It’s true, that things are pretty scary at the moment, for many people.

Especially in the mercaz, or centre, where there are a lot of booms being heard and a lot of strange things occurring with buildings being blown up…

Yesterday, I was awake before the siren at 4am in Jerusalem, and what I heard was: planes, booms, the siren. In that order. I’ve also been pondering the strange fact that a rocket can travel all the way from Iran to Israel, and not set off a siren until it’s literally on top of its target, or already blown it up.

But that’s not what I want to focus on today.

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Today, I want to bring some snippets from OIAG 2, where it talks about how saying the Tikkun Haklalis sweetens everything, even nukes (ahem).

The following snippets are from shiurim given at least 11 years ago – but so, so relevant, perhaps even more relevant, today.

The first snippet comes from the chapter entitled ‘Zimbabwe’:

In one of his lesson given during Purim 5774, the Rav said the following:

“Why have we still not managed to rebuild the Temple? Because if we built it now, it would just immediately burn down again. At the very moment that a person came to the Temple thinking bad thoughts, it would burn down. People don’t know that their thoughts [particularly their lustful thoughts] are like the fire of Gehinnom. Every time you look at things that you shouldn’t—that’s the fire of Gehinnom. A person can burn down the Temple literally every second.

That’s why Rebbe Nachman taught that a person has to be very careful to avoid evil [lustful] thoughts… And he can only overcome these sorts of lustful thoughts by learning Gemara, as Rebbe Nachman taught in Likutei Moharan Lesson 101 …

==

… In another month, they [the Iranians] want to drop a nuclear bomb on us.

We’ll have exactly five minutes [from the time they press the button] because it will have to travel 1,500 kilometers to get to us, and their rockets cover a distance of five kilometers every second. Three hundred seconds is five minutes. So assuming the warning siren goes off immediately, there’ll be just enough time to say the Tikkun HaKlali, or at least some of it.

Just reciting a single Tikkun HaKlali has the power to explode every nuclear bomb in the world, and to change everything into candies. [Meaning, to ‘sweeten’ everything.]

At every moment, we are facing terrible decrees, like the decree to forcibly enlist yeshiva students.

Every day, we hear of more problems, and all this is only happening because of evil thoughts and lustful fantasies. That’s the reason it’s happening! Rebbe Nachman taught that the first priority has to be tikkun habris, and that’s the main focus of Breslov and the main focus of Shuvu Banim: to have holy, pure thoughts.”

==

There is literally nothing new under the sun….

It’s the same ‘spiritual battle’ being fought today, as was happening 11 years ago. And even, the same people still fighting it.

==

Meanwhile, here’s another useful snippet from OIAG 2, this time talking about what was going on back in July 2014, in the middle of Operation Protective Edge, when thousands of rockets were raining down on Israel from Gaza:

The Rav told Rav Morgenstern: “Now, we will see big miracles, and no Jew will be killed anymore. I believe in you, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir; the tzaddikim have the power to ensure that no Jew will be killed anymore, and that people will do teshuva because of the war.

That’s how it was in 1973, in the Yom Kippur War, that the Jews did teshuva, and all the baalei teshuva came from 1973.

Now, in this war, all the Jews will also do real teshuva. Once, wars meant that we would just kill some terrorists. Now, they are firing rockets at us, and they have mountains of rockets without number, and they are building tunnels underneath Israel.

Now it’s time to go pray at the Kotel and Chevron and at Rashbi’s Kever, and to storm the heavens with our prayers, that no Jew will get killed. No Jew! No Jew! No Jew!

==

The most important thing is to stop the war, and the rockets that are falling every day.

We have to stop it. More than 20 Jews were killed in this war…They sacrificed themselves for Am Yisrael, and even though they weren’t mitzvah-observant, and they didn’t keep Shabbos, and they eat on Yom Kippur and don’t fast, the secular world really doesn’t know any better.

The Jews that are walking into the fire now, they’re sacrificing themselves al Kiddush Hashem, they’re walking into the fire.

And we don’t have any idea who is sacrificing themselves for Am Yisrael. They could have dropped out of the army and done other things, but they are going with all of their enthusiasm, simply in order to save Jewish lives. And now we need to pray to stop the war.”

==

About a month after rockets started raining down on Eretz Yisrael, one of his followers contacted Rav Berland to ask him if he had any words of wisdom, or chizuk, to share about the rocket attacks.

The Rav said the following:

“Tell everyone not to be afraid, and not to start running away from one city to the next.

