Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “No Way to Unscramble Scrambled Eggs”

On March 8, 2009, during the financial crisis that became known as the Great Recession, then Wachovia Corp. economist Mark Vitner described the world’s jumbled economies quite aptly: “It’s like trying to unscramble scrambled eggs. It just can’t be done that easily. I don’t know if it can be done at all,” he told CBS News. These days, as the world struggles with disruptions to the global supply chain and vital commodities are stuck at sea for months, some pundits are suggesting that we do just that. But since 2009, economies have only become more entangled, and the idea of unbundling them has become even more unrealistic.

You cannot go against evolution, and evolution goes toward more complexity, not less. This is true at every level: the mineral, the biological, and the social. As a result, human society is becoming more complex and intertwined, and the economy, which is a reflection of human society, follows the same lane.

The reason we do not see such congestion and disruption in nature is that besides people, all other elements follow their instincts. The result is a harmonious flow, the cycle of life continuous uninterrupted and things evolve in synchrony with their environment.

Humanity functions in exactly the opposite way. We strive to rise above our environment, not in sync with it. We try to reach the top of the heap, to be faster, higher, and stronger than everyone else. When every country, company, and even person (to some degree) tries to do this, congestion occurs at the nodes, and everything gets stuck.

In other words, we are witnessing the result of our own self-centered attitude. If everyone had worked in harmony with the rest of human society, as every other element in nature does, there would have been no congestion and everyone would have gotten what they need, when they need it, and as much of it as they need.

Moreover, because we are competitive and derive satisfaction not from having what we need, but from having more than others, and even from denying others what they need, we cannot unravel our economies. Our desire to beat others binds us to them because their pain is our pleasure, and we cannot work without pleasure. To go it alone is to go against human nature, and we cannot do that, at least not in the long run.

If we are going to rationalize supply chains, we have to be clear about our interdependence. We need to start seeing ourselves as a unit, where the benefit of one is the benefit of all, and all parts contribute to the well-being of all other parts.

Our own bodies function in this way, every organism functions in this way. Without this approach, life would not be possible. When we act contrary to the fundamental element that makes life and development possible, we condemn our society to death and decay.

Once we recognize how nature works, how we work, and that it is in our best interest to change, we can stop disrupting the global economic system and begin to synchronize our actions. In simpler terms, we will be more considerate of each other.

Currently, we may not like the idea that we need to think of others and not just ourselves, but if we do not start teaching ourselves the truth today, global entanglement will worsen to the point that we will no longer be able to provide ourselves with the basic necessities for daily living.
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My new article on Linkedin “Pearl Harbor – The Painful Blow that Saved the Free World”

Eighty years ago this week, and two years into World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service launched a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. More than 2,400 American soldiers and civilians lost their lives in the attack, and nearly 1,200 were wounded. Twelve battleships were damaged or altogether submerged, and 188 airplanes were downed. The painful blow forced America to abandon its apparent neutral stance and declare war on Japan. Three days later, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on America, dragging it into the war in Europe. Were it not for this painful blow, it is more than likely that the world would have been very different from what it is today, and not for the better.

Even before America joined the war, it was providing substantial assistance to the allies. Under the Lend-Lease Act that President Roosevelt enacted in March 1941, the US provided the United Kingdom, Free France, China, and later the Soviet Union and other allied nations with food, oil, and other necessary materials between 1941 and 1945. The aid also included warships and warplanes, along with other weaponry. Despite the aid, the Allies were losing the war. Were it not for America’s intervention, who knows if the Allies would have won.

We cannot overstate the contribution of the US to the liberation of Europe from Nazi occupation. By December 1941, when the Pearl Harbor attack took place, there were no armies fighting against the Nazis and their allies, except for the UK and the Soviet Union. The US not only fought against the Axis countries, but also sustained the populations of the few free countries in Europe and stocked their armies with arms, ammunition, and gas.

Japan, the aggressor in the Pearl Harbor cataclysm, went the opposite way from the United States. Until World War II, Japan was a powerful imperialist country. It is said that Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who conceived the attack, warned in advance that if the strike did not disable American military might, it would only awaken the sleeping giant and Japan would find itself on the losing end.

Some sources claim that following the raid, Yamamoto said, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Whether he actually said these exact words or not, they do reflect his thoughts following the attack, as Hiroyuki Agawa’s book The Reluctant Admiral describes. As it turned out, Yamamoto was right.

