man with one heart.

—

For more of the many things I had learned from RABASH, read my book, Always with Me.
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