When the evangelical missionaries really got started with the Jews – 1809

Warning: puke bags may be required for viewing the following.

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The CMJ is the modern name of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews (LSPCAJ).

It got started in 1809, in London, headed up by a converted German Jew who I suspect had connections with the Frankist network, originally called ‘Joseph Levi’, who became ‘Joseph Christian Samuel Frey‘.

FREY = FREI = FREE, to show he was now ‘free’ of the Torah’s yoke, by becoming a xtian.

(BTW, he left the organisation in disgrace around 7 years later, having been caught, repeatedly, in brothels and having affairs with some of the converted wives of his small band of converted Jews… So, he left the UK under a cloud, and then set up shop again with another missionary in the good ol’ USA.)

The LSPCAJ set up missionary centres all over the world – but especially, here in Israel.

And especially, here in Jerusalem.

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They were especially successful with their ‘medical missionaries’, and the missionary hospitals they set up in Israel.

And here’s the bit you probably didn’t know before now:

Many people from choshuveh families, particular the families connected with the GRA’s Perushim, became evangelical xtians.

And then in turn, became ‘Jewish missionaries’ working for the LSPCAJ.

I am inching closer to figuring this out, but when I say stuff like ‘the evangelical xtians set up the modern State as a xtian concern’ – I mean that literally.

And the people they got to front the project on the Jewish side of the equation were not always as Jewish as they looked.

Apparently, there were / are many ‘secret believers in Yoshki’ all over the State of Israel.

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I am currently reading through a huge amount of material about some of these ‘Jewish missionaries’.

They include a grandson of the Vilna Gaon, one JACOB ELIAS NEUMAN:

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He moved to London, converted and married a financially comfortable non-Jew who was quite a bit older than him.

I found out about him from an old book called: Memories of Gospel Triumphs Among the Jews During the Victorian Era.

He’s a real person, because I found his naturalisation papers in the UK archives.

The piece on him in that old book begins like this:

Jacob Elias Neuman is the grandson of the most eminent Rabbi of the eighteenth century; one so distinguished, that he is universally known and spoken of in Jewish circles as “the great Elias.”

The missionary Elias Neuman was named for his grandpa, the Vilna Gaon, and born in Neustadt on the 9th of July. He moved to the UK in 1845, converted and was baptised on May 12th, 1847, and then became a missionary ‘preaching to the Jews’ of Russia, where he’d been born. For a few years.

By 1854, he’d had enough of preaching to Jews in Russia, and wrote a letter asking his British xtian patrons to help him make a living by privately tutoring kids back in the UK, instead.

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Now, I would LOVE to tell you exactly how JE NEUMAN, the missionary, descends from the Vilna Gaon.

But as you might expect – he’s been totally scrubbed out of the Gaon’s family tree, and now, finally, we are starting to understand more of why so many of the family trees of our ‘great leaders’ have been so thoroughly obscured, distorted and tampered with.

To cut the very long story very short, a whole bunch of our ‘great leaders’ have converted Jews in their family trees, and not just any old converted Jews, literally Jewish missionaries.

And not only any old ‘Jewish missionaries’, Jewish missionaries working for the Brits, with a particular eye on…. Eretz Yisrael.

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I am just getting started on this whole, sordid tale.

This is enough to get you thinking for yourself, and poking around yourself, a little, to start making more of your connections yourselves, between so many of our ‘great leaders’ – particularly amongst the GRA’s perushim, and the Alter Rebbe of Chabad’s family – and converted Jewish missionaries who were literally employed by British missionaries with tight links to the British government, to subvert the Jews from within.

Oh, and to ‘restore the Jews’ to Eretz Yisrael, so Britain could have a captive population to protect it’s new asset, the Suez Canal.

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Let’s end with this, that I found on the ICW website HERE:

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Evangelical xtians are not the ‘good guys’ in this story.

Anything but.

What Kirk is saying here, is exactly the same thing the so-called ‘philosemitic evangelical missionaries’ of 200 years ago were saying.

Exactly the same thing.

The plan has always been to weaken ‘rabbinical Judaism’ anyway they can, including supporting the Jewish reform movement, so the lost and rootless Jews become much easier pickings for the missionaries.

Bottom line.

And here in Israel, that plan has been going great guns since before the founding of the State, and is now heading towards its denouement.

It’s hard to know who our friends are these days, but nevertheless, you still need to know thine enemy.

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UPDATE:

Trying to track down JACOB ELIAS NEUMAN from NEUSTADT, I got to ELIYAHU RAGOLER from NEUSTADT.

Go HERE, to the Avotaynu pages for ‘Eliyahu’s branches’.

Screenshot:

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‘Moshe of Podzelva’ is meant to be a brother of the Vilna Gaon.

Eliyahu Kremer, and the ‘NEEMAN’ family, are possible alter-egos for our xtian missionary, JE NEUMAN.

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Another interesting possibility in the Gaon’s family tree is this guy:

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ELIYAHU RAGOLER, son of the Gaon’s brother AVRAHAM RAGOLER, from NEUSTADT, and directly connecting us up with the R CHAIM of VOLOZHIN, via his wife (who was also a close family member of the GRA), GITA.

The family tree for ‘ELIYAHU RAGOLER’ has been a massive mess for a long time….

It would not surprise me at all, if it was done deliberately to rub-out traces of a prominent missionary descendant actively working for British evangelicals, in Russia, to try and convert Jews.

(Exactly the same as Moshe, the son of the Alter Rebbe of Chabad was doing, at exactly the same time….)

Funny, that.

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UPDATE 2:

I found a cached version of one of ELIYAHU RAGOLER’S works on the Virtual Judaica site, that says this:

Detailed Description:   

Only edition of this three-part work by R. Elijah ben Jacob Ragoler. Yad Eliyahu is comprised of 1) Pesakim, responsa on all four parts of the Shulhan Arukh; 2) Kelalim, an alphabetical index of Talmudical subjects; and 3) Ketavim, novellae on the Talmud, also in alphabetical order. Yad Eliyahu was brought to press by R. Ragoler’s son-in-law R. David Levitin half a century after the author’s death.

R. Elijah ben Jacob Ragoler (1794-1849) was a Russian rabbi and kabbalist. He was born at Neustadt Sugind, government of Kovno, and died at Kalisz. He was a descendant of R. Mordecai Jaffe through R. Zevi Hirsch Ashkenazi (Hakam Zevi). After R. Ragoler’s boyhood had passed he studied the Talmudalone; and as he had never attended any yeshiva, his mind was free from casuistry (“pilpul”). He clung to the literal interpretation of the Talmud, preferring the commentary of Rashi, and often endeavored to understand the Talmudic text without the aid of any commentary whatever. Besides Talmudic literature, R. Ragoler devoted himself to the study of the Bible and Hebrew grammar, and, in addition, of Latin and German. At the age of twenty-one he turned his attention to the Cabala, and, after he had studied alone for some time, he went to Volozhin with the intention of continuing his investigations under R. Hayyim Volozhiner. He, however, remained only a short time at this place; and when he returned to his native town he was forced, by a reverse in his father’s fortune, to accept a rabbinical office.

