The few real Tzaddikim in the world are really not like you and me.

They see and understand things at a much deeper level, and that means that they often do things that appear to be strange, or even ‘mad’ to outsiders, who don’t understand the spiritual level that the few real Tzaddikim in the world are actually operating at.

Recently, my friend sent me this story from Kochavey Or, which really sums up what I’m talking about.

I translated it below – it’s interesting for a lot of different reasons.

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First, here’s the original Hebrew:

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And this is my translation:

Kochavey Or, 46 – Moharan’s People

In Breslov there was one rich person who had drawn closer to the Rebbe, Zt’l, and he had an only son.

And he made a shidduch with him with a grand-daughter of the Baal Shem Tov, Zt’l. And when it came time for the nesuin (wedding), at that same time, one of Rabbenu’s children died.

And it was Rabbenu’s custom to sit shiva outside of the city, so he rented himself an apartment there, which had a garden in front of it.

Because he was in peak health, he took with him Reb Chaim Sarah’s, who attended to him there.

And behold, the rich person we spoke about earlier, about to travel to the chuppah of his son, came with [his son] to Rabbenu, to receive permission from him [that the couple could get married], and got [Rabbenu’s] permission, and then went on his way.

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That night, Rabbenu woke up from his sleep, ritually washed his hands, then send to Reb Chaim mentioned above, come with me.

And he went with him to the garden, and Rabbenu ran to and fro between the trees there, and this Reb Chaim became very scared when he saw this, to the point that his hair stood up on end.

While this was going on, Rabbenu came to him, and said to him was it revealed to you?

Because the Baal Shem Tov came to me, the ancestor of the bride, because he didn’t desire to have this groom, and he wanted to take the groom, and the bride would be alone.

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And when this Reb Chaim heard, he became even more frightened, and he stood…

[Something that seems to be Yiddish, that I can’t translate: וארכבותיו דא לדא נקשן]

And soon afterwards, Rabbenu returned to him another time, and said to him,

I influenced him [the Baal Shem Tov] that he shouldn’t take the groom; just, that they shouldn’t have children together.

And afterwards, they entered back into the house.

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And see, the following day after noon, Reb Chaim was standing outside and behold! He saw a special messenger from the parents-in-law running to the Rebbe.

And he told him that the groom had fallen ill on the way, and it was totally impossible, under any circumstances, to travel to the chuppah with him.

And so, they were asking [Rabbenu] to ask for mercy for [the groom].

And Rabbenu told him return on your way, the groom will be in peak health, and you will travel with him to the wedding, and erect the chuppah.

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The messenger immediately retraced his steps, and this Reb Chaim was very astonished on account of this, because he knew what had been done the night before.

And the wedding took place then, but the words of the Rebbe were fulfilled, where he told this Reb Chaim that they wouldn’t have children.

And this couple lived together, but children they didn’t have.

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After a few years, after the passing of the Rebbe, Rabbi Zvi Aryeh, the Moreh Tzedek of Breslov (who was the father-in-law of Reb Chaim Sarah’s) tried to get them to divorce, on account of the fact that his son-in-law, Reb Chaim, had told him the whole story, described above.

And the Rav himself, Rabbi Zvi Aryeh, arranged the get (bill of divorce) for them, and afterwards [they remarried other people] and both of them had children.

This story was told by R’ Zvi Aryeh, Z’l, himself.

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There’s lots to think about, isn’t there?

Imagine, this couple showed up at the door of one of the fakers today, that pass for most of our ‘rabbis’.

What do you think would happen next?

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And imagine, you saw a ‘big Admor’ today doing what Rabbenu was seen doing, running around a garden at night in the middle of sitting shiva for one of his children….

Who would believe that someone  like this was actually the spiritual foundation of the world, the ‘Tzaddik HaEmet’, the source of wisdom…. ?

And yet, he was.

As anyone who has ever really taken the time to engage with Rabbenu’s advice, and / or to visit his grave in Uman, can probably tell you.

Crazy stuff goes on in Uman.

Stuff no-one believes you about, if they haven’t actually been there themselves and also experienced the above-natural stuff that goes on routinely.

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Point is: there are 36, and some say 72, real Tzaddikim in every generation, including in our totally stuffed-up, deep, deep in-the-toilet one.

Probably, most of us have absolutely no idea who any of them are.

For sure, they aren’t selling their dad’s shtreimels for a cool $2 million, or pushing people to take experimental shots, or given fake psaks about how super dandy it is to donate all your organs, so your soul can NEVER find real peace, because not all of its body got buried properly….

More than that….

I can’t tell you.

But continue to think for yourself.

Because it’s the ‘crazy people’, the downtrodden people, the belittled and slandered people, who are really the biggest light in our upside-down generation.

And when you dive back into the history of Breslov; into the history of the Baal Shem Tov, and then the ARIZAL before him, and then Shimon Bar Yochai before him, and Moshe Rabbenu before him – you start to understand that it has always been this way.

Excerpt of a shiur given to Shuvu Banim in Bet Shemesh, Wednesday night, December 20th, 2023

(Part I – there’s a lot to translate here, and a lot of hints and allusions to what is going on right now. Enjoy!)

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….There are almond trees the whole route towards Ein Kerem.

Whoever travels to Ein Kerem, already from the first of Shvat, there are already lots of [blossoming] almond trees.

It was all Arab villages there, that they ran away from. They ran away without anything.

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They did a Davidka [a type of phony bomb, that ‘sounds’ like a bomb but actually doesn’t contain any explosive].

They took a cannon, and then made a noise. They didn’t have any cannon balls, they just made a big noise, like a nuke.

Everyone ran away!

In Haifa, everyone ran away. Pesach was on Shabbat, and on Wednesday everyone had already run away.

I was a child ten years old in 1948. I was born in 1938…. I got up at seven in the morning, and there wasn’t a single Arab in the city – everyone had run away.

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The Castel – this was the most strong fortress of the Arabs, the strongest place.

All the cars that got burnt [on the road up to Jerusalem] – it was from the Castel.

They ran away just like that, without firing a shot. When they came to conquer [the place], they didn’t find a single Arab there. Everyone ran away, everyone disappeared.

And it was also like that in Bido Village next to Shmuel HaNavi, and everywhere.

They disappeared – they found the food, the pans still on the fire. It was straight away….The soldiers hadn’t eaten for three days and then they had ready-made food.

