The Times of Israel published my new article “Panic Over the Coronavirus Reaches Israel. Here’s What We Can Learn from It”
The coronavirus made Aliyah to Israel. Israelis are now panicking over the virus filling its media headlines. Nobody knows how the virus spreads, whether through water or air, migratory birds or a group of South Korean tourists. Until the root of the virus is found, any and all answers are “right.”
However, some of the responsibility is with us, i.e., humanity. We are all under special pressure requiring that we somewhat contribute to the toil with this phenomenon. Therefore, in addition to the Ministry of Health’s guidelines and recommendations, we must balance judgment, and look to diagnose the root cause behind the spread of the threatening virus, the general cause of all our troubles.
According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, human nature is a desire to enjoy. This desire grows and requires maximum enjoyment for minimum investment. The more it grows unrestrained, the more it wants to enjoy at the expense of others. Thus, the egoistic desire, where we each want to enjoy at others’ expense, counters nature’s general desire: the desire to give pleasure.
When we exit balance with the harmonious nature, which operates altruistically, we receive feedback signaling that we need to revise our direction and realign ourselves with nature. Such feedback can appear as a viral outbreak, a protest in society, a mass shooting, a hurricane, a terror attack, i.e., any number of forms on personal, social and ecological scales.
All the ups and downs that humanity has experienced, including market turbulence, crises between individuals and countries, and even the breakdown of the family unit, occur as a result of an imbalance between the desire to receive, the individual nature, and the desire to give, the global nature.
It could be argued that pains soften us and make us more adept to come closer to nature, but nobody desires suffering, and there is no commandment to suffer.
Therefore, until we learn to how to positively connect in society above each person’s desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone, we will continue to fall, time and again, in myriad different ways.
The ego’s most powerful expression is in rejecting our connection to each other.
Nature operates in order to bring us closer to each other, and if we fortify ourselves inside our ego, then nature strikes twice as hard.
Blows from nature could increase to a point where humans will have no choice but to understand that only together can we deal with the blows, otherwise we will die.
Nature gradually develops us to a state of perfect connection, and on our way there, we need to deal with the ego that resists connection with others. Eventually, we will reach a state where if we fail to connect, then everyone will fall, and if we succeed in our connection, then we will all rise to a higher level of consciousness.
If we saw the complete system of nature, we would be surprised at how even the tiniest amount of connection or disconnection between us influences nature’s collective system for better or for worse.
Why is nature’s complete system concealed from us, then?
It is because, if it were revealed, we would have no consciousness: we would be like rocks, plants and animals, which all act in an instinctive balance with nature, lacking free choice.
Since the bonds connecting between us are invisible, we need to regularly listen to explanations of how we are connected and how we can discover those connection, to discuss the complete system of nature and our role in it, to acknowledge our egoistic desire to enjoy that is opposite to nature’s altruistic quality, and to amplify our need to come together.
Moreover, we need not wait for crises to connect us forcefully. Instead, we can awaken ourselves to connect simply because we can feel much better by connecting than by being divided. In other words, there is a positive force dwelling in nature that reveals when we connect, and by discovering that force, we experience much higher states of happiness, confidence, love, freedom and peace than we could ever experience if we failed to make any motion to connect.
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