Jews and the Land of Israel

Israel Waging Existential War

At the moment, Israel is fighting a true existential war on multiple fronts. And as before, every time Israel fights against enemies that are openly declaring that they want to kill all Jews and they want to wipe the State of Israel off the map, the world is outraged that Israel is fighting back.

Some are already adjusting maps where Israel is missing, while others — most of the nations of the world — raise questions about the legitimacy of the Jewish Nation and the right of Jews to exist in the Land of Israel.

The reactions and condemnations regarding Israel’s defensive wars are completely out of proportion when compared to other conflicts. We can say that even Russia’s war against Ukraine did not bring this many protesters and haters onto the streets of Western countries, not to mention other conflicts and wars where hundreds of thousands of people die and are displaced, drawing almost no reaction from people whatsoever.

What is the reason for this discrepancy?

Why do people question the Jewish right to exist in the Land of Israel?

Why is the Land of Israel such a contentious issue?

Why are Jews constantly questioned and blamed?

Why does the world try to force Jews to comply with much higher standards — of warfare, lifestyle, purity, and behavior — than anybody else?

The engine of humanity: the desire for pleasures

In order to find answers to these questions, we have to go back to “the beginning.”

The actual “matter” or “engine” that drives all human beings — and all other parts of natural reality — is a desire and aspiration for existence and for rewarding fulfillments that bring pleasure. Although all elements in nature are built from the same ‘self-centered” desire for existence and pleasure, the human desire is unique.

The inherent human desire for existence and pleasures is truly insatiable; it is constantly growing and intensifying.

While the inherent desire in all other — inanimate, vegetative, and animate — elements in nature — is balanced in a way that it never upsets or destabilizes the general harmony and homeostasis that is the foundation for life and optimal development of the whole system, the human desire works and behaves without any constraints.

The whole of human history and evolution can be described as the chronicle of the constantly growing and intensifying human desire for existence and pleasures. We have been yearning for control and uninhibited consumption and conquest more and more until we reached our present state in the global world, where each individual wants to conquer, control, manipulate, and consume everything possible while doing it at the expense of others and nature.

As a result, especially in the globally integrated and interdependent world we have evolved into, we have reached the brink of seemingly inevitable and imminent self-destruction since every individual and nation exists and acts like cancer — as a result of our inherent desire for existence and pleasures which works with a 100% selfish, egocentric and exploitative intention.

Thus, the root cause of all our problems in the world is the inherently selfish and exploitative human desire.

Unless we can somehow change and further develop our inherent desire and apply a different intention over it — making all our calculations and actions for the sake of others and the whole system above and against our instinctively self-serving and self-justifying intention, we will self-destruct like cancer in this or in the next generation!

The Jewish method

Human beings are born in such a seemingly “undeveloped” and self-destructive form purposefully according to nature’s evolutionary plan. This gives us a free choice and conscious ability to further develop and complete ourselves so we can achieve the “perfectly Human form” that is the goal of our human development.

Such a conscious and proactive self-change and self-development above and against our inherent nature requires a unique method. And there exists such a method for the correction and development of the original human desire.

The development of this method — we can call the “Jewish method” — started several thousands of years ago in ancient Mesopotamia.

In that cradle of human civilization, in the first “global human society” where many different nations and cultures lived together, the first “evolutionary jump” and growth of the human ego started separating these nations and cultures — who lived side-by-side before — from each other, turning them against one another. This is what the symbolic story of the “Tower of Babel” explains.

At that time of the ancient “ego explosion,” a few unique people — original, empirical natural scientists who studied and understood the natural system we are born from and the inherent human nature and desire that drives us.

They were connected only by their special sensitivity and inclination towards studying nature’s system and its laws and by their willingness to experiment with and change their own nature in order to become more and more compatible with nature’s finely balanced and mutually integrated system so they could fully attain and understand the system through that acquired similarity with it.

These unique, original empirical natural scientists — who were willing to pursue unity, mutual integration, and mutually complementing cooperation instead and above their inherently selfish and exploitative nature — became the original Jews. The expressions “Jewish” and “Hebrew” came from the Hebrew words of unity and “crossing over,” meaning “crossing over from the instinctively selfish intention of doing everything only for the sake of the self to the altruistic intention of doing everything for the sake of others and the whole.

Later on, these people grew into a Nation that accepted as its “constitution” the above-mentioned selfless and unconditional unity and a special state of “mutual guarantee,” where each individual commits to become 100% responsible for each and every other individual within the Nation.

This is how the original Nation of Israel was formed. Through this unique unity and mutual guarantee — which also gave them equivalence with nature’s qualities and thus allowed them to harness and use all-powerful and superior natural forces — they “conquered” the Land of Israel and settled there.

The Physical and Spiritual realities

Here, we have to understand the unique “play” with different words in Hebrew and how our world is actually built.

Although we feel ourselves living in a physical world, where we seemingly act and make decisions, changes, and actions, our physical world is basically a world of consequences.

