Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Iraq – Ties with Israel Punishable by Death”

On November 30, 1947, one day after the League of Nations (precursor to the UN) announced the end of the British Mandate in Palestine and the establishment of two states—one for the Arabs and one for the Jews—Palestinian Arabs began to attack Israeli settlements. That was the beginning of Israel’s War of Independence. On May 14, 1948, when the British officially left Palestine, David Ben Gurion announced the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, namely the State of Israel. The very next day, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt (joined by Saudi and Sudanese forces), and Lebanon, declared war on the fledgling state and their armies invaded the country. On July 20, 1949, the final armistice was signed (with Syria), and the war was over. Israel was now a fact. The only country that never signed an armistice with Israel is Iraq.

The War of Independence was not the end of wars for Israel. Nevertheless, following many years of frequent clashes, all the countries, including even hostile Syria, are now in an official state of peace, or at least an armistice with Israel, if not complete normalization of relations. There is no love lost between Israel and its neighbors, as much as Israel would like there to be. However, there has also not been a state of active war with any of them for several decades.

Iraq, however, remains the one exception. To his day, it is in an official state of war with Israel. Recently, it underscored that point when Iraqi lawmakers have passed a bill criminalizing any ‎relations with Israel, including business ties. According to the legislation, violation of this law is ‎punishable by death or life imprisonment.‎ A ‎parliament statement also said the legislation is “a true reflection of the will of the people.”‎

Israel has no border with Iraq, no conflict of interest over water, oil, or waterways, and no religious conflict as Iraq is not particularly fanatical about its Islam. Iraq’s policy toward Israel is driven by one and only motive: hate. It simply hates the fact that Israel exists, and this is all the reasoning it needs.

Hate is a very powerful engine. With hate, you can keep a nation united. Every politician knows it, and Iraq is no exception. Its hatred of Israel keeps it together.

However, we can change Iraq’s attitude toward us if we choose to. We may not know it, but Israel holds the key to the world’s attitude toward it. If we change how we feel about each other, Iraq, and in fact all the countries that hate us, will also change how they feel about us for the better.

Israel is always at the center of attention. Just look at the latest report by the UN Human Rights Council. Other countries may commit the worst atrocities, but only Israel has a mandatory agenda item aimed at condemning Israel in every single commit of the council.

Because we are constantly at the center of attention, the hatred between us makes the world detest and despise us. This is how the world is built, and there is nothing we can do to change it.

Therefore, if we want the world’s attitude toward us to improve, we must improve our attitude toward each other. This is how it has always worked, and it will never change.

Moreover, when we fight among ourselves, the world accuses us of inciting wars throughout the world. When we make peace with one another, the world thinks of us as peacemakers. Until we accept this fact and act accordingly, nothing will improve in the world’s relation toward Israel.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Mass shootings are the symptom, not the illness”

The recent barrage of mass shootings has emphasized the need for less tolerant gun laws and for other restrictive measures. While it is obvious that mentally unstable people should not be permitted to carry or own guns, it is also evident that gun restrictions alone will not abate gun violence. The whole society has become violent and aggressive, and people’s sensitivity to violence is decreasing. Today, people almost expect mass shootings to happen. Therefore, stopping it requires more than gun laws; it requires finding its root and plucking it out.

Even a few decades ago, people did not feel so removed from one another. Alienation in society has increased to such levels that today’s normal levels of antagonism toward society would have been diagnosed as narcissism at the turn of the century. Worse yet, the level of division and hostility in society is constantly rising, and at an accelerating rate.

The ego itself is not inherently corrupt. Our entire development has relied on our ego. As it evolved, it developed human society, technology, art and culture, and medicine. Were it not for our ego, we would not have civilization.

However, because the ego is the basis of our actions, whether we are aware of it or not, there are always aggression and violence between us. At times it is overt, and at times covert, but it is always there. This is why for all our efforts, we cannot create a just society.