R. Ragoler was called to the rabbinate of Shat, government of Kovno, and in 1821 to that of Eiragola, in the same government, commonly known to the Jews as Ragola, whence his name, R. Elijah Ragoler. He remained in this place three years and then (1824) became rabbi of Viliampol-Slobodka, a suburb of Kovno. There he lectured on Talmud before a great number of students; and most of his pupils became rabbis. In the beginning of 1840 R. Ragoler was called to the rabbinate of Kalisz, where he officiated until his death. Although Kalisz was a larger town, his occupancy of the rabbinate brought him little satisfaction, so much did he miss his former pupils. R. Ragoler was one of those enlightened rabbis who, in defending Orthodox Judaism against its adversaries, carried on the struggle with moderation. In 1844, when the Reform rabbis, under the leadership of Abraham Geiger, assembled at Brunswick for a conference, R. Ragoler was invited by R. Zevi Hirsch Lehren of Amsterdam to join the Orthodox rabbis in their protest. He accordingly, in a letter to Lehren, argued against the tenets of Reform rabbinism, but at the same time insisted upon the avoidance of violence and particularly of insulting words. He contended that it was not worth while to bring on a quarrel so long as his party was without particulars of the conference. Besides, he declared, insulting the Reform rabbis would only enrage them the more without profiting Orthodoxy.

He contented himself with indicating the means of preventing the mass of the Jews from “falling into the net of Reform.” Although, as stated above, R. Ragoler studied Kabbalah, he did so only from a scientific point of view; he objected to its practice, detesting the writing and use of “kemi’ot”. The chief points of his method of study are: (1) never to tire one’s mind with commentaries on Rashi; (2) after having studied a section of the Pentateuch, to study the Talmudic passages in connection with such section; (3) to teach children first the Pentateuch, then the Prophets and Hagiographa, and then, when their minds are ripe enough, the Talmud. In delivering his decisions he followed the Law strictly; he thus abolished many old customs which he considered to be contradictory thereto. His ordinances (“takkanot”), the observance of which he strongly recommended, are very characteristic, e.g., that women in particular should not go to the river on Rosh ha-Shanah for the recitation of the “Tashlik” (he held that it would be well to abolish this custom altogether); that one should not recite the “kiddush ha-lebanah” under the open sky, nor on Yom Kippur and the Sabbaths following the Passover feast the piyyuṭim which occur before Shema.

 

Hebrew Description:

…מאת … מרן אליהו נ”ע, שהיה אב”ד … קאליש … המכונה בשם רבי אליהו ראגאלער, בן … ר’ יעקב זצ”ל, מק”ק עיר חדש סוגינדט … נסדר והוכן לדפוס תחת השגחת … ר’ יהונתן עליאשבערג זצ”ל הגאב”ד דק”ק וואלקאוויסק, בהשתדלות … ר’ דובער הלוי לעוויטין נ”י מפראפאיסק פלך מאהילוב חתן … המחבר. והובא לדפוס על ידי, אליעזר בריל … חתן … מו”ה יהושע [רבינוביץ] זצוקלל”ה הגאב”ד דק”ק ניעשוויעז בן … המחבר. חלק א-ב. שנת ר’ב’י’ א’ל’י’ה’ו’ ב’ר’ב’י’ י’ע’ק’ב’

העתיק את הספר מכתב-היד, סדרו והוסיף הערות בשולי הדפים ר’ מרדכי סלוצקי מסוויסלאץ. חלק א: חלק הפסקים, כולל מאה ועשרים תשובות הלכה למעשה וחקירות וספיקות לדייא … ונלוה בסופו גם ספר הכללים בעניני הש”ס עפ”י א”ב. [2] דף, 150; 14, [1] עמ’. בראש הספר הקדמת ר’ אליעזר בריל וצוואת המחבר. חלק ב: חלק הכתבים, חדושים בסוגיות הש”ס ע”פ סדר א”ב. 171, [1] עמ’.

 

Reference:

Bibliography of the Hebrew Book 1470-1960 #000120659;  BE yod 78; JE

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UPDATE 3:

More on ELIYAHU RAGOLER, who may himself have been the grandfather of our notorious missionary, JACOB ELIAS NEUMAN, from the JewishGen site on the town of SETA/ SHAT in Lithuania:

Rav Eliyahu ben Rav Yakov Ragoler, who was born in 1794 in Neustadt-Taurage, and like the Vilna Gaon, held the opinion that the Tanach must be studied before the Talmud, and with Rashi’s interpretations.

After his term as rabbi of Shat, he served as rabbi in Ragole [Ariogala], then for 16 years in Slobodka [Vilijampole] where he established the first large yeshiva, and after that, 10 years in Kalish (therefore he was also known as Rav Eliyahu Kalisher). He died in 1849. His son, Rav David Halosker printed his father’s Yad Eliyahu (“Memorial of Eliyahu”), two volumes published in Warsaw, 1900.

Notice, Slobodka and Kalish are also in the mix here.

A bit more, about his son:

Rav Yehoshua ben Rav Eliyahu Rabinowitz was born in 1818. He was principal of the Kletzk Yeshiva from 1847 and in 1867 also head of the beth din. He was the son of the Gaon Rav Eliyahu Ragoler. Died 1887 in Nesvizh.

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Notice, ‘Rav Eliyahu’ has a whole bunch of different surnames.

Ragoler, Kalisher, now here, ‘RABINOWITZ’.

I am increasingly thinking that ‘ELIYAHU RAGOLER’ is our connection to the missionary JACOB ELIAS NEUMAN.

If you see who else ‘ELIYAHU RAGOLER’ connects to, at least, on the Geni tree ‘curated’ by KLH, you will start to understand a lot, lot more, about the tight links between evangelical xtians are ‘leaders of the yishuv’ here in Eretz Yisrael.

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Notice, that Eliyahu Ragoler’s son, YEHOSHUA RABINOWITZ, is totally missing from this list of his descendants.

Also, notice that some new brother ‘Shmuel HaKatan Ragoler’ has been conjured up as the ABD of Shat to ‘split the personas’ of Eliyahu Ragoler and his son Yehoshua.

I’m going to stop here for now, but given all the manipulation of this tree, and of the dates of the people involved, I think our missionary JE NEUMAN is the grandson of ELIYAHU RAGOLER.

He’s got some fantastic yichus, forwards and backwards.

BH, I will introduce you to more of these Jewish missionaries with fantastic yichus, because sad to say, there are a lot of them to talk about…

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How Uman works (aka: really just judging yourself)

Many people apparently struggle to understand why a man would leave his home, his family (if he has one…) and go to Uman for Rosh Hashana.

In the old days, they used to spread rumours that the only reason ‘people went to Uman’ was to party, and do a bunch of terrible aveirot (as if, it’s impossible to do terrible aveirot in places like NYC or Tel Aviv….)

But then, after Covid, and the Ukrainian War, and the Israel War, where going to Uman costs a fortune, and people are stuck travelling for whole days at a time, stuck on coaches and planes in the middle of nowhere, all that ‘people go to party’ stuff got exposed as an obvious lie.

So then, the discourse on why someone would go to Uman, if you can really call it that, fell to these low levels, courtesy of the Yeshiva World News propaganda site, HERE:

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(BTW, in the PS I’ll put an example of a real comment from a real Jewish neshama, at the end of this thread, above.)

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Let’s be charitable, and say that none of these yukky comments were written by real people.

Let’s say, they were written by AI-programmed demonic bots, or, they were written by spooks working for the Evils, and trying to ‘influence’ frum Jews via the comments section of the YWN site.

Neither of those scenarios would be totally out there.

But the point is, regular people, good Jews, get very ‘influenced’ by these demonic bots, or even more demonic spooks, into thinking stuff that is just plain bad and evil.

And it’s interesting, how Breslov, Uman, Meron, and the Rav are the spiritual ‘rods’ that attract so much demonic attention on these propaganda sites.

So, let’s figure out a bit more what’s going on, with Uman.

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In a nutshell: when you go to Uman, especially on Rosh Hashana, you are embarking on a program of having your soul ‘fixed’, in whichever way that is required.

