My new article on Linkedin “Here Comes the Delta Wave”

For anyone who thought that Covid-19 left us along with the year 2020, the new strain, called Delta, has news: Covid isn’t going anywhere. As I have been saying since the beginning of the outbreak (check my posts from a year and a half ago), the coronavirus isn’t yet another bug; it is ushering in a new era, and it will change every aspect of our lives. The faster we learn the characteristics of this new era, the sooner we will be rid of the virus. So far, we have been reluctant students, so the virus keeps coming back, hence the Delta strain.

We have already been forced to change many things in our lives. We no longer fly frantically from place to place (perhaps except during holidays), and many more of us want to work more from home, or only from home. Nevertheless, these are only superficial changes. The real change has to take place within!

That change should be a complete overhaul of our relationships. Until today, we’ve treated humanity as if it were separate from nature. The virus shows us that we are subject to the same laws as the rest of creation. When we don’t follow them, we impact the system negatively, and when the system becomes dysfunctional, because of our negativity, we suffer the consequences.

Our relationships are subject to the same laws as the rest of reality. In all of reality, there is balance and harmony. This is what allows systems to become stable and sustainable. Day and night are harmonious and balance each other out. The same goes for birth and death, the seasons of the year, and depletion and rejuvenation; everything is cyclic, harmonious, and balanced.

The only thing that is not cyclic, balanced, or harmonious is human relations. Until now, we have engaged in constant struggles that seek to harm, ridicule, humiliate, and patronize others. This was not a struggle for survival, as with the rest of nature. It was a war that strove to achieve absolute power, and degrade and abuse everyone else.

This is why I am thankful to Covid. For all the pain it has wrought on us, it has saved us from much greater harm we would have caused ourselves had it not arrived.

That said, we can make things that much better if we choose to follow nature’s dictate instead of being forced into it.

If we let our ill-will toward each other keep contaminating our relationships, we will suffer worsening consequences. But if we change our approach toward each other, not only will we feel better with each other, but nature, too, will treat us well, as we will be as balanced and harmonious as nature itself, and for the first time, a positive element in our world.
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My new article on Linkedin “4th of July, Happy Interdependence Day America!”

As America celebrates its 245th Independence Day, the United States faces two serious threats: the Covid-19 pandemic and its recent Delta variant and record-breaking extreme heat waves in North America. On this important occasion I wish for America to overcome its challenges by building a safer nation that is resistant to all the phenomena from nature and the polarization within society. They need to properly realize their power and make good changes within the country if they want to thrive.

North America is boiling, literally. The traditional 4th of July fireworks displays have been postponed or canceled in certain locales due to heat indices and drought conditions. There are also recommendations to stay indoors. In Portland and Seattle, temperatures reached a record high of 116 degrees Fahrenheit. Health authorities in British Columbia, Canada also reported unbearable temperatures that caused the deaths of at least 700 Canadians.

We should not conceive these blows in North America as punishment. For instance, I do not see Americans as the worst people that have made terrible mistakes or committed some injustices that made them deserve this. It is natural for the whole continent and, actually, the whole world to experience extreme weather.

The world has been evolving and has now reached a new stage of development, a completely different level; humanity must fully recognize the unity of nature as a holistic system, one whole. We need to comprehend that the state of nature depends on the relationships between human beings, the highest level in the pyramid of nature, which influences the rest of the system: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human itself.

Therefore, if we try to build a balanced system of human relations, all of nature will calm down. The comprehensive solution to the ecological and social dangers we face lies in efforts toward global connection in which we will feel how dependent we are on everyone. Therefore, we will think twice before engaging in any ill-treatment of anyone else.

So how do blows help us advance? Americans are so proud of their independence, more than and above all other countries, and now they are entering the process of testing their own independence, their values, what they are independent from, and what is worth dreaming of. I think it is the beginning of a long and extraordinarily special learning process that will be accelerated by the current political scenario in America where the heat waves are burning the social cohesion.

