My new article on BIZCATALYST “IMF: Covid Scars The Vulnerable The Most”

On the homepage of its website, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) writes that it is “an organization of 190 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.”

In a report the IMF published recently, titled After-Effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic, the organization concludes that “The degree of expected scarring varies across countries, depending on the structure of economies… Emerging market and developing economies are expected to suffer more scarring than advanced economies.” As usual, the rich and powerful get away with everything, and the exploited weak bear the brunt. We don’t need an organization of 190 countries to know that this is the case, but to change it. When it does nothing to change it, it means that its purpose is not to change the situation but to perpetuate it, mask the ploy from the vulnerable, and if possible, collect a few compliments on its great service to society.

The pandemic is a blessing for the rich and powerful. They use organizations like the IMF as lip service, and I have zero expectations from them. When they act, it is only in order to gain even more wealth and power. When you bring them an idea, start with what benefit they will get out of it. If you don’t, don’t waste your time or theirs. Things won’t change until the poor raise an outcry that they can no longer survive. Then, things will get interesting. But the clash will be short-lived. In the end, nothing will change because the ego has not changed.

If the rich can get away from the crowd by hopping on a private jet to a resort in the Maldives, what incentive will they have to change anything?

It looks like things will change only when humanity is lying face down in the gutter. As long as heads of states can get away from it all, and get away with it, nothing will change. On the contrary, there will be “world peace” based on a global economy where people have equally nothing, and a global moral system that says, “Steal as much as you can, however you can, and wherever you can.”

You would think that there is no point in talking about the situation, but that is not the case. A change will come, but it will happen only when the lie is exposed to the whole world, and the world cannot ignore it. When this happens, humanity will not sit idly when more than 400,000 people are diagnosed with Covid every single day in India alone, and 4,000 people die there for lack of oxygen and basic medical treatment or adequate facilities. A few weeks ago, this disgrace was happening in Brazil, now it is happening in India, in a few weeks it will happen elsewhere, and we don’t care until it hits us in the face. It isn’t just “aid” organizations that are indifferent; it is all of us.

If we cared, they wouldn’t dare. They wouldn’t have the audacity to contort their faces in phony frowns of sympathy.

Sincerely, I have no hope that a change will come from suffering. People will continue to ache until they feel that death is better than living, but they will still not change. The only thing that will eventually change us is the realization that our only strength is in each other. Then, when people turn toward each other, they will realize that they cannot unite, that their hearts are frozen, and this is why they’re suffering. Only when people try to merge their hearts will they realize that their egoism is their enemy, the cause of their afflictions, and that all along, it has been fooling them into thinking that it is someone else’s fault.

When we try to form a bond, we will finally find the strength and gumption that we need in order to overcome our ordeals. The horrific future on our path will materialize only if we remain oblivious to the solution of unity, the only solution that can work.

Human suffering is not written in stone; it is written in our hearts of stone. If we turn our hearts toward each other, it will soften them, and this will soften our fate.

Nature isn’t cruel. No animal suffers as much as we do, unless we afflict it on them. The only thing that’s cruel in nature is human nature. If we change it, by reaching out to one another and forming a bond that is similar to the bonds among all parts of nature, nature will cease its lashing at us. Then, and only then, we will begin to heal, and start living for real.

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My new article on Linkedin “We’re Our Own Cancer”

From the beginning of creation to this day, the universe has evolved as one system, whose elements are all intermingled and interdependent. Because everything began from one point, everything is connected, will always stay connected, and whatever happens in one place affects the entire system.

As the universe evolved, higher levels of existence manifested themselves one at a time. The substratum of everything is of course the mineral level. Then, as life appeared, new levels emerged—the vegetative, then the animate, and finally the human level. Each new level both transcends the previous levels and relies on them for its survival. Accordingly, each level is built to carefully maintain the dynamic balance that brings stability and growth to Earth, and to the entire universe. Over billions of years, this is how our beautiful universe evolved.

But then came the human level and thrashed the system.

We, the zenith of creation, were made without any sense of balance. We take as much as we can, wherever we can, and nothing satisfies us. We do not strive, like the rest of the levels of nature, to sustain ourselves, but to surpass, control, and ultimately destroy everyone else. The organism called “Nature,” it seems, has got cancer, and we are it.

