How Can We Prevent Another Holocaust?

I am a son of Holocaust survivors who were among the few of the Laitman family who survived the Holocaust. Two thirds of my relatives were slaughtered in the death camps. I was born in 1946 and was raised under the dark shadow that the war left on my family and on the Jewish population in all of Eastern Europe.

For me the Holocaust isn’t some distant memory, but a painful reminder of what might happen to us. It is this thought that brings up the constant troubling question in me: How can we prevent another Holocaust?

I feel an ocean of hatred closing in on us. The external signs have never been clearer and international reports indicate an upsurge in anti-Semitism. On International HolocaustRemembrance Day, a question was brought up on the BBC as to whether the time has come to cease talking about the Holocaust, and about a month ago, there was supposed to be a scientific convention in England about the legitimacy of the State of Israel. If this is not enough, an agreement regarding the use of nuclear weapon has recently been signed with Iran, which is more evidence as to why we must not rely on our allies.

It is hard to ignore the clear warning signals as to what is expected. So how can we prevent another Holocaust? In addition to lamenting about the past, we must make room for close scrutiny, examination, and the correction of our current state. We live in a closed system of forces that operate according to the law of connection. When we are compatible with that law, we feel good, and when we are divided and separated, this system, like any other system in nature, forces us to balance ourselves. Sometimes correcting this direction can involve great suffering.

I am aware of how difficult it may be for Holocaust survivors and their families to read what I say, but still the truth must be said. The Holocaust took place because the Israeli nation didn’t keep the law of connection. Why us? Because we have a special responsibility to keep this law. We have a role that was given to us back in the days of Abraham. When egoism tore the people of ancient Babylon apart, our forefather discovered the law that governs our reality, which is the law of connection. The few that learned the method of connection from him became the nation of Israel.

Keeping the law of connection is our life’s goal, and passing on the method of connection and unity is the only justification for our existence as a nation. At the beginning of the 20^th century we received an opportunity to return to the land of Israel, not in order to build a home for the Jewish people, but in order to connect within it. The Jews didn’t take this opportunity and preferred to isolate themselves in their communities in Europe or to integrate within general society. The reaction of the upper system to these actions was the Holocaust. A moment before the world drowned in blood, Kabbalists still cried out that we had to return to our land and unite, but the Jews didn’t listen. Instead of willingly moving closer, the terrible afflictions of the Holocaust brought us closer to one another, and it was as a result of the Holocaust that we received a country.

With all due respect to the United Nations, the real mandate for the existence of this country is our role. The county we received, as Kabbalists say, is only an opportunity to keep the law of connection, which is exactly what the world demands of us. Subconsciously, the world wants us to unite and to also pass Abraham’s method on to them. But we refuse to connect, and this is the source of the hatred they feel towards us.

Holocaust Remembrance Day and Independence Day have to become days in which we all engage in our role as a nation, and they must also be days of reexamining the essence of our existence. During these days, we have to gather in tens of thousands of roundtables throughout the country and talk about the only way of being truly independent—independent of our ego and connected to one another through love of others. This is the only way we can secure our future and our children’s future.