America has built a strong and prosperous country with a good infrastructure and know-how on how to use money well. But can they still use everything they have built rationally? I am not quite sure, I am very worried about their future. They need to do more to abstain from political divisions and to think about how to build a stable society otherwise they will not be able to successfully face the threats from natural phenomena and internal explosions from various factions within their society. There are many countries in the world waiting for America to reach an internal boiling point and explodes. This sounds like bad news, but it is actually good news because America now has an opportunity to revive with a new awakening, and real chance to reach a true Independence! I wish you success!
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My new article on Linkedin “We Need to Educate the Education System”

It’s been a year and a half into the age of Corona, and schooling has been restricted, limited, and changed in many ways since the pre-Covid age. From the perspective of the education system, Covid-19 has done more harm than good: Children are more prone to depression, social isolation, regression in academic achievements, as well as increased chances of dropping out from school. Yet, in my view, the problem is not with Covid, but with the educators who didn’t seize the moment to reform the obsolete schooling system. They tried to “copy-paste” a failing physical platform into a virtual platform instead of capitalizing on the benefits of the online arena.

Children and young adults are much more adept when it comes to utilizing online tools such as search engines and online encyclopedias or other sites that provide accessible and free information. Schooling, therefore, must be adapted to the new reality, and should take up much less of the time than was required during the pre-Covid era. Instead of forcing the old teaching methods on the new reality, educators should dedicate the abundant time that has been freed thanks to the availability of information to the one thing that people really need to learn today: how to conduct positive relationships.

Depression rates and aggression are skyrocketing not because people don’t know enough about American history or because of their math skills. They’re depressed because they cannot communicate with people in meaningful and positive ways. When they can’t find trustworthy people, they feel alone and hopeless. Since the problem is national, it should be treated through the education system, and authorities must appoint special educators to teach people how to interact, how to develop care for one another.

In the global era, we are all connected. When we behave to the contrary, as we do today, we harm ourselves and others. To address the problem, educators should work on both the informative level and the emotional level. People should learn about the interconnected nature of today’s reality, how the acts of one person impact the lives of everyone else, even when we don’t immediately sense it. At the same time, educators should cultivate attitudes of mutual responsibility among children and youth, as well as among grownups.

The two levels, informative and emotional, will complement each other and create a new bedrock on which to build a society of happy people, who feel connected, appreciated, and confident in their environment.

The post Covid world will not revert back to the competitive and callous mentality that characterized the world before the outbreak. To reap the maximum benefits from the transformation that human society is going through, we must educate ourselves about it and practice living by its new social codes of mutual responsibility and concern for everyone. The sooner we start, the better.
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My new article on Linkedin “A Needless Conflict Generates Needless Victims”

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, or as it was previously known, the Arab-Israeli conflict, is widely considered as the source of all the problems in the Middle-East. Over the past century or so, this conflict has inflicted tens of thousands of casualties on both sides, and tremendous suffering of countless innocent people. The sad thing about it is that the conflict is needless. If the two peoples acted according to their roots, there would be no conflict whatsoever, and the area would be a role model of amity.

In our roots, Jews and Arabs aren’t that far. We both come from the same father, Abraham, who taught us all the same law: the law of mercy and kindness. Abraham taught us that nature consists of one force that moves the stars in the sky and “rules the capital,” as Maimonides put it. Abraham taught us that that force is one of love and giving, and this is why he taught his disciples to love and give, as well, so they would be like nature.

The conflict began once we abandoned the principle of love and giving and gave in to the power of the ego. Once the ego has set in, religions took over where simple love once ruled. Religions thrive on separation and distinction; they set apart Jews, Christians, and Arabs, and then continue to separate them into countless sects and factions. Since the ego wants to be the king, it cannot tolerate connection and bonding. When it cannot be the sole ruler, it finds “flaws” in others, which justify parting from them. This is how new religions form.

