Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Antisemitism – in Service of the Media”

The increasing frequency of antisemitic incidents around the world is mainly due to the media’s deliberate emphasis on such incidents, which incite antisemites to act. If the media does not lower the flames, it will end in a catastrophe. The only way to limit the insidious reports is by Jews standing shoulder to shoulder and showing a united front.

A few days ago, at the behest of the antisemitic organization The Rights Forum, administrators at more than a dozen Dutch universities instructed their staff to list their interactions with Israeli and Jewish organizations, reports the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA).

The request demanded “to receive all information about the period from January 1, 2012 to January 24, 2022, more than ten years. And all of this must be submitted, if possible on paper, within 28 days.” One university employee quipped, “What is the next step? That Jews in universities should all wear a yellow star?” Holland’s Chief Rabbi was not amused at all. “What really concerns me,” he said, “is the number of universities that were so compliant with such an evidently antisemitic request. It reminds us that most mayors cooperated during the occupation to pass on the names of their Jewish citizens to the Germans.”

Reports about antisemitic incidents are flooding the media, and all carry the same message: Antisemitism is rising. It is true that antisemitic incidents have risen, but I do not think that Jew-hatred is rising or falling. Jew-hatred always exists in the heart of every non-Jew; it is a constant. What does change, however, is the extent to which people allow themselves to express it, and this depends on the media. The more the media reports such incidents, and especially, the more it reports them with a “somber” tone that implies escalation of antisemitism, the more it emboldens and galvanizes antisemites.

By media, I mean all forms of media: social media, TV and radio channels, newspapers, books, journals, magazines, and anything that hits the air and somehow reaches the public. If the media were to stop reporting antisemitic incidents, the frequency of antisemitic incidents would drop instantly. It would not diminish Jew-hatred, but it would diminish its overt, and mainly violent expression.

Regrettably, this will not happen. “Antisemitism is the scourge that God has sent us in order to lead us together and weld us together,” said Dr. Kurt Fleischer, leader of the Liberals in the Berlin Jewish Community Assembly, in 1929. The hidden hatred keeps looking for ways to vent itself, and the best place to air hatred is the media.

The only way to curb expressions of hatred is to dissolve it, and the only way to dissolve hatred toward Jews is to dissolve the hatred among Jews.

Wittingly or not, the people of Israel are always at the center of attention. From the very beginning, when we forged a nation out of descendants of outcasts from every nation in the Fertile Crescent, we were designated to be the world’s heroes or pariahs. The unbelievable feat that the early Hebrews had achieved in establishing their nationhood against all odds and above all the hatred they had felt for one another was a precedent no one since has managed to replicate. Even the Jews fell in and out of love with one another until they finally dissolved in a bloody civil war that dissolved their nation and brought upon them Titus, who conquered Jerusalem, destroyed what was left of the Temple, and exiled the starved relics to Rome.

Since then, Jews have been persona non grata wherever they went. If they were tolerated, it was only because the ruler exploited them for political or monetary gains, usually the latter, but it never lasted.

The Jews will be welcome wherever they go only if they first unite among themselves. Unity is not their shield against adversaries; it is the example they must give the world. When they unite, the world welcomes them and says, “It is becoming to cling only to this nation,” as the book Sifrey Devarim writes. When they are divided, what happens is what is happening today, what happened in 1492, and what happened in the 1940s.

We need to understand that the media opens and closes the valve on expressions of antisemitism, but our actions for or against each other determine whether the media opens or closes the valve.

More on this topic in my book The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord.
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Medium published my new article “‘Patriotic Millionaires’ Request Wealth Tax to Return Some of What They Took”

According to Reuters, a group of more than 100 billionaires and millionaires calling themselves “Patriotic Millionaires” has issued an appeal to politicians and business leaders to make them pay more taxes. According to the group, “the ultra-wealthy were not currently being forced to pay their share.” It may look very generous, but I think we should look at where they got their billions — from the rest of us, the regular folk, who do pay their fair share of taxes, as well as enrich the already rich. Moreover, why is no one asking how come those super rich don’t pay a lot more taxes than we do, with some of them paying almost none at all?

Humanity should really get some order in its affairs. How can it be that one person has billions, if not more, and pays little to no taxes? These moguls set up organizations and use tax maneuvers to evade taxes while the rest of us pay 20–40 percent income tax. Where is the logic here?