As soon as the siren sounds, take your Tikkun HaKlali out of your pocket and start to read it slowly, word by word, and if you do this, you have nothing more to worry about, and there will be miracles, with God’s help, and the rocket won’t fall anywhere near you.”

….During Operation Protective Edge, the Rav told his students to publicize the segulah of reciting the Tikkun HaKlali to as many people as possible and revealed that if 10,000 people would start to regularly recite the Tikkun HaKlali every day, no more Jews would be killed in the current war.

==

This is so, so relevant to what is going on today.

The Arab family in Tamra were all killed in their mamad.

Yesterday’s attack on the building in Petach Tikva – so many of the dead were killed in their mamad.

Mamads are not guarantees of anything.

So, get a copy of the Tikkun Haklali – and start saying it.

At least once a day, three times a day, if you can manage it.

The take away message from this post is that more than ten years ago, the Rav said this:

“As soon as the siren sounds, take your Tikkun HaKlali out of your pocket and start to read it slowly, word by word, and if you do this, you have nothing more to worry about, and there will be miracles, with God’s help, and the rocket won’t fall anywhere near you.”

==

It’s still applicable today.

Only fear Hashem!

I will write more tomorrow, bH.

If you feel scared, say 3 TKs, do a pidyon, talk to God.

God is arranging all this, for our ultimate good. But in the meantime, its not an easy time.

More tomorrow, bH

I got sent an ‘anonymous’ article via email.

I decided to put it up here, to get the discussion going about making aliya and the sort of mindset, emuna and genuine humility a person usually has to develop, to not hate living in the Holy Land.

Let’s be clear, much is being said in the following article that I disagree with, personally. But, I believe in a full and open discussion, and I think it’s useful to have opposing views expressed, and challenged – on both sides of the argument.

So, on that basis, here is the ‘guest post’ written by someone who is apparently living in Israel, still, but has now gone very sour on the idea of making aliya. I will write my response later, in a seperate post, but feel free to also participate in the debate about aliya – BUT, try to avoid making personal attacks. The process of birur is difficult, and needs to be conducted with due respect for people who have different opinions, even if they are totally wrong.

==

Aliyah is a particularly difficult immigrant experience, especially for the baal teshuvah

Immigration to any country is difficult, but immigration to Israel is even more difficult because it’s a very strange and troubled place. How so? For starters, it’s a new country that was formed via war and continues to endure military conflict even if much of that is its own doing. It sits in a region that is hostile to it (for a variety of reasons) and to which it is hostile (for a variety of reasons) and is very different culturally from the kind of place it tries to be.

It tries to be some kind of cholent of Western European/Eastern European/North American culture and politics cooked along with Jewish potatoes. But mostly it fails. Meanwhile, the countries around it are Islamic Arab. It’s quite a contrast. Israel  would be a contrast to the countries of any region. And that contrast creates problems galore and drains the limited energy and resources of the country and the people who live in it. 

France is a Western European country that sits in Western Europe. Japan is an East Asian country that sits in East Asia. Uruguay is a Latin/Hispanic country that is positioned in South America around other Latin/Hispanic countries. If you go from Japan to South Korea you don’t feel like you are entering a new world. You see those Asian characters on the store signs. You see people who are indistinguishable visually from those of the country you just left. It’s the same with France and Belgium and Bolivia and Peru. The sign says Bienvenidos a Peru (Welcome to Peru) but you don’t feel as though you have just passed through a time and space portal when you leave Spanish speaking Bolivia and enter Spanish speaking Peru. That’s because all of these countries emerged naturally.

Not so Israel. Israel would be an anomaly in any region, but in the Mideast it produces head scratching bewilderment: “Where did these guys come from?” Not that you are even permitted to travel from several of the neighboring countries such as Lebanon and Syria. But if you go from the ones where relatively recently permission was granted — Egypt and Jordan — it IS like passing through a time and space portal. Even the language spoken in Jewish Israel is different from every country around it, and it’s a revived language that was largely dormant as a language spoken by the masses for millennia. 

That leaves you in a tiny little space, half of which also happens to be off limits. You drive along in Israel and see signs informing you that it’s dangerous and illegal to turn right and drive down the road before you because it’s Area A or B as defined by the Oslo Accords. That is to say, it’s an Arab village as governed mostly by the Palestinian Authority. You can’t go there. And then there’s Gaza, 20 miles from my house, that is run by Hamas and presently is a pile of rubble. How close is Gaza? I hear the Israeli bombs exploding every day. I hear them from my bedroom. 

