Author: David Mark

David Mark is the founder and editor of Israel Rising. Besides Israel Rising, he heads up outreach for Ateret Cohanim in Jerusalem's Old City and acts as the Managing Director for Pulse of Israel. On the side he teaches classes that blend minimalism, mindfulness, and ecology with the teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.
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AN END TO EXCESS: We Must Return To Ourselves

Coronavirus has come. It has swept across the globe in such stunning fashion that it has laid waste to not only lives and economies, but to our preconceived notions of who we are.

I grew up in the age of globalization. It was drilled into me from high school onward that we were heading towards a borderless world that was only an air flight away. Even with my turn towards traditional Judaism and my move to Israel, I still believed to this to a certain extent.

The problem with globalization is that it is based on an infinite amount of resources and cheap products that essentially just turn traditional cultures and communities into carbon copies of one another.

How was the world meant to be built? China. The authoritarian regime would help produce this new world of anonymity, phone addiction, and infinite consumer products. Of course all of us have played along nicely.

The coronavirus pandemic destroyed all of this. It has blown out the idea that one can build a perfect world on the fulfillment of desires by using cheap slave labor in a far away land. Rather than a perfect word, the pandemic has revealed just how bankrupt these notions have been all along.

We have been trying to fulfill our ambitions for products and money and by doing so we have destroyed forests, ruined top soil, and assigned whole populations to a life of factory and wage slavery.

None of this has been holy work – it has been about giving into our base desires.

So much of what we experience and grapple with can be traced back to that initial decision of Adam and Eve to taste from the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. It was simply about fulfilling a want versus focusing on needs.

We are constantly tripping up over the same challenge and it is about time we have learned from our mistakes.

Rebbe Nachman teaches in the 24th lesson of Likutey Moharan that one who lives in excess eventually falls into depression. In a sense, what Rebbe Nachman is saying is that the more each of us lives a life oof excess, the more the collective world falls further away from what it is meant to be.

We are meant to be G-dly beings – to repair the broken world that exists around us and within us. We can do this. We can return to our authentic selves, but we first must exit the world of desires and excess.

The coronavirus has taught us that we can in fact live on so much less than we thought we could. Will we continue on this path or return to our lives of excess once the world opens back up?

The choice as always is before us.

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After Corona, Are We Ready For A New World?

The world is changing. Oil is in negative for the first time ever. The US government has taken over large parts of the economy. Joblessness is souring. Global Depression appears to be on our doorstep.

The coronavirus or COVID-19 has changed us. Yet, deep down inside to most of us who have been warning about the excesses of the Western world, none of this is surprising.

There was bound to be a black swan event, one so big that it would knock down the mirage that is the West. After all, how many more Netflix shows can one watch, or feel fulfilled by cheap Chinese products?

The West has nothing to it anymore. There is no vigor of inner yearning or civilizational direction. The excess has been a drug. All of it designed to fulfill base desires and promising nothing in return. Yet, none of this – the pleasure filled dreams of a millennial generation, fed to them by the hi-tech priests of Generation X is real. Most importantly none of it is sustainable.

The world as we know it, is gone.

For me, all of this has been foretold. Most importantly as the West falls something must take its place.

We must construct a world that is truly sustainable. This new world must leave behind the false desires that are based on nothing else but our own inner whims. In many ways, we must leave the virtual and return to the Earth that has been Created for us. It is this Earth that is waiting to be redeemed and it us who are meant to be its redeemers.

Until now it has been used – a place that is merely a production engine for the products that were meant to fulfill us. We have run after the illusions of our own making – the false dreams and the promise of fortune.

Now we must change course. We must leave behind the “gods of gold and silver” and replace them with truth.

The coronavirus is the trigger for the collapse of the world of falsehoods – the world of truth lies within us. Its holistic melody yearning to break free. Are we ready to step forward and reveal it?

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G-D Is With Us Even In The Darkest Moments

In these moments when the darkness seems so deep we must realize that this is where G-D is. Sure when the high is there – he is there, but he is here now with us at our moment of need. Our purpose here is to recognize the G-dliness in our world no matter how far away it appears to be. That was the meaning behind leaving Mitzrayim and that is the reason why we are meant to spend so long in this final exile.

