There is a seminal Torah teaching about speech splintering into 70 languages, the soul comprising 70 faculties, and the human family splitting into 70 nations. In the first essay of a three-part series presenting the meaning of these 3 interrelated subjects (here), we explored the concept of the 70 languages. In the second essay (here), we examined the soul and its conflicting faculties. In this final essay of the series, we chart a path toward world peace.
World peace is the grand prize sought by unity-seekers, a state of amity wherein all peoples cooperate for the universal good. Here, we chart a path toward that idyllic state founded upon our previous exercises in generating unity.
The route to universal oneness proceeds from the simple to the complex. Relentless pursuit of oneness, first in language, then in the soul, prepares humans for effecting oneness in the family of mankind, too. Firstly, oneness in word, a reinterpretation of common words understood differently by different people into the same hidden idea. Then, oneness in feeling, a conversion of the conflicting feelings inhabiting the soul into their shared roots. This same approach is then extended and applied to the realm of international relations.
To each nation its own unique sense of reality. Each people has its national “god” – meaning, a concept it considers most real, a core value. For one people, it might be power; for a second, love; for a third, kindness, etc. A nation with a certain history, geography and disposition will come to idolize power and consider it the most fundamental value underpinning all. This point of view will be reflected in its unique culture, in its philosophy, art and literature. This same uniqueness will also be a source of strife between it and other nations. Since the people’s sense of self – how it thinks of what it is – is defined by a concept other than the concept that defines the same sense of another people, its self-interest will end at its borders. Nation A has no self-interest in the success of Nation B. In its being and in its action, Nation A is power, embodied, while Nation B is love, and different entities have no self-interest in each other’s success. Nation A does not need the survival of Nation B for its own survival – and in geopolitics, that’s all that matters.
Thus, strife arises between nations, often war. If nations were united in their essence, they couldn’t be divided by invisible borders – but being different at their core, nations are disunited in their essence. Therefore, they compete in constant struggle. (Certainly, other sources of dispute exist, but those fall under the categories of disunities of language and feeling; here, we treat of disputes generated on the international level, and those are traceable to this bisection of national characters.)
How, then, are the diverse, mighty nations of the world to be united in harmony?
In order to reorganize into an almighty unit, we need to reevaluate what makes us different. The differences between nations cannot be eliminated – that would be an impractical course, also cruel – but rather must be reinterpreted in light of a unifying idea. For it is not the differences in national character that generate conflict, but rather the national self-definitions which result from those differences: the feeling that their respective characters make them what they are. That self-definition is a shallow sense of meaning, really a misunderstanding; when this misunderstanding is corrected, humanity will unite.
The requisite correction is to understand this: Power, kindness and love are not independent realities to be idolized. They are merely various shades of being; not truth itself, but merely portals to unknown truth. Nations – much like individual persons – require a path toward the unknown and ineffable, a means of relating, and therefore they develop a knowable and effable sense of reality, a national character. The portal a nation develops to truth is important and valuable – but is still merely a portal, a handle on an ungraspable abstraction. A nation should celebrate its essence as its unique way but must at the same time know that this essence is unessential, that its frame of experiences is but a means to sense X: that which lies beyond experience.
What is X itself? A limit unknown, only approachable; never attained, but only sensed. As an unknown, it lends itself to richer knowledge only through richer approach. For those who seek what is other than human experience, illumination lies in knowing other humans. “Others” have much to teach he whose self is an “other.” The more pathways toward the secret that one people incorporates, the deeper its knowledge. The nation that idolizes power might learn to appreciate the pathway of love as well. It will then cease to idolize power: It will neutralize its “god.” With this will end the idolization of the narrowly defined self that follows from idolatry and inevitably leads to conflict. As self-interest expands to include other peoples’ experiences, world-peace will take hold. Nation A will require the success of Nation B and vice-versa, since their respective successes enrich them both, and since the two nations are identical within.
Who will spread this secret teaching to the world? The great people who have learned to effect unity within their own speech and within their own souls. These trained world-unifiers will stand as a light unto the nations, and they will reassemble the broken family of man.
Concepts:
The Unity of Hashem/ה' אחד
Other Gods/אלהים אחרים
The 70 Ministers of the Nations/שבעים שרים
Sources and references:
Deuteronomy 6:4
Zephaniah 3:9
Zechariah 14:9
Nachmanides, Exodus 20:3