Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “No Safe Place for Jews, Unless We Create It”

As the State of Israel marked Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), thousands of Muslims gathered at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and chanted slogans calling for the massacre of Jews. It raises the harsh question of whether Israel can still be considered a shelter for Jews at a time when multiple reports find record-high numbers of antisemitic incidents globally.

An estimated 150,000 Muslim worshipers took part in mass prayers on the Temple Mount by the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on May 1. Some used the occasion to march and shout “Khyber, Khyber al-Yahud”—a call for the annihilation of Jews, like the mass murder that occurred in the Khyber battle of 629 CE.

It is bitterly ironic that this happens after decades of immense efforts to curb antisemitism following the Holocaust, and in Jerusalem no less, the capital of the Jewish state, the same state conceived as the homeland and safe haven for those escaping hatred and persecution for no other reason than being Jews.

This should remind us that it’s useless to look for a place where there are no Jew haters because we will find no such place, including Israel. Instead, we should be looking for the way to transform the hatred between Jews into love, and to build a common place of connection between us. By doing so, all the evil and rejection against us from the nations of the world and from our neighbors would be replaced by good.

We need to understand that if not for the hatred of the nations of the world towards us, we would have ceased to be a distinct people long ago. That is to say Jews, the smallest of minorities, and the most prominent, would have vanished among the nations. Unfortunately, we behave like brothers primarily in times of trouble. Only when pressured by hatred against us are we forced to be close to each other.

This is so because, according to our roots, we were not founded on the common denominators of residential area, family relations, origin or color, but as a conglomeration of different peoples. Therefore, there is no natural inclination and closeness between us; we need to work on it consciously. No less important, we must not wait for others to compel us.

As Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag, Baal HaSulam warned back in 1940 in his writings, “Even the little we have left of the national love is not instilled in us positively, as it is in all the nations. Rather, it exists within us on a negative basis: It is the common suffering that each of us suffers being a member of the nation. This has imprinted within us a national awareness and proximity, as with fellow-sufferers.” And added, “Its measure of warmth suffices only to an ephemeral excitement, but without the power and strength with which we can be rebuilt as a nation that carries itself. This is because a union that exists due to an outside cause is not at all a national union.”

We have no alternative but to rise above our differences and unite. The phenomenon of antisemitism is revealed in the world as a natural response to remind the people of Israel why it exists in the world. Our only option and shield for defending ourselves against hatred is the implementation of our role as “a light unto the nations,” which can only be achieved through our unity. Plain and simple—only to the extent that we connect with one another above the rejection and hatred between us will we be able to enjoy peace and quiet.
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Medium published my new article “Why Antidepressants Don’t Improve Quality of Life”

We would expect people with depression to feel better if they took antidepressants. Surprisingly, a huge study that examined 17.5 million adults diagnosed with depression each year between 2005–2016 concluded that they don’t. According to the study, “The real-world effect of using antidepressant medications does not continue to improve patients’ Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) over time.” Moreover, the study concludes that “Future studies should not only focus on the short-term effect of pharmacotherapy [treatment by medications], it should rather investigate the long-term impact of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions on these patients’ HRQoL.” Clearly, depression cannot be cured with drugs. The only solution to it is to deal with the root cause of depression; nothing else will help.

Drugs are chemicals that can affect our feelings. However, emotional satisfaction is far more than a temporary feeling that fades when the concentration of a drug in the blood drops. Emotional satisfaction, the lack of which causes depression, is the result of one’s connection with the root of life, the origin that vitalizes everything around us. Just as we do not feel the oxygen in the air, but immediately feel when its concentration declines, we do not feel that we are connected to the root of life, but we most certainly feel when we are disconnected from it.

The root of life is a vital force that generates and sustains everything around us. It maintains a dynamic balance between two opposites that we can generally relate to as giving and receiving. These opposites manifest differently on every level: night and day, spring and fall, life and death, love and hate, and so forth.