It is true that people need traditions and cultures; it is very human and serves positive roles in people’s lives. As such, religion is not at all negative. However, when it drives people away from one another, presents others as enemies simply for wearing a different kind of clothing or for praying to the same force in a different way, then religion becomes a source of conflict and hate, and anything that increases hatred among people is negative.

Despite the apparent deadlock, I see the solution as easy, as long as people do not try to annihilate others or force their ways of life on them. To establish peace, all that people need is to consider that the one force that guides our world is good and does good, and if we want to be close to it, we should try to be likewise.

An approach of love and giving never reproaches or delegitimizes other people. Each one should live according to one’s own culture and tradition. All that we need is to add another layer, a coating of love over our diversity, above our different approaches to life. If we remember that we all have the same father, who wanted us all to have the same things, to attain what he had attained, and spread what he had discovered to the whole world, I think it will be only natural to lead a peaceful and harmonious life here in our tormented piece of land, and leave our bloody history behind, for good.
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My new article on Linkedin “UFOs or Signs from the Supreme Power?”

In the late 1970s when I was serving at the Israeli Air Force base, blinking lights hung above us like illuminated lanterns. One might say I’m crazy, but not only did I see them, several hundreds and even thousands of people also recall seeing them for several days and nights. I remember how we talked to each other in amazement: What could it be? What is above us? What shines on us like that? And even though we served in the Air Force we never got an explanation for the phenomenon.

The Pentagon has recently released a detailed report with records of 144 sightings of unidentified flying objects seen in the U.S. over the past 17 years in closed military areas. In America and around the world, people have been waiting for this report for months, hoping to receive an official answer: Is there an explanation for the UFOs? In the end, the Pentagon reports no success in explaining the phenomena and also no confirmation that anything originated outside the Earth. In short, it remains a mystery.

Although I have not read the report, it is clear to me that there are many phenomena in nature that we also do not understand at all. These unidentified flying objects or UFOs are called this way just because their origin and essence are not recognized by us. If we want to recognize and understand these or any other mysterious events, we need to learn how we perceive reality in general, how the world is portrayed in our eyes.

“In our eyes” is actually in our mind. Is reality grasped in our five senses, in our imagination, or does it exist outside of us regardless of our perceptual tools? In general, everyone imagines reality differently. There is no way to know that what one person perceives and what another perceives is the same thing.

From a broader perspective, we would perceive many more forms around us than just those that are observed with ordinary eyes in our sensory perception. Even as you read these lines, many phenomena occur that we are unable to perceive. The question is not whether these phenomena exist or not, but what is it that we want to derive from knowing about them?

Humanity is always attracted to situations that seem out of place with nature, but we are attracted to them in a childish, unserious way, and we tend to produce fantastical mysticism around them. Therefore, humanity derives no benefit from engaging in this type of activity. People simply refer to the phenomenon as aliens landing from a distant planet, from another civilization, and never bother to inquire further and ask what is behind these events. Society is captivated by the alien image of Hollywood—creatures with large oval heads and slanted eyes that arrive at night to kidnap humans. This is no more than a creative invention of human beings.

The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks of spiritual forces that are not clothed in material matter. These forces descend to us from their source, from the Supreme Power, operate throughout the universe, above time, motion, and space, and can be called by the name “angels.” Here too, it is important not to relate these to the fictional paintings from the legends of winged creatures. Rather, these are abstract and transient forces of enormous power similar to magnetic force, electric fields of radiation, or a sort of gravitational field. The forces themselves cannot be seen or felt, but are known only by their action. We feel their manifestation but never the forces themselves.

In order to grasp the wider reality, understand the mystery of life, and discover the powers that surround us, we must strive to begin to grasp the broad picture, the system that encompasses all of us.

If we change our perception of reality—instead of absorbing reality by wanting to receive pleasure only for ourselves, which blocks and limits our tools of absorption—we would act in reverse form, from within a desire to give, in an attitude of giving to others, just as the higher force of nature works.

