The Human Side of Conflict. Israel Vs. Hamas

Hello, hello everyone and welcome to another enlightening episode of the Influencer Mindset Podcast. Today we have with us Dr. Echil Harari and we are going to talk about something very, very serious that's going on in Israel right now. There is a war with Hamas as most of you know. Israel has been attacked by savages, by people who have no regards to human life. Uh, there is already more than 1,000 people that been killed, innocent people, women, children, children, elderly people. Just like really, really, really terrible situation. And, um, we want to kind of like dig deep a little bit into this and to, you know, to be honest, I think this is like the one podcast that I have not really prepared questions or really kind of know exactly what we're going to talk about. But one thing for sure, we have Dr. Achilarari here and Dr. Achilarari is an authority when it comes to Jewish psychology, when it comes to dealing with difficult situation, times of stress, times of war, times of uncertainty. And a lot of people have a lot of questions, especially Jews that are living in Israel and all over the world.

All around, all over the world.

Yeah, all over the world, because they did it. They did it to the Jews. They did it to the Jews. So, so let me welcome you again, Dr. Gilad Ari. Welcome to the podcast. How are you feeling?

You know, I'm feeling full of— there are two major questions before I'll answer how I am feeling. It's how I should feel, you know, full of pain, but with full of belief that we can win and we should win. There are two major questions that we should face right now. The first question you know, two major questions that we have, one we should face. The first one is why? Why it happened? And how it happened? How it happened, you know, nobody could believe that there would be no army 8 hours on the border. So that's one question. But which, and why, you know, there is even a more deeper question that the believer asks, how the Creator allowed to such a thing, to 1,200 people being massacred, murdered in 8 hours. It's an unbelievable, you know, it's like the sights are like in the Holocaust. It's a day in Auschwitz. It's like it's a day in Auschwitz. It's unbelievable. So this is another question that you could ask, but you should not. Because the right question that we should ask right now is what we should do from now on. What we should do, what kind of spirit we should have, and how we should, because we have only one task now. To win the war, to clean our borders, to believe, because it's a real fight between light and darkness. And the light should win the darkness. You know, the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad movement, is writing in one of his chapters in the Tanya, in chapter 26, is writing that when there is a war between two guys, one is strong, very strong, but he is lazy and he does not believe in himself and he is full of stress and anxiety and he doesn't believe in, in, in that he's doing the right thing in life, and he have all kinds of questions, and in his head he will fall more fastly. He will lose to the one that is believing in himself, that is, that is doing things fastly, that, that he, that he encourage himself. And that's what we have to do. We have to overcome the stress, the anxiety, the pain. There is pain. We will never forget the pain. But now what we should do? The Lubavitcher Rebbe is saying that when you go to war, you should go with the march of victory. You cannot, I'm thinking about, I have a good friend that is one of the heads of the Israeli intelligence. He's very, you know, he's in the top, as in he's in charge on the Gaza Strip. And I'm thinking about him. And if he's now dealing in this, and I text him, he didn't answer because is so busy. Well, I think about him. If he's now getting into this situation with the thought, ah, the blame is on me, what I did, I'm not good enough, or things like that, or what will happen in the— in after the war will, will, will end it, and all kinds of thoughts that bring you into depression or anxiety, he cannot now do whatever, do the right thing that you need to do. Because what anxiety does to us. It closes our mind, doesn't let you be innovative. It doesn't let you be creative to see the whole picture, to understand what you really need to do now and what we want really from the people that are going to the war, from the head of the intelligence, from everyone that is now dealing with the situations, from everyone that is now, you know, everyone has now a task to work on the economy, to save the economy. Whatever you are doing, you must continue doing that with the spirit and the belief that we are we are gonna win, and we are winning, and what happened will never happen again. And the only way that you can do that is to eliminate thoughts that, wow, we are victims. We are, you know, we have to switch places from the place that we do not influence our, you know, the worst thing that could happen to a human being is that he believes that he has nothing to do. That he cannot influence. And that's what happened. You know, people woke up on Saturday morning and they believed, wow, we are, you know, there is no army, there is no nothing. We cannot believe in nothing. We cannot let— so the situation is so odd that we cannot lean on anything. So what's the result? That you are not influencing. And we have to get back to bring to us back the belief that we are influencing and we have the power and we can change everything and we can overcome and not from the thought of revenging. Revenging is not the right thing. What we have to do? And everyone in Israel and abroad, everyone that believes that he has to help Israel should ask himself, what should they do? What should they do in order to empower Israel, to give it strength, to give strength to the light? Because it's a war, as we said, between light and darkness. And I think that's the right attitude. And people today are waking up and they are in, and when they are waking up in anxiety mode, they are like weakening the, our unity and our belief. You know, think about it. What is anxiety? Anxiety is a call for you to see that there is something stronger than you. You know, people in Mount Sinai were in anxiety in a way. In Hebrew, it's like, they were very afraid, but it was a positive positive anxiety in a way that it calls you, okay, start to appreciate what you have, start to appreciate your life. Nothing here, you know, you told me a minute ago about the wealth and the abundance and the community in the communities, good communities in the United States, in LA, in New York. It's like something very nice to see. People are, you know, never in the history of Judaism, of of the Jews live like that. And it's something that we should appreciate, really. There is a reason for that, and we should cherish it in every moment, and, you know, hug it and ask ourselves what we should do with that, how we should, you know, transform the world from darkness to see the light in it. So it's like, you know, in a deeper perspective, there is darkness everywhere. The Ari is saying, the most important and prominent Kabbalist in Jewish literature, is saying that, you know, we are fighting against enemies, against darkness everywhere. But really inside, when you look inside, it's all, there is no chaos. There is order. Why? Because it's God's word. And when it's God's word, he is like, he's behind everything and he's calling you. Try to fix it, to fix, to rectify the world. That's, that's, That's the call. And when you are anxiety and there is negative anxiety, you are being controlled. You cannot push yourself forward. You cannot do nothing. You know, you are with handcuffs because you are waking up and you know what is anxiety. Anxiety, you cannot take action, decide what to do. You cannot move yourself to be creative, to be productive.