When we are disconnected from it, we feel disoriented, insecure, and aimless. Imagine being out in space with nothing all around you, not even stars or planets to show you where you are. You can breathe, but nothing you do has any effect. When we are on Earth, tremendous pressures operate on our bodies from the air, gravity pulls our bodies downwards, the changing weather and hours of the day dictate what we do, and the people around us force us to act and think in ways we would not otherwise choose to act and think were it not for social pressures. However, precisely these pressures and counter pressures we create from within make us feel alive and vital. They give us direction, spur our actions, and enable us to evaluate our lives.

When we become too concentrated on ourselves, we lose contact with others, our human and social connections break down, and our most valuable channel for connection with the root of life, that vital force, becomes blocked. This is why people without healthy social ties do not feel vitalized although there is nothing physically wrong with them.

The more we develop, the more we need emotional satisfaction. If previously, we needed social connections primarily in order to satisfy our survival needs, such as food and work, modernization has made securing our physical well-being relatively easy. As a result, our social ties have changed their purpose, and instead of securing our survival, they provide us with a reason to survive. Instead of diminishing their meaning, they have become the very meaning of our lives.

It has been shown in countless studies that a person with good social ties is far happier and far less prone to depression than a more introverted person. Again, it is the interaction of pressure and counter-pressure that makes us feel alive and gives us a sense of purpose and direction. The cure for depression, therefore, is not in drugs, which have no effect on our social connections, but in building meaningful social connections that will give us emotional satisfaction.

This does not mean that we should all have many friends or that we should not be alone. Our natural disposition to sociability or privacy should remain. However, every person, however private, needs social connections. Our purpose is to make the ties we do have meaningful.

Our social connections should be such that we support each other and encourage each other to realize our potential. We should learn to see the differences between us not as causes for separation, but as perspectives that enrich us with views we would not come to by ourselves. Just as the night gives meaning to the day, an opposite opinion to mine gives meaning to my own opinion.

Think, for example, of democracy. What would be the meaning of the word if everyone had the same political opinion?

Therefore, the only way to improve our quality of life is by having as many views as possible within the same society, and maintain the cohesion of society while keeping all those different views “alive and kicking.” This will keep us connected to that root of life, to the contradictions that give life direction and meaning, and that provide us with emotional satisfaction.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Could There Be A Second Holocaust?”

A second Holocaust for the Jewish people is not a distant, hypothetical idea, but a very real threat. Nearly half of Israelis (47%) fear it, according to a recent poll released on the eve of the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day. If we continue on our routine, annual path of only remembering the bitter memory of the Holocaust without looking to our common future, a similar catastrophe will be unavoidable.

When asked what Holocaust Remembrance Day will look like in 30 years, young people in Israel predict a worrisome future. 21% of Israelis age 35 to 45 say they believe the commemoration of Yom HaShoah will erode over time until it disappears altogether, compared to 12% of Israelis age 65 and older. This is the explosive forecast for the preservation of the Shoah memory made in a new survey by the Pnima Movement, a multidisciplinary research group on social issues in Israel.

Memory and recollections naturally fade and blur, so the act of remembering the Holocaust also diminishes and disappears over the generations. Of course, we try to pass the memories from generation to generation with the help of new ceremonies and undertakings, but how well is a person able to bring those reminiscences to life? And the bigger question is whether he or she is even interested in doing so? If someone is, then the person must look for fresh ways to artificially renew the impressions, because of course that will not happen without great effort and innovation.

All this being said, preserving memories from the past is not the issue I am most concerned with, but with the situations we face in the present, with the people who live today, and with what we can do to prevent another Holocaust from befalling us.

I do not agree with the approach that once a year we visit a monument near home and observe a moment of silence in a state ceremony just to make us feel righteous. We must focus our concern throughout the year. Thoughts about the role of the Jewish people and the meaning of the horrible hatred that we have been subjected to should be ingrained and carried with us most of the time. I don’t mean that they should be carried in an oppressive way so people feel crushed by the thought, but yes, to live out of an awareness of who we are and what we have been through. We should be repaired by the past suffering, and not merely remember it.

In addition to the Holocaust, other historical events that have befallen the Jewish people and need practical repair—the destruction of the two Temples, the Bar Kokhba revolt, the pogroms and the expulsions—should also be included. From the big picture, we must understand that what Jews have done to each other in all these terrible wars due to unfounded hatred is no less horrific than what our greatest enemies have done to us.