The story mentions a study conducted by the Patriotic Millionaires together with Oxfam and other non-profit organizations. The study concluded that “a progressive wealth tax starting at 2% for those with more than $5 million and rising to 5% for billionaires could raise $2.52 trillion, enough globally to lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty and guarantee healthcare and social protection for individuals living in lower income countries.”

In other words, while regular people pay a quarter or more of their income in taxes, the rich pay up to 5% and expect gratitude. Just look at this excerpt from the story: “Over the course of the two years of the pandemic, the fortunes of the world’s 10 richest individuals have risen to $1.5 trillion — or by $15,000 a second.”

I think that the truth is that the rich know that the current situation is so unacceptable that it will turn against them. To prevent an even greater loss, they are offering to “give” a few percent. What a “sacrifice,” I tremble in awe.

As I see it, there should be a progressive tax, applied retroactively, that charges up to ninety percent from the rich. Their “offer” is hypocritical, sordid, and I don’t think they deserve any praise for it or any exemption from their duty to share the common burden of the world’s problems. They cannot even imagine how the rest of the world looks at what they are offering. It is nothing more than a last ditch effort to save their skin after trying everything else.

It is time for humanity to move to another level. We really need to question what is worth living for and what is not. This is the reason why we see so much corruption and evil in the world today — to help us conduct our scrutinies more quickly and clearly.
The tycoons, who used to feel that they were on top of the world, are now feeling the winds of change. People are beginning to not only want, but demand balance in society, where everyone is treated fairly. In such a society, the leaders of public opinion, the “idols,” will be the ones who help unite people and establish cohesion and mutual responsibility in communities and societies, and the selfish rich and famous will be demoted.
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Medium published my new article “Valentine’s Day Is Great Business but Love Takes More than Gifts”

Valentine’s Day is a very lucrative day for gift sellers, florists, and… pet shops. Americans spend nearly $21 billion on Valentine’s Day shopping. They spend nearly $900 million dollars on gifts for their pets, $1.8 billion on candy, and $5 billion on jewelry. They buy no less than 250 million flowers and plants, with roses (especially red) far out in front. It’s very pleasant to receive a gift, and it feels very good to give a gift, so I am all for it, but gifting is not the same as loving. Other than a mother’s love for her child, love between people requires time, effort, and mutual concessions. Love is built over time and by enduring trials.

When people meet and “fall in love,” it isn’t love. Call it infatuation, crush, or attraction, but it is not love. We should not connect between hormones and love because there is no connection.

Love means wanting to do good, to help, to make the beloved person happy. That special someone may or may not know about it, but what matters to me is not what I get in return, but that I have made the loved one happy, that I have done something good for my beloved.

In true love, there is no “because.” I do not condition my love on a reward or something in return. If I do, it is not love; it is business. Even if I don’t disclose my provision to the other person, but deep down I stipulate my love on meeting certain requirements, it is already a fake; it is not true love.

It may seem as though such selfless love means denying myself necessities, but we have no idea what a treasure we deny ourselves by not loving in this way, without attaching any conditions to it. If we can love another person the way a mother loves her child, this will be true love.

It may seem impossible, but it is not. We can achieve it if we really want to, but as I said, it takes a lot of work.

Our main work should concentrate around building a supportive social environment. If we surround ourselves with people who aspire to develop among them relationships of true love, we will have all the energy we need to perform such a transformation in ourselves.

Therefore, the more people understand the difference between love and attraction, and feel that such a goal is worth the effort, the easier it will be for them to achieve it. And the more people achieve it, the better it will be for the rest of society and the rest of the world.

Happy Valentine’s Day, and may we all come to experience true love.
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My new article on Linkedin “Social Engineering – Truth Is a Matter of Perspective”

In recent years, the subject of social engineering, which can be defined as the involuntary manipulation of people into actions and views that conform to the will of the manipulator, has become a hot topic of discussion. It has been this way for ages, but now we have become aware of it. It is a terrible thing that people do to one another, but once we know it exists, we at least know how easily we can be fooled, that truth is a matter of perspective, and that our perspective depends on who is better at manipulating us.

Social engineering is everywhere—in news stories that show only one perspective, in newspapers that twist stories to show the opposite of what actually happened, in pictures taken in one setting and whose caption says something entirely different, in bogus studies funded by corporations or shareholders who dictate their “scientific” findings, in “quotes” from anonymous sources that cannot be verified, yet give us the “information” that the social engineer wants to convey, and in countless other ways.