However, Japan did not let the defeat go without far reaching and constructive conclusions. Following this horrible defeat, which ended with the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japanese cities, Japan resolved to cease being a belligerent military power and turn its energy toward economic growth.

The trauma of the defeat in World War II sank so deep in Japan’s collective psyche that to this day, the country maintains its non-combatant policy. The bonus for its effort is the emergence of an economic superpower that is a world leader in industry and technology, whose people enjoy a standard of living that most countries can only dream of.

A Pearl Harbor incident cannot happen today. The world has changed too much for it to repeat itself. What has not changed, however, is the willingness of countries to destroy one another.

If there is a lesson to learn from Pearl Harbor, and from World War II in general, it is that war does not pay. Every aggressor in that war suffered a defeat, and every country that fought to free the world gained power and prestige.

Japan, Germany, Austria, and Italy all transformed themselves into thriving democracies. In today’s increasing international tensions, we should remember the lesson that the Axis countries learned following their defeat, and how they gained by carrying out what they had learned.
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My new article on Linkedin “Unleash the Granny Power”

A story by Rachel Nuwer published on BBC Future describes a unique, successful, and inexpensive way to tackle depression in Zimbabwe. With only twelve psychiatrists for a population of sixteen million, even the few who can afford treatment are rarely able to find a therapist within a reasonable distance.

Therefore, instead of professionals, psychiatrist Dixon Chibanda, director of the African Mental Health Research Initiative, came up with a revolutionary idea that became known as the “Friendship Bench.” Instead of looking in vain for professional help, Chibanda mused, Zimbabweans would consult with people who have warm hearts, lots of free time, a passion for heart-to-heart talks and the ability to give good advice. These people would receive some training and, thanks to their warmth and patience, Chibanda hoped, would be able to help people in distress.

Brainstorming where to find such people, Chibanda arrived at an unlikely solution: grandmothers. Chibanda and his team trained more than 400 grandmothers in talk therapy, which they now offer for free in more than 70 communities in Zimbabwe.

The idea proved to be a resounding success. “In 2017 alone,” Nuwer reports, “Friendship Bench, as the programme is called, helped over 30,000 people. The method has been empirically vetted and have [sic] been expanded to countries beyond, including the US.”

In 2016, Chibanda, in collaboration with colleagues from Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom, published the results of a randomized control trial of the program’s effectiveness in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The researchers found that after six months, the group that had seen the grandmothers had significantly fewer symptoms of depression than the group that underwent conventional treatment.

Clearly, love can go a long way in helping people. Empathy, this is all we need. More than any medicine, it heals us from within. Connecting hearts connects us to the power that sustains our world, the creative force of love. Without this power of connection, no two elements in reality would be able to connect, and life would have been impossible.

When we connect in love, we create similarity between us and the force that creates and sustains life. Just as a string on a guitar vibrates when its note is played on another string when the frequency is similar, when we create a similar feeling to the feeling that creates life—the feeling of empathy and love—we “switch on” this feeling within us.

We experience this feeling as if it came from the person next to us, but it did not. In fact, it came because the warm connection between the two of you enabled you to feel the warmth that exists around you. As long as you have not made that connection, it is as if you do not have a sensor to perceive it. But once you establish it with another person, you can feel it.

This is why loving others is so important. It is not only important to others, but even more important to the loving person. People with love in their heart are connected to the power of love and creation that exists in all of reality. No feeling is more empowering. A person who is connected to it will never feel depressed, lost, or hopeless.

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My new article on Linkedin “We’ve Turned Ourselves into Temporary Residents”

A few days ago, the United Nations General Assembly passed a (yet another) resolution denying Jewish ties to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Instead of referring to it by its Jewish name, Temple Mount, after the Temple that King Solomon built there 3,000 years ago, as well as by its Muslim name al-Haram al-Sharif, it will now refer to it only by the latter. I cannot blame the world for doing so. When we turn ourselves into temporary residents, shun our historic task and obligation to the world, we cannot complain that the world wants to evict the seditious tenants.

We keep looking for better diplomatic ways to explain Israel’s position, to show that we’re valuable to the world and that we have a historic right to live here. We don’t understand that the world does not see things the way we do. It does not care about history, and it does not care about the “startup nation” we have built here. It sees us as a belligerent, invasive nation that has taken what doesn’t belong to it by exploiting the world’s remorse over the Holocaust.