Like cancer, we metastasize; we have spread all over the globe, and now we are aspiring to metastasize to nearby planets. Wherever we go, we bring with us the same spirit: Take everything until there’s nothing left, then move on. Like cancer, which dies with its host organism, we will die with planet Earth, unless we change while we still can.

Evidently, Earth is very sick. This summer has proven that to anyone who still doubted it, that nature is out of balance. It is also evident that man is the key element in driving nature to imbalance. Therefore, man, and only man, can restore it.

We may be devoid of the inherent sense of balance that all of creation possesses, but we are smart; we can learn anything. It is a matter of choice. If we choose to develop caring and consideration, we will offset the negative impact of our inherent sense of exploitation. To create balance, we must develop these qualities to the point where they match the level of our craving to surpass, control, and ultimately destroy. Since we are the only element that is out of balance, and therefore causes all of the unbalanced symptoms that Earth is showing, if we balance our self-centeredness with its opposite quality, we will calm all of nature, as they are all symptoms of the cancer called “humanity.”

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My new article on Linkedin “Fatal Despair”

Long before the pandemic hit the world, the US was already on a downward trend. According to a story published by David Leonhardt in The New York Times under the title “Life Expectancy, Falling,” “During the second half of the 2010s, life expectancy [in the US] fell on a sustained basis for the first time since the fighting of World War II killed several hundred thousand Americans.” Echoing this topic, the magazine Science News stated in an essay titled “‘Deaths of despair’ are rising. It’s time to define despair,” that “Since the 1990s, mortality had risen sharply.” However, according to Science News, the spike in mortality was not indiscriminate; it affected mainly the “middle-aged, non-Hispanic white people, especially those without a college degree.”

According to both stories, which relied on publications by Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton, the reasons for the declining life expectancy were what the researchers dubbed “deaths of despair.” Such deaths are caused by several factors, all of which are social rather than medical. Among these factors are lack of structure and meaning in life, broken or poor social ties at work, loss of connection to the church or community groups, high divorce rates or not marrying at all, drug and substance abuse, alcoholism, and suicide.

As Leonhardt writes, “It’s hard to imagine a more alarming sign of a society’s well-being than an inability to keep its citizens alive.” While I understand that educated people may be less susceptible to fatal despair, since they have more distractions to fill up their minds, the profound crisis that has struck the American society is pervasive. I have no doubt it will affect everyone in America, and far beyond its borders. As Case and Deaton note, the crisis is not in the ability to live, but in having no reason to do so.

Humans are not animals. We cannot settle for having a place to sleep and food to eat from day to day. As humans, we contemplate the future, reflect on the purpose of our lives, and on our freedom to steer our lives where we want, assuming we know where we want to steer it.

Also, as developed social beings, we live in complex social systems that constantly influence us, just as we influence the systems. When any member of society is in crisis, it spreads from person to person much like a virus. Countless studies have shown that when people around you are happy, your chances of being happy are far higher than if people around you are depressed. This is true even if you don’t interact directly with those people. Therefore, when a sense of meaninglessness spreads through the society, it must be treated on a social level since it is, in fact, an epidemic.

The problem, as Case and Deaton already noted, is lack of meaning in life. Therefore, this is the issue we must tackle if we are to heal society. The longer we wait, the more the depression will spread and take its toll. Already, millennials find most things that excited their parents tasteless. And without a purpose in life, they’ll fall into the same quagmire that is ruining their parents’ generation.

To stop the spread of fatal despair, therefore, we must give people a lasting purpose. Such a purpose must be greater than one’s worldly life, since people have already given up on finding worldly goals worth chasing. We need to show people that human existence has a purpose, that it is possible to feel truly alive only when we look outside our personal shell and begin to examine the world and the people around us. When we begin to connect with others, we find meaning in everything we do. Suddenly, our every action and thought has an impact—positive or negative—and each one of us matters, since we all influence each other.

Only when we see the world through a broader perspective can we understand how important each of us is to humanity. When we work to improve society, rather than selfishly amass wealth, power, and possessions, then everything we do, say, or think becomes important to everyone around us, and to those who will come after us.