Human nature demands superiority, dominion, prominence. As a result, as long as we do not change human nature, there will always be ubiquitous oppression and abuse in our society, in every conceivable and inconceivable form. We conceal that drive for superiority behind “benign” terms like “competition” and “motivation,” but underneath lies the same evil inclination that pushes us to climb to the top of the heap, preferably by stepping on everybody else’s heads.

Therefore, in order to curb violence, including mass shootings, we need to “self-reform” human nature. In other words, we need to decide that we must change ourselves if we want our lives to be safer and more peaceful.

Even more important, the urgency for change must percolate large portions of society because one cannot change one’s attitude toward society without a society that supports it and strives for the same goal. Therefore, once we decide to change, we must establish community-wide educational programs that will focus not on curbing violence, but on enhancing empathy toward others, on fostering solidarity and mutual responsibility.

In order to succeed in the transition from an alienated and violent society into a cohesive and caring one, it is important not to focus on the negative, but to enhance the positive. Because the ego is constantly evolving, focusing on the negative makes us try to suppress it until we are exhausted and it bursts out even more violently than before. In addition, we have wasted our time on futile efforts and did not build an alternative to violent egoism, so there is no alternative to choose instead of more violence.

To create a positive alternative to egoism and violence, we need to foster positive values in society so we can base the relationships in our communities on them. The more energy we put into nurturing positive connections among people, the more positive will be the atmosphere in the community. This, in turn, will diminish the overall levels of violence and aggression.

For any transformation to succeed, our rule of thumb should be enhancing the positive rather than constraining the negative. If we work in this way concerning violence in the community, we will succeed. If we settle for stricter gun control, matters will continue to go downhill.
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Medium published my new article “Getting High on the Power of Life”

A survey by the Israel Center on Addiction has found that “One out of every seven Israelis suffers from some form of addiction.” Over the past five years since the last survey, some half a million people have joined the ranks of the addicted. In a country of only nine million people, half a million in five years is a lot. Worse yet, “over 90 percent of [the addicts] do not ask for treatment.”

Not only adults become addicted. Children, too, become addicted. Addiction means we have become accustomed to an activity that causes our body to secrete substances that make us feel good. Because we want more and more of that good feeling, we compulsively repeat the activity.

People can become addicted to anything. They can become addicted to physical activities, to chemicals, and some can even get high on certain types of music.

Besides feeling good, there is another reason that people become addicted: disconnection from life’s problems. The feeling of freedom from obligations and troubles can be intoxicating.

As a rule, young people become addicted more easily than older people because teenagers and young adults are in constant pursuit of pleasures. For them, feeling good is all that matters.

As we mature, other calculations besides immediate pleasure come into play. This makes older people more “resistant” to addiction, though they, too, are not impervious to it.

There are two reasons for the increase in addictions. First, it is easier to find things to become addicted to. Second, and more important, despair has spread throughout the world. People are losing the sense of purpose in life, so they try to escape. The feeling of being high, or the adrenaline in other forms of addiction, gives people calm, or alternatively, a sense of vitality.

The prevailing treatment is to compensate for one addiction with another, less harmful one. The easier addictions to treat are those that require a smaller compensation. However, essentially, it does not cure the addiction but simply swaps it for another.

The reason that over 90 percent of the addicts do not seek treatment is that they know that medicine cannot deal with it. If all that medicine can offer is forced abstention from the addiction or the swapping of one drug for another, then these are not cures and they have no appeal for addicts.

Only one remedy can truly cure people of the deadly addictions that plague humanity: the power of life. The power of life is revealed through positive connections between people. When people establish mutually positive connections, it emulates the positive reciprocity that pervades all of reality. This is the force that keeps all things growing.

