Here’s a ‘shareable’ image, if that’s useful:
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Here’s a ‘shareable’ video, too:
I am so not good at this stuff, and I am really only trying these new formats of shareable ‘soundbytes’ to try to give more people more stuff that’s easy to share, to counter all the antisemitism. BH, it’s my ‘little bit’ to do, from the sidelines, at this stage.
More of the details are in the much longer post.
Enjoy!
We had been talking about going for months, and our first date got ruined by ‘Iran’. So, we decided to try again this week. Last time I was at the seperate beach in Ashdod was 14 years ago, when I was so grossed out by all the diapers floating in the water, and so claustrophobic from all the buses full of women in stockings from Bet Shemesh – I fled that beach swearing I would never go back.
But, I figured the beach would be pretty empty after Elul 1, when the chareidi schools start up again.
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I think I went into denial, because it took me another few minutes to really register the fact that a hundred chareidi girls are walking to the seperate beach right now….
Suddenly, my brain snapped back to attention, and started sending me the warning signal. I turned to my (chareidi…) friend and I asked her:
What are all these girls doing here? I thought everyone went back to school on Elul 1st?
Only the boys, only the boys.
Uhoh.
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The waves were massive.
After we walked a bit further on, we saw that you could still swim – in a small square of space that had been left open directly in front of the lifeguards’ hut, hemmed in all three sides by red tape and yellow buoys.
It was more packed than a Beis Yaakov school outing to Kever Rachel.
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Wow, what a tikkun for 14 years ago! I mused to myself.
Hashem had arranged things that I was going to be experiencing the full joy of the Ashdod seperate beach, once again. And this time, to come out of the experience better. Hopefully.
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Either they don’t care, or this is what they are used to anyway, when they go to the sea, but for me, I was going a bit bonkers.
The lifeguard decided that even hanging out by the side of the red tape, where you could still breathe, was also ‘dangerous’, so he corralled everyone into even tighter formation in front of the hut.
I decided to go and stand at the very front, by the yellow buoys, so that all I’d have to deal with was the smashing power of the waves themselves.
It’s because I haven’t been to the Rav for a few days, I suddenly realised. When you go to the Rav, you routinely get trodden on, walked into, smacked in the head by a passing bag, or draped in the hem of a shawl as the wearer passes by oblivious.
Not only does this build good character, patience and tolerance, it also wipes off a million and one sins, as it definitely counts as suffering, in its own way. And I’d missed a few days of that, because I’d been relaxing in Eilat.
So now, God was playing catch-up.
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Then, I got smashed by such a powerful wave, it took me completely off my balance and I felt my ankle wrench, a little.
That’s crazy! How can you twist an ankle standing in water?!
The lifeguard was crowing victoriously over the loudspeaker you see?! I told you it’s very, very dangerous! Maybe now you’ll listen.
He sounded jubilant, as he watched the chareidi dominoes smash into each other big time, and wash up the beach with a mouthful of seawater.
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My friend was enjoying herself, and I didn’t want to rush the outing just because I’d been out-punched.
I found a quiet-ish spot, settled down. Two seconds letter, some hefty woman accidentally trod on me – dafka, on the twisted ankle foot.
I waited to see if she’d even notice – it took her ten seconds. She called back to me from a few feet away slicha. In the meantime, three little kids came and sat right next to me, and they were throwing sand at each other, running into the surf and away again, acting like happy, active little kids act, when they aren’t doped up with Ritalin because of adult-annoying ‘ADHD’ behaviours.
Because I spend a lot of time at the Rav, I didn’t mind.
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More than one sunbather up the beach got a rude surprise when a huge wave or two broke through and surged an extra three metres up the sand, right up their noses. I was still being pummelled, too, just it was more manageable, and I figured out that I’d twisted my ankle by trying to ‘stand firm’ instead of going with the flow.
Something else I figured out, is that right now at least, I am at a stage where I’m happier watching from the sidelines, than slugging it out centre ring. I just don’t have the koach or motivation to do that at this stage.
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This is the stage where I can often delete my blog and annoy my readers, in pursuit of a ‘new start’. This year, I am trying something different.
I am going to try to hive-off the historical stuff that I love so much into a seperate Substack, HERE, and continue to post my musings and Rav translations here.
So many people are looking for information to try to counter all the antisemitism sprouting like a poisonous weed in the hearts of so many, all over the world. I’m not promising the Substack is going to fill that need, as I still can’t / won’t dumb down enough to become commercially successful.
But what I am aiming at, is to start putting the historical content into its own space, so history buffs can enjoy it, while people like my husband don’t have to pretend to read it….
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I feel quite happy with that.
There is so much more to do than to continue wasting time and energy trying to argue people into good middot and out of MSM delusions.
I’m really tired of conversations that just return on ‘rinse and repeat’ for fifty years. It’s time to try something new, a little bit, whilst still holding on to the stuff that I like writing, and that at least some of the time, can be helpful.
Bezrat Hashem.
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The traffic was so stand-still, I managed to say three Tikkun HaKlalis in Abu Ghosh while I waited an hour to travel 2 kms…
Tikkunim, tikkunim, who knows what is really going on?
But generally, it was a good trip to the beach.
It was a ‘rectified experience’ from last time.
But I’m not planning on heading back to that particular beach, any time soon.
Because I’m not chareidi, I didn’t realise that only the boys went back to school on the first of Elul, whilst the girls only went back on September 1.
There are gamma [waves], and alpha and beta.