So everyone ran away.

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Now, we are teaching them [the Arabs] to not run away.

This is what Meretz is teaching them. Now Meretz is actually against this war. They say, what is this war? What is this, it’s not our Land. Go away from here! Go to Johannesburg, go to the Victoria Falls!

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Now we saw [in the Hitchadshut Magazine] the photos of the Victoria Falls.

Have you been to the Victoria Falls? We were at the Victoria Falls, we were there. On the 10th of Tevet we were at the Victoria Falls.

Now, tomorrow, it’s the 10th of Tevet.

We gave over a shiur for an hour and a half [in 2015]. And here [in Israel], it snowed – a snowfall like there hadn’t been for decades. It was knee-deep.

There wasn’t electricity – only in the Homa HaShlishit there was electricity.

The whole of Jerusalem didn’t have electricity, except for the Homa HaShlishit. In the events hall there was electricity – for the hiloula of Rav Natan there was electricity.

And all the electricity fell. All the powerlines fell.

There was such snow, like you get in Siberia. People were walking in the snow up to their knees.

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[Skipping some. The Rav starts talking about how the Judge Gideon picked his army of just 300 men, to fight against the Midianites.]

Millions upon millions came from Midian – everyone fell in Emek.

They were [as numerous] like the sand on the shoreline, they were like the sand. And Hashem said to Gideon you don’t need so very many people.

He came with 32,000 [men]. Hashem said we don’t need them, send them home.

Who is the man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house...”[1]

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So from 32,000, there were 22,000 [men] left.

10,000 remained. [Hashem said to Gideon] Also 10,000, I don’t need. What am I meant to do, with 10,000?! Take them down to the stream. Whoever puts their head in the water is disqualified. Only those who scoop up water in their hand, and then lick it with their tongues – that person continued to be a soldier.

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Now, the soldiers said ‘Shema Yisrael’ [over the speaker system of a mosque in Jenin].

They kicked them out of the army.

It’s impossible to understand this. It’s an army [run by] crazy people, an army [run by] the mentally ill!

It’s impossible to understand this.

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So, only those who licked with their tongues, so they took 300 men.

They went to there, up against millions [of Midianites]. Like what happened at Chanuka, where 800 men remained [with Yehuda the Maccabee, at the beginning of the rebellion].

There were 3,000 men. Then they saw the elephants – everyone ran away. An elephant was a tank, it was impossible [to fight against] elephants. This is 25cm thick, this is more [armored]  than a tank.

This is more protected than a tank.

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Elazar [the brother of Yehuda HaMaccabee] went and the elephant crushed him.

There were five brothers. Rashi says 12, it seems maybe there were others who didn’t join in with the fighting, or together with Yochanan, with the brothers of Matityahu.

Because according to the Midrashim, Yochanan also had five sons – the father of Matityahu. And he had five, this is ten, and another two.

Rashi says in Vayechi this was 12. Now we will be reading Vayechi next week.

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[Skipping some].

So, for 26 years the Jews helped the Romans to conquer the world, to conquer Egypt.

After 26 years, so they came here – Pompey came here. He killed 12,000 [Jews] in one day.

Because of Horkanus. In Bava Kamma it’s written that Horkanus was inside and Aristobulus was outside.

There were two cute brothers, dafka so nice, with long payot down to their shoulders. One was called Horkanus, and one was called Aristobulus. So Rabbi Akiva explains there – R Akiva Eiger, we need to study Rabbi Akiva Eiger – that at the beginning, there was Horkanus inside.

This is the Gemara, Bava Kamma. After this, [Tractate] Menuchot 64, and Sotah 69, it’s written the opposite, that it wasn’t Horkanus inside, but rather Horkanus outside.

So really, […] says, this was the order: Horkanus was inside and Aristobulus was outside.

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There were two brothers, afterwards it changed around, in the end he went inside, glanced around, and Horkanus escaped outside.

And then, he brought Pompey.

He was in Damascus. They said he wouldn’t conquer Eretz Yisrael. It’s impossible to fight against the Jews. There was Yael, there was Devorah, it’s not possible to fight against these.

“The kings of the earth did not believe, nor did any of the world’s inhabitants, that the adversary or enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem.”[2]

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Yehuda [HaMaccabee] could kill 10,000 men in a single day, by himself, with his sword.

He didn’t use to get tired, he used to hold on to his sword and chop them up, he used to slice their heads off – of 10,000 men.

The last battle at Beit Tzur, he was fighting for 24 hours, and then he fell.

Because they were 100,000, and he killed 10,000 [of them]. He began at 7am and finished at 7pm – seven at night. And at seven at night, he fell.

Because, how much more was possible?

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This occurred because he made an agreement with the Romans.

The RAMBAN brings all this down, the RAMBAN brings it on Bereishit, Parshat Vayishlach. We’ll read the RAMBAN on Vayishlach.

So, the son of Yehuda, and the son of Yehonatan, so they went to make an agreement.

All of this is written in Parshat Vayishlach. We read it exactly three weeks ago.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Devarim 20:8.

[2] Lamentations 4:12

Shavua tov!

Lots to translate from the Rav this week.

One thing he apparently said that I wanted to flag in a short post now is that:

This war is going to last until at least Pesach.

That personally didn’t make me feel very happy, but it’s probably realistic.

(And of course, everything can always change around in the blink of an eye, depending on how much teshuva,  prayer and tzedaka is happening.)

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The other thing I wanted to mention is that Shuvu Banim are trying to arrange a new Sefer Torah to be written in the zchut of the fallen soldiers.

I will keep you posted, as and when I have more details, but I’m sure that’s going to be a meaningful project in a number of ways.

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And the last thing I want to say is that I would like to propose a twist to the ‘Bring Them Home Now!!!’ propaganda campaign we’ve all been inundated by, for the last three months.

Here in Israel, they are even printing: bring them home now!!! on the eggs.

You read that right.

Enough is enough.

If our government was making BRINGING THEM HOME NOW!!!! such a priority, they probably shouldn’t have done that extra-judicial killing of the Hamas Number 2 up in Lebanon last week, which torpedoed the talks with Hamas that were about ‘bringing the remaining hostages home now!!!!’

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I can’t stand the idea that between 12,500 to 20,000 of our brave soldiers are going to be left seriously permanently disabled, if this doesn’t stop now.

