My new article on Linkedin “The Key to Efficiency in Our Lives”

Modern life is characterized by an ongoing race to be more efficient, constantly raising the bar higher to become successful? But maximum efficiency is not always a guarantee of fulfillment. For that, we need goal management and a clear direction from the highest perspective in life.

As with a race, even before we start, it is important to choose a direction for myself and develop a plan to implement it. Otherwise, we will surely reach the end of our lives without realizing the gift that nature has given only to us, our unique potential, to each and every one of us. Therefore, striving to be someone else and do what everyone does is the sure recipe to be mediocre and stay that way.

Just because I run fast does not mean I will reach somewhere worthy faster. People usually chase after goals they have not even set for themselves. “You will not decide for me,” small children tell us to demonstrate their independence, but in our lives as adults we constantly run where we have been told to run.

We run fast, almost restlessly, constantly trying to become more efficient, to be precise. But, have we become slaves in this intent without a rational explanation of what we want to achieve?

Whoever wants to break this vicious cycle must first of all avoid following what the majority does without questioning why one is doing it. Life is not a machine with values and goals automatically activated.

What is worth living for? What do I want to do with life? Without clarifying these big questions about the essence of our existence, all efforts will be useless and meaningless. “The end of the act is already contained in the initial thought,” our sages said to emphasize that first of all it is indispensable to find out what nature created us for in order to realize what we can achieve in life.

Then, the first step in being efficient is to ask myself what I live for. After I have found an answer for myself and defined a worthy goal, the second stage should be to find out how to achieve, what means do I need to achieve it? The third step is to surround myself with people who are also interested in achieving the same goal so that they will provide a supportive environment for me.

It is important to internalize that without a supportive environment, a person cannot progress. We are social beings, and therefore we must absorb forces from our environment, similar to the seed that is in the soil and needs a suitable substrate of moisture, minerals and fertilizers in order to grow and thrive. I will be able to receive good examples from a supportive environment in which envy propels us to progress but gives us the necessary strength to move forward and overcome all obstacles on the way to realizing our potential.

A waste of time, in the broadest sense of the word, is to flow with life and follow our natural tendencies. Therefore, whenever I feel distracted, I must return to the environment again and tell myself that I need to be in closer contact with it so that the environment can position me more correctly in the direction of the great goal I’ve chosen.

By the way, this is also a very important tip for parents. Instead of trying to force your children to develop in the direction you want them to and provoking rejection in them, it would be better if you immerse them in an environment with children who are developing in the same direction you think is appropriate. Your children will get an urge to move toward the same purpose from others.

It is the importance of the goals we set in advance what will make us meet those goals. It is therefore imperative to elevate the importance of the great goal we aspire to every day, to remind each other why it is important to us and what it will give us in life.

From an evolutionary point of view, the level of effectiveness of someone in the human race is measured by the degree of their participation in changing human relationships from egoistic relationships that threaten to destroy the world to altruistic relationships that will build an integral relationship between everyone.

A person is considered efficient and beneficial to the system to the extent that he or she promotes good connections between people, and complementarity and reciprocity within society. Each of us will feel the total realization of what nature has given to us alone to the same extent, a unique gift for every person in the world.
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My new article on Linkedin “How Many More Euro Championships?”

According to the entertainment industry news outlet Deadline, “ESPN and ABC’s coverage of the UEFA Euro 2020 soccer championships that kicked off last week has grown by 12% in viewers over the Euro 2016 tournament,” and the championship has only just begun. Perhaps it’s the return from the Covid-19 forced termination of league games and championships, or perhaps it is for other reasons, but despite all the hype, I think the tide will be short lived.

Humanity is losing interest in such games; our childhood days are coming to a close. As we grow, our wishes and aspirations change. This happens to every person, and it is also happening to all of humanity. People are beginning to look for more meaningful things to do with their time, so while watching sports games is still quite popular, it won’t remain this way for long.