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Don’t Fear What’s Coming Next

The word is shaking. Fear is spreading. Yet, it does not have to be that way. All the events we are witnessing are destroying the global state of anti-holiness. Our world has so much beauty in it. It has so much light hidden within, but evil forces have covered it over. They have spread their anti-faith agenda and now at the end before the Mashiach comes, the Creator of the universe is reducing their power to zero. Why? So we can see clearly what has been there the whole time – the Divine Presence.

Watch this week’s class below.

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Patience and Faith In A Time Of Trouble

We are all experiencing stress and while there is a part of us that just wants to ignore the events swirling around us, that is not the point. Each of us are on a mission. We were sent here to work out our challenges and issues and ultimately we must confront all of the pain and sorrow in our world, not by succumbing to it, but by accepting it and then transcending it. The current coronavirus pandemic is all about fear.

WATCH MY CLASS BELOW ON THE NEED TO HAVE PATIENCE WHEN DEALING WITH A CRISIS

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While the virus is actually happening, we must not succumb to the fear it is causing, but rather us this opportunity to isolate the tests involved with it and then understand why Hashem has sent such a virus now, when we are so close to meeting our universal goals.

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Coronavirus and the War of Gog U’Magog

When coronavirus broke onto the world scene, it was first seen as a Chinese problem and then an Asian problem. Of course now this pandemic is ravaging Italy and has penetrated throughout the world. Countries are racing to catch up as the most dangerous part of the virus is the exponential spread in rapid fashion that puts a strain on ICU units.

Economies are collapsing, fear is spreading, and the world is literally shutting down.

The assumption has always been that this was a naturally caused pathogen that mutated. That is if you believe the official statements from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Much of the world media bought into, despite the body of evidence that this was anything but a naturally occurring pathogen.

The question is what is it and where is really from?

The Chinese Communist Party ran a P-4 bio lab that dealt with coronavirus’ in Wuhan. Senator Tom Cotton spoke about this connection early on, but was panned as a conspiracy theorists.

Now people are beginning to wake up. There is a realization that in the beginning world society wanted to believe this was manageable. That the Chinese had just messed up, but evidence shows otherwise.

After all the Chinese Communist Party knew of the spread of the virus in Wuhan just before their New Years, but decided to allow 5 million migrant workers to leave Wuhan and Ubey province to go home.

That was no accident. That was a purposeful decision. The question is why? Why would the CCP allow their own citizens to infect a wide percentage of China. The CCP eventually shut down 700 million people with the hope that this would freeze the virus from destroying their country.

We know their reports of the amount of dead is not true and we know now that their recovery is a lie. So why?

China was beginning to lose against the Trump administration. The trade war was beginning to take its toll on the country and so it has fought back with the most insidious economic weapon available, but unfortunately this weapon has now mutated and gone out of control. The Chinese understood they would have to leak this out carefully. For them a few thousand citizens is nothing, but it grew beyond their control and while their intentions in shutting down the West has worked, they have destroyed themselves in the process.

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How Is This Connected To Gog U Magog?

The war of Gog U Magog is a global war and it is a war that finishes off the hegemonic rule of the global powers making way for a new paradigm. Rebbe Nachman teaches in the 13th lesson in the Likutey Moharan that before the Redemption occurs, the insatiable desire for money must be destroyed. China was that engine. It produced cheap products that lured humanity after the desires of this world – causing all of us to forget our innate connection to the Creator. This caused us to fall into a deep spiritual slumber.

The Baal Shem Tov teaches that the war of Gog U Magog is a spiritual war. The numerical value of Gog U Magog is in fact 70 – mirroring the 70 root nations of the world. Each of these nations according to Rebbe Nachman as taught over in the 36th lesson of Likutey Moharan has a specific weapon specialized to hold us back from our true potential.

According to this lesson, a person’s soul comes into this world in order to break through these 70 nations. This occurs on an individual level and national level.