These are ‘conservative’ estimates from the Israeli government.

And that amount of permanently disabled also stacks up to at least 2,000 soldiers dying in this war, too.

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So, BRING ALL OUR SOLDIERS HOME NOW!!!

And enough with the propaganda that’s just trying to guilt and manipulate the Israeli public into encouraging the soldiers to stay away from their families, with more and more getting blown up and killed – while our government happily torpedoes the talks that actually could have brought the October 7th hostages home.

Enough is enough.

This week, I’ve been finding it really hard to sleep.

I keep waking up in the middle of the night.

It’s not the first time this happened – usually, it coincides with an uptick of ‘earthquake energy’ in the world.

While they are trying very hard to close down Dutchsinse, the earthquake forecaster I follow, he warned about the Japanese quake a week before it happened – and in comments he now removed, he also is warning that India could be in line for a big quake this week.

He’s not right 100% of the time, but he’s right enough that his warnings are credible.

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In the meantime, I am feeling kind of totally exhausted, spiritually and physically.

I’m just so tired of all the ‘lies’ and manipulation, and what I really would love to do is borrow ‘the wing of a dove’, and fly off to some quiet desert island somewhere (fully stocked with kosher food and kombucha, and 5 star air-conditioning and nice toilets. Of course.)

But as that’s not possible at the moment… I am trying to figure out more ‘coping strategies’ in the here and now.

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I’m still going with the tehillim for the soldiers – doing one of the ‘five books’ contained in the whole tehillim a day, as per the Rav’s instructions.

Yesterday, one of the acquaintances of my son-in-law took a direct hit in his tank, and was fighting for his life.

He’s still critically ill, but now seems to be out of immediate danger.

His name is YUVAL ben DEANA PAULINA.

Please pray for him – he’s 28.

His whole life is still ahead of him… (BH).

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Dafka, my kid told me this when I decided I was going to take a day off ‘in between’ completing books of tehillim – yesterday was the day off.

Saying tehillim every day is an effort… Recently, I was feeling a bit lazy and resentful about all the time it takes.

But now, YUVAL ben DEANA PAULINA has reminded me that even anglo housewives have a very important role to play in ‘keeping Am Yisrael’ safe.

If you slacked off on the tehillim – and I so get you, if you did – please consider going back to them again.

So many of our soldiers are literally having their hands and feet blown off in Gaza….

It’s so upsetting.

(The government here is now forecasting 12,500 – 20,000 soldiers will be seriously and permanently disabled because of fighting in Gaza…. And tachlis, for what?)

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But in the meantime…. ‘normal’ life has to continue.

I have to continue making shabbos, even though my interest in cooking has shrunk to almost nothing at the moment.

It didn’t help that my long-term butcher seems to have lost their regular supplier for chickens thanks to the war, and now is stocking only ‘Frankenchicken’.

A few weeks ago when I first saw those massive polkas busting out of their plastic packaging in the freezer cabinet, I already knew there was a problem.

I tried to get around it by buying the smallest bird parts I could find, so they look less ‘Frankie’, but they still taste weird.

And even my kids who usually argue against all my crazy ‘conspiracies’ with all their might gave the chicken a miss last week, because it looked and tasted ‘Frankie’.

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So, mince meat it is.

For the forseeable.

And if you have any good, healthy recipes for mincemeat that don’t take 500 hours prep, let me know.

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The truth is: we are actually doing better in our little ‘Rav bubble’ than pretty much anyone else I know.

There are 400,000 mothers in Israel currently not sleeping nights, because their kids are being sent into Gaza.

There are so many families struggling with parnassa, because the main breadwinner is being paid a pittance in the reserves – and it looks like all those billions of dollars fundraised abroad are not being directed to the people who really need it.

Quelle surprise.

Thousands of families are still ‘in exile’ in hotels – stuck in small rooms with multiple kids for three months already, and going totally and utterly nuts from the experience.

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So Baruch Hashem, I really have totally nothing to complain about, at all.

Baruch Hashem.

And every time I feel I might have something to worry about, I scoot over HERE and do a pidyon – even just a little one.

And then, I spend an hour a day trying to ‘get underneath’ what’s really bothering me, what’s really the problem.

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I did that this week with my tuning forks, and there was a lot of existential angst coming up.

A lot of wishing I could ‘escape’ from the madness that is this world, somehow.

But there is nowhere to run to…. except to Hashem.

And once I accepted that again – that everything that is happening is 100% under the hashgacha of Hashem, and 100% personally tailored to the soul-requirements of every single one of us – I started to feel much better and calmer again.

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This week, there’s been a strange vibe in Israel.

My kid summed it up like this:

We’re all waiting to see if Hezbollah was going to start sending a million rockets over the border, after the assassination of the Hamas Number 2 in Lebanon.

So far, they didn’t.

AND THAT IS AN OPEN MIRACLE.

Because everyone understands, that the ‘controllers in the shadows’ are desperately trying to ignite WW3 here in Israel – and they’ve been at it for years, already.

But things are continually being sweetened, on a super-natural level.

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There is still so much good, amidst the stress, fear and worry.

So many good Jews, doing good things, in so many good ways.

Even the secular people I know are starting to punctuate their conversations with ‘Baruch Hashem’ and ‘Bezrat Hashem’.

The ‘message’ is starting to penetrate, however slowly, that we really only have God to rely on.

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Let me leave you with this:

It’s another song from one of my kid’s very talented musical friends, called ‘MASA’ – the journey.

The chorus basically says this:

The journey itself is the real destination.

It’s a profound idea.

And basically describes what is going on right now, while we all keep holding our breath waiting for ‘the end’.

The journey itself – the teshuva itself, the changes we make in ourselves, the emuna we build, the mitzvot we do – this is the real destination, and the real point of what is going on right now.

Shabbat shalom.

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PS: This is a good article, and the headline basically sums up who keeps creating and ‘calling for’ all these wars:

Fake Intellectuals Working for Think Tanks Funded by the Arms Industry are Driving Support for War After War

Yup.

Just about covers all the bases in one sentence.

How’s that for a title?

What are the odds this post will get totally ‘whited out’ before anyone even reads it (as mostly happened with that post about the Alter Rebbe’s ‘missing’ daughter….)

Let’s find out.