But it isn’t happening only in sports. It is happening in every realm of the entertainment industry, because entertainment, in the end, leaves us feeling empty. We are approaching a phase in our development where we are beginning to ask not just how to have more fun in life, but about the meaning of life itself.

When we begin to ask about the meaning of life, we search for its origins, what happened before I was born, what will happen after I die, is there life elsewhere in the universe, and other such questions. But in the end, we realize that the answer to the question about the meaning of life lies not in some distant planet or in the distant past or future, but right here, among us, in our human connections.

The thing about human connections is that by changing our relation to each other, we change our perception of reality, and the world we’ve always known transforms into a new creation. It’s not magic, and it’s not that reality has changed; it is simply that we are seeing a whole new layer of reality that we did not see before, which gives life, and all of existence, a whole new meaning.

People like to play with augmented reality games, such as Pokémon GO, or use this technology to change the way things look. But when you see how everything is connected, your whole existence becomes augmented, transformed, enriched, and enlivened in ways we cannot even begin to imagine with our current, very limited perception.

What is even better is that once we realize how connected we all are, we transform our relationships from negative to positive. Realizing our interdependence simply does not allow us to be mean to one another, as that would be like being mean to ourselves. Our sages knew all this thousands of years ago, and taught this to anyone who wished to learn. The Jerusalem Talmud, for example, offers this beautiful allegory about our connectedness: “If the writing warns about habitual mistreatment, vengeance and bearing a grudge should be forbidden also toward those who are not from among your nation. Also, how is it possible for one to forgive an affront? [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” (Nedarim 9:4).

The Jerusalem Talmud was redacted in the 3rd century. Can we imagine what history would have looked like had we absorbed the profound love and connection radiating from this excerpt? What would human history look like if we felt the way the authors of the Talmud described? What would our planet look like? Would there be pollution? Would there be exploitation? Would there be wars, hunger, or poverty? I believe you know the answer. Therefore, the sooner we embrace our connected future, the sooner this truly augmented reality will become our reality, and our lives will be what they can be, and what we hope them to be.
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My new article on Linkedin “Reply to a Question about Jews and Arabs in Israel”

One of my students told me that since the beginning of Operation Guardian of the Walls (the most recent military campaign against Hamas in Gaza), dozens of Israeli Arabs left positive messages on my Hebrew Facebook page. They didn’t relate to the conflict, but expressed their agreement with the message of unity that I am conveying there. The student asked me if I could explain their sudden interest in the content on my page.

I think it’s easier for Arab Israelis to access my content than it is for Arabs in other countries for the simple reason that Arab Israelis speak and read Hebrew. From the content of their comments, which are also written in Hebrew, it’s clear that they agree with the message in my words, and this, I think, should be the clearest message to the Jews regarding what we need to do if we truly want peace.
First, I think it’s easier for Arab Israelis to access my content than it is for Arabs in other countries for the simple reason that Arab Israelis speak and read Hebrew. From the content of their comments, which are also written in Hebrew, it’s clear that they agree with the message in my words, and this, I think, should be the clearest message to the Jews regarding what we need to do if we truly want peace.

The message, as we know, is simple: The world has no respect for us because we have no respect for the connection between us. Our sages repeated this message in the ears of our ancestors. They wrote about it profusely, yet we refused to listen. Antisemites, too, have told us in countless ways that they despised our loathing of each other. History has repeatedly shown that the worst blows we suffered from the nations came after periods of intensified discord and infighting among us, and our most prosperous times were during strong internal unity.

Now the Arabs are telling us the same message. In my eyes, they are not enemies; they are messengers who tell us that they will appreciate us when we appreciate the connection between us. It is the same message that the nations of the world have been telling us since our inception as a nation, but now it is being told by our contemporaries. To me, the positive response of our Arab neighbors to the message of Jewish unity is a testimony to the paramount need to begin the process of reconciliation with our neighbors with reconciliation among ourselves. The sooner we start, the better it will be for everyone: for the Jews in Israel, for the Arabs in Israel, and for the rest of the world. As soon as we begin to unite, we will find that the Arabs are not our enemies, they are our partners.

