The Jewish people are a microcosm. We were gathered here from all corners of the world in order to serve as a universal model for connection among people who are very different from one another. This is, in a sense, a prelude to a global connection that must eventually emerge among all human beings. This is the essence of what the Kabbalistic sources explain.

For thousands of years, we lived among the nations, absorbing their values and worldviews, and now we are here together. If we can turn this entire mixture into something good, the whole world will come to learn the code for connected living. In an interconnected reality, with high levels of mutual dependence and ego-driven conflicts that can destroy everything, humanity has no other hope of survival. The wheels of evolution have placed us all in the same boat, and if we do not want to sink, we must learn to function through connection and complementarity.

Therefore, if here in Israel we succeed to meet the challenge and unite into a nation that feels like one family, we will have reason to say that we have built a laboratory for repairing the world. We will have discovered the method for connecting all human beings across nations, cultures, perspectives, and opinions.

When Jews arrived in Israel from countries across the Diaspora and the process of state-building began, people did not have such a picture in mind. There was no such vision, no education toward it. We simply found ourselves sharing the same shelter. Like nuts in a sack, each enclosed within a........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)