They’ve made all the types of ‘waves’ in the world, because in Roentgen[1], the [creator] ran away. Always when they do a ‘Roentgen’ for you, so he would run outside. Also during the MRI, he would run outside, because it used to scorch all the tissues – it burns!
Madame Curie, who discovered radium, she became blind. She discovered radium, a gram of radium. It took her five years to make a gram of radium.
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There are neutrons.
The neutrons enter inside the nucleus and are transformed into protons.
If you want to change [the physical properties of] metal, you need to change the protons, change the number [of protons].
If, let’s say, iron is 26, and this is 29 [or 79], so then you need to add another 50. How do you add another 50? From where do you get another 50? The fifty gates of binah (understanding).
There are 50 yovel (jubilee) years. Yovel is the fiftieth gate.
So, you take neutrons, material that emits neutrons – this costs a billion dollars, to get a machine like this. And it joins with the nucleus.
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The [atomic] nucleus is microscopic. You can’t see it.
The nucleus is one part in a trillion of the volume of an electron.[ All the neutrons that you add to the protons] – the atom transforms from 26 to being 59 [79].
So, lead becomes gold.
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Now, they are turning lead into gold, but it’s falling apart for them.
It doesn’t last the distance, it crumbles, the lead crumbles.
If a person wants to change lead into gold, so then he can come here, to Shuvu Banim. Here in the kitchen, we cook it on the platta (shabbos hotplate), and the lead becomes gold.
There was a segula throughout 2,000 years. Everyone used to say I have a segula [for how to transform lead into gold] from my father, from my grandfather, and I am not going to reveal it.
A segula, how to change lead into gold. A person wants gold, a person wants to have a billion dollars, so he’ll have billions upon billions upon billions – so he changes lead into gold.
He takes lead, oferet – this is ‘lead’ in English. He changes lead into gold.
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So, the uranium turns into lead.
After 6,000 years, it loses ten protons, so it becomes lead. From 92 [protons] this changes to 82. Or – it becomes plutonium.
Today, they are already getting to 120 protons, and everything is radioactive, it emits neutrons, and this transforms the material, by way of the protons.
Neutrons become protons, and then everything changes into gold, it becomes uranium, and plutonium. And then, you get a bomb a million times [more powerful] than Hiroshima.
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Translated and Excerpted from Shivivei Or, 420.
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[1] The Rav is apparently referring to Wilhelm Röntgen, a German physicist who discovered X-rays.
This is from Wiki:
At one point, while he was investigating the ability of various materials to stop the rays, Röntgen brought a small piece of lead into position while a discharge was occurring. Röntgen thus saw the first radiographic image: his own flickering ghostly skeleton on the barium platinocyanide screen.
About six weeks after his discovery, he took a picture—a radiograph—using X-rays of his wife Anna Bertha’s hand. When she saw her skeleton she exclaimed “I have seen my death!” He later took a better picture of his friend Albert von Kölliker‘s hand at a public lecture.
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Ad kan, from the Rav.
Not for the first time, I have the impression that if we could only understand a fraction of what the Rav is hinting at here – we’d understand a whole lot more.
If I have time, I’m going to do a bit of digging around, to see what turns up. Feel free to join me in the process of exploration, if you have time and energy. It’s one of the most enjoyable things you can spend your time doing, once you get the hang, more, of following the ‘breadcrumb trail’ laid down by the Rav in his shiurim.
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Here’s a bit more about Roentgen – he also died from cancer:
Röntgen died on 10 February 1923 from carcinoma of the intestine, also known as colorectal cancer. In keeping with his will, his personal and scientific correspondence, with few exceptions, were destroyed upon his death
Fancy that!
HERE is where you can see the preserved lab and machinery, where X-rays were first discovered.
Snippet:
A small laboratory located in the former Physical Institute of the University of Würzburg, now the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg, was the sight of one of the most important scientific breakthroughs in medical history. On November 8th, 1895, Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered a new kind of ray, which he called X-rays.
Naturally, Roentgen was given the first ever Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1901, for discovering cancer-inducing X-rays.
This is a snippet from the American Cancer Society website:
X-rays and gamma rays are known human carcinogens (cancer-causing agents). The evidence they can cause cancer comes from many different sources, including studies of atomic bomb survivors in Japan, people exposed during the Chernobyl nuclear accident, people treated with high doses of radiation for cancer and other conditions, and people exposed to high levels of radiation at work, such as uranium miners.
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Here’s some more interesting stuff, about how the ethically-corrupt medical profession started using radiation to ‘treat’ a whole bunch of stuff (including, of course, cancer, but not only) – and how that in turn makes the patient even more likely to develop cancer:
To treat benign conditions
Radiation therapy is now used mainly to treat cancer. But in the past, before the risks of radiation were clearer, it was also used to treat some benign (non-cancerous) diseases. Studies of people treated for these conditions have helped us learn about how radiation affects cancer risk.
For example, some studies have suggested links between:
- The use of radiation to treat peptic ulcer disease and a higher risk of cancers of the stomach and pancreas.
- The use of radiation to treat ringworm of the scalp (a fungal infection, also called tinea capitis) and an increased risk of basal cell skin cancers.
- The injection of radium to treat ankylosing spondylitis (an autoimmune disease) and an increased risk of leukemia, bone sarcoma, and possibly some other cancers.
- The use of radiation to treat some benign head and neck conditions and a higher risk of cancers of the salivary gland, brain and spinal cord tumors, and thyroid cancer.
To treat cancer
Studies have linked radiation therapy to treat cancer with an increased risk of leukemia, thyroid cancer, early-onset breast cancer, and some other cancers later in life….