From this opposite point of perception, we would realize that all the little revelations and sensational observations come from the Upper Force that draws our attention to something that is not exactly within ordinary nature. We would discover that this is so that we would begin to ask more substantive questions about life and discover the true answer, the power that gave birth, sustains and develops the world.
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My new article on Linkedin “ The Ten Plagues of Covid ”

In the last week or so, it has become clear that we are in the beginning of the fourth wave of Covid-19 in Israel. We thought we had beaten the virus, and so did much of the world, but once again we’re closing down as the number of new cases quickly rises. Even though about 60 percent of Israel’s population is inoculated, we’re still losing to the virus.

As I have warned countless times before, we’re not sickened by the coronavirus; we’re sickened by hubris and conceit. Self-importance and egoism are sure recipes for disaster, and we are proving it every time we see that Covid cases are declining. What’s more, Covid is not a local or a national problem; it is the problem of the entire world, and unless the entire world is included in the solution, we will not get rid of it. Covid-19 will teach us that we’re in this together, for better or worse, dependent on each other. Unless we think about each other’s health, we ourselves will not be well.

In a sense, I’m happy that Covid is here because it teaches us this mutual responsibility. At the same time, I am equally unhappy about our obstinacy and reluctance to learn, as it is costing us lives, millions of lives. I myself lost friends, students, and some of their family members to the virus. No one is excluded from this bug, which is precisely why it is so effective in teaching us mutual responsibility.

Just as the ten plagues in Egypt ushered a new era in the history of the people of Israel, when they pledged to unite “as one man with one heart,” Covid-19 is ushering the world into the exact same state. Its plagues will grow less and less quantitative, and more and more qualitative, meaning leading us directly toward understanding that without pledging to care for one another, we will not survive.

In the desert, after they fled from Egypt, the Israelites did not willingly accept the pledge for unity. They, too, had to deal with their egos. The Talmud writes (Avoda Zarah 2b) that “The Lord had forced the mountain over Israel like a vault, and said unto them: ‘If you accept the Law [of mutual responsibility], very well, but if not, there will it be your grave.’” Today, it seems as though Covid is taking God’s role in forcing us to make the same pledge. I hope we will not be obstinate much longer since the plagues, we already know, will only grow harsher.
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My new article on Linkedin “Hatred Around Every Corner”

Today, Sunday, is the 17th of the Hebrew month of Tammuz. On that day, some 2,000 years ago, the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem. Three weeks later, they reached the Temple and destroyed it, then exiled the remaining Jews from Jerusalem and we lost our sovereignty. But it weren’t the Romans who had conquered us. It was our own hatred that had set us off against each other. The Jewish-turned-Roman historian Flavius Josephus put it very simply: “The sedition destroyed the city, and the Romans destroyed the sedition.”

Israel regained independence 73 years ago, but we did not fortify our sovereignty with unity. In the absence of unity, sedition will destroy the country once again. Wherever you look, there is hatred. Within families, among different factions in the nation, among political parties, hatred sets the tone wherever you look. In fact, hatred is so prominent here that if we had to fight the Romans once again, we would destroy each other instead, just as our ancestors did two millennia ago.

Our nation was founded on unity, and on unity alone. We were declared a nation only when we pledged to love each other as ourselves, to be “as one man with one heart.” Among the first Israelites, who came from all over the Fertile Crescent, there were no other connections other than the pledge to forge unity and mutual responsibility. This was why our nation was so unique.

Two thousand years ago, the process of capitulating to our ego and division culminated in the civil war that ended with the ruin of the Temple. That hatred obliterated our peoplehood and destroyed the very basis of our nation: unity above all. Since the ruin of the Temple, we have not healed the hatred that destroyed it, and as a result, we have not regained the right to be regarded as a nation.

King Solomon stated, “Hate stirs strife, and love will cover all crimes” (Prov. 10:12). We are pious when it comes to fulfilling the first part of the verse, but we are equally irreverent when it comes to fulfilling its second part. As long as we let hatred set the tone among us, we will not merit the title “nation” and the country will decline to the point of collapse.