When people develop such connections, and their reciprocal nature requires that they develop it in a society of like-minded people — they are filled with a sense of purpose and satisfaction. They feel connected to reality, to each other, and to themselves. It is a completely different kind of satisfaction than any substance can give, and it is far more profound and satisfying. Once people begin to experience the power of life, they never again need anything else because they will never want to disconnect from the vital force they have discovered.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Can Make Us Caring”

The events of the past few months, and in fact, the past few years, teach us a very important lesson: If we want to survive, we must learn from nature how to do it, since if we follow our own ideas, we will continue the march of folly until we destroy human civilization and our planet. When we look at nature, there is one law that weaves all its parts together into a perfect tapestry: balance and collaboration. That law is exactly what we humans do not abide by in our own society. Instead of balance, we strive for prominence at the expense of others, and swap collaboration with exploitation. If we keep this up, we are on our way to extinction.

I am not saying that we must love one another or even care for one another all at once. However, we must know nature’s laws and what happens when we break them. Since we are currently acting contrary to the law of balance and collaboration, we must also know the consequences, the penalty, if you will, for breaking it.

We are already feeling some of the consequences of our ignorance and vanity. Food shortages are worsening around the world, and hunger has become a real peril in places that have not known it for centuries. Gas shortages are also hampering production and causing energy insecurity in western, leading OECD countries, and the overall atmosphere is that hard days are coming.

Indeed, it is only the beginning. According to pundits, we are looking into years of deprivation and scarcity.

But there is no real reason for it. No natural disaster has hindered humanity’s ability to produce abundant food or ample gas and oil. It is we humans who are inflicting these deficiencies for the sole purpose of crushing one another. Nothing guides our moves but hate, and hate destroys everything, including, ultimately, the hater.

Because everything we do stems from the motivation to defeat and vanquish others, nothing we do succeeds. When one effort fails, we move on to another, but it, too, is bound to fail for the exact same reason: our foul intentions toward others.

How, then, can we change our nature? What can make us care for others? To do that, we first need to acknowledge the truth about our own nature, and then we can begin to nurture a new one within us. What all other beings do instinctively—follow the law of balance and collaboration—we can accomplish only if we choose it consciously. The way to do this is by realizing that we are made inherently opposite from this law, and then carefully examine each and every aspect of our lives, and adjust it to work according to that law.

It may seem unfair that only humans have to learn this law the hard way, but there is a great reward at the end of the process. Since humans are the only ones who have to go through the learning process, we are also the only ones who will reap the reward.

When we learn about human nature and the nature of the rest of reality, we begin to compare them. As a result, we gradually learn to value the law of balance and collaboration. We understand much deeper than any being since we have something to compare it to, a negative image of the law, and its palpable consequences. When we begin to act according to the law of balance and collaboration, it is because we made a conscious choice to do so after learning about our own nature and choosing to shun it and adopt a new, more inclusive and cooperative nature.

For us, then, learning to care about others is not an instinctive process, but a profound process of deepening consciousness, and choosing care and connection over alienation and exploitation every step of the way. This is the real advantage of man over beast—the gift of consciousness. However, we earn it only after having chosen balance over superiority, and collaboration over exploitation.

The painful process that humanity is undergoing will ultimately lead us to make that choice. However, awareness can shorten the process and make it much easier and quicker. The sooner we understand that all our troubles stem from our malice and cruelty toward each other, the sooner we will open our eyes and realize that there is another option. Then, the sooner we choose the option of balance and collaboration, the sooner our troubles will end and peace will begin.
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My new article on Linkedin “What We Can and Cannot Find with the New Space Telescope”

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is set to replace the aging Hubble space telescope. If all goes as planned, it will begin to “unveil the first science-quality images” next month, according to space.com. A CBS News story explains that Webb is 100 times more powerful than Hubble, and can detect the heat signature of a bumblebee from as far away as the moon.

For scientists, it is a cause for celebration. “Webb was specifically designed to allow us to see those very first galaxies that formed after the Big Bang … It’s like we have this 14-billion-year-old story of the universe, but we’re missing that first chapter,” said astrophysicist Amber Straughn in an interview for “60 Minutes.”

