There are three largely unknown teachings that Jewish civilization provides: a well-structured birth, controlled expansion, and a permanent struggle against decay. It lives through discipline consistent with common axiology, and the fulfillment of the same script by all, in order to create value, meaning, arts, thought, and economy of means. Beliefs, laws, and sciences generate a microcosm with its own dynamics, values, and truths, in a permanent overcoming, according to the slogan kadima ("Forward"). However, the constant need to overcome defines the specific areas in which it operates and prohibits the expenditure of energy in all others. These lessons cannot be underestimated.

Harappa, Minoan, Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, Anasazi, and the Maya are examples of civilizations that have died by committing a well-identified set of errors that are more counterproductive and harmful than natural disasters. The excessive expansion of borders and the multiplication of new objectives create an excessive number of enemies and the focus on their main objectives is lost. There is extravagance, along with excessive comfort, cities that are too big, more laws, more regulations, new institutions, and new officials. Increasing complexity drains a society's resources and, instead of helping to create value, it depletes it. This happens in the middle of the end of the sacred, of basic morality, of the family, as well as the erasure of history, criticism of the achievements and values of their grandparents.

Furthermore, wealth brings a taste for luxury, the pursuit of continuous entertainment, moral depravity, boredom, and an increase in suicides among the population. Struggles are not only external, but also internal and increasingly intense, draining the vital energy of elites. Groups begin to call the system corrupt and negative propaganda spreads throughout the population. The spirit is no longer one of construction, but of destruction. Even the birth rate succumbs.

A half a century ago, rat theory demonstrated how rodents, if placed on a stage with excess food, without goals to achieve through effort, without predators, to the point of not needing to fight, would lose their natural instincts, and the birth rate would reduce to zero. This is how a civilization commits suicide, dying first and being invaded later. The Romans should have foreseen what would happen to them.

Another factor that leads to the death of civilizations is tolerance for the stupid. No civilization survives when stupidity is first tolerated and then multiplies until it reaches the power of nations. The harmfulness of the stupid man is tremendous. The various categories of stupid people range from the simpleton to the vain, and from the envious to the failure who needs recognition by force. An old Portuguese proverb rightly proclaims that "if you want to know the villain, put a stick in his hand".

In a stupid society, the ruling class has neither the skills, nor the wisdom, nor the morality to plan and work well. Instead, it lives at the expense of the public budget and projects envy and resentment onto those who may have such skills. The stupid who thrive on manipulating the public always launch attacks, like rabid dogs, upon any citizen that can identify the social disease, as the system does not want new paths or new ideas. It only accepts more stupidity.

There is no longer room for those who philosophize in depth and create culture for all, because these are the errors in the code in the system. There will no longer be honest plans about the creation of wealth and cultural goods for all. Human happiness and well-being are impossible amidst stupidity, which creates nothing positive and even fights against those who do or can do so. This is how civilizations commit suicide.

A civilization that anticipates the future

Jewish communities worldwide are integral components of Jewish civilization. In the diaspora, essentially they have the missions of promoting religion, culture, and tzedakah (charity). They cannot be established and maintained without regularly nurturing an almost sacred respect for the empirical reality we referred to above. Creating a Jewish community is not about bringing together, in discomfort and uselessness, people whose only common factor is their Jewish nature. In an Israeli prison, there are certainly many people of Jewish nature who would not be qualified to create a specialized and successful organization in the areas of religion, culture, and tzedakah.

The author of these lines witnessed the revitalization process of a Jewish community. Its long history has seen periods of prosperity and ruin, expulsions and bonfires, rebirth and again death, through the "Portuguese Dreyfus" case. The community rebuilt itself in the 21st century, largely guided by the teachings derived from the history of civilizations. Religion and culture were reborn, the latter at a world-class level, and tzedakah (charity) was employed to such an extent that it thwarted any possibility of the "woke state" engaging in the habitual plunder that history so vividly records.

The most astonishing thing about this process of revitalizing Jewish life was the analysis of the evolution of the philosophy of power of the surrounding society, which followed the exact path of nations deliberately dedicated to ruining themselves under the control of stupid, super-stupid, good-for-nothing, and vicious snakes. A spitting cobra is a type of snake that can spray its venom. Instead of just biting, they eject venom toward a target's face.

In a case of collective suicide simultaneously perpetrated by representatives of the four major powers associated with a "Rule of Law" that boasts of the so-called "separation of powers," a state scheme was witnessed that aimed at stealing not only the community's assets, but also the value of its collective work and the very religious beliefs of the people who led it, in a scandalous violation of so-called "religious freedom." The perpetrators of this feat mocked the organization and culture of the country's strongest Jewish community (undermining the so-called "freedom of association"), invaded the synagogue and the museum against all laws and marking them with the stigma of suspicion, and also entered the home of Dreyfus's granddaughter, humiliating her as they had done to her grandfather in the past. Lists of Jews followed in newspapers, something only seen during Nazism and the USSR, and the spread of anti-Jewish hatred in a state that claims to be engaged in the "fight against discrimination."

A Jewish community knows well how to respond to the system in due time. As strange as it may seem, the system itself will be penalized for all of this, not people A, B, and C who are not to blame for living in such times and needing a salary to survive. The relevant topic for the purposes of this article is society, as apparently it is common for representatives of the four major powers to be sitting on the same war tank, all following the same direction, even if it is towards the precipice. If a Jewish community has to go through this, then one can imagine that many victims who could not defend themselves have already been destroyed in similar schemes in the more or less recent past.

The crossroads of civilizations

Jewish civilization is destined to survive with its shared history, language, culture, legal code, customs, and connection to ancestral land, uniting people of different ethnicities and origins. It is foreseeable that the Sinic/Confucian (China, Vietnam, Korea), Hindu (India and surrounding region), Buddhist (Central and Southeast Asia), Japanese, Persian, and Islamic civilizations will also survive, as well as what remains of the Judeo-Christian civilization (the collective West and Eurasia). Anyone who does not integrate into one of these civilizations will use his so-called "freedom" in a very reckless way.