Whatever happens and unfolds in this world is predetermined and influenced by what happens on a higher level. We can call this level the “spiritual reality,” which influences and determines what happens in the physical world.

On the spiritual level of reality, only our “non-physical” desires and intentions act. And the most important thing is the intention we use our desires with.

As long as we keep acting with inherently self-serving, self-justifying, and exploitative intentions, we only feel the physical world, where we cannot see the cause-and-effect relationships, and life throws us from one crisis to the next while we blindly stumble ahead.

On the other hand, if we can change our intentions to altruistic, loving, and bestowing intentions above and against our instinctive intentions, we become similar to “nature’s loving and bestowing intentions,” through which intentions nature creates and nurtures life.

And through this similarity, we become nature’s inner observers and partners in creating life and attain all the cause-and-effect processes governing reality.

“Conquering our desires” with loving and bestowing intentions facilitates us to start perceiving the spiritual layer of reality that fully determines what happens in the physical world.

In Hebrew, “desire” is “ratzon,” while “land” is “eretz.”

The two Hebrew words come from the same root, which means that they have the same meaning.

Thus, when the Nation of Israel managed to “conquer” their inherently selfish and egoistic desires with the new, loving, and bestowing intentions which they practically achieved through their special unity and mutual guarantee, this also facilitated them to conquer the “Land of Israel” in the physical reality.

We cannot change anything directly in the physical world; we can make changes only on the spiritual layer of reality, where with the positive change of our intentions, we can become active partners with nature’s forces.

Israel, a spiritual nation

The Torah Israel received at Sinai, as a result of the whole Nation committing to the above-mentioned unity and mutual guarantee, also does not speak a word about the physical world. It gives us instruction and assistance in how to change our intentions in order to help us achieve the unique Jewish unity and mutual guarantee — through the single most important commandment of the Torah, “Love your Friend as yourself” — so we can attain the spiritual level of reality and become partners with Nature’s singular and all-encompassing “force field.”

Thus, as long as the Nation of Israel keeps the most important commandment of the Torah — “Love your Friend as yourself — and as a result, they “conquer their original intentions” and keep their unique “supernatural” — above instinctive human nature — unity, they also merit and keep the Land of Israel as their homeland.

Unfortunately, this “brotherly love” and “supernatural” unity and, with it, the resulting connection to the Land of Israel was lost over 2000 years ago, when the instinctive mutual and instinctive “unfounded hatred” between Jews separated Jews from each other.

As a result, Jews were exiled from their land and became scattered among others.

There is another very important aspect worthy of mentioning. The Jewish method is not for Jews only. Those original Jews and the Nation that later developed were “naturally selected” by nature’s evolution to become positive examples and a transition for the whole of humanity.

Especially in our times, it has become clear that unless all human beings recognize the inherently selfish, egotistic, and exploitative intentions driving all our thoughts and actions and driving us towards cancer-like self-destruction, unless everybody develops and fosters a true need and desire to change our intentions and relationships to each other and to nature to become similar to nature and thus survive, we will truly self-destruct.

Only through the “Jewish method” is it possible for humanity to perform this self-change and self-development. For the “Jewish method” to work, the world needs an open, practical, and working example to follow.

This means that the Jewish Nation has to return to the Land of Israel, and they have to reestablish their original unity and mutual guarantee — above and against their inherent tendencies to argue and infight with one another.

The return to the Land of Israel

This is why, through different factors and conditions, Jews were given the opportunity to return to the Land of Israel and revive their country, which they lost over 2000 years ago.

But ending the “physical exile” and building a thriving modern country is not enough.

This is not Israel’s predetermined role to build a nation that is good at arts, technology, and sciences and has a strong military.

Israel will regain its right to settle on the Land of Israel when it also achieves the “conquering of the inherently selfish and egoistic” intention on the spiritual level.

The world will consciously and unconsciously question the Jewish right to exist in the Land of Israel until the “spiritual exile” is also over and the original “supernatural” unity and mutual guarantee is also restored.

Unity as a result of collective pain and grief and unity in times of war is not enough. Jews have to revive, relearn, and reestablish the same unique unity and mutual guarantee they committed to at Mount Sinai before the Giving of the Torah.

Only when Jews reestablished their original unity and mutual guarantee, and they also kept in sight the overall goal of becoming “Light unto others” through the positive example of this unity, so the whole world could follow the Jewish example, then the Jewish right to exist in the Land of Israel will be openly and clearly established and accepted without any disputes, even by those who presently want to “wipe Israel off the map.”

Jews in Israel and all around the world need the right and practical education to make each and every Jew understand the origin of the Jewish people, its role in the world, and the method that can help Jews achieve this unique role. Achieving and showcasing this role will also secure Israel’s peace and prosperity in the Land of Israel since Israel’s actions and state on the spiritual level of reality will match what happens on the lower, physical level.