The more humanity evolves, the more it installs negative reactions on all levels of nature. But its adverse effect is felt most strongly on the human level. Within the human level there are also divisions: There are the Jews, and there is the rest of the world. Don’t believe me? If you check how many UN resolutions concern Israel and how many concern the rest of the world, you will find that in all major committees, such as the Human Rights Council or the Security Council, Israel is the subject of UN resolutions several times more than all the countries of the world combined! What’s more, all those resolutions are condemnations and calls for Israel to correct its behavior.
If the whole world feels that Israel is several times worse than all the countries of the world, put together, it makes sense for them to deal only with us, the main problem of the world. Therefore, whatever level of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiments the world has expressed so far is certain to increase.
It is written that Israel became a nation at the foot of Mt. Sinai when they united “as one man with one heart.” However, it is also written that when Israel received the law of unity, the commandment to love one another as themselves, hatred for Israel descended upon the nations of the world (Midrash Rabbah, Shemot 2:4).
Since that fateful day, we have been indebted to be a model nation, to set an example of unity to the entire world. In the words of our sages, this was called being “a light unto nations.” When we succeed, we are hailed as heroes and the world feels that it can learn from our example how to manage its affairs. When we fail, and more often than not we do, we are condemned as villains and blamed for all the problems in the world, especially the conflicts.
Since the inception of our nation, all the sages throughout the generations have confirmed the link between our unity and the well-being of the world. Over the past century or so, however, we have grown so thick that we have lost all sense of our obligation.
The term Tikkun Olam [correction of the world], which so many Jewish leaders like to use in an ethical sense, does not actually refer to any other nation. It refers only to the correction of our sina’at hinam [mutual hatred without cause], which prevents us from being “a light unto nations” and enables the correction of the world.
What we define as antisemitism or as anti-Zionism is really the demand of the nations that we set the example we are obligated to set: an example of unity.
People define spirituality in many ways, but if there is one law in our world that is truly spiritual, and yet openly present among us, it is antisemitism. There is no rational way to explain it, yet everyone feels it and cannot resist it. Therefore, rational explanations will not heal or even lessen antisemitism. The only remedy to Jew-hatred is Jew-love, namely for Jews to learn to love one another for no other reason than to set an example of unity over hatred so the whole world may be healed from conflict. Only when we follow this one spiritual law will we be liberated from the oldest, most persistent, and most malignant of all hatreds.
Posted on The Times of Israel, Facebook, LinkedIn