For more on this topic, refer to the books The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord, and Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour.
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My new article on Linkedin “A Maximum Plan and a Minimum Plan for the Government”

As we evidently see, the State of Israel is unlike any other country. We’re trying to conduct ourselves like the rest of the world, but we’re not; this is why we have been in a political limbo for the past several years. The problem is that we don’t know what we should be like, so we look for role models in the world around us. However, they are not right for us, and we are seeing the results.

Therefore, I think our government needs to conduct itself in two parallel routes, one that follows a maximum plan, and one that follows a minimum plan. The maximum plan is the nation in its ideal state of solidarity and union; the minimum plan is sustaining ourselves until we get there.

The minimum plan has two primary objectives: defense and life. Defense means securing Israel’s borders and addressing military threats to its population. Life means seeing that the economy as a whole is functioning, including the job market, industry and agriculture, and housing, and to maintain the healthcare and welfare systems. As stated, the overall objective of the minimum plan is to sustain us until we realize the maximum plan.

The maximum plan relates to the ultimate goal of the State of Israel, namely to bring the people of Israel to complete unity and solidarity, to the point of realizing the motto of the Jewish people: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” To achieve this, the government must establish an educational system that pertains to all ages—from kindergarten through school, higher education, work, and even retirement homes.

Currently, the nation is in dire need of unity. Its factions are divided and hate each other’s guts. They undermine one another and in the process, they weaken the entire country. Therefore, our survival as a sovereign state depends on our solidarity and unity. If we generate them, we will thrive and prosper. If we do not, we will be overrun by our multiple enemies from without and from within.

Moreover, the nature of our people does not permit us to acknowledge that someone else is right and we are wrong. It is with good reason that the Torah refers to the Jews as a “stiff-necked people” (Ex 32:9), and it is not about to change. Therefore, any plan to generate unity must take into consideration that it must build this accord atop existing, persisting, and even increasing discord. While this is clearly a formidable challenge, the other option is the dissolution of the State of Israel.

In light of all this, the maximum plan will detail and implement the steps toward establishing initial unity, based on the understanding that we are dependent on each other, and either we all succeed or we all fail. Subsequently, the plan will outline the stages of enhancing and solidifying that unity using instances of discord and disputes as incentives for enhancing our unity.

To succeed, the entire nation must commit to the process. If only some of us seek to establish unity, and the rest of us do not, the process will fail. In his essay “Mutual Responsibility,” the great 20th century kabbalist and thinker Yehuda Ashlag, aka Baal HaSulam, offered a poignant analogy from The Book of Zohar pertaining to our mutual responsibility: “If a part of the nation does not want to keep the mutual responsibility … they cause the rest of the nation to remain immersed in their filth and lowliness [of self-interest] without finding a way out of their filth. Therefore, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai [author of The Zohar] described mutual responsibility as two people sailing in a boat, when one of them begins to drill a hole in the boat. His friend says, ‘Why are you drilling?’ The other replies, ‘Why should you care? I am drilling under me, not under you!’ So the friend replies, ‘You fool! We will both drown together in the boat!’”

Right now, we’re sinking. We’re drilling holes in our boat out of vindictiveness, and we don’t realize, or don’t care that in the process, we are drowning ourselves, as well. Still, we haven’t sunk. If we pull together, we will cruise ashore. If we stay apart, we’ll sink for sure. This is why I believe that the government must run the maximum plan and the minimum plan concurrently, with the goal of bringing the people of Israel to the finish line of mutual responsibility and love of others as soon as it possibly can.