Previously, rulers and governments used soldiers, secret services, and police to strengthen their grip on the public. Today, they rule by manipulating the public into believing what they want them to believe.

But we cannot blame governments or rulers for being so manipulative. We ourselves want to be manipulated. No one wants to know the truth, and as in any market, no one will sell a product if there is no demand for it. Moreover, if you tell people a lie that they like to hear and label it “truth,” it will find many buyers.

At present, what our egos like, they regard as truth. It is as if all of reality is in front of me, but my whole attention is on a box that is in front of me. I do not see the reality around me, but only the box.

The box is my ego, and it projects to me only what pleases my ego. As a result, I think that this is reality, since I am only focused on the box and cannot see the actual reality.

Meanwhile, those who manipulate the boxes that depict our reality do whatever they want. They feel no need to hide their vices because corruption gives them fame, and thanks to social engineering they can get away with anything. There is no escape unless we free ourselves from the grip of the box, our ego, which determines our perception.

There is only one way to break free from the box: adopt an opposite mode of work. Instead of focusing on what we can receive from everything we come in contact with, we should focus on what we can give.

Only when we focus on giving rather than receiving can we experience true freedom—freedom from the ego. When we are free from the ego, we will judge everything by its true nature. If enough people adopt this mindset, our entire reality will change and we will not have to constantly fight to impose our point of view on everyone.

When there is war, everyone loses. But when people try to support and help one another, everyone wins. Our task today is to make as many people as possible aware of this simple truth. When enough people understand it, they will work together to create a new reality where everyone is cared for and no one is manipulated.
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Medium published my new article “Education — We Need to Build Back Better”

The past two years have been nerve-wracking for children, parents, and the entire education system. The recurring isolations and lockdowns have not only affected the children’s social relationships, they also left everyone uncertain about the future. It is clear that things will not be as they were until the beginning of the decade, but it is unclear what they will be like. Either way, since we are destined to shuttle back and forth between physical and virtual connections, we might as well learn to make meaningful connections in both settings.

The current situation has already shifted us from our previous mindset about connections, but it has not yet established new ones within us. It is still hard to see what our new manner of connection will be like since we are not machines; it takes time to grow into a new mode of operation.

However, since nature never goes back, but always forward, one thing is clear: that which was will never return.
Whatever form we eventually take, it will be one where we are not only connected in new ways, but also more positively than before. Nature’s evolution is always moving toward increasing complexity and integration. Everything is becoming more interdependent, not less so, and this is true for humanity, as well.

Yet, while all other species accept nature’s dictates without questions, humans are disconnected from nature and have their own will. Nature still forces us to go its way, but it has also given us our own will, which grows in the opposite direction: While nature drives us to incorporation, we strive for separation. This is why animals accept what nature gives them and adapt, while we suffer and resist, but to no avail.

The suffering we feel is a clear disadvantage compared to the rest of the animal world, but human beings have an advantage that no other living being has: Instead of being forced into connection, we can think about it, compare it to separation, and finally choose it. Although we have no choice but to ultimately choose connection, since this is the course of all of creation, choosing it of our own volition means that we understand the logic behind it, the “thought of creation,” if you will.

There is no comparison between the pleasure and depth we experience when we choose to do something as opposed to doing it instinctively. This is our unique advantage, the merit of human beings over all other beings.

All the blows we have suffered since the beginning of time have led us to evolve from hunter-gatherers into clans, towns, countries, empires, and finally to a global village. The increased incorporation always happens against our will and at the cost of countless lives and indescribable suffering, but it need not be this way. If we understand where we are going and what we are destined to acquire at the end of the road, we can go there willingly and help each other transcend our individuality to form a conscious and unified humanity.

Our education systems should focus on instilling this awareness in us. This education should apply to all ages, countries, and cultures. If we make unity our top priority, we will begin to see the differences between us as welcome diversity, and our different perspectives as enriching our knowledge. If we want to stop suffering and enjoy the road we’re on, we need to rebuild our education system in synchrony with all of nature: toward connection, cohesion, and integration.

