We are in a struggle with nature. We do not think that we need to be connected, but our true connection “as one man with one heart” is at the very foundation of nature. As naïve as it might sound, nature will make us meet this condition because nature is global and integral. The more we develop in an opposite direction to the connectedness of nature, then the more we will be met with negative feedback from nature, which will develop until our very existence on this planet becomes endangered. Therefore, when the coronavirus pandemic started in the first part of 2020, I had said that it was not going to end, but that it could change into something worse, because we fail to draw the right conclusions from the phenomenon.

Jews have always been history’s scapegoat. Anti-Semites have always found ways to blame the Jews over thousands of years. According to the laws of nature, Jews have a responsibility toward other nations and the Creator: to be an example to all nations, as to how to advance toward the Creator, to connect everyone and Jews among themselves, as one with Him. Until they fulfill their role, they will be treated with a firm hand over and over again in order to ultimately lead them to their feeling of responsibility.

On the eve of Rosh Hashanah (the celebration of Jewish New Year), Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman summarized the previous year as productive and good. Nature’s blows cooked us all together, in one pot, affecting everyone. Heading into the new year, we should perform self-scrutiny about what we experience. We see that we become ever more interdependent, giving us hope to understand what we need to do as we approach conditions that will teach us how to properly behave toward nature, the Creator. Ahead of us are complex events, but we will go through them, learn, and grow wiser as the blows themselves are the compensation. We should not regret the past. Opportunities to make changes are always available, but once they have passed, then we should let go of them. We want to begin this new year on the correct footing—through bestowal to one another, and by doing so, build an infrastructure that will correct our negative relations, replacing them with positive ones.

In the last decade, electric car technology became affordable. It seems like the world really loves electric cars: people like driving them because you don't hear the engine at all, performance is excellent and they don’t emit carbon dioxide pollution. However, even if the whole world started driving them, nature, which runs on the engine of love, won’t calm down. On the contrary, by working solely on further technical advances, we contribute to the engine of hatred. Suppose you succeed at producing clean technologies. Like many world reformers of the past, you are still doing what is convenient for you. It won’t calm nature down. You still disregard what you can do toward correction, which can only occur in human relations, by applying “love another as yourself.” Everything else we do leads to corruption, from which we will learn the necessity to correct ourselves in the attitude of love toward each other.

There is nothing else in nature besides a thought. It works above space and time, with no delay. The thought is the uppermost force of human nature, that is, all is scrutinized in the thought. We too exist in a thought: we feel through our vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. We experience a world with galaxies and stars. It is all through our senses and thoughts. There is nothing more than thoughts. Thoughts come to a person from the thought of creation, which includes everything and everyone. Thus, you have control over them. In fact, you do not control anything else in nature, only your thoughts. Everything is scrutinized in thought. To change your thought means to change your attitude toward creation, which is expressed through people and all those things that stimulate you. This is the way to reach a correction, which is indeed all we want—to be just like nature—drawn to balance. You also want to be in balance with all parts of nature, including matter, plants and animals. Balance means love. Does a kabbalist control his thoughts? A kabbalist tries to be aligned with nature by annulling his ego, allowing nature, which is the Creator or the general force of nature, to use them correctly. A person adds the force of his free choice to nature and then he truly exists in a good and balanced way.

One of the hottest topics in the world is the climate crisis. What does nature want from us? It wants us to enter into balance with nature. How can we do that? We do many things without understanding their long-term implications. Nature, a living body, is responding. The still, the vegetative, the animate, we all live together in mutuality, in connection, in a certain harmony. We are now in a true state of catastrophe. Our problem is that we fail to recognize the profound extent to which we influence our planet with our thoughts. A balanced world is a balanced human being. A balanced person is one who feels responsible for the whole of nature. We need to see our real place. In the wisdom of Kabbalah and in Gematria, the Creator is equal to nature, which means that the upper general force governs the universe and everything existing in it. We are the most developed, and also the most corrupt creatures. We need to bring ourselves into balance in order to return to harmony and to a positive, mutual form.

What can generate a sense of equality in the nation? To connect the nation does not mean that we erase our differences. Inside, every Jew is also split up and divided into many parts and pieces. What we need to learn is how to cover all crimes with love. Both within a person in regard to oneself and in regard to others, within the family and neighbors and among everyone. This is what we have to learn how to do. There is no other nation, which is as divided, split up and hates itself. There's nothing like it. And therefore we need to learn how can we build an umbrella of love over all of this hate, so love to cover all crimes And if we won't learn how to do it, nothing will help us. We'll never be able to build a nation because we won't be able to build an umbrella of peace, wholeness and perfection over our hate. All of our efforts are just to try and exist here for a bit longer. However, the force of connection is much stronger than the force of separation because the force of connection is simply connected to the upper force. Therefore, once we correctly build the network of connections between us, so it works properly, we will start feeling how the upper forces are starting to flow in these ties.

