by Dr Michael Laitman Hanukkah is known as “the festival of light.” But the rise in anti-Semitic incidents from France to New York casts quite a heavy shadow on our lives. Can we cast it away? Can we blow away the dark clouds gathering around the Jewish people? Apparently we can. Since the world is examining our every move with critical eyes, it means that we, the people of Israel, can also influence the world much more than we dare (or like) to think. If we build a society based on mutual love and mutual connection, it will become a role model to the entire world. But once we do, says Rav Kook, we will change our fate—and the fate of the entire world—to the better. Here is his poetic description of the connection between the people of Israel and the correction of the world: “Since our own vocation is ever standing, accompanying the vocation of the whole of Nature—whose law is to complete all creations and bring them to the apex of perfection—we must guard it devoutly for the life of us all, which is kept within it, and for the whole of humanity and its moral development, whose fate depends on the fate of our existence.” (Appeared in HaPeles, a rabbinical magazine, Berlin, Germany, 1901) Rav Yehuda Ashlag (author of the Sulam [Ladder] commentary on The Book...
Whenever Jews unite, the serpent hides its head The spirit of comaraderie and mutual responsibility has always been our “weapon,” our shield against adversity. Now we should muster that spirit, cloak ourselves with it, and let its healing warmth surround us. And once we have done so, we must share that spirit with the rest of the world, as this is our vocation – the essence of our being “a light for the nations.” An excerpt from “Like a Bundle of Reeds”, by Michael Laitman, PhD...