And we must make haste with expanding our awareness and understanding of the purpose and process of past suffering. When the younger generation points out that the Holocaust Remembrance Day will be forgotten and become a normal day in the near future, it’s a clue that we must adopt a new educational line: instead of educating the young generation to weep over the past, we must give them hope and the right direction for a better future. We must educate the children in how to be united and to love each other, because only in this way will they not suffer.

It is our duty to make clear to younger generations and to ourselves, the simple law present and at work beneath the confusion of historical events: Whenever the Jews distanced themselves spiritually from one another, they were despised and loathed and treated badly. So if we would only get closer to each other, we would cause good to ourselves and, as a result, good for the world. If we create good for the world, there will be no hatred of Jews in it. For that is our task: to be “a light unto the nations.” This means that we have the power to take our destiny upon ourselves by uniting with each other in brotherly love, as our sages have commanded us.
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Medium published my new article “New Drug that Promises to Target Only Cancer Will Not Kill It”

Scientists at Tel-Aviv University (TAU) reported that they have developed a new way to deliver drugs directly to cancer cells rather than dispersing them throughout the body. According to the magazine Science Daily, “The study opens a new path to a personalized and precisely targeted battle against cancer.” Prof. Dan Peer, head of the research team, stated that their aim was “to silence the enzyme HO1 which enables tumors to develop resistance to chemotherapy, and ‎to conceal themselves from the immune system. …Our new nanodrug,” he asserts, “knows how to ‎precisely target the cancer cells, silence the enzyme, and expose the tumor to chemotherapy, ‎without causing any damage to surrounding healthy cells.” I am all for advanced medicine, but medicine cannot cure the cause of cancer, and without curing the cause, it is like sealing one leak in a pipe only to find that we have created a new one instead.

Cancer is a unique disease. It develops when cells begin to consume their environment and grow at its expense. Eventually, cancer brings on itself its own death by killing the body that sustains it, but it cannot help itself.

That “selfish” behavior of tumors is very similar to the way we are behaving toward each other and toward the environment. Although we are dependent on both for our survival, our attitude toward them is opportunistic and abusive, yet we cannot help ourselves. In that sense, humans are the cancer of the earth.

While it is not that the more selfish one is, the more likely one is to develop cancer, the increasing prevalence of cancer in human society as a whole is a result of our increasingly exploitative attitude toward Earth and toward each other. Just as kind and generous people, or even little children, may develop cancer, the effects of humanity’s abusive attitude can manifest in parts of the world that are not particularly exploitative. There is mutual responsibility here: Just as the entire organism suffers when one organ becomes sick, all of humanity suffers when its overall attitude becomes sick, namely abusive.

Cancer is not the only outgrowth of our abusiveness. Basically, so are all of our diseases. However, cancer is the most striking case of a “selfish” disease, since the way it operates is so similar to the way we are behaving toward each other, toward animals and plants, and toward Earth as a whole.

Because cancer is an “egoistic” illness, the only cure for it is to cure our egoism. Eliminating cancer, therefore, requires uprooting egoism from our society.

Clearly, this is an educational process and not a medical one, but we will feel its benefits in every aspect of our lives. Education toward reciprocity and consideration will not only benefit our health, but our economy, the safety of our society, the level of drug abuse and drug-related crime, and our overall standard of living and well-being.

Even if we cannot see an overt connection between cancer and selfishness, eliminating the latter is clearly a worthwhile goal. Therefore, I would suggest that we try it first, and when we see the results, we will not want to stop.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What If Iran Has a Bomb”

On April 11, the Institute for Science and International Security released what might well be considered an alarming report: “As soon as mid-to-late April,” namely these very days, “Iran is expected to reach a new dangerous, destabilizing threshold, having enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) to fashion a nuclear explosive, about 40-42 kilograms (kg) of 60 percent enriched uranium… With this quantity, an enrichment level of 60 percent suffices to create a relatively compact nuclear explosive; further enrichment to 80 or 90 percent is not needed.” As a result, the report continues, “the possibility of manufacturing a nuclear explosive cannot be excluded.”