You even tremble passing through the Arab villages that are within the legal limits of the state of Israel proper, as happens in Jerusalem or the north of the country. So much of this tiny little country is off limits that you can’t help but wonder, “What do they mean that this is home?” Which three square centimeters of this place is home? 

You start to feel like a monkey on the monkey island at the Biblical  zoo. This makes for a very weird and draining life experience. As a result of its own struggles for survival, there is little in the way of support for the immigrant. In Israel, the immigrant is on his own. Don’t let the con artists at Nefesh b’Nefesh fool you. They put on a big show to get you here, but they disappear after that. You are on your own. 

And don’t plan on the Israelis coming to help you. I have lived here in two apartments over the span of a decade. In the first building, the Israelis never had us over, even though they saw our aliyah lift in the parking lot. I never stepped foot in any of their apartments. In the second building, we were hosted for Shabbos once by an American family. 

We are not unfriendly people. We have hosted people for meals as well as yeshiva and seminary students for sleepovers, even though we don’t have much room. (They sleep on the floor on air mattresses. It is much harder to be hospitable in Israel.) We invite, but are not invited. 

You want a ride? “Sorry, we don’t have room in our car.” 

Israelis also don’t help with Hebrew. I requested many times for help with translation of business documents. The best I ever got was a quick glance with five or six words of description. “It’s from the iryah. Something about arnonah.” That’s not very helpful when they don’t even translate the key words. Iryah is city. Arnonah is local tax. 

And that’s the Israelis who speak any English. Most do not. One of the aliyah evangelists who lied to me as they all do assured me that nearly all Israelis speak English. It’s hard to fathom the basis for this statement. Where he lived, maybe 5% speak any English, and he didn’t speak any Hebrew as he only retired  here as do many of the most ardent evangelists, hypocrites that they are! Maybe he satisfied himself with the handful of Anglos in his shul and irresponsibly projected that outward all for the cause of aliyah evangelism. For some reason, and you can theorize, people cast off the burden of responsibility when pushing aliyah. All rules of good counsel are ignored. You don’t have to make sense, you don’t have to be accurate, not even about healthcare which is grossly inferior in Israel. Just get them to Israel. That’s the attitude. [Side note, I speak of this man in the past tense because he died as a result of not getting immediate medical care after suffering a stroke, as he lived one hour from a hospital.] 

The line that the aliyah evangelists use and overuse is that Israel is home because on some theoretical level it’s “the homeland for Jews.” But what that really means is that 2,000 years ago, when the world was an entirely different place, it was home, and after Moshiach arrives, when the world will be an entirely different place, it will be home again. In other words, it’s not home now. It’s not even close. In some vague, abstract way it’s a kind of promised home. It’s the promised land. It’s a some day kind of thing. It’s not now. It’s like Moshiach. He’ll be here someday, but he is not here now. And Israel is not home now. 

In addition to the national divide in the region, there’s the cultural divide within the Jewish portion of Israel. I have never been in a society where there is more cultural discord. Every day, every Israeli newspaper rants derisively about Haredim. In America, I had a boss who used to say to me, “Don’t you have to leave now for the Sabbath?” And Israel? Let’s not even get into it. There is such hostility. Strangers have walked up to me on the street and confronted me about Haredim and the army. Fortunately, since my Hebrew is so weak, I can’t really respond, which saves me from another enervating battle. In America, there is overlap between Haredim and the Modern Orthodox. In Israel, there is a canyon. Even my Dati Leumi coworkers have attacked me about all kinds of subjects. “I blame your rabbis!” shouted one who doesn’t see the Roshei Yeshiva or Admorim in Eretz Yisrael as having any credibility or value. To him, they practice a different religion.

The reverse is also true, the religious people complain constantly about the non-religious. The animosity is palpable. It’s much worse than Democrats and Republicans in America. Here the different groups are like different societies, within this tiny little country half of which is off-limits. They say that Israel is roughly the size of New Jersey. Half of that is uninhabitable desert. Half of the remainder is Arab. The frum part is like a small county in Vermont, if even that big. That’s your whole world. If you are American or Canadian, you just went from millions of square miles to a half-hour drive. 

 

 

Another great shiur from the Rav, that puts today’s events into their real historical context.

I’ll have a few more words to say, below.

