by Michael Laitman
In the last two days there have been over 115 news items about the escalation of anti-Semitism, especially in Europe. The media is reporting every detail about how bad the situation is getting but no one is offering a real solution.
This is what I want to focus on because the trend is clear: anti-Semitism will keep intensifying to the point where governments will not be able to resist it. They will conform to their constituency’s wishes and will either expel or destroy the Jews in their territories. We may perceive this as a new trend, and some people do say that anti-Semitism has become “trendy,” but the natural laws that cause it have not changed, nor will they change.
So I will focus on the solution, because there is one, and it’s always been there, but we’ve been unaware of it, and now it’s time we tap into it. When Abraham took his followers out of Haran toward the land of Canaan, he taught them a rule that would become the motto of Jewish existence henceforth: “love your neighbor as yourself.”
By sticking to this principle despite obstacles and challenges, the Jews were able to unite and maintain their integrity for many centuries. When we lost our unity, because we have forgotten that principle, we lost our land and have been pariahs ever since.
And when we were exiled for the last time, anti-Semitism in the sense we relate to it today began. Since then we have been persecuted, tormented, murdered, and expelled from more countries than one can count.
The result of our frequent expulsions was not eradication of our nation, but rather our expansion into more and more countries, to the point where today there are Jews virtually everywhere around the globe. But why are we still so hated, and by most everyone?
“Love your neighbor as yourself” is not a motto for Jews alone. It is a state of mind that in recent years has become imperative to the world’s existence. The human society is irreversibly interconnected, while people are intolerably hateful of each other. These opposite trajectories will cause our society to snap, and we are quickly nearing the edge. And since interconnectedness is irreversible, the only solution is to change ourselves from hating one another into, at least, tolerating one another, as in “that which you hate, do not do to your neighbor.”
Today we Jews must step in and say, “I got it, I know how to unite.” Without getting into the nitty-gritty, many of which you can find in my book, Like a Bundle of Reeds: why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour, and in other publications at ariresearch.org, it’s enough if we remember that success lies in unity.
And not just our own success. The survival of human society depends on our ability to unite above our differences. The scientific data that support it are accumulating by the hour. Scientists know we must connect because this is how the whole of nature functions, and we’re the only ones at odds with it. But scientists cannot tell us how to connect, because this is a conscious choice that we must make, and then implement.
Please go to bundleofreeds.com, download the free ebook, watch the free course, and let’s start connecting and uniting for real. Our lack of unity is the cause of anti-Semitism, and the lack of unity in the general human society is the cause of all hatred. When we unite, and set an example of how this can be done, there will be no need for anti-Semitism, or for any other kind of hatred. 2015 can be the year of change, but only if we choose to make it so, together.
This article originally appeared online in the Times of Israel blog
Image by Toban B