We are talking about a man who's 40-something that did a thing or two in life, who has a family. He feels that his life's stuck, that things aren't working out for him, that there are problems that are falling on his head all the time, seemingly without reason. He doesn't have the strength to deal with it all and feels frustrated. Why aren't things working out for him the way they do for other people around him? He feels he has no support and sees no solution to the situation. If he tries to change something in life, he sees that it doesn't help and he's asking the following questions: “Why do I deserve this? Why me? Why is it happening? Will this ever end? What's wrong with life? Other people are well off. I'm not. Who did I wrong?” What would you tell him? Our life is like a computer program. If one wants to understand it, then one would have to enter the program, and learn from where to where it exists, in what form and for what purpose. Life is a program, and you are a part of this program that is activating and operating you and you have to know why, what for, for what purpose, and at what pace you can influence it, and in what way. We exist within a vast, deep and multifaceted program called nature. There are billions and billions of different changing interconnected parameters that are influencing it all the time. When we feel that we are not successful, the wisdom of Kabbalah offers a solution--to understand the program of life and how to manage it in the most successful way for that person. Through the study, we come to realizations about life.

While in Israel people are no longer required to wear masks, the situation in the world is the complete opposite—lockdowns, quarantine, terrible suffering. One of the main hotspots is in India, where a huge number of people are getting infected and dying every day. The difference between Israel and the rest of the world can be explained by the fact that Israel is a small country, with the ability to make decisions. Israel is a nation concerned with its health and this is very close to the heart to each and every person. Returning to “normal” is not going to happen anytime soon, because on the way there are many more plagues and the world will not calm down until it will see that we will have to understand the reason for the plagues and the blows. And the fact that we have succeeded in Israel is to our detriment because everyone will hate us even more and eventually will say that the entire coronavirus was a Jewish invention altogether. I do not consider our success a prize. I think that the nation of Israel, by getting a relative freedom from this threatening blow, will only behave even worse, as Jews forget about these things immediately and I do not predict anything good coming from it. I do not predict a good future, neither for us in Israel, nor for the rest of the world. We are all approaching difficult times, economically, politically, socially in Israel and all around the world. There will be different plagues, blows, and unemployment. People will be unable to make a living and natural disasters will come. All of these things will accumulate more and more and they will begin to systematically strike humanity. The coronavirus in and of itself is not a blow, but the result of it will soon be felt in all countries. That is going to be the blow. The system expects to start acknowledging Israel’s influence over the good and evil that is occuring in humanity and that only through the connection of the people of Israel can the upper light shine more in our world, causing it to be healthier and calmer.

A person may tell himself that he is satisfied with what he has, but in reality what he enjoys is a response from the environment. For example, seeing someone dressed more beautifully than oneself can engender anger and jealousy. We are not satisfied by self-realization, because the basic pleasures that come from food, sex, family, money, honor and knowledge do not, ultimately, fulfill us. Fulfillment quenches the desire and the person remains empty, without desire and without fulfillment. True self-realization is when the person first and foremost reaches the central point of what he wants with oneself, and then starts working in order to realize himself.

Although we learn and understand that everything depends on the positive connections between us, we have no idea where to take the energy from to build such connections. At this stage we have no idea how much energy there is around us. Everyone has a billion nuclear bombs in their pocket. Everything exists within corporeal matter. I'm not even talking about spiritual matter. If we want it, we'll have everything. We'll live in paradise, i.e., with no limitations and with tremendous minds and desires where everyone will want to have a galaxy of their own. The key to unlocking these energies is to want to use them for the benefit of others. We can start accessing such tremendous forces by mutual incorporation. I'm a very egoistic creature now, and if it will be given to me, I'll probably use it to my own benefit. But if we learn how to use everything for the sake of others, everything starts opening up. This is already the method of the wisdom of Kabbalah. Here you have to reach a state where you say, I have the ability to build a system in which we will fulfill each other. I cannot satisfy myself, but I can fulfill others and others can fulfill me. You may now feel that everyone around you wants to harm you. If we make this correction of mutual bestowal everyone will feel paradise.