Every single person in the world has bad middot, even the so-called ‘tzaddikim’ and ‘tzaddekesses’ who are not Breslov and live in America.

When you have to pay a ton of money to spend a chag in a room with a bunch of strangers, having travelled days and days to get there, with all the difficulty and suffering that entails, a lot of these bad middot will start to come out of the woodwork.

You’ll be the ‘Mr Angry’, the ‘Mr Despairing’, the ‘Mr Anxious’ – whatever it is – that you are at home, too, except now, you are not surrounded by a bunch of family members who have been trained to ignore or ‘work around’ your bad middot.

Which means: now, you have to start to deal with them, and their impact, yourself.

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Let’s give a couple of practical examples, so you see how this works out in practise.

Let’s say, you get stuck at the Polish border for 11 hours, in a massive queue, worrying if you are going to make your flight back home.

This is a wonderful exercise in ‘working on your emuna and patience’, for those people who approach their lives like this.

For the people who don’t – they’ll get anxious, angry, frustrated, obnoxious, literally feel like they want to jump out of their skins from being unable to ‘get things to move’ they way they want to, and at some point, if they are lucky, even they will start to understand that they are not the ones in control here.

God is in control, not us.

And even if a person only grasps that idea for the tiniest split-second – the impact on their soul and their life will be tremendous.

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Let’s give another example.

Let’s say, you have issues having conversations with people, but now, because you are spending a week with a bunch of strangers away from home, and you are feeling a little lonely and lost, you have no choice, except to try and participate in a conversation with someone.

After all, you are sharing a room with six guys, eight guys, ten guys, 12 guys…. And at least one of them will be the talkative type.

Rabbenu is going to fix it, that you are going to be forced out of your comfort zone, and forced into a space where you have to finally deal with yourself, on some level, and at least some of the bad middot that are holding you back in life, and preventing you from being the person God really designed you to be in the world.

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Of course, all this is totally lost on the AI bots and demonic spooks who write most of the comments on propaganda sites like YWN.

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Something else:

Everyone has a certain amount of suffering they have to do in life, to pay down the sins we are all racking up, every second, of every hour, of every day.

40 hours spent on the road returning home from Uman post-Rosh Hashana takes care of a HUGE amount of that annual allotment of suffering.

Sure, it’s no fun to be stuck on a coach for two days, bored, stiff, hungry, tired, and unable to have a wee when you want to.

Sure.

But in terms of the ‘big scheme of things’, most people would pick two days like that, than terrible suffering in another form, like serious illnesses, God forbid, or being kicked out of their homes, God forbid, or seeing their marriages and families break up, God forbid.

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A few years ago, maybe it got too easy to get to Uman, and too ‘comfortable’.

So maybe, just maybe, Rabbenu arranged the present circumstances, so everyone who comes is guaranteed to have some sort of suffering and tikkun, just in the process of getting there and back.

Who knows?

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One more thing I wanted to say, comes down to how people who are not Breslov judge people who go to Uman for Rosh Hashana.

Again, we know it’s AI bots and demonic spooks writing these evil comments, but let’s say some authentic real Jew gets influenced by them, and starts thinking to themselves, like yeah, these people are part of cult… They are ‘worshipping’ dead people… They aren’t ‘real Jews’…

Or whatever.

Let’s be very, very clear, that the Baal Shem Tov taught that the whole world is a mirror.

And that when a person is going to be judged in shemayim, they put a situation before them that mirrors their own exactly, and then wait to see how that person is going to ‘judge’ it.

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Let’s go back to the AI bot comments, to see how that would work in practise:

Let’s say, you are a ‘proud Jew’ in America, demanding your menorah gets lit next to the xmas tree every winter festival time, proudly lobbying presidents, senators, congressmen and mayors for [fill in the blank], proudly appearing for photo ops in the White House, or wherever, proudly dressed in your black yarmulke and / or fedora.

A ‘proud Jew’ like that in the USA needs to be really careful, about making statements about Breslovers from Israel like this:

You got what was coming to you. When did yidden forget to keep a low profile in golus?

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Tov.

BH, hopefully we cleared up more of the spiritual mystery around why people go to Uman for Rosh Hashana, and how the whole spiritual tikkunim process works, by Rabbenu.

The last thing I will say is that at this point in my life, I have seen so many of the people who were were ‘anti’ Breslov, ‘anti’ Uman, etc, hit some very, very difficult situations in their own lives, and particularly, with their families.

I used to have a good friend who criticised my husband for ‘leaving his family’ at chag time. She got divorced, in a spectacularly bad way, a few years back, and is not even on speaking terms with her ex…

Who knows, if she’d sent him off to Uman for Rosh Hashana, maybe, just maybe, something could have been salvaged from that whole hot mess.

But, b’kitzur, and especially at this time of year, however we are judging others, we are really just judging ourselves.

And if you are not an AI bot or demonic spook, that should really give a person pause for thought, about how much they start slagging other people off for going to Uman for Rosh Hashana.

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PS: This is a great example of a how a real Jew would comment on a post on propaganda sites like YWN:

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PPS: While I was looking for the link to the anti-Uman ‘propaganda’ above, I came across this:

On 11 January 2020, the Israeli publication Yeshiva World News posted a supposed news report about a shocking anti-Semitic attack in Uman. There was no pogrom, yet within hours ‘the story’ had been repeated as though it were established fact by other Israeli, Ukrainian and Russian media

Read the whole breakdown here: https://archive.khpg.org/en/1579039706

The YWN does this every. single. year.

In some form or other, anything to get Jews to steer clear of Uman, Rosh Hashana.

Now, why would a site that’s working for the State of Israel be interested in doing something like that? What do they know about the real spiritual power of ‘Uman, Rosh Hashana’ that perhaps is lost on the rest of us?

Answers on a postcard…

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Some thoughts on people who are ‘anti-Shuvu Banim’

Baruch Hashem, my husband mostly had a great time in Uman this year, despite a 29 hour return trip.

He asked me to do a little pidyon for him at the Polish border with the Rav, and I did, and it meant that my husband could endure the 11 hour wait to cross the border without going nuts, and by concentrating on the tikkun of trying to work on his patience, and accepting everything is from Hashem.

People around him on his coach, tho, (who weren’t Shuvu….) didn’t have the same equanimity, or mindset.

Lots of people got angry. Lots of people started telling themselves and their neighbours scare stories about ‘Baku #2’ – Baku being the small airport where a bunch of people got stuck, last Rosh Hashana.

My husband is an amazing guy – but I will tell you straight, that just being connected to Rabbenu, Rebbe Nachman, is not enough, these days, to really dig out all the bad middot every single one of us has. People also need to be connected to the Tzaddik HaDor, Rav Berland – and this brings me on to the real subject of this post.

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As the world continues to get crazier and crazier, with even ‘normal people’ now believing in aliens as standard, and mocking ‘creationists’ who don’t, it’s getting harder and harder to figure out what is really true, and what really isn’t.

And also, who is really connecting to ‘truth’, and who really isn’t, even if they are well-meaning, sincere and knowledgeable.

The shortcut is this: Rav Berland and Shuvu Banim.

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Now, you don’t have to be standing on your chair cheering for the Rav (although if you want to, bevakasha, that’s fantastic.)

But, any time someone is ‘anti’ the Rav, or ‘anti’ Shuvu, I can tell you a million per cent, that something is ‘off’ with that person’s spiritual compass. It may be that only a little correction is required, a little bit of teshuva, to go back and re-evaluate information and ideas and experiences, and to reframe them correctly.