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “A New Book Spells Out Old Truth”

Recently, Daniel Gordis’ latest publication, We Stand Divided: The Rift Between American Jews and Israel, has been translated into Hebrew and published in Israel. Much has happened since it was published, two and a half years ago, but the nadir, as Gordis refers to the rift between American Jews and Israel, has only deepened since. I think that if we are to be honest with ourselves, we must acknowledge that other than organizations whose funding relies on sustaining the ties between Israel and American Jewry, both communities are uninterested in one another. In fact, the most prevalent feelings between the two communities are resentment, condescension, and dislike.

In an interview for the Israeli paper Makor Rishon, Gordis recalled a letter that approximately 100 Reform rabbinical students signed during the “Guardian of the Walls” military campaign (May 10-21, 2021). The letter accused Israel of implementing apartheid against the Palestinians and called on American Jewish communities to hold Israel accountable for the “violent suppression of human rights,” but said nothing of the more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian cities or the fact that Hamas’ charter explicitly calls for the annihilation of the State of Israel. To conclude, says Gordis, “In the May war, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt supported Israel more than the rabbinical students who signed the letter.”

Indeed, I see no connection between the two communities. I understand that for observing Jews, the Jewish holidays and Israel bear significance. Also, if Jews in one country have family in the other country, they will feel connected, especially if they often visit one another. There are also Jews in America who believe that Israel can be a safe haven in case they need to make a run for it, as Jews have always done throughout history when they were persecuted. But as communities, I see no connection between the two.

If American Jews are looking for safe havens from antisemitism, they’d be better off buying some land in Central America, Mexico, or Canada, and lead their lives there. There are already such settlements, such as the Orthodox Jewish town Kiryas Tosh in Quebec, Canada, and there are others.

The majority of American Jews have never been to Israel. They don’t want to come here and they feel no connection to the Jewish state. They did not choose to be Jewish, they were born into it, but they have no interest in Israel. If anything, the fact that there are organizations that try to tighten the connections between the two communities only annoys them. This is why many American Jews say about Israel, “It’s a pity you exist at all. If you didn’t exist, people would forget about us. Now they know that there is the people of Israel and hate us.”

Because there is no connection between the two communities, no effort by any organization will succeed. If there were a connection, we wouldn’t need anything else. If we could awaken love among us, Jews, all the Jews from around the world would want to come here. But because we are disunited, no one wants to come here and no one wants connection with us or with Jews at all.

From the perspective of the Israelis, I think that what we need to do is worry about our own unity, and forget about trying to connect with those who do not want connection. The people who live here, in Israel, should connect among themselves and form such a tight bond that the entire world will look at us and strive to follow our example.

The connection between us does not need organizations, who come with their own interests. It also does not need government offices, who impose their own agendas. All we need is people who want to connect above all their differences. In the end, the ancient motto that we have never implemented but have always preached, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” is our only rescue. This is what we need, and the best service we can do to the world is to implement it and set a good example to the world.

To conclude, I’d like to bring the words of Nathan Sternhartz, the prime disciple and scribe of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, who concisely packaged the whole idea: “‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ is the great rule of the Torah, to include in unity and peace, which are the heart of the vitality, persistence, and correction of the whole of creation, when people of differing views are included together in love, unity, and peace.”
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My new article on Linkedin “Kill Yourself Already! Words Matter”

In a tragic incident, a distraught young woman called a police hotline dozens of times in the same evening saying she was in distress and was contemplating taking her own life. In the end, the officers at the station became impatient and one of them yelled at her, “Kill yourself already and leave us in peace!” The officers around him snickered, and the flustered girl on the other end of the line fell silent. She never called again. Two weeks later, she did as the officer had suggested and killed herself.

The officer was horrified when he learned of the girl’s suicide. “I don’t know what came over me,” he said. “I myself have daughters! I feel terrible; I was tired, under pressure from other calls, and I simply lost my patience.”

We all have our limits, but these limits change depending on the importance of the person we are dealing with. If it is a boss we are afraid of, we will tolerate a great deal. If it is our sick child crying in pain, we will not lose our patience and say, “Kill yourself already and leave me in peace!” On the contrary, the more the child cries, the more we will cry, too.

In other words, we behave according to our own emotional involvement or interest. We have a lot of patience for people who matter to us, and little to no patience for people who are not important to us. As our ego continues to grow, the little patience we still have diminishes even further. On the current course, we are headed for a complete social dissolution.

The only way to change this abysmal fate is to change how we feel about each other. The reason we have patience with a sick child or an annoying boss is that we feel connected to them because they are important to us for a positive reason or a negative one.