We are arrogant and patronizing to think that the world owes us something. The world doesn’t think so, and the fact that we are not even asking why, but keep “explaining” to the nations our position, which they are clearly reluctant to hear, illustrates what conceit can do to a nation’s sense of judgment.

The thing we are getting absolutely wrong is our obligation to the world. We were placed here to build “a national home for the Jewish people,” just as the Balfour Declaration says. Regrettably, instead of building our home together, we are fighting one another. We’ve come to a point where we care more about destroying each other than about defeating the enemy. If we are not doing what we are meant to do here, then we have no reason for being here. This is how the world sees it, and the sooner we realize it, the better.

The current UN resolution focuses on Jerusalem and the West Bank. But more UN resolutions are on the way, and they will obviate our right to sovereignty on any part of the country that was not given to us in the 1947 UN Partition Resolution. Not long after, the UN will declare that Jews are an alien entity in Palestine, and that Palestine is where Israel used to be.

As long as we are here, we can reverse the trend, but we haven’t got much time. The only way to change the world’s view about Jewish presence in the Middle-East is if the Jews begin to act as they are expected. We were sent here to rebuild our nation, to reestablish our union, which formed a remarkable nation out of complete, and often hostile strangers who had decided to unite under the motto, “as one man with one heart.” This is our legacy, and only if we are true to it will the nations welcome us here, including the Arabs.

If we wish to work on our unity, then we have every right to declare that this is our goal in being here and that we will not allow anyone to interfere with our efforts. Not only will the world respect this declaration, it will support it.

Here are two examples of how two notorious antisemites relate to Jews when Jews set an example that the world wants to see and follow. Ukraine born Vasily Shulgin was a senior member of the Duma, the Russian Parliament, before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. He was also an avid antisemite. In his book What We Don’t Like About Them…, he complains that “Jews in the 20th century have become very smart, effective, and vigorous at exploiting other people’s ideas. However,” he protests, “this is not an occupation for ‘teachers and prophets,’ not the role of ‘guides of the blind,’ not the role of ‘carriers of the lame.’” In another essay, Shulgin becomes almost poetic as he describes where the Jews can lead humanity if they rise to the challenge: “Let them … rise to the height to which they apparently climbed [in antiquity] … and immediately, all nations will rush to them. They will rush not by virtue of compulsion … but by free will, joyful in spirit, grateful and loving, including the Russians!”

A more terse example comes from none other than Henry Ford, who, when not building cars, dedicated much of his time to writing damning essays about Jews. In his infamous composition, The International Jew — The World’s Foremost Problem, Ford writes, “Modern reformers, who are constructing model social systems on paper, would do well to look into the social system under which the early Jews were organized.”

Ford’s grandson, by the way, made it a point to build one of the company’s plants in Israel as a token of support for the Jewish state. Symbolically, that plant is now closed. Unless we begin to work on our unity and strive to set the required example, the fate of our country will resemble the fate of Ford’s plant, and Israel’s Jews, who have turned themselves into temporary residents, will be evicted.
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My new article on Linkedin “Overcoming Conflicts in Relationships – A Solution that Really Works (and no one wants)”

Every relationship goes through conflicts. They are unpleasant, but inescapable. Overcoming conflict is necessary to deepen and strengthen a relationship. You can trust that a relationship will last only if it has overcome several conflicts. The problem is that because conflicts are unpleasant and often frightening, we try to avoid them. If we know how to accept them and elevate our connection to a higher level by overcoming them, we will not fear them and will be able to resolve almost any conflict.

Conflicts stem from conflicting interests. This is obvious. When I want one thing and my partner wants something else, I get angry. This is true in any relationship—with people, with pets, and even with machines (think of the curses you throw at your car if it doesn’t start on a cold morning).

When it comes to partners, the solution is simple, yet very hard to do: Kiss each other on the lips. Exactly at the moment of anger, do the opposite.

On a deeper level, we need to understand that every person has different desires, different thoughts, and a different approach to life. A relationship is the merging of two or more different people into one whole. In a good relationship, the differences between them help each partner develop qualities and perspectives that they would not develop were it not for the relationship. In a negative relationship, power struggles stifle the growth of the partners, the oppressed and oppressor become stagnant and entrenched in their views, and the love between them dissolves.

A good relationship requires work. The negative relationship is the natural one. To build a positive one, I must accept that the other perspective has merit, too, even though it isn’t my perspective. If I accept it, which requires some experience in “fighting,” I will find that the other perspective provides me with ideas and perspectives that I could not develop on my own.

