Dr. Michael Laitman To Change the World – Change Man

Do I Reject BDS?

I don’t reject BDS. I very much support and appreciate the BDS movement because its pressure on Israel urges the need for the unity of the people of Israel. What I see in BDS, as well as other organized forms of anti-Semitism, such as Nazism, is a natural phenomenon extending from the law of nature, i.e. a natural response to the people of Israel who need to carry out a certain function in the world—to unite (“love your neighbor as yourself”) and be a conduit for unity to spread to humanity (“a light unto nations”)—and who are falling behind in realizing this function. I thus respect all such responses.

However, the people of Israel themselves need to respond properly to such pressure. What is a “proper response”? It means understanding that until we unite, we can continue to expect a growing negative attitude toward us. We need to see that nature itself sends such pressure through the sentiment and ideas that breeds in its executors, i.e. that the hand of God is the directing force.

Many consider my attitude to anti-Semites and to the BDS movement as unusual. I am ready to talk to anti-Semites, and I meet with them to discuss the issue of anti-Semitism (e.g. see the video series, “The Jew Function”).

Whether it is BDS or the Nazis, I neither justify nor disqualify their approach as I have no personal attitude to them. They act with no free choice, but are as tools in the hands of God. Whether it is Hitler, Stalin or anyone else, all are merely puppets.

The question then becomes: How can we influence them to change their approach?

It is by us Jews seeing ourselves as the center of the world, that we can influence nature, and that we are between nature and humanity. By accepting such a responsibility—uniting in order to spread unity worldwide—we would bring about a much more positively-connected, happier and more secure world. As a result, we would see a very different approach from the nations of the world toward us. Until we do, then it is as Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) writes in item 70 of his “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” that the people of Israel are to blame for “the existence of poverty, ruin, and robbery, looting, killing and destructions in the world.”

I understand that I’m writing unpleasant words, and that Jews will first and foremost detest me for that, because no one likes being announced that he is to blame for all kinds of undesirable phenomena. As such, he rejects it, disagrees with it, and can’t listen to it. However, there are laws of nature. Whether or not we like these laws, we either observe them or we don’t. So let’s think about how we can observe the laws of nature—principally, to “love your neighbor as yourself” and to be “a light unto nations”—and secure the world a comfortable and happy life.

Originally posted in Quora

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