Truth, Love, and the Connection between Them

“The truth is in the eyes of the beholder,” says the famous maxim. In the age of fake news, it is more difficult than ever to tell true from false. So how can we decide whom to believe? How can we know which way is right when everyone seems to be dishonest? Philosophy, mathematics, law, and science all use different techniques to determine the truth and to define it. The wisdom of Kabbalah also has its definition: Truth is care for others. The Creator of the world created it with the quality of love for all of creations, or He would not have created them, and in Hebrew, Emet [truth] is the name of the Creator. Therefore, truth is the Creator, and it is a kind relation toward others. Every other relation toward others, therefore, is falsehood, or close to it.

It follows that to become truthful, we must learn how to care about others, since our innate nature is selfishness. To do that, we must place ourselves in a society where we can cultivate such feelings toward each other, where I can show others that I am acting toward them in truth, meaning kindness, and they reciprocate that conduct.

Kindness, or care for others, means I relate to others with kindness and care, that I am thinking of their benefit. I do not have to know what is good for them and what is not; it is not about what I know or do not know, but about how I feel toward them. Through caring for others, I will also know how to treat them in a way that is good for them.

It follows that to become truthful, we must learn how to care about others, since our innate nature is selfishness. To do that, we must place ourselves in a society where we can cultivate such feelings toward each other, where I can show others that I am acting toward them in truth, meaning kindness, and they reciprocate that conduct.

Truth, therefore, is not something absolute. The measure of my truthfulness depends on the level of my kindness toward others. Absolute truth is the ultimate goal of our efforts, the final correction. It is the culmination of a process of correction of our relationships.

Note that we do not have to correct ourselves or change ourselves in any way. All we need is to change how we relate to one another, our attitude toward others. If we mean well for others, we are acting toward others in truthfulness. If we mean to harm others, we are acting toward them in falsehood. It is actually quite straightforward.

There is another saying, that only children and drunks tell the truth. There is truth to that because as we grow up and become more sophisticated, we cover up our bad intentions toward others. We exploit others and relate to them well only when it serves our selfish interest. As a result, we have to hide our bad intentions from them, as well as from ourselves, since it is very unpleasant to think of ourselves as egoistic people. In a sense, the only truth in our world is hypocrisy.

We can change our inherent egoism and become truthful, kind people. However, we cannot do it alone. To change ourselves, we must place ourselves in a social setting that constantly demonstrates to me that others are kind, or at least kinder than I am. Using envy in this way can elevate me from my current, self-centered disposition, to a state of concern for others, and changing my qualities from caring for me to caring for others is regarded as changing from falsehood to truth.

We cannot help but begin from falsehood; it is our inherent nature. However, we should use it just as long as we need to in order to resolve that we want to change ourselves. Once we determine that we want to change, we must rise above our nature, with the help of the environment as I have just mentioned, and acquire more and more kindness.

We see that we are dependent on others when it comes to changing ourselves. Therefore, if we want to succeed, we must see to it that many other people want to change themselves for the better, too. It follows, as the wisdom of Kabbalah always says, the individual and the society are dependent on each other, implying that if the society does not succeed, neither will the individual.

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Devoid of Jewish Identity

The national Jewish identity and the fear of losing it has become a question that troubles many people in Israel. On the one hand, there is no fear that we will lose our identity even if we want to since the hatred of the world toward us reminds us that we are Jewish. Our Palestinian neighbors also assist in that through their pressure. Were it not for their hatred, we would be long gone.

Now we have come to a state where everything material is in abundance. The only thing we do not know is the purpose of it all. That aimlessness leads the nations to remember the calling of the Jews, so when we do not provide the answer they want, they hate us.

The Jewish national identity is derived from realizing a certain demand from the Jews as a group, as the Israeli nation. We have a common language, we have our politics and politicians, and even a distinct Israeli mentality. Yet, as long as we do not know why we are here, we are not really a nation.

If our spiritual calling is to be “a light to the nations,” but we are not sure what it means, the world will remain lost in the dark, not knowing why it exists. The more humanity advances, the more the questions about the purpose of life become poignant and painful. In consequence, the nations are growing angrier and crueler toward us, Jews.

Now we have come to a state where everything material is in abundance. The only thing we do not know is the purpose of it all. That aimlessness leads the nations to remember the calling of the Jews, so when we do not provide the answer they want, they hate us.

Since we are unaware of our calling, we do not understand why the world hates us. We think that leading the world in advanced technologies, contributing to the world in culture, medicine, agriculture, science, and entertainment should win us the world’s gratitude. However, it does not win us gratitude, much less favor. We do not understand why, but if we realized what it is that we must give the world, we would see what we are not giving it, and we would understand why the world hates us.

We may think that we do not have what the world wants, but we do. The world wants to know how people can live together in peace, since hatred is the only plague that ruins everything we do. The Jews have had the method for achieving unity since we formed our nation by rising above the vehement hatred that our ancestors felt toward each other and uniting “as one man with one heart.” Immediately after we became a nation, we were tasked with passing our method to the rest of humanity. The Bible defined it as an obligation to be a light to the nations, namely to pass on the light of unity.

Now it is time to return to our Jewish identity—to shine the light of unity to the entire world by uniting among ourselves and setting an example to the world.

Over the centuries, we had achieved high levels of unity. We lived out the motto “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and for a time, we really shone the light of unity to humanity. However, our unity was short-lived and with its decline, the world has plunged into eons of war, bloodshed, and hatred.

Now it is time to return to our Jewish identity—to shine the light of unity to the entire world by uniting among ourselves and setting an example to the world. The growing hatred toward us, which seems so unjust, is the world’s demand that we unite and show humanity the way. When we achieve unity among ourselves, the world will unite with us, and we will not need to search for our identity or justify our existence as a nation.