I understand what you're saying. You know, um, I think one of the most, like, fundamental, uh, understanding of, uh, spirituality in general is the idea that we are all interconnected. We're all interconnected. I mean, there is really one entity that God created, one soul that was created, and now It's divided into 8+ billion people. And also, part of it is the idea that there is a global consciousness and there is my personal consciousness. It's my consciousness that creates my life, that creates my personal life. And then, there is the global consciousness that creates the global environment, the global thing that's happening. And, you know, and I can't stop thinking about the idea that this terrible thing that just happened, this unbelievable, and I'm like really, really working hard, like I'm trying not to look at the images, not to look, you know, at the videos that they are purposefully putting out for us to look at. Because they want to literally damage our soul. Those pictures, those images, not only weakens you, it could drive you nuts. It could literally take your foundation as a human being and undermine who you are as a human being. It's really, it brings out the worst and that's what they want to do. And of course, like whoever listens, don't look at the videos and the images they're sending. This is like the worst thing that you can do. But that thought doesn't leave me, the idea that this is something that happens because of a global consciousness that we have.

It's a beautiful thing that you said. You know, I'm not sure that beautiful is the right thing to say about it. It's the precise thing. You know, a sage says, that the world is a small human being and a small human being is the world. What they mean is that everything that happens in the global consciousness happens in you, in your mind, and vice versa. Everything that happens in the world happens in you. So you can affect in what happens in your mind on the world. What I'm trying to say is that we have battles. Battlefield in the world, and we have battlefields in ourselves. The battlefield is between two major powers or souls, let's say it like that. One soul says to you, it's all about me, what I'm thinking about myself, it's all about individuality, about what I'm gaining, what I'm sucking out of the world, what I'm gaining from my wife. It's all about egocentric point of view. And the other one, the other, you know, let's say, fighter in your soul says, no, it's not at all about you. Why it's so important to be, you know, to nullify yourself in order to be one with the creation, in order to be one with this moment, in order to live the moment. Because when you live the moment, you are like emerging in the moment. You are like being one with the moment. And when you are being one, you are finding unity between you and the moment and the people that you are meeting, why it's so important to discover positive emotions. Because positive emotions connect you to others and they reveal, they illuminate on what? On connections, on unity in this world. And one of God's projects is to find unity, that he asks from us to find unity in this world. But the other side in us says, no, what about me? It's all about me. So this kind, and I cannot accept you, and I minimize the The battlefield, the battle between those two powers, because the other side says, I can't accept no one. I don't love nobody that does not give to me. It's, I hate other people that got more than me. It's like it's a jungle. It's a chaos. And this battlefield that you have in you happens also, you know, in the global consciousness. And you have, we have, to win our inner fight. This is the most important message of Judaism. You have to win your inner power, your inner battle, in order to win the global battlefield. Why? I think I'll give you an example, a very strong one, but I don't want to make the example connected to this period because we don't want to be in this, you know, in the Holocaust. Admor Meir Yessetzna, the rabbi from Pilsen, was a very important rabbi before the Second Second World War. And as all other Jews, half a million Jews were massacred in Warsaw. And he was also there when he was there, a rabbi. And he gave talks to his disciples, to his Hasidim through the world. He was murdered in Giv'el, Cheshvan, 1943. Like it was 1943. And And he said on Shabbat Shuvah, Shabbat Shuvah is the Shabbos between Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, he said to his disciples, I see you, I see you are broken, it's very hard for you to pray, it's a new year, it's a holiday, I hope you will pray, you don't have pages, Siddurim to pray from, but I thought you will pray, but you didn't, why you didn't pray? And he gave The answer, because you do not believe that through your inner work, on your consciousness, on your beliefs, that your brain will make a change in the situation. And he said the only way, it's not the only way, we think about that, that what will solve the problem