Life is not valued by how much we manage to accumulate, but by how much we impact society. Those who solidify society, who make it resilient and animated, are those whose lives become imbued with meaning, which continues after their years on Earth have ended.
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My new article on Linkedin “Israel’s Startup: Light Unto the Nations”

Behold the glittery world of Israel’s booming tech industry of recent years. Young people, mainly between 25-35 years old, have suddenly become ultra-wealthy as their startups become “unicorns”, privately-owned companies with a value exceeding a billion dollars.

This phenomenon is not the sideshow of a lucky few. Today, it is considered one of the main engines driving the Israeli economy forward. These new rich have become a role model for many young people and the dream-come-true of the Israeli Jewish mother: the high-tech entrepreneur who makes a fortune.

With the money that the young high-tech entrepreneurs receive, they buy apartments and luxury vehicles, invest, initiate and are freed from economic worries. But they do not stop engaging in regular life by going on permanent vacation. They also do not stop working just because of the huge additions to their bank accounts. The reason for this is that money is not the main driving force for their work.

Their source of attraction to the industry is the exciting competition, the pleasure of the game and of creation, the joy of invention and innovation. These are the things that fill them with utter satisfaction, and economic gain is only a nice bonus, albeit a welcomed one, but not one that will fundamentally change their occupation. We can understand them.

Technology is an intriguing and interesting field, and in a sense it is as if they feel like the industry gives them a spark of divinity—able to create and change the world, upgrade life and influence society through a few taps of the keyboard.

The tech field today does have the power to generate tremendous change, and for the Jews, all the more so. Therefore, it is not by chance that Israel is positioning itself as a world leader in this industry.

The Jewish mind is built for innovation. If we explored the Jewish mind through brain imaging, it would not show any special areas that are exceptional, and yet, it is wired differently: it has a tendency to combine contradictory discernments into one, the ability to combine the opposites in one whole, harness plus and minus to the same cart.

Since the formation of the Jewish people in the ancient times of Abraham, the Jewish mind was designed to bring spiritual solutions to the world when they are needed: to unite hatred and love and tie them together into an exciting creation, the pinnacle of human society’s development. But in the meantime, until this goal has fully matured, the Jewish mind dabbles in high-tech. Not just in software creation, but in development and research in order to strengthen the Israeli nation as a high-tech power so that we are on firm footing in all areas, especially militarily where protection and the ability to attack are necessities in order for us to continue to survive as a small country.

In saying this, I am not suggesting that all members of the nation sit in front of a computer screen. Rather, we can anticipate that in the near future approximately 30% of society will work in high-tech, while the rest will engage in other professions essential to society, such as medicine and engineering, agriculture and teaching.

It is also worthwhile to prepare for the smooth integration of an influx of new immigrants to Israel in advance. There is no doubt that their contributions will benefit the high-tech industry and give it momentum. When the time comes, when the State will prosper even more in fulfilling people’s needs, we will identify and discover the one main thing we still lack: spiritual meaning—to know who we are, what we live for, what our role as a people is in relation to the world. These will be the questions that will float naturally to the surface when the ceiling of material development is reached. A clear answer to those questions will give us complete meaning in life.

Our goal is to become a united society, a spiritual power, a “light unto the nations.” If we anticipate developing such a tendency as this, then we will make an eternal fortune. The fruits of such an industry will provide new impetus and intellect to propel us to discover and realize a whole new phase in human development: a millennium of peace.
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My new article on Linkedin “The Danger in Our False Perception”

Today, when we look at the world, we see only one force: egoism. We think that everything runs only according to everyone’s efforts to raise themselves to the top of the heap, to be the hunter and not the hunted, the predator and not the prey. We, humanity, have reached the top of the pyramid, and from the zenith, we’re trying to find what more we can take. To achieve this, we learn, become more sophisticated, and develop technology, science, social structures, and everything we have developed in order to succeed in this world.