Or, it might be that the person is lost in the abyss already, believes ‘white is really black’ – and is sadly very far down the path of totally losing their connection to ‘truth’.

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In Uman, my husband caught up with an old acquaintance who used to be ‘quietly’ with the Rav, i.e. never openly, as that could cause them issues, but not ‘anti’. Now, that’s apparently changed. Without going in to too many details, apparently, they had a negative experience with some Shuvu Banim guys who weren’t acting nicely, and that was enough for them to throw the Rav over.

Let’s consider this for a moment, as I think it’s something a lot of people have had issues with.

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Let me ask you, have you ever had dealings with a Jew, or an Israeli who wasn’t ‘very nice’?

I certainly have.

I’ve met all sorts of Jews, some ‘very frum’, who have been total a-holes when it came to their middot, and were literally disgusting, horrible people who were responsible for some massive chillul Hashems.

Does that now mean, that I can and should go around dissing every Jew? Every Israeli? Or dissing the Torah that these people clearly are not following, when they act in disgusting ways?

Of course not.

There is the Torah, there are all the rules laid down by our Sages down the generations for how a sincere Jew should live – and then there are people with very bad middot who don’t follow those rules, and get overwhelmed by their negative traits and addictions, and act really badly.

If people followed the Torah’s rules properly – if they listened to our real Sages like the Baal Shem Tov, and Rebbe Nachman, and Rav Berland – then of course, they wouldn’t be acting like this.

But, to blame the Torah or the Sages for an individual’s bad behavior is totally ridiculous.

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I am so sick of all those hypocrites out there, who keep pointing their big, fat fingers at some of the off-the-derech teens in Shuvu, or some of the people with yucky middot, and keep trying to pin everything they see ‘wrong’ in Shuvu, on the Rav.

As though no other Jewish community in the whole world has off-the-derech teens, or yucky people.

Really, what planet do these hypocrites live on?

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I am in and around Shuvu a lot, and I know there are issues – but I can also tell you that there are issues absolutely everywhere in the world today, and that the Rav’s advice – about ‘giving in’, nullifying yourself, not answering back when people criticise you, trying to see God behind everything etc etc – all his advice has made me a way, way better person than I would have been otherwise.

The big difference is, that no other community has a leader that is actually emphasizing things like guarding the eyes, or praying for others, including those ‘on the other side of the fence’, or underlining the importance of not hurting another Jew, especially the Jew you are married to, or (trying to…) parent.

Do people always listen to his advice?

Totally not!

But is that the Rav’s ‘fault’ – or the problem of the individual?

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Compounding all this, is that about 15 years ago, Shuvu Banim got hijacked by a group of people from choshuva families in Meah Shearim, who basically operated as a corrupt mafia, in so many ways.

Including, keeping the Rav himself prisoner in his own home, manipulating his close family members, and using the Rav as a ‘cash cow’, operating a ‘pay-to-play’ scheme where anyone who wanted to see the Rav had to pay them for the privilege.

All this is set out clearly in OIAG 1 and 2, but long story short, when the Rav couldn’t take it anymore, after 10 years under ‘house arrest’ by this mafia, he escaped.

And then the ‘mafia’ told him if he didn’t come back and continue acting as their ‘cash cow’, they were going to start spreading horrible rumours about him in the press.

They were as good as their word.

And, because these choshuva families are actually just the ‘frum’ branch of the choshuva families who run the corrupt State of Israel, it was no problem at all to get the State involved in persecuting the Rav at the international level, too.

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Why am I telling you this?

Again?

Because seven years ago when I was writing OIAG, and putting out my findings, I had to deal with a bunch of naive people who simply couldn’t believe ‘the government’, or ‘frum people’ would lie to them, about anything.

They simply couldn’t believe, ‘the government’ would persecute religious people, just for being religious.

They simply couldn’t believe the media, especially the so-called ‘frum media’ would lie, over and over and over again.

They couldn’t believe the crazy idea that there is an evil Jewish ‘mafia’ who have basically insinuated themselves into the leadership positions of every real Jewish power base, frum or not – and who don’t hesitate to ‘rub out’ their opposition in any way open to them.

They simply couldn’t believe it.

And now?

After Covid, and October 7, and ‘Houthi drones’, and arresting yeshiva bochurs, and never-ending demonstrations against ‘frum parasites’…. Now?

Are you still going to believe all the lies about the Rav and his community?

==

The birur is getting harder and harder.

Me personally, as soon as I know someone is anti the Rav, even a tiny bit – I already take what they say with a huge grain of salt, and I stay away from their ‘influence’.

If they could be wrong about something as ‘big’ as the Rav…. Who knows what else they are totally wrong about, regardless of how put together, sincere and ‘right’ they may actually sound on other topics.

The late R Alter Chaim David Stern, Z’l, told us years and years ago:

The last test before Moshiach is Rav Berland.

==

I give everyone a bracha, they should pass it.

And in the meantime, I have the feeling that all those lashon hara pigeons are coming home to roost, very, very soon.

For the people caught on the wrong side of the equation, it’s going to be a very difficult time.

Especially when ‘the aliens’ show up, and anyone who is outside of the circle of the True Tzaddik is going to have to deal with them, spiritually, all on their own.

It’s going to make Poltergeist look like a walk in the park…

 

 

 

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10 Chassidim

Over Rosh, I managed to read quite a bit of Martin Buber’s ‘Tales of the Hasidim’.

These books have been out of print for 50 years (they were first published in 1947 (Vol 1) and 1948 (Vol 2), but God helped me to find them, two months apart, in a second-hand book shop here in Jerusalem, where lots of interesting stuff keeps turning up.

So, I sat down and read, and one of the stories I read was about the Seer of Lublin, and the 10 chassidim.

==

A young man came to the Seer of Lublin, who could tell everything about a person just by looking at him.

(Rabbenu, Rebbe Nachman, said he could do this too, and knew everything a person from shaking their hand.)

The Seer stared at the young man for a long time, then ordered him to leave immediately, and go home for Shabbat.

He said it in such a stern voice, there was no point in arguing, so the young man turned around and started back home.

That night, he stayed over in an inn, and coming in the other direction, towards the Seer of Lublin, were 10 of his chassidim.

They also stopped at the inn, and asked the young man what he was doing there.

When he told them the Seer had sent him home for Shabbat, the chassidim ordered some schnapps, started to drink with him, started to dance with him, started to sing niggunim with him, and long story short, passed the night in holy happiness, on the way to the Tzaddik.

The next morning, they told the young man to join their group, and come back with them to the Seer of Lublin.

==

As soon as they entered the Seer’s Court, he stared at the young man, and kept staring at him, hard.

Eventually, the Seer called him over to him, and asked him, tell me: what did you do, between yesterday and today?

The young man described the ten chassidim, the schnapps, the dancing, the niggunim, and how eventually, the chassidim had dragged him back to the Seer almost against his will.

You should know, the Seer replied, that there was a decree of death upon you, which could not be overturned.

You were meant to die this Shabbat, and so I sent you home.  But what can I do?! Sometimes, 10 chassidim can accomplish what one Rebbe can’t.

The decree has been totally removed.

==

In the update about what happened with the Rav, where the State blocked him, yet again, from getting to Uman for Rosh Hashana 5786, the Rav said this:

During the meals, the Rav spoke often of how there is no doubt that precisely through the fact that he could not reach Uman again this year, more people are coming to Uman, and this increases the yearning and desire. The Rav also added that this is his task to be in Krakow on Rosh Hashanah, and one cannot understand the calculations of Heaven.