will be our, you know, that's in Auschwitz, in Warsaw, you didn't believe that we will be able to get out of it. But the only way that we will get out of it is if you will work on your mindset. And it's very, something very powerful. We need army. We need strong army. But everything starts from our belief and from our ability to find unity. And what happened in the last year, I don't want to say bad thing because it's very hard to speak like that. But we weren't united enough. We didn't believe in ourselves. We didn't believe in our, you know, right. For this country and to live as Jews, as free Jews in our country. We didn't believe in that we are connected. One person said to another, you're not my brother anymore. And our enemies, they smell that. When you are weak, what does it mean weak? Weak, it's not that you have more aircraft. It's not that you have more weapons. Weak is that you do not believe you are not united. That's the reason why first, all the tragedies that happened in the past to the Jewish people happened when we started to lose our consciousness of being one, unity. That's what happened in your own house when you are splitting from your wife and you don't want to see and you are getting divorced. It doesn't bring you wealth and it's a terrible situation. Whenever you don't find unity, you know, let me just mention that there are times that you have to split and divorce because the situation is not good enough and you cannot work on it anymore. And it wasn't like the right, but whenever you find unity, you will find more wealth, more success, more spirit, more belief in our life. And then that's a belief in every person, what he can contribute to the situation, to our life. That's the most important thing that we should find. And it was a beautiful question because you connected between each person's spirit and mindset and walk to the global consciousness.

Right. You know, one of my cousins are, you know, they were deep into the whole thing that was going on in Israel, the riots, the, you know, people going out protesting with the whole thing with the courts, whatever, they wanted to change it. And there was a few things she wrote, she posted on Facebook that I thought was, I was like, what? I was like, it's too much. I told her, what are you doing? She's like, no, we need to separate, like two different countries, two different Jewish countries now. Oh, so we're going to have three countries now? We're going to have two Jewish countries in one. So anyways, I told her, listen, when that happened—

No, it happened in the past. We separated between Israel and Judah, and the result was terrible.

Yeah, and this is exactly what I said. I wrote it to her, and I said, when that happened, a third party will come in, will take advantage of this weakness, And it's the weakness of morale because Israel is literally one of the strongest armies in the world. I think Israel has more nuclear power than the United States. Israel is such a powerful country. How can something like this even happen? People were sleeping. I mean, yeah, they planted really well. They planted for probably months.

They knew exactly. One tank on every place that they succeeded to, you know, to tear about the wall. One tank could have solved the problem because you don't know what is tank. You know, a tank, it's like something, it has a huge firepower, unbelievable. I was in the army. It's like, it's like, it's like a thousand people that are shooting, but this tank should work well and the spirit and the team in it should know that they are now fighting for their life and they should know what they are doing. But the tanks were like, they didn't really understood the situation. Situation and what is happening. And they were like, you know, 6:30 in the morning. It's not the way that the army should work because when you do not really appreciate what you have and you appreciate that you have to every day to work on it and to fight to make it happen. And it's nothing here. It's a miracle. We are living on miracles. You know, living, we are like a diamond in a jungle. And to save this diamond, you have to be alert and awake and to believe in your right and to believe that you are, you know, lightening the world. And if you stop believing in that and start fighting about all kinds of things, doesn't matter who is the blame on. If you start fighting, you are losing everything. That's the result. And darkness will overcome you. It happens when you, you know, when you are taking it to the individual place, when you are fighting against yourself and not eating something that, you know, that is is not healthy to you, and you said, I don't care about everything, bring that, and you are losing. You will pay the price at the end, pay the price. It's like the global, our spirit, our belief in every moment, our, you know, standing alert and, you know, believing that that's what we need to do, and it's the whole thing, and as we said before, thanks are not enough.