I have no doubt that the images will be stunning and new revelations are imminent. But even if we could look back to the moment of the Big Bang itself, we would not find the forces that created the universe, and as a result, created us.

As powerful as Webb’s mirrors may be, they will not be able to reflect the forces that created the universe. To discover the forces that created the material universe, we need a different kind of telescope. Just as the light from the mirrors is reflected into the center of the new telescope, which then connects them into an image, the forces that create the universe can be revealed by connecting the forces that bind us together.

These forces come from a higher realm than the material one, which is confined by the limitations of self-interest. When there is no self-interest, nothing limits these forces and they can connect in a way that engenders life.

Only forces that are higher than self-interest can create life. Forces that are bound by an ego-centered perception cannot create anything; they can only absorb. Just as a mother’s creative force of life is her love for her child, whom she loves even prior to conception, the forces that create life are forces of giving, without a hint of self-absorption.

When we create relationships based on an approach that corresponds to the forces that created the universe, we can discover them. Just as a receiver of radio waves receives them by creating similar frequencies within itself, when we create a “frequency” of transcending our own ego, we discover the forces that exist on that “wavelength,” and we can study their nature, behavior, and power.

Such forces, which transcend the ego, must have an object toward which to aim. This is why it is imperative that we discover them through collaborative work.

When we reveal these forces, we will understand how to correct the errors in our behavior and how to adjust our lives to the forces that create life. At that time, we will be able to build our societies in a manner that is sustainable, safe, and satisfying for everyone.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Why the World Believes We Killed Shireen Abu Akleh”

On May 24, AP News reported, “Review suggests Israeli fire killed reporter,” but “no final word.” Two days later, CNN echoed AP News, declaring, “Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces.” The Palestinians refuse to allow forensic examination of the slug that killed Abu Akleh, and Israel already stated that no Israeli soldiers were firing any shots at the time of her death, but the world has made up its mind.

Following the reports, and in view of Israel’s stance, a student asked me this: “The most amazing thing to me is that they determined that Israel shot her on purpose, that Israeli soldiers killed a journalist deliberately! I know that an Israeli soldier would never deliberately shoot a civilian because it contradicts everything that every soldier is taught before he is allowed to take the first practice shot,” he protests. “So how can it be that the world is certain that we did it, that Israel deliberately killed a civilian?”

My answer to him was simple: The world wants it to be this way. The whole world wants to adopt this version because this is how it wants it to be. The whole world wants to accuse Israel of more and more crimes until the very existence of the Jewish state is delegitimized.

This is why not only CNN and AP, but almost the entire world media is against Israel and gives false accounts of what is happening. Worse yet, even if Israel could examine the slug that killed Abu Akleh and prove that it did not come from an Israeli gun, no one would believe it. In fact, no one would even bother to read Israel’s report; they would assume that we are lying even before they read the first word.

Trying to confront the Palestinian arguments on their level is a lost cause. We can say whatever we want, but the world will not listen to a single word, and cheer instead for every word that comes from the Palestinians.

If we want legitimacy, we need to take a completely different approach. We will earn the world’s legitimacy to live in the State of Israel when we begin to live like the people of Israel, and stop trying to live like the rest of the world. Subconsciously, this is what the world expects from us.

The world blames us for everything that is bad in this world because they feel, even if they do not admit it to themselves, that we have the power and the obligation to make the world good. And since the world is not good, it is our fault.

Humanity does not believe that anyone has that capability but us, Jews, and does not expect anyone else to help the world emerge from its crises. They expect this only from us, and resent us for not doing so. This is the real reason why antisemitism intensifies every time there is trouble.

The Palestinians are attacking us not because they want the land back, although this is how they feel, but because we are not using the land for the purpose that the world entrusted it in our hands. We are the nation that was told that if we do not unite as one man with one heart, God will turn the mountain on us like a vault. We are the nation that committed to loving others as much as we love ourselves, and we are the nation that was commanded to be the light of the nations, to be a model of unity for the entire world.