“A common fallacy is Iran would require 90 percent HEU … to build nuclear explosives,” the report continues. “Although Iran’s nuclear weapons designs have focused on 90 percent HEU and likely prefer that enrichment, modifying them for 60 percent HEU would be straightforward and well within Iran’s capabilities.” In other words, according to the report, we are already dealing with a nuclear Iran.

Initially, I believed that Israel must do whatever it can to prevent Iran from getting a bomb. However, if Iran already has a bomb, I do not think that it is the end of the world, although now the rules of the game will clearly be very different.

First, they will be different for Iran. Aspiring for an A-bomb and actually having one are two very different things. Once you have got such a powerful weapon, you realize that playing time is over. You imagine the possibilities that being a nuclear power will give you, but the truth is that the constraints are countless. You are no longer treated like a reckless child but like a nuclear power, and the demands from you increase accordingly. Any step you take toward using nuclear arms might be reciprocated with equal strength, if not more, so it is not as though you can do whatever you want. Instead, you have far less room for error.

Second, despite the toxic rhetoric, I do not believe that Iran has made the destruction of the State of Israel one of its goals. Clearly, it is vociferous and strident in expressing its hatred for the Jewish state, but I think it is more a matter of politics than of real commitment to Israel’s destruction. After all, despite using Hamas and Hezbollah as Iranian proxies that bully Israel, neither poses an existential danger to the Jewish state, and its own army has never participated in any of the full-blown wars against Israel. As I see it, Iran’s anti-Israel rhetoric is more a political tactic than an actual ideology.

Therefore, if Iran indeed has a bomb, we must make the necessary preparations for ourselves, but nothing more than that. After all, we, too, have our missiles and planes, as well as submarines, and all of them can carry nuclear bombs if needed.

Besides, Israel is not Iran’s only avowed enemy. As a Shiite state, it has been in conflict with Sunni states for centuries, and Sunnis are the majority in the Muslim world. Therefore, Iran’s struggle for hegemony in the Muslim world is just as bitter, and perhaps more important to it than its ambition to annihilate the Jewish state.

Also, there is a deeper layer to the conflict between Iran and Israel, which pertains directly to the role of Israel with regard to humanity. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent, humanity has no choice but to learn to work together. The semiconductor crisis, shipment delays, the pandemic, the rising inflation and food shortage are all happening on a global scale. No country can survive on its own today.

Israel’s past contains a formula of unity that has never been tried by anyone except Israel, and that, too, only in antiquity. According to this formula, one does not try to oppress the other or change the other person’s, or nation’s way of life. Rather, belligerent parties leave their adversaries as they are and try to bond with them above the differences. For this to happen, the value of unity itself must be superior to all other values.

Think of a woman and her child. She loves her child whether he is a saint or a Satan.

We must achieve something of that relation throughout all of humanity. Since it is completely unnatural, we must elevate the value of unity above all other values, so that it covers all the faults we see in others.

If we value unity above all else, we will use our traits for the common good rather than for our own good. The surprising result will be that we will realize that in reality, there are no negative qualities when we use them only where and how they contribute to society.

The conflicts we see today, whether between Israel and Iran or between Russia and Ukraine, are all for the same purpose: to make us realize that in the end, we will not agree but we will have to unite nonetheless.

The world hates Israel precisely because it had set a precedent in antiquity, and now it must revive it and become an example from which the world can learn. The enemies of Israel force it to unite, and thereby do what Israel must do for the world: become an example of unity. If Israel insists on refraining from carrying out its mission, it will stop existing with or without an A-bomb.
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Medium published my new article “Clean Up Earth of Our Polluted Human Nature”

The United Nations recently celebrated the International Mother Earth Day as a reminder to protect the environment. Heat waves, droughts, fires and heavy rains that cause severe flooding have become more frequent in many parts of the world due to climate change, which affects the entire worldwide population.

The Earth is facing a “triple planetary crisis,” warn UN officials. Climate disruption, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste are the main areas of concern regarding the current state of the environment. This year, the Earth Day’s theme is “Invest In Our Planet,” so what would humanity’s best investment for the planet be?