I'm paying the price now of the holidays, you know, gaining some weight, you know, through the holiday, saying, oh, a little bit here, a little bit there, you know.

So now the weight will win the war, you are trying to say? It's like, so you have, you have a family in Ashkelon that is now suffering? You have a family in Ashkelon?

Yeah, yeah, my mother. I speak with her every day. Uh, thank God she's okay. You know, she grew up in Israel, so she's kind of mentally already prepared to go through this, whatever comes. She's not afraid. She has tremendous belief in God, that God is there to protect her. She's not worried about that. But what is But I mean, there is worries, there is stress, and there is always anxiety that's going to come out of a situation like that. And this is also something I wanted to address with you in this podcast is, I mean, what kind of tools or maybe a strategy or a technique would you recommend somebody? You know, besides what we spoke about, don't watch those videos, don't watch those clips, don't watch what they are putting out there, because they are purposefully trying to destroy your psyche. But besides that, do you have any other ideas what, what people should do?

Of course, you know, we spoke a lot about how to overcome anxiety, and I think that's one of the most important things to do right now, because you have to understand what anxiety does to you. It closes you. It doesn't let you choose. It doesn't let you really be productive, as we said. Why? Because those emotions of Anxiety now controls you and you do not control them. And you are— where does it come from? It comes from you are not ready to lose grip, to not think, not control what will happen in the future. In order to overcome anxiety, you have to be ready to lose everything. When you are not ready to lose, you will think, if I will lose something, doesn't matter if it's your life, You know, my mom, she says when a warrior goes to war, it's something unbelievable. He has to forget. Forget, but he says the word in Hebrew is to eliminate. Eliminate the remember. Not remember his wife, his children, his house. To forget about everything. It's like not to remember even about yourself.

Why?

Because when I don't really care about myself, it's something very you have to understand it very, you know, diligent. If you don't care about yourself, you are ready what? You don't think about the future. You don't think about what will happen. You're ready to lose grip. So, you know, think about, I'll take it to less, you know, less arch place. When a football player or a basketball player is getting into the, you know, starting playing when he's in stress, anxiety, thinking, would I succeed, or throwing the ball to the basket, he won't succeed. He will lose. Why he will lose? Because the anxiety will close his eyes. And in order to succeed, he has to say to himself, I don't really care. It's not that I'm— no, I don't care. It's not important. Now the only important thing is to be in the moment, to do what I have to do. And I'm not thinking if I'll succeed, if I won't, if I'll make it or not. That's the only way to think. But the first, you know, the first practical advice We don't really want to lose grip on the anxiety. We don't want anxiety to hurt us. But in order to overcome anxiety, you have to decide to write to yourself what is your anxiety all about and what are you ready and are you ready really to lose the grip, to not to control, not thinking that I'm controlling the future, to be ready, you know, to You must have the will to overcome the anxiety. And, and, you know, the major question is everyone, you know, you have to understand that everyone, nobody wants anxiety. So why don't we really want to overcome anxiety? Because in anxiety, what is the anxiety? In anxiety, there is something that there is a lot of me. I, I don't want to lose myself. I don't want to lose the thinking, stop thinking about myself. You know, you spoke about a person that is suffering from anxiety. He's speaking only about himself. It's all about him. You spoke about someone that is, you know, dealing with depression or is now angry. He's speaking only about himself and what people did to him. He cannot get out of himself. And in order to overcome anxiety, you have to get out of yourself. And to get out of yourself, that means it's not about you, stopping thinking about you. I send the child to, you know, to the reserve, to the, now to the army, and the last thing that he needs from me is anxiety. The last thing that he needs from me is what will happen if, say, you know that he needs to save himself, you know that he needs to be, you know, to see everything and to be careful, that's for sure. And what he needs from me is to believe that everything will be all right and he will succeed and he will contribute to the to the war efforts, and I really believe in him. So I myself should not have stress and anxiety. And a lot of people ask, how could I not make my child, how could I not bring my child into a place that they are full of, you know, think about 5, 10, 12, 15 years old children in Israel, hearing those things, it's like, It's not about what they hear. You cannot close all the windows. Children hear everything. They know everything. It's what they hear from you and the sounds that they hear. If the sound is everything is breaking down and it's an apocalyptic situation and we will lose and the common economy will fall and I don't know what will happen. If you do not encourage them and if you are not really full of belief that we will succeed and we will overcome. And for me, we will get out with more strength, more belief in ourselves, a better community, a better country, a better Israel, full of light, better economy. If you do not really let them believe that there was a tragedy, but out of this tragedy, good things will develop, then they will get into stress. And it's all about the way you see the things, you see reality.