We are also the nation that broke our oath time and time again, until we were exiled from the land precisely for hating one another. 75 years ago, the League of Nations gave it back to us, but since we have not built a model society, the world wants to take it back from us.

The press merely reflects the sentiment of the world. If we restore our unity, the world will change its attitude toward us and the reports will change accordingly. Until we do so, we should not expect any positive coverage from the media.

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You will find more on the link between Jewish unity and hatred of Israel in The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord, and Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour.
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Medium published my new article “Imagine Your Child Is Not Your Own”

Imagine a man becoming the father of a baby boy after many years of anxious childlessness. ‎The longing intensifies the father’s love for his son, and he plunges headlong into fatherhood. He holds his baby boy after meals so he can burp, talks to him, and changes his diapers. As his son grows, he teaches him everything he knows, takes him to little league ‎practices and cheers with the other proud parents during games. Whenever his son gets in trouble at school, with other kids, or with his teammates, his dad listens and gives him some fatherly advice. And every night, before he falls asleep, his dad sits by his bed and reads him a bedtime story.

The father is so proud of his son that his friends at work tease him about it. They say that he thinks there are no other children in the world except his son, and because he loves his son so much, he doesn’t like other children. The father laughs, but admits that as with any ‎teasing, there is some truth to it.‎

Then, one day, two police officers and a social worker knock on the door and show the father papers proving that there was a terrible mistake and babies were switched at birth. His son is not his son, but someone else’s, and his son’s biological parents have already been notified and want him to come live with them as soon as possible. Their son, who is his biological son, also wants to get to know him and come live with him. The social worker and ‎the officers explain that his son would have to go live with his biological parents.‎

We may not be aware of it, but the father’s tragedy is very similar to a process that all of humanity is experiencing, with one major difference. In the case of the father, the loss is unbearable. In the case of humanity, we are about to find out what a nasty son we’ve had, and what a wonderful son is about to replace him.‎

The strangers’ son we have been raising is our ego. Ego has demanded everything from us and felt no gratitude. Every time we satisfied him, he demanded more. Finally, he demanded more than we could provide; we have depleted the supply; we have run out of money, run out of resources, and run out of strength.‎

What’s more, our son, Ego, has been inciting us against all other boys, made them look awful in our eyes, and made us hate them and their parents. He even made us fight against them. He blinded us to the fact that we really needed those other kids and parents, that they gave us everything we have: work, companionship, and everything we needed in life.‎

Because we have reached the end of our strength, we are beginning to open our eyes and see that Ego is not such a beloved son, but a monster. Even more important, we are beginning to realize that he is not really our son, and nothing really binds us to him except his lies about our connection. Gradually, we are discovering that our real siblings are everyone else. They, all ‎of humanity, are our family.‎

Now that we are beginning to realize the truth, we can develop a new attitude to ‎other people. Initially, we will take baby steps. But as more and more people recognize the truth about their ego and about their attitude toward others, we will learn to walk more confidently together. We will learn to care about others where before we felt only indifference or even spite. We will direct our malice toward our enemy within, and by doing ‎so, we will defeat our one and only enemy, our fake son, Ego.‎
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “No Surprise: UN Promotes Palestinian Sovereignty Plan with Jerusalem as Capital”

Last week, in peculiar proximity to Israel’s Jerusalem Day celebrations, it became known that the United Nations is working intensely with the Palestinian Authority and a Jordanian architectural design company to establish eastern Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state by 2030, drawing up “elaborate plans for the expropriation of Israeli land.”

The plan, built by UN-HABITAT, the United Nations programme for human settlements, the International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC), a Palestinian urban planning and development organization, and Arabtech Jardaneh, an engineering and architectural design firm, aims to “see parts of the Oslo Accords appealed.” It also envisions Jerusalem as “the Capital of the State of Palestine, its beating heart, and its foremost metropolitan area,” and has drawn up “elaborate plans for the expropriation of Israeli land for the project.”