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The story begins, as so many of these stories do, when I was going through some of the people who sit on the Supreme Court in Israel, and just seeing who they connect to.

I highly recommend you also get into the habit of checking the people making our news headlines out genealogically, as much as you can, because 99.9% of the time you will discover something amazing:

No matter if they are left / right, religious / secular, native / from chul, ashkenazi / sephardi – they are actually all from that same little group of families that have the entire State and Jewish world neatly sewn up as their own personal fiefdom.

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So, I’m tootling around, checking into a few things, when I suddenly come across a very famous relative of one of the Supreme Court justices, by the name of:

Asher Arieli.

Click the name, if you want to read more on Wiki.

Here’s a snippet:

Asher Arieli is married to rebbetzin Malka, the daughter of hagaon rabbi Nachum Partzovitz, the late rosh yeshiva of Mir.

Arieli is the son of rabbi Chaim Yaakov Arieli, author of Be’er Yaakov (באר יעקב). Chaim Yaakov Arieli was the son of rabbi Yitzhak Arieli, author of Einaim L’Mishpat (עינים למשפט) and mashgiach ruchani of Mercaz HaRav.

Rabbi Mordechai Ilan, the son-in-law of Yitzhak Arieli is Asher’s paternal uncle.

Reb Chaim Yaakov’s wife[1] is the sister of rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, as are the wives of rabbi Meshulam Dovid Soloveitchik and Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu making the three rabbis his uncles.

Asher’s brother rabbi Shlomo Arieli is the author of a critical edition of the novellae of rabbi Akiva Eiger.

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We’re back in that world of TREMENDOUS yichus….

Baruch Hashem.

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Anyway, so I start clicking around all these very, very closely related ‘gadolim’, to see what else turns up, and the one who takes my eye this time around is ‘HaGaon HaRabbi’ Nachum Partovitz, former Mir Rosh Yeshiva and Asher Arieli’s late F-I-L.

Ahh, the Mir Yeshiva.

It’s hard to know of a yeshiva that’s more prestigious, more awash in cash – and more in the middle of so many of the ‘dodgy’ things that keep turning up in all the family tree stuff I’ve been researching.

So, I take a closer look at the family of Nachum Partzovitz – and very quickly, I get to this guy:

R Shlomo HaKohen Vilnius – the CHESHIK SHLOMO.

Here’s a very interesting story about him on the DusizNies website, entitled:

When the “Cheshik Shlomo” The Popular Commentator on Shas, Presented a Sefer Torah to Theodore Herzl

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The CHESHIK SHLOMO is Mirrer Rosh Yeshiva Nachum Partovitz’s great-grand-dad.

Here’s a snippet from that very interesting story:

To give you an idea how great the חשק שלמה was… The Chofetz Chayim had his haskama on the Mishna Berurah!…

[This] Vilna Rav and Posik, opened the welcome mat and was right up front  greeting the founder of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, when Herzl visited the city of Vilna in 1903, on the 23rd day of Av, a year before Herzl died.

 The חשק שלמה who was well in his years, got dressed up in his Shabbos finest, and clutching a Sefer Torah walked over to the Zionist Leader and presented Herzl with the Sefer Torah as a gift from the entire Vilna Kehillah! 

The Rav who was a kohein then placed his holy hands on Herzl’s head and blessed him with Birchas Kohanim….

How does DIN know this?

We know this story from someone who witnessed the scene and described it.
None other than Rav Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg z”l, the author of the famous Shaalois Utshuvois famously called
שרידי אש

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(If you have time and you read Hebrew, I highly recommend you go back to the DIN site and read what R Weinberg says about that meeting, where the elderly CHESHIK SHLOMO apparently refuses to sit down in front of Herzl, and is weeping copiously while blessing him.)

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Of course, ‘Vilna’ is bang in the middle of the story, because Vilna is ALWAYS bang in the middle of every story you happen to tell, about the Jews returning to Eretz Yisrael over the last 350 years….

And you should also understand that the CHESHIK SHLOMO is a direct descendent of another very famous former Dayan of Vilna who we have written a lot about here on the blog, called SHABTAI HACOHEN, the SHACH.

(Who lost his mind after witnessing the pogroms of 1648, and turned into his alter-ego, false messiah SHABTAI TZVI....)

It’s always such a small world.

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There’s another very interesting comment on that post on the DIN site, which I want to share with you here, which may sound familiar, to anyone who has been following how the Sabbatean-Frankists were actually operating within the Jewish community, with regard to xtianity:

Herzl recorded in his diary during the spring of 1895:

“[A]pproximately two years ago, I wanted to solve the Jewish problem, in Austria at any rate, with the aid of the Catholic leaders there. I sought an audience with the Pope in order to tell him:

“Help us against anti-Semitism, and I will generate a mass movement of Jews to convert to Christianity freely and proudly.

“The leaders of the movement particularly myself will remain Jews, and as Jews they will call for the acceptance of the dominant religion.

On Sunday at noon, the conversion will be carried out with a festive procession and the ringing of bells. Not in shame, as individuals have done in the past, but with pride. The fact that the leaders will preserve their Jewishness and remain outside while they lead the masses to the church doors will lend distinction to the entire matter and invest it with a sense of great sincerity.

“We courageous ones would have to be an interim generation.

We would still maintain our ancestral faith, but we would baptize our young children before they reach the age of independent decision, a time when conversion to Christianity becomes either a frightening experience or a stepping-stone to a higher station”.

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This is EXACTLY the same route begun by ‘Jacob Frank’ (Eskeles) and his followers, in 1756…

And this is the guy that the CHESHIK SHLOMO (descendent of the SHACH….) is giving a Torah too, and a priestly blessing, while crying his eyes out and wearing his Shabbos finery.

Who could make this stuff up?!?!

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But there is of course still more.

(Remember, the CHESHIK SHLOMO is also the great-granddad of the Rosh Yeshiva of the MIR yeshiva… The Z-ists and the Mir appear to go wayyyy back.)

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If you take a look at this ‘Kohen’ family from Vilna on the HaMichlol site, who descend directly from the SHACH, you find some more illustrious names you may have heard of before – and some that you probably haven’t.

In the former list, as well as the CHESHIK SHLOMO, we can also include:

*RAV YEHUDA LEIB DON YACHYA – who we previously covered in more detail as being a leading member in a number of the secret societies sprouting up in both White Russia and Eretz Yisrael, including one called: NETZACH ISRAEL.