It follows that kissing your partner precisely when you’re angry does not mean that you are no longer angry, but that you appreciate and care for your partner even though you are angry, and that your anger does not drive away your love. It is an affirmation of the strength of your connection.

King Solomon, who was said to be the wisest of men, said of this approach, “Hate stirs strife, and love will cover all crimes” (Prov. 10:12). In other words, keep the hate, but cover it with love; make love more important than your temporary anger.

The benefits you will reap are enormous. When we handle conflicts in this way, we not only change ourselves, we change our partner, too. Without saying a word, without preaching or admonishing, but simply by our own example, we pave the way to a healthy relationship.
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My new article on Linkedin “Instead of Shooting DARTs at Asteroids, We Should Aim for Our Hearts”

A student told me about a story he had read in The New York Times. According to the story, NASA launched a spacecraft with a mission to smash into an asteroid to see if it could “nudge it into a different trajectory.” The experiment, called “Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART,” seeks to test the ability to divert asteroids that might pose a risk of colliding with Earth. Nature has too many ways to cause such disasters, and such experiments only distract us from where the real solution lies—in human society.

It is not as though the idea of an asteroid hitting the Earth is absurd. It’s happened before and it can happen again. The problem is that instead of dealing with what we really need to fix in our lives, we turn our thoughts to imaginary future dangers whose chance of materializing is miniscule, while the real perils come from the people around us, and these are the ones we need to fix. Instead of sending darts into space, we should aim at our hearts.

All the real problems that plague our lives are our own doing. Accelerated inflation, pollution of water, air, and land, wars and terrorism, poverty, depression, substance addiction, social division—not one of these problems is natural, all are major crises, and all are manmade.

We need to stop looking to outer space in search of threats, and start looking at each other asking how we can learn to live together. We need to start asking real and painful questions: Why do I hate my neighbor? I cannot sustain myself; I am dependent on others to provide what I cannot provide for myself, but at the same time, I cannot stand others. Why is this so? Why am I like this?

Of course, not everyone feels these questions so poignantly, but to some degree they exist in all of us and poison our relationships. If we cannot admit this to ourselves, we should take a look at the statistics and see how many people are escaping reality through drugs or countless other forms of addiction. We should look at the growing number of violent incidents, the intensifying hostility between countries that are economically interdependent, and the growing political divisions within countries and societies.

Human society is falling apart, and this is a far greater danger than a shooting star. If we solve our social problems, we will be able to solve all other problems. But if society falls apart, we will not solve anything, ever. Therefore, our first priority should be to overcome social rifts and alienation of all kinds.

Until we reverse our attitude toward each other from alienation to connection, from indifference to mutual responsibility, preoccupation with any other “threat” is a distraction that will only postpone the correction we really need to make. This, in turn, will make the correction slower and more painful.
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My new article on Linkedin “Neither Diplomacy Nor Military Will Convince Iran Off Nuke”

It has been clear from the get go, but after the latest round of talks, everyone understands that Iran has no intention to stall its nuclear arms program. Even before the talks began, Iran’s former head of the nuclear program, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, admitted to his country’s efforts to build nuclear weapons. According to Reuters, “Iran abandoned any compromises it had made in talks to revive its 2015 nuclear deal with major powers, pocketed those made by others, and demanded more during indirect U.S.-Iran talks.”

It is written, “If one comes to kill you, kill him first” (Midrash Rabbah, Bamidbar 21:4, and elsewhere). Currently, it appears that Israel will have no choice but to land a preemptive strike to intercept Iran’s plan to destroy it. However, a permanent solution to Iran’s aggression lies not in severing its nuclear power, but in uniting our own ranks.

Regrettably, diplomacy does not work. No one is naive enough to believe that diplomats can solve anything. At best, diplomacy can maintain a facade of communication, something to maintain contact, but no one believes that there is any solution other than a military one.

Even threatening Iran with retaliating with a nuclear weapon in case it strikes with one will not deter it. Considering Iran’s treatment of its own people, it would have no problem losing half of its population for the pleasure of eradicating Israel.

And if we think that economic sanctions will derail Iran’s progress toward a bomb, we should think again. If anything, it will invigorate it and give it an excuse to attack Israel, which will be portrayed as the force behind Iran’s economic woes.

Therefore, as hard as it may be, I think we will have no choice but to “denuke” Iran on our own. If we let it launch a nuclear attack against us, it will not help us to know that we were right all along in assuming their foul intent. It is better to be alive and criticized than justified posthumously.