If we continue on our selfish trend, the horrible summer we are experiencing throughout the world will be the best summer of the rest of our lives. We don’t have to continue on this route; have another option: to bury the hatchet and make peace with nature and with one another, and realize that we don’t have to fight to win a good life; we only need to work together.
But now that we’ve achieved all that, we find that something is still amiss. We realize that we have gone too far. We have taken egoism to the extreme, and we have destroyed our planet. Instead of supporting us, our own home is caving in on us, releasing torrential rains that flood entire countries, bursting in flames that incinerate titanic forests, and launch ash to the highest levels of the atmosphere. Siberia’s frozen lands, once thought to be lifeless, are melting and discharging viruses and bacteria for which our immune system has no antibodies. And the animal kingdom, which we believed we had subdued, is infesting us with viruses and other bugs that arrest our entire global activity.

With the heyday behind us, and the threat of nature’s vengeance ahead, we seem to have one choice: Stop trying to dominate nature and start cooperating with it. This is the time to realize that nature isn’t run solely by egoism, but rather by two forces, egoism and altruism, which balance each other out and generate the dynamic harmony that enables the creation of life and evolution. Now is the time for us to realize that there is no hatred in nature but acceptance and inclusion of everyone into a larger whole that, in turn, sustains all of life.

If we develop a considerate, accepting approach to all of nature, including to all people, we will discover that this is how nature truly operates and we will be able to operate likewise. Currently, our own egoism hides the truth from us, since if we see reality for what it is, we will agree to relinquish egoism, and no egoist wants to be relinquished.

Yet, if we continue on our selfish trend, the horrible summer we are experiencing throughout the world will be the best summer of the rest of our lives. We don’t have to continue on this route; have another option: to bury the hatchet and make peace with nature and with one another, and realize that we don’t have to fight to win a good life; we only need to work together.
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My new article on Linkedin “How to Exit the Pandemic in a Split World”

Covid-19 has split the world between those who strongly support the need for massive vaccination to tackle the pandemic, and those who vehemently oppose mandatory inoculation and restrictions, taking to the streets of Europe and America to express their discontent. As the Delta variant spreads across the world, in the U.S. alone, an average of 43,000 new cases are reported every day, a 65% increase in one week. How can we ever exit the pandemic in such a divided scenario?

It is written, “I dwell among my own people” (2 Kings 4:13)—a statement that means: I am part of the society I live among, and I share the public’s frame of mind. If the vaccine is acceptable to most people and recommended by health officials, then I must go out and get vaccinated. I do not disengage from the people and do not consider myself more of an expert than the experts.

This is how I chose and will continue to choose to act, and I will certainly not determine choices for my acquaintances or students, nor do I have the authority to do so. Every person is free to make an independent decision, and I respect and accept with great love each one and the choices everyone makes.

It makes sense that there are concerns and objections—anxiety from the unknown and fears from the risks of failure—and other doubts arising from people involved in the medical field. Such voices have been heard and have resonated in the public space from the day the plague broke out. However, we will not come to a unanimous conclusion from within the swirl of endless rumors.

The sages wrote to us in black and white about a spiritual law, “It was taught in the school of Rabbi Ishmael about the verse, ‘He shall cause him to be thoroughly healed’ (Ex. 21:19). From this we learn that permission has been given to the physician to heal.” (Babylonian Talmud, Berachot, 60a). The supreme force of nature heals through a representative within society, the doctor.

It is true that today’s medicine has fundamental flaws. This is also true about every other system we have built, because when the relationships between human beings are broken and the connections between us are selfish, society itself is broken. Naturally, this breakdown also affects the systems themselves. And yet, despite all the negative and positive things that are part of the medical field, it is nature acting through it in order to heal.

Medicine is neither better nor worse than the human beings who rely on it. Doctors are not angels and the health systems are not heaven, but with all the shortcomings that we have, the medical situation is still the service we need. In other words, current spoiled medicine dresses like a glove on our spoiled society.

If we were better, then we would be healed from this Covid plague by more natural forces, or we would find more creative solutions. But we are not corrected. Everyone can see that humanity is a society that is eating itself from within. People behave badly towards each other. We are locked within ourselves with self-interested calculations, ignoring the fact that we are not alone, that we are all connected and interdependent. So unfortunately, we cannot wait for a cure until everything within human society works properly. In the meantime, we have to recover from such diseases, and the available solutions are dressed in matter, in chemistry, in vaccines.