The spelling of China in Hebrew is made up of Samech, Yud, and Nun. This equals 120. More interestingly, if you separate the nun from the word you are left with 70. Nun is 50 and as we learn in the first lesson in the Likutey Moharan it is synonymous with kingship. Essentially China is the source of power for the Kingdom of Gog U Magog. It is its life blood. This is the kingdom which controls the world at the End of Days.

While none of us know where any of this is going, it is important to understand that the collapse we are witnessing is not ours. It is the collapse of the Kingdom which has covered up our ability to truly to connect to our most authentic selves. We are after all an expression of the Creator. We are sent down into this world to uplift and to reveal the holiness hidden within. Everything that is happening may seem scary, but it really doesn’t have to be if we understand that this happening for our own benefit.

The statue is falling. Are we ready to take advantage of the situation and free the Lost Princess buried deep within us once and for all? We have the most powerful weapon of all – prayer. It is time we begin to use it.

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ENDING THE CHAOS: Purim Can Reset The World

The world is filled with fear. From coronavirus to political instability – people’s lives are being turned upside down. In response, like always we look for an escape, for some sort of light beyond that will guide us.

Rebbe Nachman teaches that although in the past all beginnings began with Pesach, now they begin with Purim.

What does this mean?

When the yidden left Egypt, they were a demoralized and spiritually drained nation. The only way they would leave was with miracles injected into the Creation through light that is beyond our reasoning. There was so much light they had no choice but to follow it, nearly rendering their free choice nullified.

This sort of relationship with the Creator remained until the Babylonian exile, when something different and necessary occurred.

Purim is all about the light within. From Purim onward the redemption is continuous because it flows from the dark spaces within. All of us are intrinsically connected with the Creator. The challenge is that this world is designed to mask this connection.

We try to reach out and yet there is darkness, the light is hidden. The more we search for it, the more the darkness grows – the maze becomes more confusing.

However, G-D left us a way through the maze. The Purim story is that guide. Within the letters and words of the ancient story are the spiritual expressions of Mordechai and Esther. They are hidden within the very words of the Megillah – Scroll of Esther.

What Purim is about is finding ourselves again within the darkness of our world. Esther mean hidden. Each one of us has an Esther, a Lost Princess inside that has been hidden away within the darkness of the chaos that surrounds us.

The evil at the end is the fear that we ave lost control, but that is precisely when we have an opportunity to discover who we really are. The hidden parts of ourselves are our real selves.

What Rebbe Nachman means by all beginnings are now from Purim is that our way back is not to run away, but to now embrace the darkness we have in the world and by doing so uncover the light within.

Esther was revealed within the darkest place and from that place the Redemption came. Purim is continuous so for us she is still there, waiting to be revealed – to be rescued, but if we are to redeem her we must not fear, the darkness is only in our minds. Within is the light of the Creator waiting to be unleashed at the most darkest moments.

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CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC: The End of the Exile is Here

The Coronavirus can no longer be ignored. It is a fast spreading and very deadly pandemic that has broken out of the 700 million person quarantine in China to have no begun spreading around the world. While the virus itself is scary enough most of the world’s pharmaceuticals are dependent on base ingredients found in China.

As the stock markets are beginning to crash as supply chains are being disrupted across the world.

So why is this connected to the end of the exile?

Exile is a corruption in the universal divine expression. In a sense, everything is in exile, because the universe lacks the divine harmony it was meant to have. This final stage of the exile comes when we are already back in our Land and yet we feel distanced from the Creator who has brought us back.

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We have created vessels of sovereignty and yet have never used them in the Divine manner they are meant to be used. Instead the world and especially us have been redirected to a world of products, which are in of themselves the means of distraction that has pulled most of us towards the abyss of endless darkness.

Rebbe Nachman teaches that excess brings depression and as we know depression leads to exile. Where does this excess come from. It comes from the lust after money and as Rebbe Nachman teaches it is this uncontrollable desire for money which in today’s world really means products that has kept us as a world from reaching the final Redemption.

China is the engine of the West’s ability to mass produce endless products. Do we need them?

No. But we want them. We want and we want and we want.

Now the engine is being taken away and with it the last mirage of the Exile’s power over us. This will be painful. Many things will change, but the corona pandemic is the weapon that is knocking down the statue Daniel saw in his dream.