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Here’s another interesting snippet about him from the Seforim blog HERE, where you’ll find a very interesting article describing his ‘manifesto’.

DON YAHYA was another student of the Volozhin Yeshiva who had tight links to Kopust-Chabad, a bunch of ‘secret societies’ – and who was also a big pusher of the idea of returning to live in Eretz Yisrael:

What is remarkable about this manifesto that argues that Z-ism is totally compatible with traditional Judaism, is that the author, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Don Yahya, was an intimate student of Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik, a most outspoken opponent of the Z-ist movement.

To add to the intrigue, Don Yahya’s grandfather, Rabbi Shabtai Don Yahya of Drissa, had been an ardent Hasid of Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Lubavitch (known by his work of Halakhic responsa as “Tsemah Tsedek”)

Yehudah Leib himself would go on to serve as rabbi of the Habad Hasidic community of Shklov. Although, as we shall see, within the Habad community, there were differing responses to Z-ism along the fault line of the Kopyst—Lubavitch dispute.

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*RAV MEIR KARELITZ – older brother of THE CHAZON ISH – R’ AVRAHAM YESHAYA KARELITZ

Meir Karelitz married the CHESHIK SHLOMO’s daughter, MIRIAM.

==

*RAV ZALMAN ROTHBERG

Married a daughter of Meir Karelitz (i.e. The CHESHIK SHLOMO’s grand-daughter) and became a very big macher in the Litvak world in Eretz Yisrael, and Bnei Brak.

==

*RAV MOSHE MORDECHAI HALEVI SCHLESINGER – the MISHMAR HALEVI

Married a great-granddaughter of the CHESHIK SHLOMO.

==

*RAV NACHUM GREENHUIZ – one of the founders of MIZRAHI.

He married another daughter of the CHESHIK SHLOMO called CHAYA BRACHA.

Here’s an interesting footnote from his HaMichlol page, which we may have occasion to revisit another time:

The family’s original surname is LURIA and is attributed to the Holy Ari. The reason for the change of last name to Greenhuis is not known.

 

(I have a sneaking suspicion we just found another link-up with the censored ‘Lurie Legacy’….)

==

Point is, go to the HaMichlol page yourself HERE, see what other ‘big names’ in the Litvak world are very closely connected to this family of Vilna Kohanim who descend directly from the SHACH.

Because now, I want to introduce you to the JEWISH MEMBER OF THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD.

==

If we go back to the original CHESHIK SHLOMO HAKOHEN, from Vilna, the guy who was just loving the xtianity-pushing Theodor Herzl so much, we find he also had a son called:

RAV AVRAHAM YAAKOV HAKOHEN

Here’s a snippet – pay attention that he was the head of the main Vilna charity, and we know that a lot of ‘illegal funds’ were washing into Eretz Yisrael via the charities and gabbais of Vilna – and that the various ‘charity mafias’ were fighting over who got to control the money.

(Plus ca change).

After the death of his father, in 1906, he took his place in the rabbinate. He was a member of the Committee of Rabbis in Vilnius. He also served as the patron of the Central Fund of Charity in Vilnius. In his house, the charitable deposits were deposited as well as the salaries of the city’s rabbis….

In 1923, he and dozens of other rabbis from Poland and Lithuania signed a “call” to join the Mizrahi.

==

Avraham had a son called SHLOMO KOHEN – after his illustrious grandpa – who was learning with the CHAZON ISH, who found Shlomo-the-grandson his shidduch with the Chazon Ish’s relative, called: YAAKOV HALPERN.

OK, let’s take a quick break to explain a bit more about YAAKOV HALPERN, who was a descendant of that same SEDER HADOROT, YECHIEL HALPERIN, whose family tree has been so very messed around it.

I can tell you that the SEDER HADOROT is in the middle of a massive balagan, and for no obvious reason.

Always a reason to take a closer look.

==

So, let’s see what starts to unpick a bit more, shall we?

The following snippets come from the HaMichlol site HERE:

Haim Yaakov Halperin (1888 1964) was an ultra-Orthodox businessman and philanthropist, founder of the Zichron Meir neighborhood in Bnei Brak and founder of Torah and educational institutions.

==

Apparently, he descends from that same group of ‘Chortkov Chassidim’ that keep turning up in this story of Eretz Yisrael.

He moves to Amsterdam at the beginning of World War I – where he manages to make a ‘huge fortune’…. in some unspecified way.

Another snippet:

In 1921 he moved with his family to Vienna and continued his business. 

He was close to Rabbi Yisrael Friedman of Chortkov, who lived in Vienna. 

He made his fortune in banking and trading in ancient manuscripts. He was one of the largest donors of the Chachmei Lublin in Poland. He attended the first two major Agudath Israel gatherings in Vienna, his home city.

In 1933, he immigrated with his family from Vienna to the Land of Israel. 

Upon his arrival he acquired dozens of dunams in Bnei Brak, which was then a young colony.

==

The YISRAEL FRIEDMAN mentioned above is the grandson of the original RUZHINER REBBE, who is probably none other than MOSHE TZVI OF SAVRAN, main persecutor of R NATAN STERNHARTZ of BRESLOV.

MOSHE TZVI ended up having to flee Russia to Moldova, where he changed his name and became the RUZHINER REBBE.

So, the Chazon Ish used to go on holiday with the Halpern family, and he arranged a shidduch between Yaakov Halpern’s daughter Sarah, and SHLOMO HAKOHEN, the CHESHIK SHLOMO’s grandson.

==

YAAKOV HALPERN has a bunch of kids, and no doubt, a bunch more skeletons in the closet to explore.

(After a very quick look around his family tree, that appears to be an understatement – but one thing at a time.)

For now, let’s take a look at just two of his offspring.

One of his sons is called NACHUM YOEL HALPERN, who marries a lady called HADASSAH.

They have seven sons, and seven daughters. One of their daughters marries the Israeli Chareidi politician MEIR PORUSH.

Snippet about him:

His eldest son, Yisrael Porosh, serves as Mayor of Elad (elected in 2013). His son, Moshe, is the CEO of the family-owned Hamoser newspaper. His son Yaakov is the marketing manager, and his son Nahum (‘Nohi’) is the CEO of Agudat Yisrael’s kosher system, which is also owned by the family.