If we make a change for the better in society—if we become a more supportive, loving, considerate, close, healthy society—then physical medicine will also change for the better. But it will never happen the other way around. Medicine will not change for the better until we change.

Then, in every area and every situation in our lives, when we become more corrected, our world will also be more corrected. The plagues will disappear, the air will be cleansed, the water will clear, volcanoes will calm down, hurricanes and other hard forces will subside. It all depends on our inner state, on our relationships with one another.
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My new article on Linkedin “Where Is Our Survival Instinct?”

Which is stronger, the survival instinct or the hunting instinct? In the animal kingdom, this question is simple: The survival instinct overshadows all other instincts and fully dominates the behavior of animals. When there is a forest fire, natural enemies flee side by side and do not touch each other. Their survival instinct suppresses their hunting instincts and everyone understands that now is the time to run. The time for hunting will come only once the immediate danger is gone.

With humans, things get a little trickier. We want to survive, but we also want to dominate, to rule. In many cases, we want it more than life itself. Think of the risks people take for fame, how they risk themselves and (mainly) others in the battlefield, and you will see that for humans, life comes second when fame or power are concerned. We use any opportunity to trample them on our way to the top of the heap. When a common danger threatens people, there will always be those who take advantage of the fact that people are busy fleeing from the danger and are unaware of the danger lurking for them from other people.

It does not have to be a physical danger. People may take advantage of natural disasters to make a fortune out of other people’s misery. Even in the midst of this pandemic, countries and corporations are taking advantage of their technological and economic powers to profiteer at the expense of others. It is obvious that this attitude will turn against them, since any place where the virus can spread will eventually become a source of a new strain, but governments cannot see beyond their immediate profit, and all of us suffer as a result.

This callous exploitation is human nature, and the sooner we acknowledge it, the sooner we can begin to change it. If we don’t, the future blows, the outcomes of our misconduct toward each other, will still teach us how to be considerate, but the lessons will be far more painful and costly both economically, and in human lives.

Either way, we will eventually learn that in a connected reality, where everyone depends on everyone else, nothing can be more senseless than to act selfishly. Our sages, who realized that we are interdependent thousands of years ago, wrote about it in the Jerusalem Talmud. In Masechet Nedarim (9:4) they write, “[Suppose] one is cutting meat, and the knife descends into his hand; would he consider avenging his hand and cutting his other hand for cutting the first? So is this matter … the rule is that one does not take revenge against one’s neighbor, for it is as though he is taking revenge against his own body.”
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My new article on Linkedin “Controlling the World’s ‘Oxygen Flow’”

Imagine how you would feel if one tiny nation controlled the global water flow. If it closes the valve, the water stops running all over the world and everything dries up and dies. If it opens it, everyone can hydrate themselves. Now imagine how you would feel if that tiny nation controlled not the world’s water supply, but the world’s oxygen supply. If it closes the valve, everyone suffocates; if it opens it, the world can breathe. In times when that nation closed the valve, would you “bless” it? Would you love those people or would you hate them and want to somehow get rid of them?

If we look at the world through the eyes of our sages, from the days of the Torah, some 35 centuries ago, through the days of the prophets, the kings, the writing of The Book of Zohar, the Mishnah and Talmud, and all the many sages that have written countless books about the people of Israel and its position in the world, we will find one thing in common: We are that tiny nation. When we open the valve, the world can breathe, drink, and live easily and peacefully. When we close the valve, the world suffocates, dries up, and hates us for it.

We don’t do it on purpose, of course. We don’t think of the world; we think of ourselves. In fact, we think only of ourselves, and that is exactly the problem. We are so concentrated on ourselves that we cannot stand each other, and our division closes the valve for the flow of brotherhood and friendship in the world.

In other words, our division, our mutual hatred, spreads hatred throughout the world. It reflects on people’s relationships with one another, makes them clash with one another, and then they blame us for their rows. We may not feel that we are causing their collisions, but they do. When they accuse us of being responsible for all the wars, as actor and filmmaker Mel Gibson once ranted, they’re not just venting anger; they mean it very deeply. Even when they don’t say it, they still think so. This has been the case with the Jewish people for more than thirty centuries, and it will never change.