If cancer does develop after radiation therapy, it doesn’t happen right away. Most leukemias develop within about 5 to 9 years after exposure. In contrast, most other cancers are not seen for at least 10 years after radiation therapy, and some are diagnosed more than 15 years later.
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While you are chewing that over, I may as well chuck in here a study on the negative side effects being reported on overuse of Vitamin B6, that a reader emailed me.
R Stern had a very close relationship with Rav Berland, who he knew for decades when they were young men together in Bnei Brak, studying with the Steipler Gaon, the late R Chaim Kanievsky’s father.
I thought it would be a fitting tribute to go through OIAG 2, and to pull out some of the interactions between R Stern, zt’l, and the Rav.
It makes very interesting reading, and we can see 10 years on that the true Tzaddikim know what’s going on long, long in advance of the rest of us.
May his memory be for a blessing for Am Yisrael.
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As news of the Steipler’s special treatment of the unusual young man from Haifa spread, another of the young men studying Torah in Bnei Brak, Dovid Chaim Stern, had the courage to ask the Steipler what he saw in Eliezer Berland.
“He was a very young man, while the Steipler was the Gadol HaDor and so much older than him. They were study partners, learning many hours together each day, so I was interested in finding out what he had to say about him,” explains Rav Stern. “The Steipler told me, ‘You should know, he is an expert in the entire Torah, a holy man and a tzaddik!’ That was the testimony from the mouth of the Gadol HaDor.”
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When Rav Dovid Chaim Stern heard from one of the yeshiva students how Rav Berland had been praying alone for hours in the African jungle, in places where no other person would come without an armored jeep and a gun, Rav Stern said, “It’s because of his incredible kedusha! The animals don’t have permission to harm him—not the animals, and also not the human beings!”
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When Operation Protective Edge began in July 2014, a leading kabbalist known as “the Milkman”, Rav Chaim Perachia Cohen, made the following statement: “They informed me from Heaven that the redemption process started today. Am Yisrael is going to be redeemed. No one knows how long it will take, dear brothers, but know that the complete redemption process (geulah sheleimah) has begun, and because of this, the troubles are not going to cease in coming.”
Meanwhile, the kabbalist Rav Dovid Chaim Stern from Bnei Brak told his students in the autumn of 2014 that the situation was only going to get worse from day to day, and that only Moshiach could solve the problem.
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On February 12, 2015, the Dutch Secretary for Justice, Klaas Dijkhoff, ordered the Dutch courts to agree to the extradition of Rav Berland, the lack of evidence against him notwithstanding.
While the Rav’s legal team in Holland immediately lodged an appeal against this decision, the Rav continued on with his regular schedule of learning Torah, praying and doing acts of kindness for the community, completely unfazed by all the commotion surrounding him in the Dutch courts.
The next casualty in that terrible year was the kabbalist Rav Dovid Chaim Stern. Rav Stern collapsed during a visit to the U.S.A. around Purim 5775, and was also found to have suffered a serious heart attack. One of the students who was traveling with Rav Stern happened to be a first-responder for Magen Dovid Adom, and he immediately started to administer CPR to the Rav. For 40 minutes, this student fought for the Rav’s life, even though the Rav had stopped breathing and no longer had a pulse.
Eventually, his pulse returned and the Rav was taken to the intensive care unit in Maimonides Medical Center in New York. When he was admitted, the hospital staff considered his condition to be somewhere between critical and non-recoverable. The doctors didn’t really hold out any hope that the Rav would recover, and the word went out to his students and followers around the world to start urgently praying for Rav Stern’s welfare and recovery.
On the advice of the Gadol, Rav Shmuel Wosner, Rav Stern was also given the additional name Alter. An information hotline was set up to inform the public about the Rav’s condition, and to enable people to participate in round-the-clock prayers for Rav Stern’s recovery. Yet despite all these efforts, Rav Stern’s condition only continued to deteriorate.
After he was admitted to the hospital, he suffered a further two heart attacks, and a short while later it was discovered that both of his lungs had also completely collapsed, which meant he was now 100 percent dependent on life-support to breathe. If that wasn’t bad enough, on the following day his kidneys also collapsed, and the attending physician told the Rav’s son to call his other children to come to the hospital immediately, so they could be there when their father passed away.
One of Rav Stern’s sons knew how much his father respected Rav Berland, whom he’d known for more than 45 years, ever since Rav Berland had been the Steipler Gaon’s chevrusa back in Bnei Brak. In fact, he was still regularly in touch with him. He decided to phone Rav Berland, who was then in Holland, and tell him the whole situation.
Rav Berland’s attendant, Natan Salamon, passed on the message to Rav Stern’s son that Rav Berland recommended to immediately do a pidyon nefesh, and that if he did that, his father would get up and live. Natan Salamon related that ten minutes after the pidyon had been arranged, a great miracle happened, and Rav Stern woke up. Even more miraculously, Rav Stern then proceeded to shock the doctors at Maimonides by very quickly regaining his health and strength.
A little while later, Rav Stern was healthy enough to fly back to Israel, to his home in Bnei Brak, and he marked the occasion by holding a gathering where he could properly express his gratitude to Hashem for the enormous miracles that had occurred. This gathering was the first time that Rav Stern publicly explained what had happened to him and he revealed how many open miracles had taken place.
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One of Rav Stern’s sons spoke at the gathering and said the following: “Anyone who wants to know and understand what the subject of techiyas hameisim, or the revival of the dead, is all about, only needs to see what Hashem, in His tremendous mercy and kindness, did in front of our eyes [referring to his father’s miraculous return from the dead]. Even the doctors admitted wholeheartedly that what had happened here was nothing less than the revival of the dead.”