==

(You see? The whole country is stitched up, economically and politically, between the same families, from one generation to the next.)

==

Another of YAAKOV HALPERN’s daughters marries….ISAAC REICHMANN, the patriarch of the Canadian property billionaires who did a lot of things, including building CANARY WHARF in the UK.

(The Reichmann property company Olympia and York got sold to Brookfield Asset Management in 2005 – the same people who *helped* Jared Kushner with his 666 Fifth Avenue problem back in 2018.)

==

Tov.

I’m thinking this screenshot from 1994 probably gives you more of an idea of what is really going on here:

==

And if you have a bit of spare time, you can see this PDF of pics of the Reichmanns doing things like ‘bribing’ Spanish officials to let them send packets of food to inmates in German concentration camps during WW2, whilst somehow managing to make another huge packet of money during the war trading currency….

Whatever.

==

So now, back to YAAKOV HALPERN, super-chummy student of the CHAZON ISH, descendant of the SEDER HADOROT – and father of yet another interesting son called:

RAPHAEL HALPERN.

Snippet:

At the age of 15, [Raphael Halpern] went to study at the Hebron Yeshiva in Jerusalem. At the age of 17, he attended the Lumja Yeshiva in Petah Tikva. At the time, he was close to the CHAZON ISH and even corresponded with him.

In 1944, at the age of twenty, he married Tziporah, and the couple had five children. Immediately after his marriage, he worked in the diamond business, mainly in his workshop in Jerusalem.

At the age of 19, he began practicing bodybuilding.

 After two years of self-study in Palestine in 1947 he travelled to Amsterdam, Prague and Paris, where he first performed, and from there to tour Antwerp. 

In 1948 he was in Israel as a volunteer in the War of Independence. In late 1948 he went to train in Pennsylvania and New York, where he often appeared on television.

==

Yup, you are reading this right.

This student of the Chazon Ish and cream of the Lithuanian yichus crop became a professional bodybuilder, set up the first ‘Mr Israel’ competition (which of course, he won….) and then started wrestling professionally in the US with the WWF….

Who could make this up?

(Go HERE to see a pic of ‘Mr Israel’ at the WWF.)

==

As usually happens with these families, Raphael decided to open up a business selling glasses after he stopped pro wrestling – and of course, it was a smash hit, financially.

It’s still operating in most high streets today – Halperin’s the opticians. 120 branches and counting.

==

Then, he became a rabbi.

And wrote a big book of ‘Jewish genealogy’.

Oh – and also became an honorary member of the MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD.

Here’s another snippet from the HaMichlol site:

As part of his career he visited Shah Mohammad Shah Pahlavi and met with him, and according to his book became an honorary member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

During those years he wrestled in South Africa, where he became famous for being in a cage with a pair of lions for 5 minutes and receiving a lion cub as a gift.

In 1957, he founded an export company for Africa called Episco. 

While in Africa, he became friends with Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia. 

==

One more detail, and then we’ll  leave ‘Mr Israel’ alone.

One of his daughters happened to marry someone who became the owner of one of the most successful ‘chareidi news’ sites in Israel, B’Chadrei Haredim.

(Take a look at the extortion racket that site was accused of running, back in 2012….)

==

Let’s end with the Muslim Brotherhood.

This snippet comes from the Vigilant Citizen website – but use it as a springboard, to do your own research into how all these people are all connected to secret societies, whatever ‘the story’ happens to be, that they are telling the plebs like you and me:

The Muslim Brotherhood is a Masonic organization posing as a “Muslim fundamentalist” organization.

It is part of a Masonic project of infiltrating the Muslim world.

It is connected with terrorism and in fact pretty much all the modern terrorist groups that pretend to be Islamic (terrorism has nothing to do with Islam)…. pretty much all these groups are derived from the ideology of the ikhwan ul muslimeen (Muslim Brotherhood).

Al Qaeda, Daesh (ISIS), Al-Shabaab…. all these groups are ideologically derived from the ikhwanul muslimeen.

==

And to that list, I’m sure we can also add Hamas and Hezbollah….

==

Tov, we’ll stop there for today.

As always, think for yourself. And look behind the headlines, and beyond the ‘easy explanations’ and spin served up by the propaganda media.

Because then, you’ll really start to understand that all the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’ in leadership positions on all sides of our Jewish community – they are all connected.

And all just puppets, working for the masonic secret societies and the ‘one world religion’ they want to introduce, while we are all busy fighting each other.

====

A few years back, Rav Shalom Arush put out a catchy song.

***IMPORTANT UPDATES BELOW***

It was called ‘Or Emuna, or Gehinnom’.

I can’t find the original, but here is an updated version, from a couple of years ago, that gives the idea:

====

The basic idea, is that a person either has emuna – really believes in Hashem, and Hashem’s hashgacha pratit over every small detail of their lives – or they live a totally hellish life.

The last few months, this idea is coming into clearer and clearer focus.

====

A lot of people have been experiencing high levels of fear, anxiety, panic, depression, despair, sadness the last few months, here in Israel.

The ones who are making teshuva, at least on some sort of basic level, and bringing it back to Hashem, and understanding that God runs the world – those people are still suffering, but they are doing wayyyyyy better than the people for whom God is totally out of the picture.

====

Don’t misunderstand me – it’s still hard, even for people with emuna, and trying to have emuna.

Me and my husband went through a couple of months of feeling tremendous fear that our close neighbors down the street were going to try ‘Hebron 1929’ in the days after Simchat Torah 5784.

At that time, the army set up concrete blocks on Route 1 by the Old City, with soldiers with M16s trained on ‘the neighbors’ literally on the other side of the street.

It’s not easy to experience all this stuff, all this uncertainty, all this fear, day in, day out.

====

People I know started to experience what we figured out, with God’s help, were ‘panic attacks’.

But before we figured out it was panic attacks, the people we know were convinced they were about to have a heart attack from all the stress.

====

What turned that around?

A few things:

  1. Simply the understanding that ‘this is a panic attack, not a heart attack’.
  2. Taking the whole fear, the whole situation, back to God and telling God ‘It’s all in Your hands, Hashem!! We are totally powerless to do anything about this on the ‘physical’ level, but we are throwing ourselves on Your mercy, and we are praying that You will have mercy on us!”
  3. Total immersion in saying a whole book of tehillim every day for a month, as per the Rav’s instructions, and / or trying to get through 10 blatt of Gemara a day.
  4. Doing a pidyon nefesh on the ravberland.com site.