The choice is in our hands. If we choose unity, we will thrive and prosper. If we succumb to our egos and let division, derision, and odium come over us, we will be ousted and persecuted as we have been for the past two millennia.
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My new article on Linkedin “Brace for New Well-Poisoning Libels”

In the 14th century, a bubonic plague, aka The Black Death, wreaked havoc across Europe in what became the most fatal pandemic in human history, annihilating nearly half of Europe’s population. In those days, people had no scientific knowledge or sanitary conditions to stem the spread of the pestilence, so their only refuge from complete despair was rumors, usually completely fabricated. One such rumor was that Jews had caused the disease by deliberately poisoning wells.

Jews were often the target of false rumors when attempting to explain crises. This time, however, the result was particularly painful: Between 1348-1351, 350 pogroms against Jews were recorded, in which no less than 210 communities were simply exterminated. Even years after the plague had subsided, pogroms related to the well-poisoning libel still took place. In 1370, for example, the libel ignited the Brussels massacre which wiped out the Belgian Jewish community.

The current pandemic, Covid-19, is likely to repeat the pattern. Although Jews, and particularly the Jewish state, Israel, have already been accused of causing it, such libels are still in the margins. Yet, the more the current plague continues, and the more helpless humanity feels, the more people’s eyes will turn to the Jews, and their fingers will point to us as the evildoers.

As then, so now, we will make every reasonable argument to prove that we are not to blame, that we did not cause the pandemic. As then, so now, no one will listen. In that regard, the world has not changed since the Middle Ages. If we think people are more reasonable or civilized today than they were then, we need only look at what happened in Germany less than a century ago to realize that humanity is today what it has always been: Inherently irrational and ever willing to pin the blame on the Jews.

But is humanity wrong? If everyone tells us that we are to blame, and we’re the only ones who think otherwise, then who is right? Because even if we didn’t cause The Black Death or Covid-19, and we didn’t, for sure, perhaps there is some other fault in us that we are unaware of and that the world cannot articulate, and it expresses it through its most convenient pretext. Perhaps this is why the world blames us not only of starting The Black Death and Covid, but of causing all the wars, the HIV virus, every economic and financial crisis that’s ever struck humanity, every violation of human rights, in every country, even where there are no Jews, and in general, of everything that’s wrong with the world.

The problem is that we are unaware of what our own sages teach. If we were more informed, we would realize that they, too, thought that everything that’s wrong with the world is because of the Jews, and that the Jews can and must correct it.

Our sages attributed all our troubles and all the world’s troubles to our lack of unity, and as a result, maintained that our unity, the unity of the Jewish people, is the cure for everything.

For example, the Talmud writes (Yevamot 63), “No calamity comes to the world but for Israel.” Incidentally, “for” means both “for our sake,” to help us, as well as “because.”

Similar to the Talmud, the book Shem MiShmuel writes, “When they [Israel] are as one man with one heart, they are as a fortified wall against the forces of evil.” Rabbi Nathan Sternhertz writes in his book Likutey Halachot [Assorted Rules], which describes how Jews should behave, “‘Gather together and hear, you sons of Jacob,’ precisely ‘Gather together,’ for he revealed to them that the primary element of correction is the advice to gather together, meaning that there will be unity, love, and peace in Israel, that they will gather together to speak to one another of the final purpose. Thus they will be rewarded with completeness of the counsel, for Israel and the Law are all one to the extent of peace and unity in Israel.” Rabbi Simcha Bonim Bonhart of Peshischa wrote similarly in A Broadcasting Voice: “This is the mutual guarantee on which Moses worked so hard before his death, to unite the children of Israel. All of Israel are each other’s guarantors [responsible for one another], meaning that when all are together, they see only good.”