We need to start by cleaning up the planet. There is no place on Earth where the air and water are clean, and that’s a real problem. In theory, tackling this issue should be our priority when it comes to taking action to improve the dismal state of our planet. But let’s not fool ourselves. Such a plan alone will solve nothing.

It will only help the international organizations to justify their own existence. They tick off “done” to raise as much money as they want, and that’s it. If we do not improve relations between us, we will not be able to achieve the great and ambitious improvement in nature that we want and need to attain globally. We will never achieve a good result through bureaucratic, mechanical measures.

There are a lot of people sitting in their comfortable offices profiting from the environmental crisis and demanding money and respect. They keep flying from one end of the world to the other on all kinds of missions to make a lot of noise with what they are “doing” and which everyone “needs to hear” as if that alone means something is happening, but in practice we see no real progress. The Earth must also be cleansed of them, of these people who engage in useless campaigns that only cause harm because they mislead the world, leading it away from the real solution.

The cleaning of the planet should start inside out. If we do not clean the planet from within, and continue with our reckless behavior and the selfish nature of our hearts as before, nothing will change for the better. The immense sums invested in environmental initiatives should be directed to spreading an educational process aimed at improving the way we relate to each other.

Humans are the most developed and influential factors of all of nature’s levels: still, vegetative, animate and human. Since we occupy the highest level in nature, positively affecting the environment, the climate, and nature in general can be achieved by reaching positive relations among us. On the contrary, by letting our divisive drives tear apart human relations, we also destroy our surrounding environment, the very nature that our lives depend on.

The more we humans are able to correct ourselves by changing our divisive attitudes toward each other into positive attitudes of mutual support, encouragement, mutual responsibility, and reciprocal concern, the more we will receive positive feedback from nature. And the more we develop without making this necessary correction, the more negative feedback we will receive from nature, as we have experienced in the form of natural disasters, pandemics.

It is of utmost importance for us to organize our thoughts, desires and qualities so that we understand that saving the environment and a shift to a better future depend solely on changing our attitudes to each other: from antagonistic egoism to positive, compassionate and cooperative relationships.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Why We Care about Moses”

Although Passover is, well, over, there is something that humanity never gets over: its fascination with Moses. In fact, it is not only Moses, but the whole story of the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt and their miraculous escape that has captivated the imagination of humankind for thousands of years. What is it about this story that has so enthralled us? After all, stories about slaves and the escape to freedom abound, as are stories about confrontations between leaders. But few, if any, have gained immortality the way the story of Israel’s escape from Egypt has.

There is a good reason for this. The story of Israel’s entry into Egypt, their lives there, and their escape, captivates us not so much because of the story itself, but because of what it means for each of us. The annals of the Hebrews in Egypt describe the process of liberation from egoism and attaining the quality of altruism, or love of others.

There is a reason why Rabbi Akiva explains that the great rule of the Torah is “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and why the great sage Hillel said to a man who asked him to summarize the Torah in one sentence, “That which you hate, do not do to your neighbor.”

Granted, not everyone wants to become an altruist. In fact, few do. However, as humanity evolves, it is becoming increasingly interdependent. The more we recognize that the actions of each of us affect the lives of all of us, the closer we come to realize that we have no choice but to change our most fundamental trait: selfishness, which in this day and age has become what many pundits call a “narcissism epidemic.”

The realization is already underway. The widely used phrase “An infection anywhere is an infection everywhere,” shows that we acknowledge that we all influence each other.

However, how can we care about others when we are so preoccupied with ourselves? This is precisely what the story of the Israelites in Egypt tells us. And it moves us because deep down, we all have an inner Moses that understands that the solution to our problems is in unity, in breaking free from the ego, and it is only a matter of time before we accept the inevitability of the transformation.

In the story, Pharaoh represents the evil inclination, the ego. The Egyptians are also egoistic desires and thoughts, but they are not as obstinate and self-absorbed as Pharaoh. The Israelites are those thoughts and desires within us that are willing to follow Moses toward altruism.

It is not an easy battle, and the lure of Egypt is too strong for the Israelites to triumph. Likewise, we, too, are very weak when it comes to resisting our egos. Just look at the “Me! Me! Me!” culture we have built, as a great NPR essay described it, and you will understand how immersed we are in ourselves.