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Excerpt of a shiur given on 14th Iyar, 5785, to a group in Tsfat

[The Rav is talking about Bat Yiftach, who ran out of her home to greet her father, Yiftach, who had made a vow that he would sacrifice to Hashem the first ‘thing’ that would greet him on his way home, if he was successful in his fight against the Ammonites, who were trying to claim some of the Kingdom of Israel’s territory. The Rav says that Yifatch wanted to immediately go and nullify his vow, but his daughter wouldn’t let him do that.][1]

==

Where did she learn this?

Yiftach tore his clothes, what did you do to me?! He said, I’m going now to release myself from the vow.

[But his daughter said] No! You are not going to be released from the vow, I don’t let you. She was stubborn, so stubborn. Father, whatever you said, you should do it, whatever came out of your mouth.

Afterwards, [Hashem] took such revenge, He destroyed Ammon.

==

Because Ammon wanted the shtachim [colloquial Hebrew often translated as ‘occupied territories’ in Western media] returned.

Whatever you want – just give back the shtachim (that Am Yisrael had conquered from them).

They wanted peace! They were ‘men of peace’.

==

Now, Trump came (to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates).

He’s already prepared to give them two states, everything.

Already, they’re talking about that he’s ready to give everything to the Arabs, he wants Saudi Arabia, he doesn’t need Israel.

He said, the Arabs are more important. There are two billion Arabs, and the Jews are five million.

==

“And now Hashem, the God of Israel, has driven out the Amorite because of His people Israel – yet you would possess it? Surely, whatever your god Chemosh lets you possess, that you shall possess; and whichever [people] God drives away before us, that [land] we shall possess.” (Shoftim 11: 22-23.)[2]

==

He said, give back the shtachim!

You’ve already been sitting on it for 300 years, this is not your land! You stole our land from us!

Already back then, they were talking about returning the ‘occupied territories’.

==

[skipping a bunch]

So now, the son of Aviah, he is the Melech haMoshiach, and he will bring the geula.

And then moshiach will hide himself nine months, they will rule here. This is only going to be in 200 years.

200 years, they will destroy Jerusalem, and for nine months, they’ll need to escape to the desert.

Moshiach ben Yosef will have to die, and then, Moshiach ben David will come, and after that, there will be nine months of birth pangs.

Nine verses, against the nine months.

==

This will be in the 70th  year of the sixth millenium.

We will being the Otiot (letters) of Rabbi Akiva, he said the year 93.[3]

Here [at the end of the Zohar on Parshat Balak] it’s written the 70th year, but he says the year 93. That is to say, that 93 then will be the true geula. Because in the Pirkei De Rabi Eliezer it’s written that it will be 28 years before the end of the sixth millenium [i.e. 5972].[4]

There is the Pirkei De Rabi Eliezer here, this is chapter 28.

==

We need to wait.

Whoever merits to still be alive in 200 years, so then he will merit to see the Moshiach, for sure.

Now, it’s possible [moshiach] could come today, Pesach Sheini, but the latest possible time is another 200 years. All this is written in chapter 28, in the Pirkei De Rabi Eliezer.

Each person should buy this, it’s 10 shekels.

So, chapter 28, two yadot, two yadot, this is two thirds.

==

Each hour is 41 [years] and eight months.

42 [years], two thirds [of this] is 28 years. Two yadot.

==

He [Avraham Avinu, when he was performing the brit bein habetarim) saw the eagle coming, so then he said no, eagle – this is David HaMelech!

David HaMelech wanted to conquer the whole world, already, and to remove all the evildoers.

He said no. Now is not the time.

==

Otiot R’Akiva said, when will be the time?

Vav-Tzadi-Gimmel.

What is this,   ו-צ-ג

Let’s bring now the Be’er Moshe, what is this? What is all this, vav-tzadi-gimmel? Why is it written ‘70’ and here it’s written another 28 years?

From today, this is 308 years, if it’s from today, it’s another 300 years.

So the Be’er Moshe explains all this, the Rebbe of Ozorov, Yechiel HaLevi Epstein, the Admor of Ozorov.

He died on the 1st of Shevat, 5731 – 54 years ago.

==

Here, he explains what is the vav (6) thousands, tzadi-gimmel (93).

Nobody knows how to explain this, how the 93 is relevant, but it’s a simple thing.

2140 we left Mitzraim. 2140 – Parshat Ve’etchanan, after 40 years from 2140 until today, this is 3605. This is exactly 515 times seven, all of Moshe’s prayers, these were for seven years.