The book Bina Le’Itim explains not only how division hurts us, but also how unity saves us: “The foundation of the wickedness of evil Haman, on which he had built his request of the king to sell the Jews to him … is what he had begun to argue, ‘There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed,’ etc. He cast his filth saying that that nation deserves to be destroyed, for separation rules among them, they are all full of strife and quarrel, and their hearts are far from one another. However, He put the healing before the blow [took preventing measures] … by hastening Israel to unite and adhere to one another, to all be one, as one man, and this is what saved them, as in the verse, ‘Go, gather together all the Jews.’”

And finally, The Book of Zohar explains not only that our disunity causes our troubles, but that it also causes the world’s worst calamities. In the section Tikkuney Zohar [Corrections of The Zohar], Tikkun [correction] no. 30, the book writes, “In such a generation,” when Israel do not correct themselves through unity, “all the destructors among the nations of the world raise their heads and wish primarily to destroy and to kill the children of Israel, as it is written, ‘No calamity comes to the world but for Israel’ (Yevamot 63a). This means, as it is written in the above Tikkunim [corrections], that [Israel] cause poverty, ruin, robbery, killing, and destructions in the whole world.”

There are countless other examples but regrettably, they cannot all fit into one essay. Nevertheless, the picture is clear enough. If our own sages and our own texts tell us that we are responsible for our own fate and for the fate of the world, that we determine what happens to us and to the world through our unity or division, do we not owe it to ourselves and to the world to at least try to follow our sages’ advice? Can we blame Jew-haters of baseless hatred when our own sages speak so similarly? I believe the answer is clear, and the onus is on us.
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My new article on Linkedin “Disasters Will Hunt Jews Until Unity Is Achieved”

In a race against time, emergency workers try to find survivors of a residential building that collapsed days ago in Surfside near Miami, Florida. More than 150 people are still unaccounted for and the death toll rises every day. This tragedy knocks at the door in a neighborhood with a growing Jewish community, a community now in shock and disbelief at the disaster. Finally, the question arises of why it is that Jews are again at the heart of a new blow?

The cause of the collapse is still unknown, but according to the New York Times, almost three years ago an engineer expressed concerns about structural damage to the building that required renovations but which were never implemented. Whatever the reason, there is one undeniable fact: the Jews are at the center of yet another disaster. These are no longer obscure clues and signs but accumulating facts, a chain of events that connect and raise many question marks.

A recent stampede at the religious pilgrimage to Mount Meron in Israel—believed to be the largest single annual Jewish event in the world—left 45 people dead and over 150 wounded. A fatal collapse of a synagogue bleacher in Jerusalem on Shavuot night and other series of events prior to the tragedy in Florida have one common denominator: the Jews.

Using words as arrows to make their point, our sages wrote about the reason for Jewish afflictions: “No calamity comes to the world but for Israel,” (Yevamot, 63a.) The unfounded hatred which was the root cause of the destruction of the First and Second Temples is also characteristic of the Jewish people these days.

The Book of Zohar states that when separation prevails among the people of Israel, “They bring about the existence of poverty, ruin, and robbery, looting, killing, and destructions in the world” (Tikkuney Zohar, No. 30).

The breakage in our relationships as Jews is akin to the building collapse in Florida. When Jews fall into separation and do not lean toward oneness above all differences, then the cracks in their structural basis as a people weaken and their troubles increase, manifesting in different and unexpected ways.

Brotherly love among the Jewish people evokes a positive force with the capacity to neutralize all evil. This power corrects, straightens, settles, and balances reality as a whole.

An excruciating path would be to ignore the warning signs and delay the call for Jewish unity—the force which has been the foundation of the Jewish people since time immemorial. If Jews continue along the path of mutual hatred, they will gnaw away their cohesion until their bedrock is undermined and destroyed. Conversely, it is written in the book Maor VaShemesh, “The prime defense against calamity is love and unity. When there are love, unity, and friendship between each other in Israel, no calamity can come over them.”