But sooner or later, we will have to come out of Egypt. The ego-empire is already falling; the civilization we have built is crumbling under pollution, exploitation, and belligerence. It is driving us out of ourselves and into each other’s arms. It is giving us the choice to embrace each other and be saved, or kill each other and ourselves in the process.

Eventually, we will choose the former. The only question is how long it will take before we understand that we have no choice but to run away from Egypt and build a new nation, made of all of humanity, where people care for one another and unite like the people of Israel did at the foot of Mt. Sinai: “as one man with one heart.”
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Medium published my new article “Achieving Individual and Group Goals”

Life is about goals and the corresponding choices to achieve them. Key elements for success are properly evaluating the conditions at our disposal before setting a goal and our teamwork capabilities.

When I define a goal for myself, I should find out if it is even within my reach. Do I possess the inclinations and skills necessary to achieve it? For instance, if I do not have an analytical mind, it’s a waste of time to set a goal of a career in software engineering. The fact that so many work in the high-tech industry does not guarantee me a path to success either.

Once I decide on a direction that appeals to me personally, I should approach an environment of people who are already working in that field and examine what their day looks like, what their lives, their families, their time for leisure, are like. It may be that the examples I discover of people who actually hold those jobs will lead me to disqualify certain development directions in advance. This will save me time, resources, and false hope.

Groups or work teams that share a common goal should also find successful examples in their field and follow them as much as possible. By and large, the most important variable for team success is the level of mutual connectedness that exists within that group.

Naturally, each individual in the group or team thinks about his or her own performance, interests, and future promotion. In this case, the degree of group togetherness is low even if one contributes and cooperates. It is worth learning to build a team correctly: keeping in mind the common interest. In such a team we will find that success is limitless.

A group, by the highest definition, means that we are all together, feeling connected and functioning like different organs in one body. Each helps the other and understands the other even without words due to the common desire to create harmony and achieve results on a completely different level. That new degree is attained through the absolute conviction that the ultimate goal could have not been achieved alone.

Group strength is created when before tackling a task we set the overarching goal of being connected to each other. Thus, a common mind, a common feeling, emerges between us, and from that, we properly address the challenge before us. Without connection, it is impossible to take a step forward.

A group is not a collection of individuals, the sum of all our abilities as individuals, but a new entity in which our collective efforts and common yearnings merge. The mind and feelings of the group will be of a higher level than those of the individual, no matter how smart and talented anyone is.

Evolution has been like that since its beginning. Nature’s formula for promoting the development of life is to always create more advanced connections between its different elements.

If we, as intelligent beings, take up this trend and learn the method of proper connection between people, we will find that this will elevate us as a human species to the next stage of evolution. In this way, we will adapt to the movement of the general force of nature and achieve the maximum possible results in any area of our lives.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Is Europe on the Verge of Nuclear War?”

The current times expose Europe’s vulnerability and the risk of further escalation of war that could explode in a split second. Finland and Sweden have announced their desire to apply for NATO membership. On the other hand, Russia looks at the move as a threat and has warned of a military response including the deployment of nuclear and hypersonic weapons to the Baltic Sea area if those nations join the alliance.

Finland and Sweden claim that the war in Ukraine has prompted increasing public support for them to become part of the 30-member military alliance, based on opinion polls. Both Nordic countries have refrained from joining NATO for decades in an attempt to maintain neutrality, but it seems those calculations have changed.

Could the tensions in Europe unfold in the form of nuclear conflict? First of all, as soon as the war in Ukraine ends, the perspectives of the European countries and of the world in general about the future will change profoundly. The assessments about life before and after the conflict–if it can be called a conflict, because it is more complex than that–will determine what lies ahead for everyone. But until we understand that our innate human desire for dominance does nothing to promote a positive change in the world, it will continue to pose a global threat to us all, and the danger of nuclear war will persist in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

The risks of nuclear expansion arise for a purpose: in order to make humanity understand that threat and domination is not the correct way to solve problems between countries. Since nuclear weapons have the ability to exterminate entire populations, they force the world and every person to fear such an outcome and to consider how to change human society as a whole so that such a disastrous scenario would not materialize.