I like how you were describing like the warrior mindset, like somebody who is actually going to war. Let's elaborate a little bit more about that because that's like something that I think it's very powerful. So you were talking about like a soldier right now being called to the reserve and he's about to join the front line, the fighting, maybe going into Gaza. I mean, I'm just thinking about it. I'm getting terrified by the idea. So you're saying the mindset of the warrior, of the soldier out there should be not to think about his wife, not to think about his children, not to think about himself, like literally lose his mind, like throw, take your mind and put it out.

No, he should be concentrated in what he should do, on the missions that is, you know, on the commandments that he got. That's, you know, a warrior, as opposed to you thinking about getting into Gaza and you are starting to tremble. I remember myself in the army. A warrior should want to be in a war. He wants, because that's what he trained for. He wants to get into and do what he needs to do. That is mindset. And if a warrior doesn't want to go, and that's what my money says, that's what the Torah is saying. If you are weakening yourself, it's called litpached. How you weaken yourself? With all kinds of thoughts. What will happen with me, with my wife, with my country? And you weaken your environment. The result is that you will lose. You won't be able to concentrate on your missions, on what you really want to do. And my mom is saying, when you're acting like that, you are spilling the blood of your brothers. It's something unbelievable that they're saying like that. You have to be, it's like a commandment to be brave, to believe in yourself, to forget about all the things. Now you sacrifice yourself in a way, it's a way that each one of us, we spoke before about the individual consciousness. It's a way that each one of us should live every moment in his life. Every moment, I'm ready to sacrifice anything. And the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Hasidut, is saying you should really be ready to be connected to something higher than you and to reveal all your attributes in this moment without thinking about the results. The only way to succeed in life is not thinking about the results and what will happen. It's doing what you really need to do right now. And in wartime, you know, United States, it's, it's more than 20% of people that said that they are suffering from anxiety, some kind of anxiety disorder. So, you know, the abundance in the United States in the past 50, 60 years, something like that. Calls for anxiety. It's the most, you know, let's say safe country maybe, or one of the safest countries, democracy. There is no, you know, there is no threat on it, you know, a real threat of life and death. But still, most of Americans are saying that they are suffering from anxiety. And there is an Israel. It's a pandemic. And Israel, it's, you know, is just running after United States. And it happened even before. Most of the people that are calling us or calling Anatta, they are asking for remedy to anxiety. And it started before, before this war. And if you worked on your anxiety and you understood what is anxiety and how we should overcome it, and you practiced and you really learned that it's in your hand, now you are getting into these situations, you know what to do. And if not, now you should say to yourself, it's an opportunity for me now to change my life, to change my life and not to let the anxiety control me. So like a person that goes to war, if you won't do this mental work and work on himself and change his mindset, it will be very hard for him to succeed in the battle zone. Because think about a person, think about Ariel Sharon now is leading armies against the Egyptians in '73, 1973. And think about him, if he was afraid, he wouldn't be able, you don't want your commander speak like that in, oh, I'm afraid, what will happen? No, you want him full of confidence and really believing in himself. You know, there was the Shayetet, the Navy SEAL disaster. I don't know if you heard about it, about 13 soldiers, elite soldiers from our Navy SEAL unit were in Lebanon a few years ago and went into, it was Marhaba, you know, they were being caught by the Lebanese, by the Hezbollah.

Ambush, there was an ambush.

Ambush, yeah, the ambush. 12 out of them were dead. And the one that needed to call the, I'm just thinking about it and it's like, that needed to call all the aircraft and all the Israeli army to save them. And he spoke on the net, like very cool. And he said the helicopter got for him a precise place where to land and out what to do and where there are armies against them and where is the enemy and it was, it was so cool and if it wasn't so cool, we wouldn't succeed to take all his friends, all the bodies out of this tragedy, um, thing, what we call it, uh, like the ambush or whatever.

