Spiritual Infantility

Last Friday, Jan 31, 2025, Nahum Barnea, not some fringe “influencer,” but the senior columnist in the country’s largest newspaper, wrote an opinion piece echoing something I wrote many posts ago about “no innocent bystanders,” as well as my reaction to the spectacle of the hostages’ return. Here is a translation of the relevant part:

“The photos are misleading. The crowd did not call for blood – it wanted to document the events. It was not so different from crowds at demonstrations, funerals, and celebrations. The danger is in the crowding, in possible loss of control. This is not an event that justifies calling the Gazan crowd “human animals.” [As many commentators and commenters did. – RK]
“There are no innocent people in Gaza,” Channel 12 commentator Almog Boker stated in light of the images. This statement has been repeated by many, including in the army, since October 7. I am not sure people fully understand where this statement is leading them: If there are no innocent people in Gaza, there are no innocent people in Israel. Children are also implicated, as are the elderly, even day-old babies. They are all potentially soldiers.
This is the basic thinking of terrorist organizations: it is permissible to destroy everyone, down to the very last. If we do not destroy them, they will destroy us. This is the view that Yihya Sinwar preached in the run-up to October 7. We all know where it led.”

In most of the mainstream media I encounter, though, I hear primarily emotional, moral, and spiritual infantility, characterized by:

• A sense of entitlement

• Seeing only one side

• Blaming

• Excuses and rationalization

• Victim mentality and taking offense

• Being locked into patterns of thought and behavior, regardless of their efficacy

• Justification oriented

Emotional, moral, and spiritual maturity, on the other hand, is characterized by:

• Desire for fair distribution of resources

• Deep, empathic understanding of the other side

• Taking responsibility

• Seeking root causes

• A sense of agency, and the ability to effect large changes

• Flexibility

• Results oriented

Developing these characteristics is the task of education and culture. In some areas, our collective does this brilliantly. But in the context of the conflict that takes such a high cost in lives and suffering, and threatens our very existence here, it’s not even on the agenda. On the contrary; somehow, in this area, such leanings are viewed as traitorous. Which is terribly frustrating, because only maturity can solve these tangled problems rather than shoving them under the rug to reemerge in a few years, or in the next generation.

Everything I do aims to develop emotional and spiritual maturity: Voice Dialogue, Ancestral Healing, Animism, Spiritual Mentoring. It’s amazing how consistently different people’s ancestors demand exactly that from their descendants. It’s usually in the context of our personal lives, not international relations, but the principles are the same. And they get results.

This is not to say that the only path to a healthy culture and society is through individual effort, that each of us individually needs to develop spiritual maturity in order to get there. It’s more circular – the more we strive for that, and support others in it, the more we experience those qualities around us, the easier it becomes to develop them ourselves, and also to expand their influence to more areas. Despite the messages from most of mainstream media, I’m encountering more and more people who are enthusiastically opening this field, by embodying it and supporting others. And what’s most encouraging is that, beyond the depth of frustration and grief, it’s so incredibly, surprisingly joyful.