==

Baruch Hashem, my husband got back already, but I know quite a few people are dealing with cancelled flights, long delays and unexpected stays over Shabbat, because of all the difficulties travelling to Uman and back.

Baruch Hashem, I also know that this was the biggest kibbutz ever, possibly 100,000 made it out there, but it was definitely bigger than last year, and last year was at least 50,000 people.

I’m no prophet, and not pretending to be.

But when I read that story from the Seer of Lublin, about how the 10 chassidim removed a decree of death that even the Rebbe couldn’t remove – it gave me a lot of hope, that Uman this year did some massive, massive things, to sweeten all the decrees still hovering above the Jewish people.

If 10 people could remove a ‘decree of death’, then think of what 100,000 Jews in Uman did this year.

Bezrat Hashem.

==

Shabbat shalom.

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Resting the eyes

One of the decisions I made just before Rosh, was to write way more from the heart this year.

I got so stuck in putting up posts here that take hours and hours and hours of reading and research – and for what, really?

Whose life did it change?

Apart from the history nerds out there, who I can probably count on one hand, no-one else was that interested, or appreciated the enormous time and energy that go into those posts.

I happen to enjoy writing them, mostly, which is why I started a separate Substack for Hidden Jewish History, and will continue posting over there, with notices here, when I get more wind in my sails again, to do those posts properly.

But in the meantime….

I am going back to grassroots here on the blog.

Writing about whatever comes to me, without overthinking, or trying to please whatever audience is still with me.

==

Baruch Hashem, I’ve managed to steer clear of ‘audience capture’ for most of my writing career, but the last few years, since Covid, I started to feel more and more stuck in an expectation of doing ‘exposes’.

(If you don’t know what ‘audience capture‘ is, here is the Wiki, and this is a snippet:)

Audience capture is the phenomenon where an influencer is affected by their audience, catering to it with what they believe it wants to hear. This creates a positive feedback loop, which can lead the influencer to express more extreme views and behaviors.

==

Now, I want to go back – or forward! – to writing more about trying to live real life, with some real emuna, and just sharing whatever comes to mind.

It’s part of that effort I’ve been feeling for a few months already, to try to have ‘real’ conversations with people again, and not just social media ‘look at me’ monologues.

Or to keep falling into the pit of reacting to whatever retarded / evil headline is meant to have me jumping hoops into yet another episode of fear / anger / hatred.

I don’t care, right now, that our government is pretending ‘the Houthis’ bombed Eilat (as if!).

I dont’ care about any more army offensives, people need to make their own decisions about whether they think that’s a good use of their lives, time, energy, to participate in that stuff, and if the answer is yes – I am praying for them to make it out totally safely and in good health.

But otherwise, I’m not trying to argue anyone into having more emuna, or seeing what’s going on here.

Each person is on their own path, with their own life-lessons to learn, hopefully as gently as possible.

==

After holding my breath for six years, with ‘Covid’, and all the rotten rest of it, I feel like 5786 is the year of trying to serve God with as much joy as I can muster.

That means taking more hikes in nature (hopefully, BH), making more effort to cook yummy food again, which is why I bought this cookbook just before Rosh, and I’m finding the recipes pretty good:

https://fullnfree.com/cookbook/

No, I’m not getting a penny, or any other kick-back for recommending this. Just, it’s a real cookbook that I’m really enjoying at the moment, for the first time in years.

==

I also just signed up to learn how to make sourdough in Jerusalem.

It’s going to be a very ‘glamorous American’ workshop, and I am so not….

But, I can’t let that stuff hold me back from trying to get out, and experiencing real life more again.

==

So many of us have been getting more and more stuck in a very small, miserable circle, as the world shrinks around us, with all the latest ‘fear stories’ and ‘worries’ and ‘stuff to be depressed and despairing about’.

Yalla people!

It’s time to break out the mental prison, and to start enjoying life again!

There have always been wars, people dying, people suffering, that is no reason not to enjoy life to the very maximum, while we still can!

And to do things that build the world, and nourish our souls, and our bodies, in the meantime.

While connecting everything, everything, everything, back to God.

==

I know it’s a tall order, BH, I am really hoping God will help me pull it off more this year, at least, most of the time.

I called this post ‘resting the eyes’, as I was going to write more about Meir Schneider, and his book for strengthening eyesight naturally, called Vision for Life, which basically says ‘stress is the main reason everyone is losing their eyesight’.

But…. I can’t really be bothered to do that now, and all this came out instead, so here’s an intro if you are interested, and maybe I’ll come back to this another time:

==

Even just taking my glasses off when I walk has been helping my eyes feel way more ‘relaxed’ and a bit stronger again.

But, I think I also need to rest my eyes more from all the crud online, too, especially the so-called ‘news’.

God is in control, there is a plan going on here, to get as many people, as many Jews turning back towards their Creator again, in a real way.

It’s a painful process, but God knows what He’s doing.

And I’m not wasting any more of my life questioning the Almighty, or ‘getting miserable’ about other people’s problems.

If I can help easily – great!

And if I can’t, I will pray for them – and then get on with my own life, as happily as I can.

==

This sounds a little radical, even to me.

But ultimately – we are all just responsible for ourselves, and we are the only people we can really change.

And providing a good example, or trying to, of ‘living happily with emuna’ has to be worth way, way more than 10,000 preaching blog posts, or days spent miserable about all the evil in the world.

Doesn’t it?

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The good life

Shana Tova!

How was your chag?

I spent mine looking after a heavily-pregnant kid, plus her off-the-derech oldest best friend from school. It was mostly very nice, but I couldn’t help feeling a little sad, in parts, that the friend was on the phone to her boyfriend in the room, and having arguments with my kid about getting a tattoo.

The friend has been such a good friend to my kid, in so many ways, and is a very giving, generous person. Just…. Some combo of ‘dati leumi education’ and whatever she experienced in her home has turned her off God and yiddishkeit, going back a few years, already.

She just doesn’t believe in the Torah, or in God.

And now, that path is leading her further and further away from being able to live happily in Israel, where she says all she feels is anxiety about bombs falling or people coming to stab her. She wants to go somewhere ‘quiet’ in chul, where the anxiety recedes and she can do whatever she wants, spiritually, without feeling the direct effects in her soul and state of mind.

(Of course, that’s my take on what’s going on. She just thinks Israel is irreparably ‘broken’, and that she needs to get out of here ASAP to start enjoying life again.)

==

Her boyfriend is from a similar background.

A very ‘strong’ dati leumi background, more ‘chardal’, actually, that also wasn’t so in to the idea of their kids going to the army, post Gush Katif. So of course, he signed up happily two years ago – and is literally counting the minutes until he gets out, and can leave the country.

It’s been interesting, watching his ‘evolution’, if you can call it that, from thinking the secular-army life was going to be a-m-a-z-i-n-g and exciting, and meaningful, and all the things that secular life in Israel (or anywhere, actually) really is not, to understanding that the army is corrupt and horrible.

So now, what other option do thoughtful ‘secular’ people have to live a good life, except to leave the country and go find somewhere ‘peaceful’?

(Good luck with that.)

==

So it was quite an eye-opening chag, in its own gentle way, as I could see via my kid’s friend how the options seem to be closing down here in the aretz, for secular people who want to ‘live a good life’.

The only answer, really, is to return to God, and find the ‘good life’ on the spiritual side of the equation, because it doesn’t exist on the material side of the equation anywhere in the world, right now.

Other secular family members here are still moving forward with trying to move to a warm bit of the USA.

They spent three weeks scoping it out having fled in terror from the latest bit of the ‘war with Iran’ (which can also be spelt: U-S-A), and now seem to be trying to convince themselves that ‘the good life’ can still be had in Florida, or somewhere.