We may not know it but in truth, we are connected to everyone. If we knew how every ounce of negativity we emit into the world comes back to us with vengeance, we would count to ten, twenty, or a hundred before we dared to speak rudely to others. Indeed, we are all parts of a whole, an organism whose parts have been blinded to their connectedness.

We know that it is bad for us to live in bad neighborhoods, but somehow, we do not associate our bad behavior with the bad neighborhood we live in. If we were not bad to one another, we would not be living in bad neighborhoods, bad cities, or countries, or a bad world.

The bottom line is that by recognizing our interdependence, we will eventually come to care for one another. When we care for one another, not only will we have patience for people in distress, there will be no distressed people because our care for one another will prevent such feelings from arising in the first place.

Caring for each other is not a burden, as we think of it today. It is our only shield from adversity.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Jews of Today’s German Army”

After Nazi-Germany’s attempt to wipe out its (and the world’s) Jewish population, today 118,000 Jews reside in Germany. Eight decades have passed since World War II and there are currently about 300 Jews wearing the German military uniform “ready to die” for their homeland. Some of them even come from families of Holocaust survivors.

How is it possible for Jews to join the German army after the military atrocities committed against Jews by the Nazis? The answers vary.

Some argue that this is the way to heal the wounds of history and others think that this is actually the way to clear prejudices since today there is a new Germany. But each assertion springs from a sense of self-righteousness, from a desire to show everyone that “Jews are not what people always thought they were.” It is a desire to be accepted and understood.

During World War I, about 100,000 German Jewish soldiers fought for their country. Before they were banned from serving in the army when Hitler came to power in 1933, they fought as hard as any Christian German to serve their homeland and did their best to show that they were loyal Germans. But did that help them when the Nazis, with their Aryan supremacy agenda, came to power? Why do they think it will be different today? How can they ignore that there is still rampant antisemitism throughout the country and right-wing extremists within the German military and police as authorities have uncovered in recent years?

Just as no one foresaw that only fifteen years after World War I Jews would be blamed for all of Germany’s troubles and their participation in the war would be presented as an act of betrayal against the country they fought and died in, today no one will salute them.

To understand where the phenomenon of Jewish self-denial comes from, one must understand who a Jew is and what his or her role is. Jews have an element that was imprinted in them in the time of our ancestor Abraham, which culminated with the acceptance of the Torah at the foot of Mount Sinai. This spiritual element connects the Jews to the power of nature; it is an element that does not exist in any other nation., Through this spiritual element the Jews can become a channel leading to abundance, light, and spiritual power for the whole world. That is what it is to be “a light to the nations.”

During the period of the Second Temple, the Jewish people were at the height of their glory and united in brotherly love that enlightened all of mankind. But as selfishness, the evil instinct, the negative force, grew and separated them, brotherhood and love were replaced by free hatred that sent the Jews to all corners of the world.

Since the destruction of the Temple, the Jews have failed to fulfill their role in humanity, and as a result of it, they evoke a sense of hatred known as antisemitism. In order to escape the hatred against them, they try to hide their Jewish identity wherever they live or attempt to blend in within the establishment, like those Jews who join the ranks of the German army, for example. In extreme cases, consciously or unconsciously, they become Jew-haters themselves.

In all ways, Jews are trying to free themselves from the role assigned to them by trying to uproot their spiritual origin. But this is impossible. The Jewish “gene” is in their essence. It is a spiritual root that is above nature, and it forces them to be Jews.

The only action the Jews have to perform today is to unite among them. That is the act that made them a nation to begin with; it is also the only act that has ever earned them respect and goodwill from other peoples and nations— it is the simple act of promoting the value of solidarity and cohesion from the Jews to the entire world.
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My new article on Linkedin “Why Israel Has Become Corrupt”

Every year, Transparency International, the global coalition against corruption, publishes its Corruption Perceptions Index. In 1996, when Israel was first added to the index, we came in at no. 14. In the 2021 index, we came in at no. 36. At the moment, I cannot see what will reverse the dismal trend unless some blow lands on us and straightens us up, if it does not destroy us.

When you read the lofty words in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, the chasm between them and reality is staggering. The assertions that the State of Israel “will be founded on the basis of freedom, justice, and peace,” that there will be “complete social and political equality for all its citizens,” and “freedom of religion, conscience, tongue, education, and culture,” stand in stark contrast to the grim reality.