While it is unsettling for Israeli ears to hear such news, we should not be surprised. As I have written and stated multiple times, the UN, which represents the nations of the world, does not want us here. It regrets its 1947 decision to divide the land between Jews and Arabs, and would like to see Israel wiped off the map.

We should not be surprised that this is happening since we ourselves are making it happen. There is a very simple formula for the acceptance of the Jewish people among the nations: When we unite with our enemies, they unite against us; when we unite with each other, our enemies unite with us.

Jerusalem should be the spiritual center of the Jewish people. In other words, it should be a powerhouse of unity, a model of solidarity and cohesion for the whole world.

The Hebrew name of Jerusalem is Yerushalayim, from the words Ir Shlema, city of wholeness. This is the place where all the conflicting forces of the world should complement one another and benefit from each other rather than try to destroy one another. Currently, the conflicts are there, but complementarity is nowhere in sight. This is why the city is so full of strife, conflicts, and violence, and why the nations vie over it.

We should not expect peace to prevail in Jerusalem until we make peace among ourselves. We are the ones who have been commanded to unite “as one man with one heart” and thus become “a light to the nations.” We are the ones who gave the world the motto “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and we are the ones who are expected to demonstrate it. This is the meaning of being a light to the nations.

After World War II, the nations decided that we deserved another chance and voted to establish a Jewish state in the historic land of Israel. On the surface, the decision was motivated primarily by the horrors of the Holocaust, but behind it was the expectation that we would also return to our calling.

But we have not returned to our calling to be a light of unity to the nations. Since our return, we have demonstrated division, hatred, collusion with enemies against our own people, and hatred among factions of the Jewish society. We have let down humanity.

The only way we can remain in our historic land is by returning to our historic mission to be a beacon of unity to the world. When we recognize the sovereignty of love for one another over us, the world will recognize our sovereignty over Jerusalem.
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Medium published my new article “Climate Crisis — Not Child’s Play”

Environment Day sand sculpture is seen at the Bay of Bengal Sea’s Puri beach as it is creating by sand artist Manas Sahoo for awareness among people on the coastal area on the occasion of World Environment Day at Puri, 65 km away from the eastern Indian state Odisha’s capital city Bhubaneswar on June 5, 2021. (Photo by STR/NurPhoto)

The planet is running out of time — humanity is utilizing the resources of the world faster than it can recover naturally. That is the United Nation’s blunt assessment of the climate crisis for the occasion of World Environment Day, celebrated June 5th.

This year’s theme is, “Only One Earth.” But beyond the catchy slogans, the fact is that we do not seem to realize that we indeed have only one place to live: Planet Earth. We continue to shoot at our own feet with our reckless actions towards our surrounding environment.

In spite of how many people keep shouting, talking endlessly about the environmental crisis, how many meetings take place, and how many decisions are made, nothing seems to help. Either we just leave the state of the planet as it is now, ignore all the problems and wait for the next disaster to happen, or we admit that everything that we have done up until now is ineffective and fruitless and finally make the sharp turn required.

To raise awareness about the precarious state of the planet, beginning next year, Israeli schools will make classes on the climate crisis mandatory for students of all ages, the Education and the Environmental Protection Ministries recently announced. They will begin integrating an environmental program equivalent to one hour per week into the curriculum for students from kindergarten to high school.

Will this make a difference or will it be as unsuccessful as previous efforts to solve environmental problems? The answer does not depend on the hours spent on these studies or who will develop them. Rather, it depends on what is taught and the extent to which students understand the causes of the climate crisis and how to solve it.