Where there are no bombs, no ‘Iranians’, no sirens, no crazy stuff like that, no sirree.

And no God and yiddishkeit present in any real amount to be noticeable.

==

I don’t know what’s going to happen next in either of these cases.

Clearly, if a person doesn’t value things like being able to eat kosher all over the place, wherever you go, being able to find a shul, living close to holy sites and holy kevarim, being surrounded by a lot of Jews, living somewhere where it’s still possible to hear your soul whispering to you, at least some of the time – then I can understand how the appeal of living in Israel can diminish, particularly after the last two years.

But are we really thinking that ‘the good life’ is available in the US, still, with prices through the roof, everyone obsessed with botox and ozempik (even in the so-called frum communities), and a growing undercurrent of serious antisemitism that (whisper this next bit) is actually state sponsored?

I guess, they’ll find out.

==

In the meantime – I am so, so grateful that I live here.

And also, that my kids made it through the school system with their faith in God intact. And for that, I am giving the credit 100% to Rabbenu, Rebbe Nachman, and the many times we dragged our kids to Uman ‘for a holiday’, that literally turned things around for them in some huge ways, spiritually.

How can people raise kids who are in touch with their souls, not just ‘religious robots’, and really happy to be frum, these days, without Rabbenu?

I literally have no idea.

==

The Rav did not get to Uman this year.

My husband heard the story from a gabbay there, and was told that the Ukrainians had removed the Rav’s ‘black visa’ from last year, but the State of Israel was protesting the Rav’s entry to Uman, as the Rav is on the State’s ‘black list’.

In the end, even this wrinkle was smoothed out – but too late for Rosh Hashana.

The last I heard, the Rav may try to go to Uman anyway, after Rosh Hashana, before returning to Israel.

I will update you.

But, it’s kind of obvious now, isn’t it, who has been keeping the Rav out of Uman the last few years…

And if you didn’t figure out still, that the Rav is leading the spiritual battle against the evil that’s taken over our Jewish community, I guess you’ll find this whole situation kinda perplexing.

==

BH, we are going to have a good 5786.

At least, the people sticking to God are going to have the best 5786 they could have, in current circumstances.

The people who aren’t, are going to need ever-increasing doses of anxiety medication, and Plans B, C, D and E for how to find the elusive ‘good life’ somewhere else in the world, where they don’t actually live.

Because the grass is always greener, when you don’t have to deal with it, day in and day out.

I watched ‘the widow’ flashing the devil horn fingers while cosying up to POTUS on stage, and I didn’t get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, dafka the opposite. Israel can feel like a frying pan at the moment, with all the ‘stress’ going on here (or at least, portrayed as going on here, via the media).

But jumping out of the frying pan to the fire in chul just doesn’t seem like a good move to make.

It seems to me, we really approaching the ‘turning point’, at least, in our days. And the safest place to watch that play out, for a believing Jew, is Israel.

BH, all the Jews will fit into that category very soon, and without too much suffering to get them to turn back to God, and away from the anxiety meds and delusional thinking about ‘the good life’.

I really hope so.

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Worldwide Tikkun HaKlali – today at 12pm Israel time

They are doing the ‘Worldwide Tikkun HaKlali’ today at 12pm, Israel time.

(Monday).

Apparently, Israel’s Channel 14 is carrying a live stream of the event.

==

My husband told me it’s the busiest he’s ever seen it in the last 20 years.

It’s truly amazing, because the miniot to going are just going up and up and up.

Yet, at least 50,000 good Jews from all over the world are coming to Uman to pray with the Rosh HaTzaddikim on Rosh Hashana– the time when tikkunim can be performed, and things can be rectified and fixed, that can’t be rectified and fixed any other time of year, or any other place.

==

What of the Rav?

I still don’t know. Here in Jerusalem, there have been no announcements about alternative prayers on Ido HaNavi for Rosh Hashana, so it seems the Rav will not be in Jerusalem, for sure, but still unknown if he made it to Uman for Rosh Hashana 5786.

Still praying he did / does, as the last two years when they barred the Rav from Uman, Rosh Hashana, Am Yisrael have been through some of the harshest yissurim since WW2.

==

BH, 5786 is the new start, the real and only ‘turning point’ that the Jewish people require, or should spending any time thinking about.

==

I forgive anyone who may have hurt me this year, including the Hyehudi psycho.

And if I hurt you, please forgive me.

 

 

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Some thoughts on ‘teshuva’

Or, yeridah le’sorech l’aliya.

I know there are some people reading this that have been with me for a couple of decades, almost, when I started off writing for Rav Arush’s website, once a week, about my struggles to try and acquire some real emuna.

I was writing over there for about eight years, as my life was imploding in a million different directions, and I really got to a place where I thought ‘the madness’ was never going to end.

I don’t know if this is a stage that every person has to go through, the ‘12 years of Yosef’, where you feel so stuck in some sort of yucky prison, or matzav, and can’t see a way out or through. In the meantime, even Yosef HaTzaddik had to work on his emuna every single day in prison, until God finally said enough! – and he was rushed from the deepest pit in Egypt to ruling the country.

Tachlis, my turnaround wasn’t that dramatic, but after 12 years of crazy, yucky stuff happening all the time, after about 12 years, we finally got some respite, and things moved into a much better space, BH.

What got me through all that was following Rabbenu’s advice, especially to do hitbodedut an hour a day, and to go to Uman at least once a week, and pay pidyonot to a real Tzaddik, whenever things hit another patch of really difficult, or really ‘stuck’.

==

The turnaround coincided with us ‘finding’ Rav Berland.

And then a whole bunch of other things started to happen, in the ‘post 12-years in prison’ phase.

For example, I’d decided to stop writing, and to retrain as an aromatherapist / energy worker. I learnt a bunch of really useful stuff at a very high level, I set out my shingle, including ads on Janglo (remember that?!), I even started up a new blog, called ‘Emunaroma’, and a ‘Jewish Emotion and Mental Health Institute’, together with its own blog, call ‘Spiritual Self Help’…

I plugged away for two years.

And I had 2 1/2 clients to show for it all, one of whom decided they couldn’t afford to pay me, one of whom stopped because ‘the treatment is working too well’, and one of whom kinda turned her whole life around in a fantastic way.

I understood, after two years, that I should probably go back to the writing. So I did, trying to do books like Talk to God and Fix Your Health, and small guides on Causes and Cures of Depression, and then moving back into more spiritual stuff, like Unlocking the Secret of the Erev Rav.

==

And then….Shuvu Banim and the Rav started to be attacked from all sides.

We’d actually only really heard about the Rav, initially, from the same fake news smear stories everyone else was hearing.

As a journalist, those stories smelt off to me, they didn’t make sense in a whole bunch of ways, so I started checking them out, as you’ve seen me do here with stuff like Covid, and with stuff like ‘Meron’, and on a more minor level, stuff like ‘Trump’s Ear’ – and after months and months of investigating, I came to the conclusion the Rav was being framed by the State for crimes he never committed in a billion years.

==

So then, me being me, I had to tell people that.

And that lead to me being publically attacked by all sorts of low-lifes, many of whom had beards and Toy-rah and public platforms; it led to me losing a whole bunch of ‘friends’, who so believed the news they’d rush round to argue with me about all this fake information like they’d just thrown down the winning hand in a round of poker.

It led to massive arguments with my kids, whose friends were telling them we’d ‘joined a cult’. (BTW, we had that ‘you joined a cult’ when we got more religious, in the UK; and then again, when we made aliyah; and then again, when we first found about about Breslov and Rabbenu, and now here it was happening again with the Rav… Personally, I took that as a good sign.)