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My new article on Linkedin “The Motive behind G7 Billion Covid Vaccine Doses Pledge to Poor Countries”

At the conclusion of the recent G7 summit in the UK, the participants pledged one billion Covid vaccine doses to poor countries as a “big step towards vaccinating the world,” according to the BBC. Britain’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, whose country presided over the summit, stated that “The world was looking to us to reject some of the selfish, nationalistic approaches that marred the initial global response to the pandemic and to channel all our diplomatic, economic and scientific might to defeating Covid for good.”

In all honesty, I doubt that concern for the world is the G7’s priority. I can understand why they would want to calm or somehow tame the pandemic, but I don’t think it’s out of remorse for their prior behavior or that they have suddenly changed their skins. I also don’t think that the pandemic is over, despite the existence of vaccines. It may not erupt as explosively as before, but it will continue to disturb us for a long time coming.

It’s not as if we should be afraid of Covid; humanity is dealing with myriad permanent threats, and Covid isn’t the worst of them. Take HIV, for example, it is still around and still scares us, but we’ve learned to live with it. The question we should ask is not why we cannot annihilate such plagues, but why they appear at all. It’s as if nature is trying to tell us something but we are refusing to listen, so it has to try different ways and at different volumes to get our attention.

When we finally listen, we will realize that nature’s message is very simple: Stop mistreating nature and each other. Your exploitation of each other and of nature is destroying everything that you have worked so hard to build, everything that nature has built, and if you ruin it, you will ruin yourselves. A few decades ago, speaking about climate change was considered subversive, or at least innovative and avant-garde. Today, it is mainstream. This does not speak in our favor, but rather shows how little we have done to solve the problem.

But in truth, climate change isn’t our real problem. The “climate” between us is the problem. If we solve this, we will solve everything else, including climate change, Covid, HIV, and every other problem. The atmosphere between us causes us to pollute our water resources, makes us wage wars against each other, military or economic, that to win them, we are willing to deplete the land, enslave entire populations, spike the price of staple food and energy for no reason, and do everything we can to hurt our enemies, who are basically everyone besides ourselves. In other words, our hatred of each other is the root cause of all our problems, and Covid-19 is just a minor symptom of this malady of hatred. Heal the hatred, and you have healed everything else.

It is my hope that in the near future, humanity will come to its senses, take its future into its hands, and implement a global educational solidarity program that will focus on uniting the entire family of nations. Its goal will not be to undermine nations’ sovereignty, take over their economies, or harm them in some other way, but to save humanity from self-destruction.

The G7, being a group of some of the most powerful and influential nations on Earth, can and should set an example of such a move. I have little hope that they will, but I know that they must, as do all of us. The other option, I’m afraid, is very bleak and filled with agony. I wouldn’t want our children and grandchildren to grow into a dead and hate-filled world.
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My new article on Linkedin “Israel’s Founding Principle – Unity Above All Else”

Israel faces an identity crisis. Over the years we have followed without much thought the rules imposed by the British Mandate after the Ottoman period in the Land of Israel. It has been a natural precedent to carry on, an easy and convenient one. However, the conditions for the governments of other nations cannot and will not suit us here. Therefore, we keep failing time and time again, from government to government, and have yet to get it right.

Nowadays it is already clear to everyone—for better or for worse—that we are a unique people. The world does not allow us to be like other peoples, and Israel is likewise revealed as a country that cannot be like all other countries.

The State of Israel must build itself and its form of government in accordance with its unique character and identity. While the current conditions in Israel are characterized by social havoc, by unruly hatred similar to that which erupted between us in the days of the destruction of the Temple, love of others and the unity of the people above all else is still the requisite state to which we must aspire. We are a nation founded on the supreme commandment to reach love above hatred, to transcend self-interest and to establish good mutual relations between us.

Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion understood this well. He said: “By these will the State be judged, by the moral character it imparts to its citizens, by the human values determining its inner and outward relations, and by its fidelity, in thought and act, to the supreme behest: ‘and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Here is crystallized the eternal law of Judaism, and all the written ethics in the world can say no more. The State will be worthy of its name only if its systems, social and economic, political and legal, are based upon these imperishable words.” (“Rebirth and Destiny of Israel”)

Ben-Gurion was right. The Supreme Providence will not allow the State of Israel to function according to the conditions of other countries. Pressure will be put on us until we begin to fulfill our destiny. We must understand who we are, what is expected from us, what our role is towards the nations, and govern accordingly. The question is: will we reach such an awareness in a positive or in a negative way, out of awakening and consent on our part to connect as one people, or out of anguish from internal and external pressures?

In order to avoid insurmountable divisions leading to terrible civil war, we must internalize the fact that the basic laws of the people of Israel are the spiritual laws of mutual care and unity.

This fundamental value must be the backbone of every governmental decision, law, and its implementation. From the top downwards, the idea of unity must permeate all avenues of Israeli society. Just as we care for our children’s intellectual upbringing regardless of their socio-economic background, we must provide education to build good and harmonious relations between all members of the nation, to establish close ties connecting each and every one of the people. This law of mutual responsibility and love is the founding principle of our people and should be our lasting recipe for success.
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My new article on Linkedin “What Proper Governance Should Look Like”

Yesterday, a new government was sworn in, in Israel. A new government is always a chance to reflect on, and hope for a proper government, which functions the way a government that works for the people should. If, theoretically, we were to have a government that had the people’s best interest in mind, we would see a two-section plan. Section no. 1 would detail the ideal situation, the greatest achievements we can imagine. Section no. 2 would slice Section 1 into small, digestible bites that we can carry out one at a time. In my view, the greatest achievement we can hope for, and that we should strive to achieve, is mutual responsibility and love of others, as in the verse, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If we achieve this, we will also achieve every other imaginary reward.

However, for this to happen, we first need to agree that the purpose of the existence of the people of Israel and the State of Israel is indeed to live in mutual responsibility and love of others. The foundation of our nation, the basic tenet of being Jewish, is love of others. The Jerusalem Talmud writes (Nedarim 30b), “‘Love your neighbor as yourself’; Rabbi Akiva says, ‘This is a great rule in the Torah.’” The book Likutey Halachot [Assorted Rules] elaborates on the topic and explains that all the different factions must achieve unity not in order to defeat a common foe, but in order to achieve love. “The vitality is mainly through unity, by all the changes being included in the source of the unity,” the author, Nathan Sternhartz, writes. “For this reason,” he continues “‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ is the great rule of the Torah, to be incorporated in unity and peace. The vitality, sustenance, and correction of all of creation are mainly by people of different views becoming incorporated together in love, unity, and peace.”

In light of today’s deteriorating societal situation in Israel and the country’s declining international status, I think we must all realize that returning to our roots, to the only source of power and legitimacy that we have ever had, is no longer an option; it is mandatory! We must start discussing on every channel and every panel how mutual responsibility and love of others pertain to our current state, why they are the most important tasks we have today, and what will happen if we don’t carry them out. We need to educate ourselves about this just as we educate ourselves about everything else that’s important to us in life.

Moreover, education toward love of others must be part of the education system, embedded in the curriculum of every school as one of the core subjects to be taught, and enhanced through extracurricular educational programs and activities. If we think about Sternhartz’s words, that “The vitality, sustenance, and correction of all of creation are mainly by people of different views becoming incorporated together in love, unity, and peace,” it is easy to see how far we are from it. The events of the past several months leave us no choice but to strive toward it above all the difficulties and despite, and even because of our inherent resentment toward each other.

We have to keep in mind that we are unlike any other nation. Every nation comes from someone and belongs to some core nucleus of people who start it. Jews come from everywhere and do not belong to any core nucleus of people. When Abraham gathered people around him and began to teach them about unity, just as we need to do now, his students came from all over the Fertile Crescent and the Middle-East. They came from different tribes and nations and had nothing in common but the idea of “people of different views becoming incorporated together in love, unity, and peace.” So, if we don’t reinstate our unity, how are we a nation? We return to being a crowd of strangers who don’t believe in the idea of unity and don’t see any reason to establish unity among them. Is it hard to see that in such a state, our days as a nation are numbered?