Yeah. Um, that, that's, um, What can I tell you? I mean, this is really an unusual situation. You know, we spoke about many times about influencing, you know, like how we are living in a very special time that we have social media, news are running, stuff like that. So I'm just thinking, you know, And I've seen it happening like since the beginning of this whole thing. I mean, since I got out of the holiday on Sunday night and I've been looking online and I see that everybody is like became an online activist. People are posting, people are reposting and stuff like that. What do you think that people should like keep in mind when engaging in online activism right now during this time?

It's a beautiful question. Two things. First of all, am I— is it about me or is it about doing something? You know, maybe it's one question. It's very good, very important to influence, but before you're pressing, you know, the enter, you should ask yourself, Am I influencing something positive? Really positive. Don't convince yourself that you are, you know, spreading weakness and it's a positive thing because people will criticize, will help them know themselves. No. Ask yourself really, am I bringing light to the world or darkness? It's one important question. And the second one that is connected to that, is it about me what I'm posting? Do I need the likes, the followers? It's all about me, or it's all about giving other people value. If you do not give value, and this value is not positive, and this value will not make them stronger, change their lives, make them better, believe in themselves that they can win, don't do it. And, you know, it's even the right questions when somebody is saying to yourself, what now you are talking about anxiety or things like that in the middle of the war? No, there will always, you will find someone that will discourage you and will say to you, no, don't do that, and will have something bad to say about it. Oh, your God is blamed on everything. There is no really God or things like that. You will always find a person that will talk like that. If you are really developing or you are only transforming a message and it's not about you, it's about the message. It's about the strength of the message and the importance of the message. And it's not about you. You, then you are doing the right thing. Then the whole idea of social networking, it's for that. That's the idea. But if you are—

Right. No, no, I totally get that. I totally get that. The idea is that right now, I mean, we need to kind of raise more awareness. About this conflict because there is still people out there literally supporting Hamas. And I don't think they really understand what are they supporting. They're supporting literally killers of women and children, people who have no regards to human life. I mean, there is no justification in the world for something like that. And this is the thing, this is what, this is, you know, part of like what I'm trying to encourage in this conversation right now is to tell people to, yeah, I mean, go out there, repost, post, try to bring awareness to this conflict and show the real face of what are we What are we standing up against here?

Wonderful.

You know, and again, yeah, you need to keep in mind the things that Dr. Achille was just saying. Don't make it about yourself. It's— don't make it about yourself. Make it about the idea to raise awareness so people—

You know, I think they do not really— they don't care about They are not only murdering our people, they don't care even about their people. You know, they don't care. Think about it. What kind of leader will be ready to destroy his small country instead of making it jewelry? If they really wanted peace, Israelis really want peace. They are peace lovers. Gaza Strip. Egypt, as well as Lebanon, could be places thriving and full of, you know, we could do everything together, but they don't really want. The only thing that they want is war, elimination. It's like some kind of mindset that is ready to destroy everything that you have. So they're really ready to kill their own people, to destroy their own economy, to destroy their own country. For what? For killing more Israelis. For being victorious. And it's unbelievable, this mindset. It's like, you cannot accept it. And it's not modern, and it's not liberal, and it's not Jewish mindset. And it's not, you know, and I saw Nas Daily did something very, I don't know if you saw that, he did something very brave to do. He spoke about that it was a Palestinian-Israeli. Yeah, you know, he thought that he's a minority in a Jewish country and he didn't really know how to, you know, how to deal with that his whole life. And he was like embarrassed a little bit of the fact that he was Israeli. And now he decided he saw that nobody really wants to live under the government, under the, under the Hamas. It's like, it's craziness. Who wants to live a life like that? Unless you are some kind of fundamental idiot that is being fed with lies and doesn't really believe what your purpose in life.

Yeah, but obviously there is a bigger picture here. There is Iran involvement in this, sponsoring them, giving them weapons, giving them the means to do something like that. So there is a bigger picture. And yeah, and a leader who would rather destroy his city to the ground than to actually do the opposite, like you said, live in prosperity, education, wealth. I mean, and they could have had it all because they've been getting money from the United States, from Israel, from many different sources. So money— We give them everything.