And professionally – it lead to all my efforts to get the Secret Diary of a Jewish Housewife book a bit more traction online sinking like the proverbial stone.

Writing publically in favour of the Rav killed my professional journalism career dead as a dodo.

Thank God.

==

The next three years, I was just doing Shuvu Banim / Rav Berland stuff non-stop.

That lead to a whole bunch of books in English, like Rav Berland’s Advice, a few books of translated Prayers, the Miracles book, Conversations, and of course, One in a Generation.

When I get up to shemayim, and they are weighing my life in the scales of merit, I am sure Rabbenu is going to show up with armfuls of those (unsold…) books and just like that, I’m off the hook.

==

This process also led to massive amounts of real teshuva.

Teshuva about my arrogance, and belief that I know everything, when every day with the Rav, I was discovering I knew nothing at all, really.

Teshuva about my relationships with others, and especially my kids, as I started to understand more and more that the role of a parent for a growing child is to give and support – and to take all the ‘teenage troofs’ they throw at you with equanimity, and without holding it against them or trying to take revenge for the massive dents they inflict on our cast-iron egos.

Teshuva about understanding this world is really only a corridor to a much better place, and that ‘home’ is in the heart, not the massive structure that costs a million bucks (hahaha, like you can even buy one for that much, these days.)

The more of these insights I had, the bigger the ‘weirdo’ I became to all the normal people, who just knew that life was about making a ton of money, staying skinny and being popular and successful, permanently ‘on holiday’, and ‘on facebook’.

And then, Covid 19 came to town.

And literally overnight, everything changed.

==

Well, not quite ‘everything’.

Because so many of the people who were stuck in the lies, and the lying news, continued to be stuck in it, and telling everyone else we had to mask up, stand 6ft away, and avoid all physical contact with other people, while the government worked on their green passport strategy to ‘save the world’.

Remember all that?

Remember how much you bought into it yourself?

==

In my house, I threw everything into helping my kids avoid being spiked by the ‘experimental nanotech’. And trying to break the narrative down, on my blog, and also anonymously in the comments sections of any lying news site that wouldn’t ban me.

And trying to keep sane, in the process.

It was very challenging, and that is the point where so much of my yiddishkeit life-cycle stuff started to falter. Before Covid, my husband tried very hard to always daven with a minyan, he learned Torah many days in the morning, in yeshiva, we had a routine of learning stuff on shabbat etc.

The Covid 19 lockdowns blew all that ‘structure’ to smithereens.

It’s really only started to come back this year.

==

Other things that ‘Covid 19’ blew up was my faith in nearly every ‘famous rabbi’ you care to mention, except those connected to, and / or publically in favour of, Rav Berland.

And my ability to listen to vacuous, theoretical ‘shiurim’ that are either basically just a frum version of a secular history listen, or a frum version of a scholarly debate of philosophical apikorsim in universitiy, or a frum version of Joe Rogan (but sadly, never as funny and usually way more political).

The acting that goes on in the ‘sponsored content’ section of the Yeshiva World News is very impressive.

For all the wrong reasons.

==

More and more, I came to understand how Rebbe Nachman’s path is really the only way out of the suffering and difficulties that is ‘modern life’ for all of us, today.

And more and more, the Evils have been trying to close it down, by placing Uman and Meron ‘out of bounds’, going after the Tzaddik HaDor in a million different ways, and making core things to Rabbenu’s path like ‘doing pidyonot’ literally illegal.

At least, ‘illegal’ with Rav Berland, the Tzaddik HaDor.

If you still want to donate your money to the actors and fakers promising you yeshuot on behalf of their dead ancestors, or from their magical hafrashat challah on YWN, the Evils would love that tremendously.

==

After Covid 19, Meron, war in Ukraine, October 7, war in Israel, ‘Iranians-Hamas-Hezbollah-Houthis’ (also spelt: U.S.A) – my ability to think about my soul proactively, and to start to make some real teshuva again has been battered to pieces.

Just getting through the day has been enough of  challenge.

Until now.

==

I don’t know what exactly, but something inside seems to have changed the last few days.

I am really yearning for some real teshuva, some real proactive thinking about where I’m heading, spiritually, and how best to try to get there, with God’s help.

The last few days, I sat down and read through Rebbe Nachman’s Tzaddik. I’ve read that book scores of times, but hardly at all the last five years.

I’m also feeling like I want to return to writing way more about simple emuna here on the blog, not exactly how I did before, updated for the much harsher circumstances we are currently seeing unfold in the world.

What I don’t want to do, any more, is waste any more of my life breathlessly following ‘bad news’ that has been designed by the Evils to manipulate my state of mind, and keep me in mochin de’katnut.

Whether it’s ‘news’ about our evil government here in Israel, the evil government there in [fill in the blank], evil celebrities being evilly ‘assassinated’, the ‘scariest weather ever – AGAIN!!!!’, space aliens, global antisemitism, yucky stuff happening to and by yucky people all over the world….

I so, so, so want to switch that all off, and move forward to a place of writing more emuna stuff again.

==

This is my prayer for the new year for the blog.

It’s not a new prayer.

I don’t know if God will grant me the koach and ability to do it, tachlis.

But at least, that’s the direction I want to head in.

==

I still don’t know if the Rav got to Uman.

BH, at least my husband did this year, and he’s very happy he’s there and already having a few of the life-changing ‘insights’ you really only get by Rabbenu.

Also, I wanted to add a couple of Breslov things that are customary before Rosh Hashana:

  1. To try to confess the sins of the year on erev Rosh Hashana, at the grave of a True Tzaddik. People in Uman do it at the Tzion of Rabbenu, people in Jerusalem usually go to Shimon HaTzaddik. If you live in Israel, you have a lot of options for other True Tzaddikim you can do this by. If you don’t, try to ‘connect yourself’ spiritually to the Tzion, and do it anyway.
  2. It’s also a custom to give a small pidyon before Rosh Hashana, to a True Tzaddik.

You can do that on the RavBerland.com site, OR, donate to the Shuvu Banim Kollel Chatzot, who the Rav himself said is equivalent to giving a pidyon directly to him.

==

One way or another, things are going to change this year.

BH, in a very good way for all the sincere people who have done their best to stick to God and their yiddishkeit through all the ups and downs of the last few years.

There is nothing left to say, except Shana tova u’metuka.

May Hashem sweeten all our suffering this Rosh Hashana, judge us with great mercy and kindness, and sign us in the book of life.

The book of real ‘life’, where we work on our emuna, work to overcome our bad middot that are the cause of our suffering and start to feel that deep peace and inner contentment again that has been missing for all of us, for a very long time.

Amen.

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The change starts within

I am thinking more and more, how to get out of this ‘sick’ cycle we are all stuck in.

More and more, I’m coming to the conclusion that ‘Evil’ can’t do what it does in the world, unless it’s powered by the energy of you and me.

To put this another way, Evil needs all that ‘fear’, all that ‘despair’, all that ‘hatred’, and the rest of it, in order to keep going.

No-one can get these problems to go away for voting for someone else at the next elections.

All the politicians, at least at the level of real power, are 100% controlled by the Evils.

Otherwise, there is no way they’d be allowed to have power.

It’s that simple.

Ditto, all the ‘celebrities’, pundits, influencers, experts.

Anyone who really would challenge the system would be stopped way, way, way before they got anywhere near a million followers.

Like, around the 12,000 ‘followers’ mark – and even then, with huge censorship still going on.

That’s what I’ve seen time and time and time again, not just with me, but with other truthful ‘small people’, who are over the target.