Translated from Shivivei Or 409.

==

FOOTNOTES:

[1] You can read the full story of Yiftach in Shoftim, 11:1-39.

[2] Part of the speech Yiftach made to the Children of Ammon, before he went to war against them.

[3] Otiot of R’ Akiva, letter Bet. 

==

Ad kan, from the Rav.

When I read the part about the timing of Moshiach coming, I found it very hard to understand.

What is the Rav saying, what is he talking about?

After pondering it some more, I realised that the Rav was explaining that even amongst massive rabbonim, who really do know their stuff, when it comes to kabbalistic formulations and interpretations – nobody knows for sure, when geula is happening.

Nobody knows for sure.

Nobody.

==

One good thing about the ‘world of confusion’ we are all currently living in, is that more and more people who used to hang off every statement from ‘youtube rabbis’ are starting to be more wary of listening to ‘predictions’ about geula.

This is so helpful, because ‘predicting geula’ is/ was a favorite pastime of kabbalists with sabbatean leanings – and also, evangelical xtians, with their own obsession with bloody apocalypse and ‘end times’ revelations.

By contrast, Breslov and Rabbenu have always put the focus on the individual working to overcome their own bad middot and lack of emuna, to enjoy a ‘personal geula’ in their own lives, regardless of what is going on more widely in the world.

Going forward, that is the only sensible, useful derech to follow.

==

If you are suffering, if you are in pain, if you find it very hard to live in this difficult world the way things are, at the moment, the first thing to understand is that:

Most thinking, sentient people are feeling exactly the same way, right now.

You are not alone.

Suffering is a common condition for the whole of mankind, one way or another.

==

So then, the question becomes:

What are you going to do about it? To alleviate your own, personal suffering?

How are you going to take responsibility for your life, and for your experience of it?

What do YOU need to change, work on, accept, fix, particularly spiritually, in order for things to start getting better for you, in the here-and-now?

==

After all, God is doing everything.

And it’s all for our ultimate good, even the stuff that is so very painful and horrible to deal with.

And everything is just a ‘message’ from God, about what we, you and me, need to acknowledge, work on, and try to fix.

With God’s help.

==

Evangelical xtians and sabbatean thinkers would of course disagree with all this.

To them, the one answer to fixing the world’s problem is for the moshiach to come, or ‘come back’, and do all the spiritual heavy lifting required on behalf of everyone else.

When someone is just repeating over and over again: we want moshiach NOW!!! we want moshiach NOW!!! we want moshiach NOW!!! – what are they really saying?

They are saying:

I don’t want to take spiritual responsibility for my own life, and the mess my own dalet amot is in. I just want some ‘moshiach guy’ to show up, wave his magic wand, and fix it all for me.

==

This is the essence of xtian belief about ‘moshiach’ / Yoshki.

It’s the antithesis of what authentic Judaism teaches.

==

Tachlis, if you want things to be nicer in your own world, in  your own experience of life, while God is doing whatever God is doing, with bringing the geula, then take responsibility for yourself.

Invest an hour of your time into doing hitbodedut, the single biggest present a person can give themselves, spiritually.

Book a trip to Uman (I was there a couple of months ago, it’s as safe as anywhere else – Israel also has a war going on, remember?)

Learn about the power ofpidyon nefesh with a True Tzaddik, the one in a generation, and do the experiment yourself, see what happens.

Stop relating to yourself as a ‘victim’, and instead understand that we are ALL down here, because we have really bad middot we need to acknowledge and fix.

And most of our suffering is a direct result of the consequences of our bad middot.

(What isn’t, what is left over from tikkunim from previous lives – that’s where the pidyonot come in.)

==

People don’t like to hear this, I know.

It’s a free world, of course.

You are free to totally ignore all this, stick your fingers in your ears, and just carry on chanting we want moshiach NOW!!!

But, if you’ve had enough of suffering and feeling so horrible all the time, and you aren’t content to drown your pain in prescription drugs, hashish, alcohol or [fill in the blank] – hitbodedut, Uman, cheshbon hanefesh and pidyonot are the route out of the madness.

Moshiach may only show up in another 200 years, God forbid.

If you want to enjoy your life in the here and now – it’s time to take spiritual responsibility for yourself.

Rabbenu already mapped out the whole path.

All a person needs to do, is try their best to follow it.

Rabbenu teaches that when there is ‘war’ in the world, that plays out within a person’s family.

And if that person lives alone, then it plays out within the individual themselves, and drives them mad.

