I’m a teacher and I meet kids who don’t know what plants are. These kids have no idea where plants grow, what they eat, what they breathe and they’re afraid to touch the ground. But they have no problem clicking or talking on mobile phones, which pollute and emit radiation. Kids here know how to pound away at the computer from the first grade and that’s a problem. If kids can’t prepare food – let alone grow food – what kind of people will kids become? They’ll be detached from family, community and certainly from their neighbors.

When you live close to the earth, you become more modest. When you work in high-tech industries you aren’t modest at all; you’re very high up; you rule the world. So let’s put that back where it belongs. We have smart people who create wonderful, life-improving inventions but let’s channel those inventions toward positive needs.

Today, Israel is on a high-tech track, as though the future is figures and computers and robots. But we have nearly no water here; our oil supply is going to run dry soon; we have a problem with the Palestinians; we have a serious environmental problem with pollution and waste but everyone is entranced by high-tech, which is a kind of illusion. Yesterday, I guided a group to where we harvested crops and the kids hardly wanted to come to the field. They were scared of the field and the harvest. They were afraid of the bugs and weeds; they didn’t want to touch anything and I see that as a negative sign.