Until Jews wake up and reach a common concern for one another, following an educational campaign that will bring Jews closer together and later all the people in the world, many more disasters will continue to befall them. That’s an annoying and infuriating truth. However, there is also a way to reverse the situation: through a real change of attitude toward each other, through unity as the pillar, as the precondition to shake off predicaments and thrive as a people, Jews can escape troubles. As the great Rav Kook wrote, “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.” (Orot Kodesh [Sacred Lights]).
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My new article on Linkedin “How We Summon Our Enemies”

In his book The Jew in the Medieval World, Prof. of Jewish History Jacob Rader Marcus presents a dramatic depiction of the events leading to the announcement of the Alhambra Decree in 1492, which led to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Marcus writes that “The agreement permitting the Jews to remain in Spain on the payment of a large sum of money was almost completed when it was frustrated by the Prior of Santa Cruz, Tomás de Torquemada,” who despite his Jewish roots, headed the Inquisition in Spain. According to Marcus, “Legend relates that Torquemada … thundered with crucifix aloft to the King and Queen: ‘Judas Iscariot sold his master for thirty pieces of silver. Your Highness would sell him anew for thirty thousand? Here he is [pointing to the cross], take him, and barter him away.’” King Ferdinand, dumbfounded by the zealous speech, promptly discarded any hesitations he might have had about the implementation of the decree.

However, what happened next was even more astounding. Marcus writes that Queen Isabella, who was present in the room when Torquemada stormed in, “gave an answer to the representatives of the Jews, similar to the saying of King Solomon [Proverbs 21:1]: ‘The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: He turns it wherever He wills.’ She said furthermore: ‘Do you believe that this comes upon you from us? The Lord has put this thing into the heart of the king.’” Subsequently, concludes Marcus, the Jews “saw that there was evil determined against them by the King, and they gave up the hope of remaining.”

In 1929, a few years before Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, it was already clear that antisemitism was rising in the defeated country that could not recover from the consequences of World War I. Reflecting on the growing Jew-hatred in his country, Dr. Kurt Fleischer, leader of the Liberals in the Berlin Jewish Community Assembly, stated that “Anti-Semitism is the scourge that God has sent us in order to lead us together and weld us together.”

Fleischer’s statement expressed something that our sages throughout the ages have argued, that we bring our foes upon ourselves through our division. The fall of the Second Temple and the exile from the land of Israel are the most known examples of Jewish self-hatred that had brought upon us a cataclysm, but there are plenty others. In Spain, for example, preceding the onset of the Inquisition, numerous Jews sought to assimilate and disperse from their communities. They began to quarrel among themselves, and Jews who converted, and became known as conversos, often became fierce antisemites. According to Norman Roth, Professor of Jewish History at the University of Wisconsin, “Like the majority of conversos, [converso officials] were ardent Catholics and most were vehemently anti-Jewish (especially was this true with converso clergy, but also with the officials).”

A few days ago, Ebrahim Raisi was elected to be the next president of Iran. Prior to his election, Raisi was Iran’s top judge. He holds ultra-conservative views, and Israel’s Prime Minister warned that this was “the last chance for world powers to wake up… and understand who they are doing business with.”

But in light of our history, and in light of our sages’ constant warnings, we should not be surprised that someone like Raisi has come to power. As has happened throughout history, division among Jews brings upon them evildoers that seek to destroy them. When Jews reunite, the problem is solved.

Here in Israel, we know that in times of war, we unite in order to defeat the enemy. Every Israeli knows that this has been our “secret weapon” in all our wars since the establishment of the State of Israel. Every Israeli also knows that as soon as the guns stop roaring, malice sets in among us. This malice shows what we don’t know: Had we been connected, we would not have to go to war in the first place.

Indeed, every problem in the world is solved through human connection. We Jews, the nation that was formed on the basis of the strongest possible connection, that of loving our neighbors as ourselves, should be world leaders in connection. Instead, we are divided and torn, and our people are filled with hatred toward each other. As a result, wicked antisemites rise “in order to lead us together and weld us together,” as Dr. Fleischer put it. Antisemites are rising to power the world over; if we do not wake up now and read the writing on the wall, we might wake up once more when it is too late.

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