The Jewish people are a microcosm. We were gathered here from all corners of the world in order to serve as a universal model for connection among people who are very different from one another. This is, in a sense, a prelude to a global connection that must eventually emerge among all human beings. This is the essence of what the Kabbalistic sources explain.
For thousands of years, we lived among the nations, absorbing their values and worldviews, and now we are here together. If we can turn this entire mixture into something good, the whole world will come to learn the code for connected living. In an interconnected reality, with high levels of mutual dependence and ego-driven conflicts that can destroy everything, humanity has no other hope of survival. The wheels of evolution have placed us all in the same boat, and if we do not want to sink, we must learn to function through connection and complementarity.
Therefore, if here in Israel we succeed to meet the challenge and unite into a nation that feels like one family, we will have reason to say that we have built a laboratory for repairing the world. We will have discovered the method for connecting all human beings across nations, cultures, perspectives, and opinions.
When Jews arrived in Israel from countries across the Diaspora and the process of state-building began, people did not have such a picture in mind. There was no such vision, no education toward it. We simply found ourselves sharing the same shelter. Like nuts in a sack, each enclosed within a hard shell, and only external enemies forced us to remain together.
Looking back, we can see that the “melting pot” policy sought to erase the differences among members of the emerging nation while ignoring the gaps between them. It was based primarily on the culture that developed in the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel and on the European culture brought by the immigrants of the early aliyot. It was an attempt to create uniformity rather than unity.
But genuine human connection can never emerge from an attempt to blur a person’s identity. Positive unity can only be built through deep mutual bonds that rise above differences and create a kind of glue, an inner cohesion founded on the principle, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) emphasized this as early as 1940 in his paper, The Nation:
“The only hope is to fundamentally reorganize our national education… to instill in each of us a sense of national love, both from one person to another, and from the individuals to the whole… This work precedes all others.”
This is a precondition for any work and act. In the beginning, the foundation must be built in a manner sufficiently healthy to carry the load it is meant to carry. Then the construction of the building begins. But it is a shame on those who build buildings without a solid enough foundation. Not only are they not building anything, they are putting themselves and others next to them at risk, for the building will fall with the slightest movement and its parts will scatter to all directions.
Many decades have passed since then, and unfortunately, education toward love never materialized. Israeli society moved in entirely different directions. Jokes about ethnic groups, discrimination based on ethnic background, sectoral political parties, and a norm of disrespect toward others, toward those who are different, those who are not “one of us,” not from our camp. Year after year, the ego grew, pride soared to the heavens, and the American Dream sanctified every means to achieve success.
We have made many mistakes along the way, and our shared future depends on defining a vision for ourselves: we want to feel that we are all one family. From that vision, we can define a common mission to work on love and connection among everyone. At our root, being Israeli means being united, connected, and willing to make mutual concessions. Abraham our Patriarch sought to unite all people and make peace among all creatures after discovering that a single force lies at the foundation of all nature.
The aspiration to connect as members of a loving family will bring us into contact with the very heart of nature. Suddenly, we will begin to feel a new spirit of life among us, an elevated sensation, something beyond this world. Perhaps it can be compared to a child who grew up in an orphanage, without affection or love, and suddenly finds himself embraced by a warm family.
It is important that we do not preach to anyone, nor try to change one another. Each person should remain exactly as they are, i.e., unique. But all the natural differences between us should be covered with love. We should become like different flowers in a single bouquet, whose diversity creates beauty and splendor. Then we will suddenly see how everything begins to fall into place in every area of life, in the economy, society, security, and human relations. New understanding will emerge, a new way of seeing things that we cannot even imagine today. Israel will become an educational and cultural powerhouse, showing the world the code for connected living. Everyone will come to contribute whatever they can and join in this brotherly love.
There is an entire method of connection that must be studied. The Kabbalists passed it down from generation to generation until the time when both the people of Israel and the world would need it. It teaches us how to enter another person’s heart and make room for them within our own. Gradually, a process of mutual inclusion develops: we begin to perceive reality through the senses and perspectives of others, and a common space emerges between us, which is called “connection” or “the soul.” In that space, the single force that governs the development of nature’s and all of creation’s development becomes revealed.
May we have great success.
Based on “New Life 144 – From a Melting Pot to One Family” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.