I come from the former Soviet Union, where the promises after the Bolshevik Revolution were even more ambitious, and the subsequent fall into corruption even deeper, so I have no expectations from declarations. Nevertheless, these words highlight the pretense in the leaders’ words, who really aim for nothing but their own renown and power.

We think that the founders of the country were idealistic and pure, but in reality, the only thing that has changed is that their expectations were a little more modest than today’s leaders. Since then, everyone’s egos have grown, and the self-centered aspirations of the leaders have grown proportionally. Today, no one takes anyone into account, and everyone is willing to do whatever it takes just to be at the top.

There is no boundary to where human egoism can grow or what it can do, none whatsoever. Today, people who should be behind bars are running the country. The concept of “concern for the citizens” no longer exists in anyone’s lexicon, not to mention their minds.

Until a blow by some force majeure forces us to reflect on the country that we want to live in, nothing will get better. I only hope that it happens before we lose the country altogether.

Having said all that, there is another way. It takes courage, persistence, and the conviction that the current path leads nowhere. But most of all, it requires solidarity and participation of many people.

That path is the path of education. We can choose to teach ourselves to live by the values that we believe are right, but to do that, we must help each other maintain our resolve that living in a just and equal society means first of all that we have a society to speak of. Living in a society means that we accept that we are dependent on each other, that we can and must rely on each other, and that we see to the well-being of all the parts in our society, or we are not really a society.

Next, we need to realize that maintaining mutual responsibility only on the physical level will not hold. We need to “translate” it into emotional commitment, which implies developing concern, care, and eventually love for one another.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is not an empty slogan that our ancestors concocted for political purposes; it is a tenet we must eventually live out among us. Once we achieve it, there will be no concerns of corruption or mistreatment. Just as these vices do not exist in a loving family, they will not exist in a loving society.

We will need to be brave. We will need to paddle upstream because the ego does not like sharing or caring, but if we want a future for the State of Israel, we simply have no choice. Solidarity, mutual responsibility, and mutual concern are not slogans; they are our weapon against the dissolution of the country.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Inflation – a Testimony to Our Disunity”

The rising prices in Israel mean more than a growing economic burden on lower income groups. In 2011, when the price of cottage cheese became unreasonable and housing prices skyrocketed, people took to the streets in droves demanding social justice. Now, while a boycott has been declared online against some of the major food manufacturers in Israel, there is no open outrage, no demonstrations or protests, no signs demanding social justice, and no fiery speeches about accountability. In fact, the public seems so indifferent that even the government is initiating price hikes.

But the public is not careless; it is simply jaded, disillusioned, and above all, divided to the point of paralysis. The government and corporations, for their part, merrily exploit it.

It is not as if there is nothing we can do. After all, we, the public, are the ones who pay. But if we do not cooperate, we cannot call the shots. When consumers are divided, they are like a herd of cattle being led by those who own it. If we could work together, we could cut the prices of countless products in half or even less.

So why can’t we cooperate? We cannot cooperate because we do not want to have anything to do with one another. We do not want connections and we do not want commitments.

Precisely because of it, the price hikes are an opportunity for us to recognize our real problem, which is our division, and solve it once and for all. By raising prices to levels that make it difficult for many of us to buy even the most basic staples, corporations are inadvertently forcing us to unite. In that sense, these profiteers are doing society a great service by making us look to each other for support.

Now we need to see what we can achieve with our solidarity. Solidarity is not a goal in itself. It is a foundation that enables us to create a society that not only functions justly, but maintains that just mindset through constant work on solidarity and unity.

Once we have achieved a certain level of solidarity, we are ready to move on to the next level. The ego is not passive. It is constantly growing, and today’s solidarity will not hold tomorrow. Therefore, once we have achieved it, we must strive to increase the affinity between us and build our solidarity on empathy and kinship.

As we climb the levels of closeness, the levels below become a given. For example, solidarity is a given among people who care for one another. Therefore, if we achieve affection, we have achieved solidarity.

In the current state of the Israeli society, we are so divided that we cannot speak of any positive feelings. However, if we rally around a common problem, and unjust price hikes are certainly a common problem, we can advance from there to deeper levels of connectedness. As we deepen the bonds between us, we will naturally be fair toward each other and we will not need to worry about price hikes or other forms of exploitation.
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