If we want to see Israel going forward successfully, we must establish it correctly, not the way other nations are built, since we are not like other nations, as is evident to everyone, but the way Israel is meant to be built—on the basis of love of others and mutual responsibility. Therefore, even before we think about the new government, we must think about the future form of our country and our nation.
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My new article on Linkedin “A One-Sentence Constitution”

Evidently, the Jewish nation is unlike any other. Even when we want to believe that we are, life, or rather, the rest of the nations, do not allow us to think so. When the State of Israel was established, we sought to run our country according to the rules that seemed appropriate at the time. As a result, we mainly followed the British Mandatory rule, with “leftovers” from the Ottoman rule that preceded it.

Yet, from one election to the next, we are realizing that our system of government is failing; people are dissatisfied and the government is dysfunctional. We cannot be like other countries because we weren’t formed like other countries, and we aren’t meant to be like other countries. We are meant to be an am segula, a virtuous nation, which serves as “a light unto nations” by following a one-sentence constitution: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18).

Our sages knew this, of course. Rabbi Akiva declared that this was the great rule of the Torah; Old Hillel said to a man who wanted to understand the gist of Jewish law, “That which you hate, do not do unto others,” and countless other references in Jewish writings testify to the centrality of the concept of love of others and mutual responsibility in Jewish law.

The founders of our country were also keenly aware of this law and its vitality to our success. David Ben Gurion, leader of the Jewish community in Israel before the establishment of Israel, and the country’s first Prime Minister, wrote that “‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ is the supreme commandment of Judaism. With these three words [the length of the sentence in Hebrew], the eternal, human law of Judaism has been formed… The state of Israel will be worthy of its name only if its social, economic, political, and judicial structures are based upon these three eternal words.”

Aaron David (A.D.) Gordon, the ideologue and the spiritual force behind practical Zionism and Labor Zionism, echoed Ben Gurion’s words when he wrote, “‘All of Israel are responsible for one another’ … [and] only where people are responsible for one another there is Israel.” And finally, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, reviver of the Hebrew language, asserted that “We have yet to open our eyes and see that only unity can save us. Only if we all unite … to work in favor of the entire nation, our labor will not be in vain.”

Regrettably, we have not built our social, economic, political, and judicial systems on these three words, as Ben Gurion had stipulated, nor have we united “to work in favor of the entire nation,” as Ben Yehuda required, or have become “responsible for one another,” as A.D. Gordon specified. As a result, as a country and as a nation, we are failing miserably. If we continue on this path, we will have no future here. In the best case scenario, we will “escape the discomfort until too few remain to merit the name State, and they will be swallowed among the Arabs,” as kabbalist and thinker Rav Yehuda Ashlag put it. In the worst case scenario, we will be dispersed by force, either through war or through civil war.

If we want to avoid this dreadful, but certain fate, we have no choice but to comprehend that our nation is a spiritual one, and as such, our country must be founded on the spiritual law of love of others: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the only constitution that is suitable for our country and our people, and the only mode of governance that will make Israel a welcome state among the nations.

Even Henry Ford, who loathed the Jews of his time so vehemently that he became Hitler’s idol and received from him the highest award that a none German could receive, admired the Jews of antiquity precisely because their social structure was based upon these “three eternal words,” as Ben Gurion put it. Ford wrote, “Modern reformers, who are constructing model social systems … would do well to look into the social system under which the early Jews were organized.”

Today, the paramount task before us is to establish such education in the nation that will lift us above all our disputes and quarrels and establish unity, mutual responsibility, and indeed, love of others in the nation. And since hatred is so entrenched within the nation, this education must encompass the entire nation, on all its factions, equally, and apply to all ages. We must reform our society from one where envy and hatred govern, to one where support and love set the tone until we realize the tenet “Love your neighbor as yourself” in practice. This is Israel’s only viable governance.