We should have learned this lesson from previous painful events throughout history, but unfortunately, humanity has learned nothing from the former blows. Therefore, we keep stumbling over the same stone again and again.

We will be able to prevent our complete annihilation only when we realize that ruling through hate and separation only paves the way toward destruction. Any hope for a better future depends on our willingness to change our narrowly egoistic viewpoint to a more comprehensive and inclusive view of relations between people and countries.

As foremost Kabbalist Baal HaSulam explains in his eye-opening composition The Writings of the Last Generation, “The bombs will do their thing, and the relics who remain after the ruin will have no other choice but to take upon themselves this work where both individuals and nations will not work for themselves more than is necessary for their sustenance, while everything else they do will be for the benefit of others.” Hopefully, we don’t have to reach a point of despair in order to react and change our course of action from self-interest to cooperation and mutual care.
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Medium published my new article “Decoding the Human Genome — the More We Know, the Less We Understand”

In recent weeks, newspapers and scientific magazines hailed the completion of the mapping of the human genome. Smithsonian Magazine exclaimed, “Scientists have deciphered the missing eight percent of our genetic blueprint, setting the stage for new discoveries in human evolution and disease.” Time Magazine festively quoted Evan Eichler, one of the leaders of the mapping project, “The excitement in the genomic and medical community is palpable. ‘Hallelujah, we finally finished one human genome, but the best is yet to come,’ Eichler said during a briefing. ‘No one should see this as the end, but the beginning of a transformation not only in genomic research but in clinical medicine as well.’”

It is great that we have “Sequenced a ‘Gapless’ Human Genome,” as Smithsonian Magazine described it, but reality shows that the more we know, the less we understand. Decoding the human genome might help solve some problems, but it will not make our lives easier or happier. Since we have no understanding of our surroundings, we don’t understand the context by which our genes evolved and how they operate in relation to the environment. Therefore, all the formulas and knowledge will be swallowed in the abyss of our incomprehension of reality, and we will deepen and worsen our problems through our own doing.

Every single gene that is encoded into us is there for a reason. If we alter or manipulate it, we will alter everything connected to it. Nature does not create malfunctions on purpose. It only mends. Therefore, when we try to “mend” nature, we invariably spoil what was not broken except we could not see it because of our blindness.

Our sages in the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 156a) wrote that if a person is born with the nature of a killer, he may become a murderer or a thief, or a butcher or one who performs circumcision. In other words, we should not try to change people’s basic characteristics, but only use them where they help all of society.

Instead of trying to modify people’s genes, we should teach them how to use their innate nature for the benefit of society rather than to harm it. To do that, we should create a social atmosphere where those who contribute to it are the most respected, venerated, and admired people.

Currently, the “leaders” of society are narcissists who appreciate nothing but themselves and aspire to be as “unique” as possible, or those who exploit society to gain wealth, power, and clout. When these are the people that everyone admires, society cannot but disintegrate. The self-centered values that everyone tries to follow divide society and break it into smaller and smaller pieces. Finally, everyone will be left to fend for themselves. They will feel that they have no one close to them, and anyone is a potential enemy. In such a state, the only escapes from misery will be drugs and suicide.

Leaders will not change themselves. They are leaders only because we ourselves are like them, so we venerate people who excel in how we would like to be. Therefore, we should not wait for the idols of society to change. Instead, we should change who we are, and as we change ourselves, the personas that we idolize will change, as well, and new values will take center stage.

Once we change the values of society, we will discover that there is nothing inherently wrong with any of us. Our only flaw was how we used what was instilled in us by nature. In other words, the intention behind our actions was the culprit, not our DNA.

Because our current intentions are only for self-aggrandizement, everything that we discover and develop is harmful to society. And because we live in the society we harm, the very society that nourishes and sustains us, everything we develop and discover ends up harming us.

We need not change what we are, but who we are. Our problem is not what we do, but why we do it. If we work in order to benefit the society we live in, we will benefit ourselves.

It takes a joint effort to transition from our narcissistic mindset, but the global situation is already so poor that I think we have no choice, and no time to waste.
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