At the same time, a military solution can only help for so long. If all we rely on is our strength, we are in deep trouble. Currently, it seems like this is the case.

A lasting solution can be found only in our unity. If we unite, it will solve not only our problems with Iran, but with the rest of the world, as well.

Moreover, as I have explained in countless articles and several books (links to two of them below), Israel’s unity will “neutralize” the world’s hatred toward it. We may think of Iran as the aggressor and of ourselves as the potential victim, but the world sees it very differently. Look at the recent resolutions of the UN General Assembly, voting almost unanimously against Israel’s right to sovereignty. When it comes to Israel, the world sides with Iran, and we must ask ourselves why this is so.

The divided society in Israel is sending negative messages to the world. Not only do the nations ridicule us, they also blame us for being the aggressor in the region. Israel is accepted only when it is united. When we are divided, no one appreciates us, and everyone accuses us of their own troubles.

We are always at the center of attention, even, and especially when we do not want to be. We are the only country in the world that is a permanent, mandatory item on the agenda of several UN committees. Because we are so conspicuous, even if against our will, when we are hateful toward each other, this is the example we give to the world. As a result, the world hates us for inciting war and division.

But because we are always “on stage,” we are in a unique position to be a positive influence in the world by setting an exemplary society that others will want to emulate. If we rise above our differences and establish a society based on solidarity and mutual responsibility, this is the example we will give to the world, and the world will reciprocate it with appreciation.

This is why the only lasting, and in the end, possible solution to our problems with Iran, as well as with all other countries, is to work out the problem of our own division. If we do, our problems with the world will dissolve by themselves.

Further reading on the topics of Israel, Jews, and antisemitism: Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour, and The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord
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My new article on Linkedin “Tough Times Ahead”

Transition periods are always prone to trouble. We are living through one of the most volatile transition periods in human history as we are rising from a self-centered mindset to a more holistic one where we are interdependent, interconnected, and consider the well-being of others in our actions. Regrettably, while in transition, our rebellious egos are driving us to increasingly dangerous extremes that put us and all of society at risk. The sooner we become aware that we are in transition, the better our chances of going through the change peacefully and quickly.

In order to recognize that we are in transition, that we are too interconnected to ignore the needs of others, we must establish educational systems that will bring it to our awareness. Therefore, humanity’s greatest challenge right now is education.

Ideally, world leaders should have been the leaders of the transition. They are in a natural position to initiate and head the process. Regrettably, today’s leaders have such hearts of stone that they will simply not be able to hear about these ideas. It is not as though I have given up, because I haven’t, but we have to acknowledge where we stand. At the same time, I know we must continue.

We are all pleasure seeking beings; this is our nature. Therefore, we will not change our way of life unless we suffer in the present one, or some great reward beckons us and we are sure we will receive it.

We understand only two things: pleasure or pain. This is why humanity will change either because it is suffering in the state of absolute selfishness, or because it sees a guaranteed reward in the state of mutual responsibility and caring for others. Right now, people prefer to wait for more pain to convince them to move to a more collaborative disposition.

This is why education is so important. If people are convinced that all the beatings we suffer are the result of our selfishness, they will want to get rid of it. If we believe that the ego can still give us benefits that nothing else can, we will remain with our egos until pain convinces us to leave it.
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My new article on Linkedin “Hellenism vs. Judaism – a Clash of Civilizations”

Right before the holiday of Hanukkah comes to an end and we forget about the war between the Hellenists and the Jews, I would like to say one more word about it, since we are still fighting that war, the soldiers are us, and the result so far has been an outright defeat.

The Greek philosophy, which the Hellenists tried to impose in the land of Israel in the 2nd century BC, argues (by and large) that there is nothing wrong with humankind, and all we need is to develop. This is why the Greeks placed so much emphasis on sports and learning.

The Jewish approach said the opposite. “The inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21) and “Every intent of the thoughts of his heart is only evil all day long” (Gen. 6:5) are two examples of many that show how Judaism views human nature. Why is man’s heart evil? We think only of ourselves and treat others as objects to use and abuse.

The Greek approach is the natural one; the Jewish approach is counterintuitive. However, by applying it, the Jews were able to conceive, and live by (if only briefly) social ideals that lift us above human nature, above cruelty, exploitation, and ridicule, and usher us into a realm of unity and oneness.