I would like to add to this, that having observed the fish tank for three weeks now, I think the ‘war vibes’ in the world are also playing out in the aquarium.

Last week, I noticed there were shalom bayit issues happening with two of the three psychos I bought to make up for the dead goldfish. There’s a blue one (the man….) and an orangey-peach one (the woman….) – and my social worker daughter was horrified to see the domestic abuse going on in the tank.

The blue thing chases the peach thing all over the place, non-stop, unless she can find somewhere to hide herself away for a couple of hours. And it’s always that way around.

If there was social services for fish, my social worker daughter would have called them in.

==

In the meantime, I also bought a black ‘cleaning fish’ three weeks ago, and while it’s externally quite ugly, of all the fish in the tank, it’s the most selfless and helpful.

It spends its whole time cleaning stuff up, and also helped the original psycho goldfish to calm down by suckering itself firmly into the spot where otherwise the reflection from the corner drives the goldfish mad.

Three days ago, before Shavuot, I christened it the ‘tzaddik’ of the tank.

The next day – one cute-looking tiny angel fish started cholek-ing on the tzaddik. It literally started pecking it to death. Yesterday, the ‘tzaddik’ went to the big goldfish bowl in the sky, having been killed by the angel fish.

And another fish also got caught up in the carnage – we fished out what was left of it and spent a couple of minutes trying to guess what it used to look like.

==

What in the world?!

I bought this tank to ‘relax’ and ‘calm down’, and now, I had a double-homicide to deal with, plus ongoing domestic abuse.

I decided to do some hitbodedut on what God was showing me, via the aquarium, because everything, e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g is a message, if we can just quiet our minds, our lives, for a few minutes to ponder it.

==

What came to mind was Rabbenu’s teaching about how ‘war’ plays out even in our family dynamics, even in ourselves – even, it seems, within our fish tank.

There are vibes in the world that we are all picking up, and if we aren’t taking the time, making the effort, to really deal with them, spiritually – then, we can find ourselves in big trouble.

That same day that the tzaddik and another fish got pecked to death, there were two suicide-homicides reported here in Israel, in Bat Yam and in Modiin, where the husbands went nuts, killed their wives and then killed themselves.

That same day, I remember hearing what felt like all my neighbours having massive arguments.

There was a ‘vibe’ of violence and strife.

It played out in a whole bunch of ways.

(This was the same day that Ukraine reportedly attacked Russia with a bunch of drones… Not saying that happened as reported, but saying there were definitely war vibes in the air.)

==

Another thing I’ve learnt from the goldfish experiment is that even being a fish is not simple.

With all the stress of the last few years, I’m sure many of us have had a quiet daydream of turning into some bird and flying away from it all…. Or some carp, and just swimming serenely through life, without having to deal with all this aggro and tension all the time.

I am now seeing that is another illusion of the yetzer hara.

Even the fish are having bad days, abuse, starvation (that one day I forgot to feed them….) and even, murder.

==

Tachlis, we are down here to work.

There are no ‘free rides’ in this world, not even for a goldfish, and certainly not for a sentient human being.

(It’s a discussion for another time, but fish have personalities, mamash. There is no way that their personality is possible, given the size of their brains, so it’s clearly a function of the soul that’s inhabiting the fish. It’s very interesting to consider what is going on in our world, spiritually, and also explains why my bunny rabbit a few years’ back was also a psycho.)

==

In the meantime – there is a tzaddik in every generation.

I am sending my husband back to the store to buy another cleaning fish, to replace the one that got attacked and killed.

Because life continues, the world goes on – and the point is to just do our best, and to try and stay close to God, and to continue to do our bit to nullify and neutralise all the ‘war’ around us right now, and especially, the war within.

Maybe, the goldfish are stuck being psychos, chasing their tails all day long, doomed to repeat the same abusive patterns, until their friend eats them.

But we aren’t goldfish.

We are human beings, we are Jews, with a Torah, with a True Tzaddik in every generation to guide us and protect us, and help us clean up the mess that is being made all around us.

And probably unlike a goldfish (but who knows, at this point), God expects us to recognise our bad middot, and to overcome them.

With prayer.

With hitbodedut.

With teshuva.

With God’s help.

Only, truthfully, with God’s help.

==

God gave us the power of speech for a reason, after all.

And it’s the words of Torah, sincere teshuva and heartfelt prayer that we utter that truly separate us from the bottom-feeders of the world.