It was also told over at the gathering that during the time when Rav Stern was clinically dead, his soul had been in Shamayim and he was being judged in the Heavenly Court. Suddenly, the proceedings were interrupted by a bas kol, a Heavenly voice that was heard throughout all the spiritual worlds, saying that Rav Stern had to be returned to life.
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At the gathering, they also read a letter from the senior doctor at Maimonides who’d been responsible for arranging the medical aspects of Rav Stern’s flight home, who wrote the following: “I’m here to set down in writing the size and magnitude of the miracle that we witnessed with our own eyes. What occurred here was truly a case of the revival of the dead. The Rav suffered a heart attack and spent 40 minutes without breathing and without a pulse. In the emergency room, he suffered another heart attack and had to be resuscitated again. The first three days he was in the hospital, he really wasn’t ‘there’ at all, physically. According to the attending physicians, his chances of coming back to life and regaining consciousness, and especially of regaining his mental faculties, were zero. But it appears that God healed [the Rav] by Himself. Even in our generation, I have had the merit of seeing miracles as big as those done at the time of the Exodus from Egypt.” The letter was signed by Dr Kerstein, the head of the intensive care unit in Maimonides Hospital, New York.
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Meanwhile, the Rosh Yeshiva and leading kabbalist from Bnei Brak, Rav Dovid Chaim Stern, had this to say publicly[1] while speaking in Bnei Brak on August 11, 2016:
“I know Rav Berland, we have a strong connection. He is an exalted Jew who stands above all others. There is no man who is completely kindness and mercy [as Rav Berland is]. Whenever he had money he immediately distributed everything to charity. It is clear to us that a person who distributes so much charity and kindness, Hashem imbues his Shechinah on him.
‘He who has mercy on Hashem’s creations, they have mercy on him from Heaven,’ and therefore Hashem imbues his Shechinah on him. Hashem will guide him as He sees fit. And it is clear to all of us, we are hoping and praying that Hashem will do miracles and wonders.
Others don’t know Rav Berland, like I know him. And they didn’t ask the Steipler what I asked about him.…He’s holy and pure—that’s it! We need to wake up the masses! A holy tzaddik is suffering in prison. I believe that every single action is the greatest mitzvah, to save this tzaddik as quickly as possible. He’s not guilty—he didn’t do anything!”
On another occasion, Rav Stern said: “Woe to whoever speaks ill of Rav Berland, for they will be punished severely. All those who dare to speak ill of this tzaddik should fear for their lives, for they will all, without exception, receive severe punishments from Above. I’ve known him for more than 50 years, and the way he learned with the Steipler was unmatched by any other. He is entirely holy.
The final test before Moshiach comes is Rav Berland. Anyone who talks against him, or who believes the rumors being circulated about him, won’t merit to witness the imminent redemption of our people.”
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In October 2017, Rav Berland welcomed the Chassidic singer Mordechai Ben David on to his small stage, and also gave a blessing to the well-known kabbalist and head of the ‘Kiryat Baal Shem Tov’ institutions in Netivot, Rav Tzvi Hori. Other visitors around this time included Rav Reuven Elbaz, the Spinka Rebbe of Bnei Brak, and Rav Aharon Stern, the son of the famous kabbalist from Bnei Brak, Rav Chaim Dovid Stern, and head of the Tzvi Yehuda Torah institution. At the request of his father, who was too poorly to travel at that time, he came to visit the Rav at the Beit HaRav at the beginning of October, very shortly before the Rav was formally released from house arrest. Rav Aharon made the following remarks to the community:
“Chazal teach that in the time to come (i.e. the end of days) truth will be absent, it will be completely lacking and absent in all sorts of ways, and that every lie will be called ‘the truth’. I want to tell you something about my teacher, Rabbi Yehuda Zeev Leibowitz[2], zt”l, who once decided to go to sleep when it was time for the Kol Nidrei prayer service on Yom Kippur, instead of going to pray in the synagogue.
Afterwards, he revealed to us that there had been a decree in Heaven on the Jews because so many of them were going to sleep on Kol Nidrei instead of going to synagogue. ‘So, I decided to also go to sleep,’ said Rav Zeev Leibowitz, ‘so in shamayim they cancelled the decree.’[2]
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We can see that the Tzaddik is doing something, but we don’t really understand that whole picture of what’s really going on with the Tzaddikim. We really have no idea about what their actions are doing. But, every act done by the Tzaddik is being done to sweeten the judgments on behalf of Am Yisrael.”
Rav Stern continued: “When I first came to Rav Leibowitz, zt”l, to care for him, I said to myself: ‘What are all these weird actions and different types of behavior?!’ Once, I was thinking to myself about why the Tzaddik was conducting himself in ways which meant that sometimes, it appeared as though he was doing things that were contrary to the halacha, but without saying anything about it.
Then, Rav Leibowitz raised his eyes from his Gemara and said to me: ‘Aharon, did you know Rebbe Aharon of Belz?’ I told him that no I didn’t, because he died before I was even born. Rav Leibowitz continued: ‘Do you know, that he used to show up five minutes before mincha (the afternoon prayers) and only then start praying shacharis (the morning prayers)? How can this be? But did anyone speak out against him? The Lelover Rebbe used to show up on motzei Shabbat, and begin shacharis then—did anyone speak out against him? Rav Shach didn’t give in to anyone whose halacha he didn’t agree with. So why didn’t he come out against the Admor of Lelov?!’”
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“Rav Berland is a Tzaddik who comes from the aspect of ‘law’, and no-one can touch him. Our Rabbi is holy and awesome, and all of his behavior, even if it seems to us to be strange, in truth, it’s all for our own sake. Because he’s taking our illnesses upon himself and he’s suffering for our sake.”
Rav Aharon continued: “My saintly father arranged this evening, with the agreement of Morenu Rav Berland, shlit”a. He visited Rav Berland around two months’ ago, and Rav Berland asked him: ‘Esteemed Rav, I know that you’re taking pills for a urinary tract infection, but please stop now, as I’m taking that upon myself.’ And my father stopped [taking the pills]! Who told the Rav about my father’s illness? How did he know?!”
Rav Stern then struck a very somber note, saying: “We are currently in a period of time similar to that which occurred before the holocaust, but we have nothing to fear, inasmuch as we are sheltered under the tallis of Morenu, Rav Berland, shlit”a.”
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Rav Stern continued: “It gives me great sorrow that my father is so ill that he can’t come to this gathering himself, and that the Samech Mem (dark side forces) are preventing the Tzaddikim from meeting. But when I came here, I met Morenu Rav Berland, shlit”a, and he said to me: ‘Rav Stern, don’t worry! Everything is on my shoulders. From the 25th of Elul, motzei Shabbos (September 16, 2017), you’re going to see the beginning of the salvation of Am Yisrael!’ I ask you, where else can you find a rebbe like this?”
Rav Aharon Stern concluded his remarks by saying: “I’d like to request just one on thing, that we should have achdus and love between us, which will bring us the geula. Before his death, Rav Leibowitz ordered me to make the following announcement about America, so I repeat this every opportunity I get.
“He told me that the anti-Semitism in the United States is only going to continue to grow, until it gets to the point where the Jews will be forced to flee. We can also see how the forces of nature are going crazy there, and this is because we see how the people there are overturning everything, and no longer know who their Mother and Father is….The same is true in Tel Aviv, which is why Rav Leibowitz told me: ‘Tel Aviv will be destroyed.’
Morenu Rav Berland, shlit”a, is fighting against the head of the snake, in direct combat. Rav Berland is gouging out it’s eyes and he’s taking upon himself all our troubles. I heard from my teacher and father, shlit”a, who told me: ‘I’m scared…I don’t know how Rav Berland is doing this! There is no other rabbi in Israel, there is no other rosh yeshiva in Israel, there is no other rebbe or admor in Israel who knows how Rav Berland is able to fight this war, and to fight against the head of the snake itself.”
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Rav Dovid Chaim Stern from Bnei Brak (one of the greatest kabbalists from the Lithuanian tradition, known to have Ruach Hakodesh, was close to the Steipler and many Torah giants of the previous generation):
(As told to Nachman Mintz, a student of Rav Berland, who went to receive a blessing from Rav Dovid Chaim Stern at a time that Rav Berland was in exile in Zimbabwe.) Before he went into the room to speak to Rav Stern, Rav Stern’s attendant asked him who he’s a student of, and he answered “Rav Berland”. Rav Stern said to him, ‘You aren’t a student of Rav Berland because you don’t even know who Rav Berland is!‘”
On another occasion, Rav Stern said publicly: “Anyone who speaks badly about the tzaddik Rav Berland, everyone without exception will receive tremendous punishments from Heaven.”
On another occasion, Rav Stern said that Rav Berland is: “Holy of holies. No one is on his level of holiness,” and said that he is “one in a generation”.
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[1] You can see the video of Rav Stern speaking here: https://youtu.be/Wtj6PWBOSjM
[2] Rav Yehuda Zev Leibowitz, z”tl was a hidden Tzaddik who died just a few short years’ ago and was rumored to be the head of the ‘Lamed Vav’ Tzaddikim in whose merit the world is sustained. He’s buried in Bnei Brak.
So much tremendous good, at least, in my dalet amot, but also, so much that’s been difficult and stressing me out to my eyeballs, for reasons that are not always so clear.
One of my good friends came back from Eilat beginning of last week, and told me they’d found a relatively quiet, relative tznius (mamash relatively…) beach close to the border with Egypt, where they had just spent hours snorkling in the water, watching all the fish that are drawn to the coral reef.
It was so relaxing, she told me. Even my husband managed to relax.
Wow, if it got that guy to relax – maybe, it could even work for me?
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Even though we are having a small cash crunch right now, ahead of Uman Rosh Hashana (with prices in the sky) and paying for stuff for our girls, amongst other things, when I told him I really need a two night holiday, right now, in Eilat – he agreed.
I found the rental apartment, close to a great, new Moroccan-style shul, and away from the downtown / hotel strip area, where no clothes is de rigeur, and he booked it. He also picked up two snorkelling sets from Decathlon, whilst I got a bunch of stuff from the supermarket.
We packed, and we left. I was pretty anxious about the shmirat eynayim aspect of going to Eilat, while it was still summer time, but I was also really feeling like I needed a real break, with the real sea, doing real ‘holiday’ types of things.
Hashem Ya’azor.
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We got to the apartment, finally, after I ran around the Eilat mall with a computer trying to find wifi, so I could get into my husband’s email and found out what the address was…
That mall doesn’t have public wifi, so an Arab offered me a hotspot (which failed, because I couldn’t type his password in Arabic). So next, I went to one of the phone kiosks and asked them if I could ‘borrow’ two minutes of internet. They thought I was crazy, probably, but after a bit of humming and hawwing, they agreed.
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We dumped the stuff, and fled to the quiet beach.
Miraculously, apart from diving guys and two families of old Russians, there was no-one else really there by 4pm, at least, no-one else there that would cause shmirat eynayim issues for my husband.
We stuck on the snorkels – and within two foot of water, we were already in the biggest fish tank in the world, with shoals of beautiful fish swimming all around.
It’s hard to describe how magical it was.
My husband was also wowed by the experience. Hashem’s world is so very beautiful, and I was trying very hard to just learn how to let go, and go with the flow, and trust that Hashem was ‘floating me around’ exactly as required. Even outside the water.
==
That night, I cooked the sausages I’d brought from Jerusalem, to avoid running around trying to find restaurants with a hechsher, said my 7 TKs, did my hour of hitbodedut, and fell asleep reading a very interesting book on Laurence Oliphant.
The next morning, we got up later than planned, and decided to visit the Eilat Botanical Gardens, which is 27 years old, and founded by three guys on a piece of wasteland, who grew 80% of the trees there from seeds.
I found that amazing.
And the place itself is very, very pretty, even with a little waterfall and a stretch they call ‘the rainforest’, which basically drizzles for a minute every seven minutes. It’s the only time in my life, that I actually appreciated drizzle.
Hardly anyone was there.
When we were done, we bought some ice-lollies and then browsed the garden centre and shop. I picked up a rhodonite bead bracelet. You can read what it’s good for HERE. I got the message: I have been experiencing some very heavy anxiety the last few months, and it’s really, really time to work on joy, emuna and optimism again.
==
After making a salad for lunch, sourced from a super where the people 50 years and younger were mostly OK, whilst the older secular women seemed to be scowling a lot in our direction (because we were dossim, I’m guess. I can’t think of anything else, we didn’t run anyone over with the trolley, steal the last packet of biscuits on the shelf, nothing like that…) – we headed back to the beach.
There were a few beach babes there, of various sizes and ages.
My husband took of his glasses (I also took off mine – some of the ‘sights’ were really not pleasant, never mind shmirat eynayim) and we groped around trying to find a better bit of the beach.
We did – and this bit opened up to a different bit of the coral reef, with larger fish and the ability to go deeper into the sea.
My husband loved it. Me, with my no glasses and inability to see more than two metres ahead, even in magnifying diver mask, was less keen. I thought the beach babes had left the shallower part we’d been in, very happily, the day before, so I motioned to him to join me there.
He started swimming across, whilst I walked around.
Just as I got there – three bikinis showed up, and I suddenly felt like the cheese in the mouse-trap, for my poor husband. I walked a bit back up the beach, trying to see where he was. At that point, he stuck his head out of the water, and I motioned with my hand reverse, reverse, reverse.
==
I just floated some more, in barely 3ft of water, surrounded by so many gorgeous fish of all colours. It was amazing, and I was so grateful to Hashem for the experience of doing that, here in Eretz Yisrael.
==
Long story short, we were trying to avoid the Eilat strip, and also the Eilat Mall, so ended up in a sordid sushi place with a kosher certificate and a thick layer of dust, attracted by the old fat that was sticking to everything.
I lost my appetite, got upset, we went home.
After half an hour, I realised it wasn’t such a big deal. I also realised how hard it can sometimes be to maintain good standards of kashrut, shmirat eynayim and healthy eating and behaviour on holiday.
I was really thinking about it, how so many of us frum Jews can get ground between the upper millstone of ‘keeping mitzvot properly’, and the lower millstone of beach babes, sleazy streets and bad food that often lurks behind every idea of a ‘holiday in nature’.
It’s not an easy balance to pull off. Not easy at all. And that night, we kind of blew it.
==
You pay 42 shekels, and you get a really nice buffet breakfast, kibbutz style, but really worth the money and with a lot of healthy stuff to pick from (and bourekas. For people who worry about having bourekas for breakfast.)
The clientele was so much more wholesome, way more families with kids, way less gross tattoos on display, way more clothing.
We don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel when we do this stuff, I told my husband. Now we know about this place, let’s just do it again next time!
==
It was lovely, Most of the people there were also dossim, and my husband’s hat saved him from the one beach babe that kind of sprang out at us from the undergrowth while we were making our way up.
Once again, I was so grateful to God, that we live here in Israel, in a place where we can do this in our own backyard, and where the kiosk back by the parking had a kosher certification for the pizza it was selling.
Where else in the world do you find this?
==
Five years ago, exactly when the first Covid lockdowns began, whoever started digging up the ground the whole way up highway 90, by the Dead Sea.
While they like to pretend that what is happening at the Dead Sea is all due to lack of rainfall, in truth, there is a detailed plan going into operation there, apparently to dry out most of the Dead Sea, and reclaim the land, whilst also making a packet by evaporating the water and extracting the minerals.
This has been upsetting me for years….
But this time around, I was really trying to see all this through the eyes of God is running the world, and everything God does is for the best.
==
But, what good could there be in destroying the Dead Sea like this?
My husband answered, that maybe once all the ‘dead’ water was evaporated, God was going to replenish it with more sweet water again.
That idea made me smile.
More prosaically, I was pondering how the Dead Sea is effectively ‘dead’. Nothing can grow there, or live there. All up Route 90, there are signs that the Arava is really starting to bloom.
Way more gas stations, way more trees, especially palm trees. They are fixing up the road, which is now two lanes in some places, making it much easier and safer to overtake.
On the way home, I heard they are also putting in a train between Beer Sheva and Eilat now.
And maybe, if the choice is between a blooming desert and a Dead Sea, the blooming desert is more important, at this stage.
==
There is an American flag flying at the entrance to the Eilat Port, that was recently closed down because of ‘the Houthis’.
Whatever.
Eilat itself is full of roundabouts dedicated to the Masons, and to people like Yitzhak Ben Tzvi and Chaim Weissman.
==
You explain that to yourself however you like.
Back in Jerusalem, I am still feeling some stress, some tension, it didn’t all just disappear.
But.
I am bringing back home the message of the sea, and that message is:
Keep your head down, float through all this, and continue to see the tremendous beauty that is right in front of all of our faces’.
Oh, and keep breathing, while all this is going on. A person can’t hold their breath forever, waiting for the madness to end.
==
BH, I will get back to doing some Rav translations again.
I heard the Sefer Torah is nearly ready, they are just fundraising now for the crown, cover and staves.
BH, when the Torah is ready, the war finally finishes.
I can’t believe this has been going on for almost two years, it’s incredible. But, I am keeping my head down still, and getting on with the task of trying to live life happilty, and trying to see God in all the small details.
It really is a full-time job.
Two stories in one day on the government propaganda site, YWN, where even it has to acknowledge that God is stopping the Evils’ plans to kill and maim more Jews in Eretz Yisrael.
First this story, about how our corrupt army sent out vehicles with no aircon during a heatwave, forcing the soldiers to open the hatch – woopsie, just as a Hamas terrorist somehow knew all about that, and somehow was just standing there waiting to run over and lob in a grenade, or something.
Chasdei Hashem!!
It didn’t explode.
And guess what? This is exactly the same trick whoever tried to pull on our soldiers back in June, when sadly, it worked and seven soldiers lost their lives:
“This was exactly the same scenario as the June incident in which Hamas killed seven soldiers in a combat engineering vehicle,” a former senior officer told Israel Hayom.
You still think all this is a CO-IN-CID-ENCE?
Baruch Hashem, the prayers are working, all the teshuva, all the hirhurim to return to Hashem, really, really – BH, God is saving our soldiers’ lives.
==
Apparently, some Arab tried to murder two Jews on an ATV near Malachi HaShalom – and his gun jammed after one bullet.
Personally, I am not convinced it was an Arab from a ‘nearby village’. It’s way more likely to be a United States’ sponsored terrorist, specially sent into the area to continue stirring things up between Arabs and Jews.
Nobody else benefits – not the Jews, and also not the Arabs.
BH, Hashem also saved Jewish lives here, too.
And it’s so bizarre, to read the YWN and come away feeling happy, for once, and with strengthened emuna.
Olam Hafuch rayiti…
I hope it continues.
Shabbat shalom.
I was having another one of those days where everything felt like hevel hevelim – vanity of vanities, it’s all pointless, meaningless.
I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has been feeling that, at least occasionally, especially the last two years. Hanan Ben Ari kinda sums it up in this song:
==
When even that’s off the table, what’s a person to do?
==
Here’s what I did:
I spent half an hour binge-watching Barduk and even found one video I hadn’t seen before, that really made me laugh:
But I was still feeling pretty down, and like life is pointless. So I called my husband up, and we went to grab a simple lunch somewhere.
He did a great job of starting to cheer me up again, not because everything is meaningful and purposeful and wonderful, even though I try to live my life like that, most of the time.
But simply, by listening, and empathising, and acknowledging that so much of life does feel pointless and meaningless at the moment.
The whole trick, is to try and figure out what does God want from me right now?
And to just focus on trying to give it to Him, without worrying too much about seeing tangible results, benefits or feedback.
==
BH, God will help us all to serve Him happily, and find real meaning in the simple stuff of every day life, like doing a kindness for someone, saying a small prayer, even just making a nice supper – for ourselves!
Life is made up of all the little things that no-one else notices, comments on, or ‘likes’, publically.
It’s so easy, to think that it doesn’t matter because it seems to be ‘unnoticed’ and unappreciated – even by ourselves.
But go one day with the dishes in the sink, one week without the clothes being washed, one month without giving the bathroom a good clean…. and then all of a sudden, you start to notice how much of a difference the small stuff really makes.
So many of us are so tired, so fed up, so washed out at the moment.
Hevel hevelim, hakol hevel.
Except… Torah, mitzvot and gemilut chesadim.
It’s not as catchy as Hanan Ben Ari’s version, but it’s way more helpful.
Over on LaQuintaColumna, one of their Telegram channels is collecting videos from all over the world, trying to figure out how these fires are really happening.
When I watched some of them, I had unmistakeable ‘deja vu’ from when we were apparently being rocketed from Iran, and I had the opportunity to watch those orange streaks in the sky for a whole hour, as I drove back up the 443 to Jerusalem, erev Rosh Hashana, 5785.
I’m posting them here, take a look yourselves.
At the time, I said they looked more like ‘comets’ than Iranian rockets.
Now, I’m wondering what those ‘comets’ actually are. LaQuintaColumna has a theory they are demonic entities, somehow manifesting with some help from crazy scientists working at the subatomic level in Switzerland.
Ho ho ho! What a crazy conspiracy theory!!!
At least, let’s hope so.
==
@alpvamp6 Canción perfecta para este video – Lluvia de estrellas – Sparkles – No Name – Kimi no Nawa #lluviadeestrellas #estrella #noname #sparkle #perseidas ♬ スパークル (movie ver.) – RADWIMPS
==
@aldoescudero865De la nada se aparecio una bola de fuego en el cielo♬ original sound – Aldo Escudero865
==
This one is from Germany / Poland:
@matthias.031 #Meteor #Komet #Sternschnuppe #Fireball #Space #Astronomie #Himmel #Naturwunder #NASA #Astro #Skywatcher #ShootingStar #Science #SpaceLover #Cosmos #Galaxie #NightSky #Viral #Trending #Hamburg #Deutschland #19Februar2025 #MeteorÜberDeutschland #HamburgSky #Himmelsereignis ♬ snowfall – Øneheart & reidenshi
This one is from Russia:
@lacunadelodesconocido Bola de fuego incendia automóvil en Rusia #fuego #ovni #ufo #uap #misterio #fyp #bruja ♬ sonido original – LA CUNA DE LO DESCONOCIDO
==
And this is Switzerland, from December 2023:
@blackpointsmp A Portal opens up in the night sky above Geneva, Switzerland 12/29/23. It has nothing to do with CERN’S particle accelerator. #UFO #alien #fy #foryou #UAP #ovni #portal #sky #witnesses #foryourpage #wtf ♬ original sound – Black Point SMP
Enjoy!
==
Comments from 18th Tammuz, 5785 (July 14, 2025)
[In Jerusalem] There is the ‘Davidka’ Square.
This was named after a [fake ‘bomb’] that was called the ‘Davidka’, that used to only make a lot of noise, and then all the Arabs ran away.
There was a ‘weapon’ like this, that was made out of an enormous garbage bin, 10 metres, and it made such a noise – like a nuke.
==
The Jews [in Israel] knew how to make a nuke.
You need to reduce from 238 to 235. This is done by something like a blender, and [all the unwanted protons] jump out. But if you want to make protons [i.e. to add them], if you want to transform copper into gold, silver into gold, iron into gold – you need to add.
Iron is 26, [the gematria of] Hashem’s Ineffable Name. All of this is the Ineffable Name. A person needs to go along all day long, with Y.K.V.K..
==
So, back then they went along with the Ineffable Name, they went with it, and [the iron] became gold.
And after this, copper, 29, this is 50, so on the spot, it became 29, it became 59, 79. 79 is three times the Ineffable Name[1].
78 comes from this, Y.K.V.K, Y.K.V.K., Y.K.V.K.
Y.K.V.K, Y.K.V.K., Y.K.V.K. – three times, this is 78, and [gold] is 79. If you add another three, it becomes lead. If you turn this back-to-front, it becomes uranium.[2]
Uranium is explosive, this is dangerous.
==
Now, there are going to be ceremonies across the whole world.
On Av 12th, it’s been 80 years since the Hiroshima explosion, and the Nagasaki bomb, because if they had fought [without the Allies nuking Japan] they would have needed to have lost two million.
Togo[3] said this is not a problem! In on second, I can destroy five million of them, in a second. Just give me a second – there are a thousand [Allied] ships on the sea, each ship has 5,000 [sailors], this is five million. I will bring a thousand kamikazes, this is a thousand ships.
The truth is that [name missing in original] said to [name missing in original], that he already didn’t have any suicide bombers left. They’d already destroyed all of them. But, he didn’t think that children aged three could be used as suicide bombers.
A person aged 16, they can already fly a plane. He would take a ton of explosive material, two tons, three tones, he would drop this on a ship containing 5,000. He’d send them either to gehinnom or to Gan Eden.
It would depend. Whoever was a ‘tzaddik’ would go to Gan Eden, and whoever was a rasha (evildoer), would go to gehinnom.
I can send them all to gehinnom!
But [Hirohito] said to him, I don’t have the strength. Leave me alone!
==
[Hirohito, the Japanese Emperor was said to be] born from the sun.
This is the legend. The Japanese believe it still even today, that they were set aside from the sun. And when America conquered Japan, they said [to Hirohito] announce that you weren’t born from the sun! Tell them!
It didn’t help. He announced it on the radio, I was not born from the sun!
Even today, [they still believe it]. 80 years have passed, and nothing helped. Everyone believes that they were born from the sun.
==
Back then, they would go and take counsel from the sun. He would do a day of hitbodedut.
So, on September 2nd, this was the eve of the yahrtzeit of R’ Eliezer ben R’ Shimon [bar Yochai]. R’ Eliezer ben R’ Shimon – it’s the yahrtzeit when it’s possible to work anything, every thing.
Then, the war was stopped. It was finished.
==
[Before Japan was defeated] Japan had already conquered the Phillipines, and had conquered Indonesia.
She conquered, and she stood [ready] to conquer Australia. There was Magdoland [?][4]. He was the representative of the American Presidency in the Far East in Indonesia and the Phillipines. He was already preparing to pull back from Australia, like [name missing in original].
The British had already retreated, they abandoned everything.
==
Translated and excerpted from Shivivei Or, 420.
==
[1] I.e. the gematria of Y.K.V.K. is 26, x 3 = 78, +1 for the kollel = 79.
[2] The Rav appears to be saying that if you invert the numbers for gold, 29, you get 92.
[3] The head of the Japanese army in World War II.
[4] It’s not clear who the Rav is referring to here.
This is a screenshot of the front cover:
==
Translation:
Morenu HaRav this week:
If a person says 7 Tikkun HaKlalis on one day, for 40 days, they can atone for every sin that’s in the world!
Even the very worst!
Everything will be turned around to ‘merits’.
And to being purified!
==
That’s why I rushed to get this up now.
It sounds like a really good deal.
==
You can even do it on your phone, here:
https://www.tikkunhaklali.net/
Or download this PDF:
https://beitemunah.org/tikkunhaklali.pdf
(If there is a better PDF to download, let me know and I’ll post it up.)