====

That’s what worked for some people we know, to get rid of most of the really bad panic and fear.

Other people we know personally are ‘secular’, don’t believe in God and didn’t follow this route.

Their panic and fear is now so big, they can’t stay in the country.

Or emuna, or gehinnom.

Emuna, or gehinnom.

Emuna, or gehinnom  – because if  you don’t at least try to have some emuna, then you are literally going to be living a life of gehinnom right now.

====

Apart from the fact that I live in Jerusalem, which is really helpful, as very few rockets get here, and it’s mostly been pretty quiet, Baruch Hashem and may that continue for a very long time, these are other things that are helping me cope with the tremendous stress of ‘war in Israel’:

  1. Totally ignore and avoid the news – and if you can’t totally ignore and avoid it, listen to it always in full sceptical mode, ready to catch all the lies and misinformation and stuff that just doesn’t make sense, logically.
  2. Spend a fair bit of your time acknowledging your real emotions, while talking to God every day. (Because whatever we try to ‘push down’ just has a habit of coming out either as ‘panic attacks’, other mental illnesses like depression, or even actual physical health issues.
  3. Following the instructions of the Rav – if he says ‘3 tikkun haklalis a day’ – do that. Or ‘learn more Gemara’ – do that. Or, ‘come and pray ma’ariv with me at least once a week down on Ido HaNavi – do that.
  4. Make more of an effort to up your game, spiritually – teshuva, tzedaka and prayer overcome the evil decrees, remember.
  5. And when it all starts to get too much – the shortcut is to pay a pidyon. (I am literally doing this every couple of weeks, for different members of my family, as the need arises.)

====

Or emuna, or gehinnom.

Pick what you prefer.

====

The last thing for today’s post, is that Baruch Hashem, I am really starting to notice that even at the grass roots ‘normie’ level of society here – more and more people are calling out the BS.

Like, yah, 5000 terrorists can cross over to Israel from Gaza and apparently *no-one noticed for a day* – but our army could still take out some Hamas big-wig in the middle of Beirut who was driving his car around yesterday, no problem….

Of course, exactly at the time when peace talks were on the table to bring the remaining hostages out of Gaza (if any of them are still alive….), and to get our soldiers back home safe and sound, without any more of them getting killed or their hands and feet blown off.

====

My feeling is, the charade can’t continue for too much longer.

The lies are getting too big, even for the world of lies.

But in the meantime, every bit of effort regular people like you and me make to have emuna will limit the amount of gehinnom we have to  live through, in the meantime.

====

And also, the amount of gehinnom our fighting forces have to go through in Gaza.

And if that doesn’t motivate us all to do what’s required spiritually – then I don’t know what will.

====

PS: Keep an eye on all the frankly totally disturbing stories coming about ‘organ transplants’ and other yuck things inovling the soldiers in Gaza.

Like THIS ONE, in Hebrew, on Ynet.

It’s about ‘pumping sperm’ out of dead soldiers in Gaza, and then encouraging single women in Israel to use that sperm to become single mothers…..

Who can make this stuff up?

====

This totally gross-making article is basically social-engineering propaganda.

The article talks about all this being ‘encouraged’ by an organisation called ‘New Family’.

HERE  is the Wiki page for that NGO, in Hebrew.

And here is a Google-translated snippet:

The organization works, among other things, to recognize civil marriage, including same-sex marriage, full recognition of publicly known spouses as married spouses, expanding parental rights through adoption and surrogacy, and expanding the right to the family through the use of medical technologies for fertility, such as egg freezing, sperm freezing, and arranging sperm donations of soldiers for the placement of offspring after loss of birth capacity or death.

====

New Family has this spiffy idea, where they want to replace a ketuba with an ersatz pseudo-marriage ‘certificate’ that they themselves produce, to ‘prove’ that the parents of any particular egg-meets-sperm are in a formal relationship – so they can get all the legal benefits that are otherwise reserved for people in a formal marriage relationship.

They’ve been trying to get this idea off the ground for over a decade, already, here in the Holy Land.

====

They  have one employee – the CEO – and whoever that person is, they are being paid a salary of close to half a million shekels a year, according to Guidestar.

====

Let me leave you with another Google-translated quote from that super-disturbing ‘story’ on Ynet:

To date, every request to extract sperm from a person’s body after his death has been made by court order. Since October 7, a lot of requests from spouses or parents seeking to extract sperm from men who had been killed in the [Gaza[ envelope, including at the Nova party and soldiers who had fallen in combat.
The courts have struggled to respond quickly, which is a very important element of the issue, since the window of time to obtain proper sperm is a maximum of 72 hours. Due to the circumstances, the Ministry of Health decided to update the guidelines and issued an hour-long order on the matter.”

That order, extended until the end of January 2024, allows hospitals to pump sperm from cavities at the request of family members without a judge’s order. “

====

You got that?

Even if you yourself DOESN’T WANT THIS TO HAPPEN, the medical industry in Israel can now extract all the sperm they want from your dead body, if you die in combat or during a terrorist attack, on the say-so of your mum. Or sister. Or cat.

And of course, you have absolutely no say in what really happens to all that sperm – because you are dead.

And the medical industry can of course be 100% trusted to only do what is ethical and correct with this most precious element of a human being – their ability to create life.

(Sarcasm: off).

====

Tatty, come and rescue us already.

This is starting to make what went on in the pandemic look like child’s play.

Yesterday, one of my ‘lawyerly’ friends sent me a few emails about what’s going on with the Supreme Court here in Israel.

It began with this:

🇮🇱 Political news: The supreme court have overturned the law of the Knesset to remove their power of not allowing laws based on “reasonableness”.

==

Then moved to this:

[1/1, 23:11] +1 (732) 994-3101:

*In First, Israeli Supreme Court Strikes Down Basic Law* (JNS) – Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday struck down the so-called “reasonableness law,” an amendment to a semi-constitutional Basic Law passed by the legislature earlier this year as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s now-shelved judicial reforms.

VINnews

==

Then ended with this, just after midnight Israel time:

Hoping that this is the beginning of the end of the SC https://www.inn.co.il/news/382899

====

I have no idea what that last article on the Israel National News side actually said – because it’s been totally scrubbed.