If they get anywhere close to 12,000 they are shut down – censored into oblivion, or personally persecuted, and scared off sharing any more information.

==

This isn’t going to change via sending more of our beloved sons, husbands, fathers and brothers into a pointless, goal-less, totally corrupt ‘war’ that has just been designed to smear Israel’s name internationally, and cause so many Jews to start hating themselves, and to despair of ‘good’.

This isn’t going to change with more street protests.

With more ‘media campaigns’.

With more donations to more corrupt individuals and organisations, all skimming huge profits off the back of Jewish suffering (and also, let it be said, Arab suffering.)

==

This changes with us.

You and me.

Every single person who makes the decision to ‘choose life’ – and to stop letting the fake news and fake ‘influence’ of the Evils manipulate and distort our thinking, and our lives.

What does that change look like, tachlis?

It looks like seeking out more ways to connect to other people that are ‘real’ and in person.

It looks like slowing down, and making some real effort to connect to ourselves, our souls – and the way to do this is hitbodedut, personal prayer, where we literally just talk to God like we would talk to a friend. Or a shrink. Or a business coach. Or a mentor. Or a boss.

It looks like ‘opting out’ of sharing more of the latest, pointless ‘news’ and scare stories.

Opting out of all that negative stuff like ‘hating Palestinians’, ‘hating Leftists’, ‘hating rightists’ – even, hating all the politicians who truly are the scum of the earth, acting as the agents of the Evils to bring all this death and destruction about.

==

It looks like ‘not making excuses for the sorry state of our relationships with our nearest and dearest’.

Family relationships work on a very simple scale, when you boil it down, especially with kids, but also with others, and also, with everyone, actually:

If you are nice to people and make them feel good about themselves, they like to have you around and to be in your life and company.

But if you regularly insult people, moan about yourself all the time, see other people as a source of ‘what’s in it for me’, force your ‘wants’ on to the other people, even in opposition to what they themselves want, and care way more for the appearance of the relationship than the real content and connection – then don’t be surprised, when your kid moves to a different state or your friend stops returning your calls.

(There is healthy give and take in all relationships, of course. But the give part, especially for parents giving to their young children, has to be around the 150% mark… Adult children is a different story.)

==

How else does this change?

It changes when people stop lying to themselves that taking drugs is the ‘answer’ to their mental health issues.

Drugs being prozac, ritalin, weed, psychodelics, as well as the stuff most people would label as ‘drugs’.

Our emotions are such a potent way that God communicates with us, about what is really ‘right’ for us, and what isn’t.

Most seriously depressed people get that way because they are hanging out with selfish narcissists, who literally can’t see anyone else in the picture except themselves.

==

This is not easy to say – but I have watched so many well-meaning parents turn into that ‘selfish narc’ by agreeing to a prescription of emotion-deadening prozac, or by going AWOL for hours, weeks, months, years, lost in a cloud of smoke.

When a person is in an altered state, they aren’t really HERE.

They aren’t really feeling themselves.

So then, it’s obvious that they aren’t really ‘here’ for their kids and spouses, or feeling them, either.

==

On top of all this, every time someone uses a drug that makes them go ‘awol’ – what is happening spiritually is that they are vacating their own soul-space, leaving a vacuum that invites demonic forces in.

When we ‘check out’ of our felt experience, this is what happens – the body is still here, still operating, but now, there’s some shed behind the wheel spiritually, because aren’t owning our lives, our feelings, our experiences any more, and we went AWOL.

==

There is a beautiful life waiting to be rebuilt.

But first, we have to step back into ourselves, and stop hanging out ‘online’, in our heads, or ‘AWOL’ with drug and alcohol abuse.

I give us all a blessing, that 5786 should be the year when we finally step out of the mental prisons so many of us are stuck in, and suffering in, and out into that beautiful world where Ein Od Milvado.

There really is only God.

And once we understand that, mamash – our problems will resolve on every level, in the blink of an eye.

 

 

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Starting to feel better again

All week, I have been sick as a dog.

It started motzash, with a migraine, snot and sore throat that arrived in the middle of the night, somehow. And all week until yesterday, it was waxing and waning, accompanied with feeling nauseous, other aches and pains – and a dam of negative emotions and despair that finally broke yesterday, when I spent most of the day literally crying my eyes out.

BH, today I am feeling much better.

I think that what happened is that I’ve been storing up ‘stuff’ from the last two years, of being in constant survival mode, and not really processing anything much.

And BH, regardless of wars and scary headlines, my life has also been extremely busy, with huge changes going on.

Both kids married and out of the house… we moved house again unexpectedly… went back to school to do an MA in Jewish history… new grandchildren here and on the way…

I had a whole bunch of massive, life-changing ‘felt experiences’ to really feel and process, and I just haven’t been able to do it.

Until God made me sick as a dog this week, and I finally had to slow down, and feel all my pain, and my emotions, that I’ve been running away from for two years.

==

It’s quite an adjustment, being an ’empty nester’.

I miss my kids very much, even though BH I see them a lot, relatively, and we all get on well. Neither of them are in Jerusalem, tho, so seeing them is now reduced to basically once a week.

That was a much bigger deal than I realised.

Also, moving house again was a much bigger deal than I realised, and dragged with it a whole bunch of disappointments about not being able to really ‘settle down’, and despair about ever really being able to ‘settle down’.

That was also a big deal.

==

Then, there is all the stuff going on, and not going on, with my blog and my writing.

The last two years, between all the censorship and the ‘craziness’ of the online world, I have been kinda struggling to keep going with the blog here.

It’s not easy being a writer at the moment, trying to tread on the eggshells while still sharing stuff that is truthful and meaningful, and hopefully helpful.

I’ve had a lot of despair about how I really ‘write’, truthfully, without being targeted, in the current environment.

Not simple at all, and goes to the heart of feeling like I’m doing my tafkid in the world.

==

B’kitzur, all this welled-up yesterday, and I finally had to deal with it, myself, and the ‘state of the world’.

I was crying for hours, from the moment I woke up until around 4pm, when finally, I started to feel a little better again, and to feel more hope again.

It’s not a simple world we live in, these are not simple times. As well as all the ‘processing’ of my own dalet amot, I have also been trying my hardest to stay out of getting into ‘opinions’ about Charlie Kirk and stuff like that.

Rabbi Green actually sums it up very well, HERE.

Snippet:

Regard anything they report with equanimity. Maybe it happened. Maybe it didn’t.

The very fact that pathological liars are reporting it (& with great pomp and fanfair) should give you pause.

Anyone they allowed onto the world stage is probably one of their actors.

The purpose of their reporting is to groom the herd for their diabolical agenda.

Don’t be part of their herd.

Don’t be played by their puppeteers.

==

Part of my freak out of the last two weeks is because I am understanding more and more that the evil going on here is not just plain vanilla ‘evil’, it’s becoming more openly ‘super-natural’ evil.

I.e. demonic.

BH, I plan to repost some old stuff I wrote a few years ago over the chagim, about Rabbenu describing exactlly what is going on now, with ‘demon families’ who look just like you and me, except they have chicken feet, going to war against each other, to try and take each other out.

When that happens, they finally forget about trying to keep humanity away from the True Tzaddik – and that’s when the turnaround really occurs, for the good.

(It’s the story of The Cripple, in case you were wondering. Probably, one of my favorites.)

==

The reason the whole ‘assassination’ is not making sense, is because it’s ‘supernatural’, in ways that are not clear, certainly not to me, but enough to know that derech hateva, what they said happened just could not have happened in a million years.

Coming after the week when I finally sat down and watched Elvis’s face ