The Relentless Pursuit of Honor

Without the need for honor, a person would live quietly in a corner. So, there is a kind of inner fire that constantly fuels us and compels us to succeed in the eyes of others. They should appreciate us, respect us, talk about us.  

Honor is a condition that cannot be inherited, we have to work for it. Everything depends on the values that are accepted in society. It can be a society that values money and status symbols, or one that values simplicity and a modest life. A criminal society that values power and violence, or a society of artists that values sensitivity and creativity. In either case, depending on our innate characteristics, the education we received, and the society that surrounds us, each person wants to gain the attention, appreciation, and respect of those around him or her. Without it, one does not feel whole.

Social and personal development improves when we learn to use the wisdom of connection. On the whole, this method changes our egoistic nature to a nature of bestowal. With its help we come to a situation where we connect as one man with one heart.

At any given moment, society provides us with a model against which we are measured. It makes us work, make an effort to become more and more like this model of success. Some people are willing to invest a lot to be remembered well after they die, because the feeling of dignity has no limits, neither in time, nor in place, nor in intensity. 

Honor, is it good or bad? It depends on how the tendency is used. To illustrate, if I want to spur a child to invest in his studies and tell him, 'You are better, you will be great, everyone will respect you,' I am giving him motivation to study, which is good. On the other hand, if I keep lowering his dignity, I destroy his self-confidence and nothing comes of it.

With regard to ourselves, we must examine the direction in which respect drives us. If the desire to be above everything drives a person to act at the expense of others, to kick them on the way to the summit, to control and maneuver them, then that is destructive honor. Constructive honor, on the other hand, is that I want to be respected precisely by helping everyone, sacrificing myself for them, caring about their welfare and well-being. If society honors me for such an attitude on my part as a good and generous person, that is constructive honor. It will also be accompanied by constructive competition: which of us invests more for the benefit of society.

Because of human beings selfish nature, there is a tendency to belittle others instead of respecting them. A selfish society puts everyone under constant pressure: Is my dignity being violated? Are you giving me the respect I deserve? Is there someone more respectable than me? Overall, this pressure puts us in a cutthroat competition that destroys our relationships, our health, and our lives.

Social and personal development improves when we learn to use the wisdom of connection. On the whole, this method changes our egoistic nature to a nature of bestowal. With its help we come to a situation where we connect as one man with one heart.

Gradually you begin to feel a special power of bestowal, love and giving. A connecting and unifying force. It becomes the source of a special inspiration of mutual respect. It is a sublime, spiritual, wonderful feeling. Everyone feels whole, especially in connection with others. It is an honor for the person to be in such a relationship with everyone. 

Mutual respect means that I respect the other and he or she respects me, because only together can we build a system of communication in which the same supreme power is revealed. I do not underestimate anyone because I feel dependent on others for the sake of my personal development. To be more precise, we can say that we do not respect each other, but the state of common connectedness that has been built. And that is a very special honor.

In a nutshell, those who want to be respected are recommended to learn and also teach others how to connect properly, how to rise together to the most dignified degree of existence there is.

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The War in Ukraine Is Changing the World

The war in Ukraine is unlike any war that’s been. Although it seems local, this war is changing the world. In the end, after all the pain, the parties will establish new relationships, and new relationships will be established around the world. This war is the beginning of a formation of a new world order, where all parties unite against the one common enemy of all of humanity: egoism. It will take time, but everyone involved will realize, and the whole world with them, that they are not fighting against each other, but against an enemy within them. If we let the idea sink in, even a bit, it will make it happen even sooner.

Back in the 1930s, Baal HaSulam, a great thinker and a great kabbalist, wrote an epic essay titled “Peace in the World.” In it, he writes, “Man is inherently born to lead a social life. Each and every individual in society is like a wheel that is linked to several other wheels placed in a machine.” How odd it is that ninety years ago, before World War II, people already realized that we are all dependent on each other and must behave toward each other with consideration. Just think what we could have avoided had we been more attentive and open-minded.

The war that began in late February will not end soon. It will take many more months until everyone realizes that war itself, the very concept of it, is evil. In that sense, the war in eastern Europe is correcting all of humanity, transforming our perception and our understanding of good and evil.

The casualties, the injured, and the lost property are a terrible price to pay. Nevertheless, global processes always come at a cost. We should not blame others for the cost, and we should not think that there is nothing each of us can do to change the world. It is in the hands of every person to change the world for the better, and to make the atrocities of war, and all atrocities that humans are inflicting on each other, disappear. All we need is to realize that the only enemy lies within us—our self-centered attitude. It incites us against each other, demonizes and vilifies anyone who disagrees with us, tells us that we are the only ones entitled in this world, and thereby sets us off against each other. We are all like that, infected with a pandemic of narcissism.

Nevertheless, there is a lot we can do to change the world. First, we must accept that there is a good reason we are so different from each other. Each of us makes a unique contribution to the world that no one else can. If we were all the same, the contributions we receive from others, and on which our lives depend, would be absent, and we would not survive, in the most physical sense of the word.

We will realize that our ego is the enemy only when we realize that singularity is the wrong key word for happiness. Today, the key word for happiness is complementarity—mutual satisfaction of each other’s material, social, emotional, and spiritual needs.

We are living in a world where we are all dependent on each other. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, and the appliances and gadgets that we use are all made by people we do not know, in places we do not know, and reach us in ways we do not know. But were it not for this chain of myriad unknown individuals, we would not survive, since we cannot provide for our needs by ourselves.

The same goes for social ties. All our connections, communications, and interactions with other people are made possible with the help of countless people who serve us without our awareness. But were it not for them, we would not be able to work or socialize.

Despite this obvious fact, we behave toward others with as little consideration as possible, and when we are nice or considerate, it is because we have an ulterior, selfish motive. We do not have the prerogative to keep up this behavior. We are destroying the world and destroying ourselves.

Back in the 1930s, Baal HaSulam, a great thinker and a great kabbalist, wrote an epic essay titled “Peace in the World.” In it, he writes, “Man is inherently born to lead a social life. Each and every individual in society is like a wheel that is linked to several other wheels placed in a machine.” How odd it is that ninety years ago, before World War II, people already realized that we are all dependent on each other and must behave toward each other with consideration. Just think what we could have avoided had we been more attentive and open-minded.

Now, too, we are headed for a catastrophe unless we pay attention and begin to act like one entity, one global society that works like a single, united family. The war will change the world, but I hope we can change ourselves before the war changes us.

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The First Question

Every moment in our lives begins with the question, “What am I living for?” We normally do not recognize it for what it is, so we manage to keep going even though we do not have an answer. However, in the following second, the question about the purpose of our lives will show up again. And once again, we will not notice it and continue to the next second in our lives. This is the flow of life, an endless stream of questions about its meaning and purpose.

These days, humanity is finally getting closer to finding the answer to the question about the meaning of life. In the coming years, this will become humanity's main engagement.

We cannot choose not to ask about it since the question exists even before our physical body comes into being. It is the first, primordial question and our bodies develop only in order to find the answer. In fact, all of life exists only to answer this first question.

Whether you are a construction worker, a college professor, a street sweeper, a police officer, or what have you, we all have the same inner drive to search for the meaning of our lives in everything we do. We may not be aware that we are driven to do what we do by this essential quest, but we are driven by it just the same.

Even people who seem calm and satisfied, who do not seem to be searching for anything and say they are content with life and do not want anything more out of it, are only convincing themselves that this is how they feel. Nevertheless, if the question did not burn within them, they would not be alive.

The quest is there to make us search for the source of life itself, the comprehensive force in nature. For now, most people search without knowing what drives them in life. Today, however, humanity is approaching the realization of the true objective of the quest.

Each day, more and more people are asking themselves about the origin of life. They are beginning to create a picture of what the force must be like, what are its qualities and how they can approach it, grasp it, and bring themselves to it.

Just as a baby wants to be near its mother and receive from her, when we are drawn toward connection with the superior, original force, we begin to receive from it the answer to the question about the meaning of life. These days, humanity is finally getting closer to finding the answer to the question about the meaning of life. In the coming years, this will become humanity's main engagement.