Our only hope of mitigating the world’s wrath toward us is if we do what they expect: take responsibility for the world’s wars, make peace among ourselves, and let this brotherhood, which we have not been able to establish for the past two millennia, shine its light throughout the world and heal it.

We have given the world numerous gifts. There is no area where we do not excel. We are world leaders in science, culture, economy, art and literature, and every area of human engagement. Still, the world hates us. The only thing for which it does not hate us is the motto we have bequeathed to the world: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If it has any grievances against us in this regard, it is that we are not realizing this motto in our own society.

The Jewish people formed a unique nation. Until the establishment of our peoplehood, and ever since then, there has only been one case in which a group of people adopted a certain ideology, which solidified them so tightly that they became a new nation. That ideology was Abraham’s ideology of mercy and love of others, and the nation he and his descendants formed was the Israeli nation. Abraham’s ideology was not only to unite and love one another, but to spread that unity to the entire world. Abraham had even tried to do this in his own homeland, Babylon, but he did not succeed. Nevertheless, the onus remains with his successors, the Jewish people.

Accordingly, when Moses received the Jewish Law called Torah, whose primary principle is “Love your neighbor as yourself,” it was only after the nation united “as one man with one heart.” Immediately after, the nascent nation was tasked with being “a light unto nations”: to spread the newly established unity the world over.

Since then, all our leaders have followed the motto of unity and the obligation to spread it. King Solomon mused that “Hate stirs strife, and love will cover all crimes” (Prov. 10:12). The Book of Zohar declared (Aharei Mot) that when the friends, the disciples of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, unite after overcoming mutual hatred, they bring peace to the world. The Talmud (Yevamot 63a) writes, “No calamity comes to the world but for Israel,” and the Midrash (Beresheet Rabbah, 66) states about the people of Israel: “This nation, world peace dwells within it.” The book Sefat Emet writes, “The truth is that everything depends on the children of Israel. As they correct themselves, all creations follow them.” And when reflecting on the world’s woes, Rav Kook stated about our people (Orot HaKodesh [Lights of Sanctity]), “Since we were ruined by unfounded hatred and the world was ruined with us, we will be rebuilt by unfounded love, and the world will be rebuilt with us.”

Especially now, in these volatile days, we must rise above our division, reignite our brotherhood, and open the valve so love and unity may flow throughout the world.
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My new article on Linkedin “Why Societies Change”

In an essay titled “Critique of Marxism in Light of the New Reality, and a Solution to the Question Regarding the Unification of All the Factions of the Nation,” published in June 1940, while the world was engulfed in the flames of World War II, the great kabbalist and global thinker Baal HaSulam offered this explanation as to why societies change. “The duration of every political phase,” he wrote, “is just the time it takes to unveil its shortcomings and evil. While discovering its faults, it makes way for a new phase, liberated from those flaws. Thus, those impairments, which appear in a situation and destroy it, are the very forces of human evolution, as they raise humanity to a more corrected state.”

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, the process that Baal HaSulam described is called “recognition of evil.” In this process, the faults of one state gradually manifest until they galvanize individuals and nations to change their lives, governments, or whatever it is that has become intolerable in their lives. These days, humanity is going through such a stage on a global scale. The flaws of human society, in all its forms of governance, are manifesting more and more openly, and people are growing increasingly disillusioned with the existing systems.

I don’t think that we are already at the point where matters have become intolerable, but we are moving in that direction.

For now, it seems as though people are still willing to endure the flaws of the existing social and political systems, but hardly anyone still believes that there is any system that is genuinely good for people, since there are no leaders who genuinely have the benefit of the citizens in mind. In other words, people are realizing that no regime can be a good regime as long as the people at the top are not good people.

But governors emerge from the people. If the people aren’t kind to one another, can we expect kindness from the leaders? Governors are simply those who excel in exploiting the system to their benefit; they use it as a level to lift them above the rest of the people. Consequently, in a society of selfish people, the governors are the most selfish; this is why they were able to climb to the top of the heap. Why should we even expect them to have our benefit in mind?