To understand how revolutionary the Jewish approach was at the time, think of a mother’s love for her child. She sees the world through the eyes of her child and her needs through the needs of her child. Whatever the child needs is first on her list.

Now imagine that all the people love each other as a mother loves her child, and even more, since the Israelites united “as one man with one heart” (RASHI, Commentary on the Torah). At times when the Jews maintained that oneness, they were “a light unto nations” (Isaiah 42:6). That was the wisdom that Ptolemy II, king of Egypt, sought to acquire from the Jews when he summoned seventy Hebrew sages to his palace in Alexandria to translate Jewish Law into Greek.

Prior to translating, the king sat with the sages for two whole weeks and asked them every question he could think of concerning governance and society. When he was satisfied with their answers, he sent them to translate, not before he said that now “he had learned how he ought to rule his subjects” (Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, Book XII).

When Jews began to abandon their noble ideas of society and embrace Greek values, the clash of civilizations intensified and eventually erupted into civil war. At that time the Hasmoneans, champions of the Hebraic approach, won the war and drove out the Hellenists. Today, the Greeks are the winners and the losers are all of humanity and the entire planet.

Wittingly or unwittingly, we will have to fight the Hellenists within us. The self-centered approach that the world has so readily embraced has depleted our resources and destroyed human society. If we persist with it, it will plunge us into a third world war. It is better to fight against our egos than to face nuclear weapons.

So before the holiday ends, we must remember, for our own sake, that Hanukkah is not about dreidels and sufganiyot (Hanukkah doughnuts). It is an inner war that we must wage against ourselves. Within each of us there are Greeks and Hasmoneans. In each of us, the ego wants to rule, and today we see that if the ego wins, we all lose. We have no choice but to side with the Hasmoneans and choose unity and mutual responsibility over division and alienation.
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My new article on Linkedin “Jews as Omicron’s Scapegoats”

A few days ago I was in Italy. I saw people on the street that looked like they were turned off, without a spark in their eyes, unhappy. Not only in Italy, a country seriously affected by Covid-19, but all over the world, people are tired of the appearances of new variants over and over again, just when we thought (and hoped) the pandemic was finally under control. Since the virus will not be vanquished, people will not be able to contain the cumulative stress, they will vent their frustration and helplessness, they first revolt against the restrictive government and in the end it will also blame the usual scapegoats, the Jews.

Already this week, antisemitic leaflets circulated in California’s Beverly Hills. The fliers included the names of Jewish senior executives who lead the world’s largest drug companies and accusations of a “Jewish agenda” behind the pandemic. Similar antisemitic propaganda is widely spread through social media platforms.

These leaflets and tweets are just the beginning of growing hatred towards Jews. A day will come when even scientists themselves will attribute the virus to that tiny group of people that has a history of being blamed by humanity. They will say that the Jews are the source of all the variants, just as in the Middle Ages people began to whisper and ask why Jews were not sick with the Black Death, and from there the plots developed and unfolded. Again, history repeats itself.

We are not responsible for the outbreak of the plague as the antisemites claim, but we are responsible for the wrong attitude towards it as a result of a lack of awareness on our part. The virus is a disruption in nature’s altruistic genetics system as a result of human egoism. It is a bit complex, but I will explain: the degrees of nature—inanimate, vegetative and animate—are intertwined on different levels, while we, the human species, are detached from the harmonious operation of nature. Humans have an increased egoistic desire that pushes us apart and weighs us down on each other.

The ego not only causes us to exploit each other for our own benefit, but also to exploit all the rest of nature. As a result nature, which is programmed for balance and perfection, provokes epidemics and crises to help us see the place of breach and breakdown and to invite us to mend it, that is, for us to connect emotionally and merge with the rest of the integral parts of nature. Then everything will fall into place.

We do not yet understand that we are part of one integral system and that its balance depends on the positive relations between us. This must become clear and evident. Even a quick glance at ourselves from the side reveals how far we are today from this desired state and our role as Jews in modeling it. We let the ego control us and separate us. The Jewish nation is aimed at being a light unto the nations and paving the way of unity to others. It is our mission. Israel and the nations of the world are intertwined in one global system, and the world feels strongly from within that we are indifferent to our role. It is little wonder then that the world points an accusatory finger towards us.

If we understood our role and implemented it, we could stand in front of the world and direct it to use the pandemic for correction; we could be a guide to become more united and compassionate to each other, as one man with one heart. When this happens, no affliction will surround humanity and antisemitism will cease.
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