We know that the severity of the global environmental crisis can be compared to a spaceship coming toward us to destroy the planet, and that we who live on Earth must prepare to avoid being harmed by it. And how do we prepare? We have to explain that the climate crisis is a consequence of a human crisis. So, the solution that will ultimately bring the world into balance is for us to change ourselves to cultivate positive human relationships and grow closer to each other internally. That is, the heart must expand, not physically, but emotionally. To start feeling the entire world as a part of each and every one of us and for us to care for the entire world as we care for ourselves.

This is true because nature is a system of integral connections that operates through a hierarchy. What happens on any particular degree in the system affects all the other degrees. The intensity of the impact on the system corresponds with where it stands in the hierarchical ranking. The human race is the highest level in nature, above the inanimate, vegetative, and animal. Therefore, the part of the system that destroys the ecological balance the most are the egoistic actions of human beings that disregard the interests of others, including the other parts of the system of nature.

Humanity can do nothing to correct this self-focused tendency until it recognizes that its harmful instinct rules all its decisions and is the primary source of the imbalance in nature. By learning how to build relationships based on mutual understanding, care and cooperation, a positive force is created which is capable of restoring harmony in all levels in nature. This is the crucial truth that must be taught.

When we learn how to transcend all of our negative egoistic tendencies and recognize that we are all individual parts in a single, connected and completely interdependent mechanism, we will also comprehend that doing good to others is also good to us. Just as today we are the ones who destroy all of nature, we also have the power to repair it. The planet’s countdown is on but we still have a window of opportunity to control it if we change our thoughts, actions, and desires to upgrade our human relationships.
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Medium published my new article “America’s Baby Formula Crisis: Food for Thought”

America faces an unprecedented food shortage in its most tender spot, babies. The infant formula shortage in the U.S. has activated a Cold War era law to prioritize and speed up its production. In addition to it, U.S. Air Force flights have transported tons of imports of baby food from Europe in what is called “Operation Fly Formula.” It could have been a beautiful story if it were not so tragic and real. It touches a sensitive nerve so we can rebuild society as a human safety net for everyone in the world.

Week after week, parents and caregivers in America have traveled across states looking for baby formula only to find scarce supplies or empty shelves. The ongoing shortage of powdered baby formula in the U.S. has been caused by pandemic-related disruptions in the global supply chain and by the shutdown of the largest production plant of Abbott Nutrition, the main supplier to the US market, due to contamination concerns.

How could such a crisis hit strong America? After all, it is not a developing country. It is a superpower that should be immune to such a crisis of an essential good. But this will not be an isolated incident. We will soon see many similar phenomena as a result of multiple variables affecting today’s world.

The baby food crisis in the U.S. shows us that no country, big or small, rich or poor, is immune to food insecurity. No one can guarantee stability for the provision of the most basic needs for everyone, including to sustain children’s lives. This is the unstable and vulnerable reality we live in today; more and more people and countries will be affected and will demonstrate how shaky the world is, as if teetering on one foot.

We need to open our eyes and see that human society was not built as a system of mutual security with food and children as our primary concern. We failed to plan for the bad times during the good times. If we do not admit it, then our supply problems will only deepen.

Our battered planet is able to give us everything, but we do not give it a chance to provide us with what is necessary, including food for the soul needed due to our broken human relationships. We spoil everything we touch due to our growing egoism that prevents us from being considerate of others.

The purpose of this crisis is to shake us up and make us grow to understand that we have no choice, that in the scale of priorities, before money, respect and education, we must make sure that every person in the world gets proper nutrition.

So, besides baby formula, in terms of food security in general, we can choose fertile areas like in Siberia or South America and turn them into global grain fields that provide everything for everyone. The only condition is that there is a real desire to feed and benefit everyone without transforming it into someone’s personal business for individualistic profit at the expense of others suffering.

Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) teaches us, “If there is no flour, there is no Torah.” Indeed, food should be the basis of our human concern. If we are not able to provide bread for everyone, we will not be able to grow and elevate the human species to a level higher than the corporeal one, to the level of mutual care and balance. In such a state we will lack nothing and we will be able to guarantee a good future for our children and for all of society.
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