We give them the electricity they want. Water. It's like craziness to get into war from someone gives you everything. It's like, it will stop giving you and you will, it's unbelievable. Why are you doing things like that? There is no logic. The only logic is we ate, you know, ate with, when you ate something in Judaism, it says, when you ate, you cannot see, you have no more logic, you are ready to destroy everything. In order that he will die, I don't care to die also.

It's really, really sad situation what's happening there. I mean, I'm sure that not all the Palestinians are terrorists, but they're paying the price. They're paying the price for supporting and for being under the rule of those people, those savages. So let's talk about You know, something that is very—

I just want to make another remark. It's not only them. You can see Israelis are Arabs and you can see Arabs all over the world that do not condemn what happened. And in a way they say, okay, it's because of the occupation. There is no occupation in Gaza Strip. It's because of they're trying to find, I raped you because you wasn't really modest and I saw your legs or something that that's why I raped you. So you are blamed for the rape. It's not about me. It's like unbelievable that they are encouraging this brutal attack.

Oh man, oh man, that just like, those ideas by themselves could drive somebody crazy. So let's talk about Let's talk about something.

Just remember that we are 75, 76 years from the Holocaust and 6 million Jews were slaughtered because only because they were Jews. It's like, so when you see the history, you can understand that human beings could be, the evil could be everywhere. You know?

Yeah, it's just really, really sad that we can compare what happened to the Holocaust because this was the second to the Holocaust as far as Jewish people getting slaughtered in one day in these numbers.

Never in the history of— except for the Holocaust.

It's just really is so, so, so sad and I feel really, really bad for all those people and all those families who have to deal with all of this pain. And let us all pray for them. So let's talk about, you know, self-care in turbulent times, you know, times of war, times of loss, times of really like emotional turbulence that's going on. You know, what kind of self-care practices do you think individuals can adopt to manage stress and anxiety? You know, when they feel overwhelmed by all these events and all this war and all this conflict, I mean, let's just try to provide the listeners with a little bit more like practical tools as far as self-care because that's important. You know, just like when you go on an airplane and they show you, listen, if God forbid something happened, you first take the mask, you put it on you before you put on your child. You need to make sure that you are okay so you can help everybody else. But if you're not okay, then you can't help anybody. You can't even help your child. So let's help all these people that are dealing with this. What they can do, let's give them a little bit of something, Dr. Yehiel Harari, like some practices, you know, that they could manage the stress and anxiety when they start thinking all these thoughts, when they start, you know, it's like a loop, you know, it's like a loop of like thoughts, what's gonna happen, what's gonna be, oh, we're at war, this guy's here, this guy's there. It's never ending.

It's obsession. The first thing that you have to ask yourself is what is your duty right now? In order to be connected to your duty, what should I do right now? And how could I contribute to the spirit, to the war effort, to whatever? Ask yourself, can I make a cake? Make a cake. You wake up in the middle of the night. It's very hard for you to get to sleep. Make a cake, clean something, think about how you can, you know, write something positive. Think, don't let yourself be with yourself. Stay inside yourself. Try to be a part of community. You know, communities saves emotions in those times because you feel that you are not alone. You can overcome loneliness because I'm a part of something that is bigger than me. And we are all together. And the way to be a part of community, if you're not living in a community, is to ask yourself, what do I get from the community? But how can I contribute to the community? Go to hospitals, there, give candies to children, to soldiers, find something. And it's not for the soldiers and it's not for the case. It's for you that you feel, will feel a part of something that you won't be inside yourself, that you feel that you are getting out of yourself. Because what is anxiety? What will happen to me? When you stop thinking about yourself, then see others. You know, it will immediately will change your mindset and will take you out of those anxieties. And you should do that every moment, you know, in your, think about your mother, your father, your building, maybe somebody on the fourth floor needs something from you. Think about, you know, it's, I spoke with someone that is from both from, I think Latvia, or I don't know, he went to learn there and he said, I'm all day long. Just seeing the news. And I feel that when I'm detached from the news, I'm betraying Israel. I told him it's vice versa, the opposite. When you are all day long just seeing the news, you do not contribute to nothing. The first, the most important thing, if you have things to do for yourself, do it. Continue to learn. If you are learning medicine, continue to learn, continue to do what you have to do. And, and Don't be all day, you are not in the army, you don't need to know everything, you are not, you know, you are not now following the Hamas or the war moves. Think about how you can contribute here. Contributing is maybe something, just texting a friend. How do you feel? Do you need something from me? Can I help you with something? What can I do for you right now? So it will take you out of yourself. And that's the first thing. The second thing, try to keep order, the day order, what to do all day long, you know. Try not to spend the time without, okay, I allow myself to stay all day on couch. Try to be active and to say, okay, in this hour I'm doing a little bit of sports, some push-ups, I'm running. In this hour I'm meeting with friends outside, in Israel or outside of Israel, and we're talking about things that are not only not only actual things and actuality, but we're talking about other things in order to a little bit to save our confidence and our, you know, to be alive. And in this hour I'm with my children and think about, you know, try to stay, not lose the day. Do every hour what you're doing in this hour. So you want those thoughts will not control you. And you know, the, oh, this times are on night. 12, 10, when you go to sleep, then those 4 starts. Be tired enough that you will get into the bed and you will fall asleep. What does it mean to be tired enough? That you did enough things through the day that when comes the end of the day, your body tells you, I must go to sleep. So don't let yourself stay on the couch and stay all day with the iPhone. You know, the other thing that you should do is things that are creative, things that are productive, things that, you know, every person should find the things that are very important for him to do. Try to think how you can contribute and to add from you to the environment and to be about a part of community.