It’s even been ‘scrubbed’ from the 4 captures that was made of it as soon as it went up, on the WayBack Machine, below:

http://web.archive.org/web/20240101181714/https://www.inn.co.il/news/382899

And replaced with some weird infomercial piece about digital advertising from 2018.

====

I don’t what all this means – other than all our news is totally and utterly manipulated and controlled by people who don’t have the public’s best interests at heart.

But of course, you already know that.

====

UPDATE:

I got sent screenshots of the original post, with all the names of the judges.

I have a feeling that’s why they took it down – they get very unhappy about having those details ‘out there’ in the public domain, probably for a whole bunch of different reasons.

Welcome to ‘DEMOCRATIA’.

====

On a TOTALLY UNRELATED subject, and just as a private hobby, spend a few minutes trying to answer this question:

Which judges in Israel are graduates of the W£xn£r Fellowship program.

I have a feeling, you’ll learn a lot of interesting things that may help to explain more of what is really going on.

====

The last thing to say, is that America is behind all this stuff with the Supreme Court, and also behind all this stuff in Gaza and the ‘wars’.

Don’t lose focus, with all the fake news trying to persuade us that one side is the ‘goodies’ and the other side is the ‘baddies’.

Both sides are controlled by the masons, with the US masons the head of the snake, and with masonic puppets in place to pull the right levers and the right times, as directed by the secret societies who are really running the show.

Follow the money.

It ALWAYS traces back to the same sources outside of Israel, whatever is actually happening here.

====

We are basically witnessing two ‘mafias’ fighting it out to see who gets the pie.

None of these mafias are ‘good guys’, and they only continue to get away with what they are doing to the Jewish people because they are camouflaged by about a million ‘useful idiots’, who still haven’t learned that the news is manipulation and government-controlled lies.

BH, my readers are way smarter than that.

And most of us already know that instead of throwing all our efforts and energy and arguments behind either ‘mafia’ – we need to just concentrate on spiritual stuff that will help bring the geula the sweet way, and get all these evil cartels hiding behind notions of ‘democracy’ to destroy the world, to finally fall.

May it be speedily in our days.

Amen.

==

UPDATE 2:

Apparently, the piece got resurrected here:

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/382899

Maybe, it’s just me that’s being censored….

Who knows, at this point.

====

Well, 2024 is getting off to an ‘interesting’ start.

***UPDATES***

In Israel, ‘Hamas’ launched a bunch of rockets to coincide with the countdown to the secular new year.

Most Israelis don’t even pay attention to ‘New Year’s Eve’ – when you live here, you are totally immersed in the dates of the Jewish calendar, even if you aren’t living a religious lifestyle.

So, it strikes me that whoever is coordinating Hamas’ latest round of rockets has got way more of an eye on the xtian calendar, than the Jewish one.

But where I live, in the holy city – BH, it’s been mostly quiet, apart from that first horrible week of Simchat Torah.

====

It feels like no-one knows what is actually going on right now.

That’s probably good news – it probably means ‘the plan’ isn’t going to plan again.

We saw that during the ‘pandemic’, too, when all the threats, fears, green passports, track and trace, never-ending lockdowns, 5…..g lamp-posts – it all kind of faded away.

For no obvious reason.

Because it was all being sweetened at its spiritual source.

BH, that’s going on now as well.

====

The more people get behind the ‘Global Pidyon‘ idea, the faster and easier this is going to go for all of us.

But in the meantime, I am remembering what the Rav said at the beginning of the Jewish New Year, 5784, when ‘the evils’ barred his entry to Uman for Rosh Hashana.

He said that with God’s help, there wouldn’t be a war.

BUT, if there would still be a war, it would be ended by an earthquake.

====

In a separate shiur, he said that an earthquake would hit Eretz Yisrael, causing the mosques and churches to fall down.

====

Today, Japan got hit with a 7.4 (and possibly, even bigger….) earthquake and is currently on ‘tsunami’ alert.

2024 is getting off to an interesting start.

====

UPDATE: NEW PRAYER FOR THE RAV’S HEALTH

====

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

Please answer, the Merciful and Compassionate [One]!

Create for Rav Eliezer ben Ettia a new lung and a new heart.

As it’s written: “A pure heart Hashem created for me, and a true spirit He renewed within me.”

And I will merit by way of the lung blowing on the heart to have ruach nevua (a spirit of prophecy), to have ruach hakodesh (a holy spirit).

As it’s written in Joel 3:1:

“And it will happen after this, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesize. Your elders will dream [prophetic] dreams, and your young men will see visions.

“Even upon the slaves, and upon the maidservants – in those days, I will pour out my spirit.”

==

This prayer was written now – the Rav has serious pneumonia and is very weak.

====

UPDATE 2:

I had to break off, as we had a trip to Hevron planned, where it was quiet, sunny and actually really calm and gorgeous.

(I know bits of Israel are still being rocketed…. welcome to the ‘upside-down world’ starting to right itself, where ‘hot spots’ like Mearat HaMachpela are relaxing, while beachfronts all across the country are getting rocketed by ‘Hamas’.)

But now, I just continued reading that verse from the Book of Joel (3:1), that the Rav started quoting above, in the prayer he just wrote.

Here is how it continues:

“I will set wonders in the heavens and on earth; blood and fire and pillars of smoke; the sun will turn to darkness and the moon to blood [red],

[B]efore the coming of the great and awesome Day of Hashem.

And it will be that anyone who calls out in the Name of Hashem will escape.

For on the mountain of Zion and in Jerusalem, there will be a refuge, as Hashem said, and among the survivors whom Hashem summons.”

====

Interesting, that dafka this is the continuation oif the verse being quoted by the Rav.

All the prayers are literally chock-full of hints and clues, as to what is going on – and also, what to expect going forward.

====

UPDATE 3:

Strange to say, I am getting the impression that *someone* was expecting the Japanese quake to be way more destructive than it’s turned out to be.

Of course, we are so used to the lying media making every ‘natural disaster mole hill’ into a massive mountain these days, to keep spinning the ‘carbon zero’ narrative and climate change rubbish.

So who knows what is going on.

Here are some videos of the quake:

====

The one in Turkey almost a year ago was 7.8 – 2 points higher than this one.

But if you compare and contrast the footage from that one, the Turkey quake was WAY more powerful.

Just sayin’.