Therefore, to make the forces of human evolution raise humanity to a more corrected state, as Baal HaSulam put it, we must correct the people. If we establish a society of considerate people, its leaders will be the most considerate. If we establish a society that esteems mutual social responsibility, its leaders will be those who best promote mutual responsibility. So, before we complain about our leaders, we should look in the mirror. We may not like what we see, but we will know it is the truth, we will know if we have come to sufficient recognition of evil, and if we are willing to build for ourselves a society whose merits create meritorious leaders.

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My new article on Linkedin “A Lesson from Ben & Jerry’s Old and Foul Flavor“

A few days ago, on July 19, the multinational consumer goods company Unilever, which is also the parent company of Ben & Jerry’s, announced that “it is inconsistent with [their] values for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).” Although officially, Ben & Jerry’s belongs to Unilever, in truth, the company maintains its own policy when it comes to political issues. According to an essay in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Cohen and Greenfield, the progressive Jews who founded the Vermont based company, “attempted to achieve [political autonomy] by negotiating the creation of an independent and robust board for the post-acquisition subsidiary.” Indeed, to date, Ben & Jerry’s Independent Board of Directors has complete freedom when it comes to political statements, even when these affect the company’s commercial activity, as in this case.

Moreover, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), “The board’s chairwoman, Anuradha Mittal, was furious with Unilever’s response, telling NBC that Unilever was ‘trying to destroy the soul of the company. We want this company to be led by values and not be dictated by the parent company.’” Mittal was not mad at Unilever for banning a part of Israel. On the contrary, according to The Jerusalem Post, “Ben & Jerry’s Independent Board of Directors wanted to boycott Israel in its entirety, but was stopped from doing so by the ice-cream maker’s CEO and the British-based parent company Unilever.”

In other words, Ben & Jerry’s old and foul flavor is “hatred of the Jewish state.” They don’t think that Israel has a right to exist, and they cloak their agenda with a mantle of “social justice.” But this is not about justice; it is a reflection of the objection of many Jews, particularly in the US, to the existence of a Jewish state.

In my view, there are two levels to relate to the company’s declaration. The first level is the superficial one: The contract with Ben & Jerry’s has no item that specifies restrictions of sales in particular parts of the country, for whatever reason. Therefore, this demand is a breach of contract, and the State of Israel should respond resolutely by banning the sales of Ben & Jerry’s products throughout Israel. Instead of the franchise to manufacture and distribute the ice-cream in Israel, the Israeli licensee will sell its own ice-cream or sign a contract with another multinational company. In short, if they go political against Israel, Israel should go political against them.

But the deeper level is the more important one. The fact that two Jews are leading a campaign against Israel is actually natural; it’s a reflection of their aversion from their duty to the world. It will not help them. German Jews held the same views before Hitler came to power, but it didn’t help them whatsoever once the Nazis came to power. Now, too, the anti-Israel agenda will not help American Jews; the local antisemites will deal with them the same as the Nazis did under Hitler.

There is nothing that Jews will not give to the nations of the world in return for some sympathy. They will give up their identity, tradition, history, sovereignty, anything to get the world to like them. But all those “gifts” that the Jews are willing to bestow upon the world increase the division within the Jewish people and intensify the world’s hatred toward us. If we could rise above our differences and unite for just one day, we would see that this is what the world actually wants from us: our own unity, and not any other gifts.

Moreover, if we united, the world would understand why the Jews need their own country: to create a place where they can unite above their rifts and set an example of love that covers all the crimes, as King Solomon wrote (Proverbs 10:12). The reason that some Jews don’t want a sovereign State of Israel to exist, even if it were established in a completely undisputed territory, is that subconsciously, they don’t want the onus of being a role model nation, a trailblazing enterprise that unites people of all cultures, ethnicities, and faiths under an umbrella ideology of unity above all else. This was the ideology that forged the peoplehood of our ancestors, this is the reason why “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the motto that encompasses the whole of the Torah, and this is the onus of the Jews: to set an example by implementing this most sublime creed in existence, the system of uniting complete strangers “as one man with one heart.” Those Jews who deny Israel’s right to exist are trying to avoid endowing the world with this most precious gift.

For more on this topic, refer to the book The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord.
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