Amazing, amazing. Absolutely. I think that I want to just add a little bit more to what you said. Is obviously volunteering is an amazing thing because that's completely going out of yourself and actually giving some of your time to help pack stuff or ship stuff. Like, I've seen things that's happening in my community here in Los Angeles, like literally pallets full of equipment were bought by community members and they were stored in warehouses also owned by the community members. And there were planes that were scheduled to come and pick all of this and ship it back to the soldiers, back to Israel. And just be involved in stuff like that. Donate if you can, donate money to some of those organizations that are helping. To supply the soldiers in need with whatever it is that they might be missing and all those good stuff. And also, another thing that I wanted to add is I think learning Torah, I think joining the Hitbonenut channel and learning and teaching yourself every day, try to learn something because learning, I think it is the most beautiful thing, especially in a time like this when you add more of good deeds, more of learning. I think learning is one of the greatest things somebody could do, especially when you learn about spirituality at a time like this.

Huh? To elevate himself from the situation for 10 minutes, 12 minutes, 20 minutes.

Yeah, exactly. 20 minutes. And I think that if you are listening to this podcast, definitely hop on Dr. Yuval Harari's YouTube channel.

And thank you very much.

That's learning over there. I mean, I mean, there is plenty of channels I recommend. Dr. Yuval Harari really posting every day, no matter what happened, no matter if there is a war outside, you will have your video there. So, so definitely recommend that with all my heart for people to learn more and educate yourself also about the conflict itself. Kind of try to learn more about what is Hamas, what is Israel, what happened. If you're too young and you didn't learn history so well, you know, kind of educate yourself a little bit more because when you're educated, that kind of makes things better, put things in better perspective. And yeah, and online activism, you know, whatever you can do to to raise awareness of this terrible situation and also who are we up against. We are up against evil. It's not a war, it's not a territorial war, it's not about money, it's not about territory. It's literally darkness against the light, light against the darkness. And we know the law that a little bit of light removes a lot of darkness. So if every human being will just light a little bit of a light that will, that will, that could make a big difference in the world as well. Um, and lastly, um, I wanted to ask you, uh, Dr. You were talking about community initiatives, and, and do you know about any community-led projects that you can refer people to get involved in right now in Israel that you might recommend?

Or there are so many that I prefer not to, you know, not to point on one. You know, people will find their places where to volunteer, where to contribute, where to— prefer not to be in this place.

Okay, okay, sounds good. So, um, yeah, I mean, I mean, anything else you would like to add before we end the podcast?

And I think that the next time that we will meet, we'll learn something you know, in order to encourage ourselves and to be productive with our time and to encourage ourselves to learn something, you know, maybe on Parashat Bereshit, or we will see. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak and together to understand ourselves better and what we should do right now and continue to influencing the world and everyone around you.

Thank you very much, Dr. Gil Rawi, and thank you for taking the time to join this podcast and to remind us that this is not a regular time. This is a time that we should really make the effort to bring out the best version of ourselves and help win this war against darkness. Thank you very much for listening. And we'll see you in the next podcast. And yes, I'm looking forward to learn with you, Dr. Harari. As always, such a pleasure to have you again, and all the best, my dear friend.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.