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My new article on Linkedin “Regrettably, We Have to Love Each Other”

We may not like the idea because we don’t like each other, but we have to come to love each other, or else, we’re in for a civil war. This is where the State of Israel stands today. “Love your neighbor as yourself” has been the motto of the Jewish people since its inception. We were a collection of strangers who came to prize the idea of love of others, and our ancestors practiced it with one another until they vowed to be “as one man with one heart.”

However, if you look at us today, we are very, very far from it, and we are getting even further away. No one has picked up the gauntlet and actually tried to implement this most basic tenet of Judaism. We’ve turned education, which originally meant raising children to become human beings who care about others, into conveying information, either secular or religious, but none that makes people know how to relate to others with kindness and love. As a result, our society has come to the brink of collapse. There is so much hatred among the factions in the country that we might collapse into a civil war, as we had done before, unless we quickly reverse course.

I am saying this not because I am a doomster, but because I want to prevent what is already in the making. Our nation has already come to such a state, and it caused us to lose our country and our freedom, not to mention the horrendous loss of life that mainly we inflicted on ourselves in a bloody civil war. Today, too, we have enemies surrounding us, but today, too, we are our own worst enemies.

Therefore, we have to recognize that unity above all differences is our only option going forward. We will not agree on politics, education, defense, foreign policy, separation of religion from state, or any of the topics that currently divide us. However, we must understand that if we try to destroy our dissenters, we will destroy ourselves. Therefore, if we want to have a future, we have no other choice but to find a way to unite above all the differences, which will remain.

This may not seem possible to achieve, but a civil war is on the other side of unity. If we keep this in mind, perhaps we will find a way. And the first step toward finding that way is realizing the kind of danger that is lurking around the corner. The next step is to sit together and discuss, with open minds, since we have no open hearts, how we can live together nonetheless, so we don’t end up killing one another, with our enemies killing those who will remain.
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My new article on Linkedin “No Point and No Sincerity in Remorse”

It seems as though we are in the age of remorse. Police officers in America are kneeling before black Americans; Emmanuel Macron acknowledged “his country’s use of torture in the Algerian War,” and more recently, admitted France’s “Guilt For Rwanda’s Genocide.” Also recently, “Germany officially recognises colonial-era Namibia genocide,” and a few years ago, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized “for Abuse and ‘Profound Cultural Loss’ at Indigenous Schools.”

These apologies pamper people’s egos but yield no positive results. If anything, it will, and is already creating a distortion toward the other extreme. Even worse, the financial compensation that is offered as recompense will only exacerbate the problems of the victim nations. It will ruin their way of life without giving them a sustainable alternative. If we want to help struggling countries, and we should want it because they are part of the family of nations, we should invest in education for humanism, for solidarity, for mutual responsibility. This is the way to build prosperous nations, and not by simply inundating them in money.

The Apartheid regime in South Africa was wrong, unjust, and racist, and should have been revoked, as it finally was. However, because it happened without first educating the liberated people, the results were horrendous. At the end of the Apartheid, the rand, South Africa’s currency, was just over 3.5 per 1 US dollar. By 2018, the exchange rate was 13.2 rands per dollar. Likewise, the GDP per capita plummeted from $13,000 US at the end of the Apartheid regime to $4,100 US in 2018.

Even for the oppressors, an apology is no solution. It can never be a sincere apology since the ego will never admit that it did something wrong, so if people are offering apologies for past wrongs, they are insincere, and insincerity prevents real correction. Also, when countries seek money as recompense, and nothing more, it is not a request with the benefit of the population in mind.

The only way to raise people from their current level to a higher one is education. And by education, I mean first and foremost education to humanism, to solidarity and mutual responsibility. Once a country achieves this, everything else will fall into place.

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