As the 20th Century saw the globalization and increasing interdependence among humankind, the need started arising for applying the laws of mutual guarantee to the entire world. The role of the Jews is to first implement this unity and provide an example of it to the world.

Mutual Guarantee in a Global World

In “Peace in the World,” an essay dating back to the early 1930s, Baal HaSulam explains that because humanity is interdependent, we must apply the laws of mutual guarantee to the entire world. While the term, “globalization,” was not as ubiquitous in treatises of his time, his words clearly illustrate his urgent need to make the world a single, solidified unit.

Here is Baal HaSulam’s description of globalization and interdependence:

“Do not be surprised if I mix together the well-being of a particular collective with the well-being of the whole world, because indeed, we have already come to such a degree that the whole world is considered one collective and one society…Therefore, the possibility of making good, happy, and peaceful conducts in one country is inconceivable when it is not so in all the countries in the world, and vice versa. In our time, the countries are all linked in the satisfaction of their needs of life, as individuals were in their families in earlier times. Therefore, we can no longer speak or deal with just conducts that guarantee the well-being of one country or one nation, but only with the well-being of the whole world because the benefit or harm of each and every person in the world depends and is measured by the benefit of all the people in the world.”

The Necessity of Practical Example Provided by the Jews

However, for the world to achieve that unity, that mutual guarantee, it needs a role model, a collective that can implement unity, and by personal example, pave the way for the rest of humankind. Because we Jews had already been at that point, and the world subconsciously feels it, it is our duty to rekindle that brotherly love among us, attain that singular force, and pass on both the method of unity and the attainment of the Creator to the rest of the world.

Rav Yehuda Altar describes the role of Jews in regard to the rest of the nations:

“It would seem that the children of Israel, the recipients of the Torah, are the borrowers and not the guarantors, except that the children of Israel became responsible for the correction of the entire world by the power of the Torah. This is why it was said to them, ‘And you will be unto Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’  …In truth, everything depends on the children of Israel. As much as they correct themselves, all creations follow them.”

In his essay, “The Arvut,” Baal HaSulam wrote,

“[The Creator said] ‘You shall be My Segula [remedy/virtue] from among all peoples.’ This means that you will be My remedy, and sparks of purification and cleansing of the body shall pass through you onto all the peoples and the nations of the world. The nations of the world are not yet ready for it, and I need at least one nation to start with now, so it will be as a remedy for all the nations.”

Rabbi Yehuda Altar, the ADMOR of Gur wrote,

“Any exile into which the children of Israel enter is only to elicit holy sparks within the nations. The children of Israel are guarantors in that they received the Torah in order to correct the whole world, the nations, too.”

As Rav Kook said,

“Humanity deserves to be united into a single family. At that time all the quarrels and the ill will that stem from divisions of nations and their boundaries shall cease. However, the world requires mitigation, whereby humanity will be perfected through each nation’s unique characteristics. This deficiency is what the Assembly of Israel will complement.”

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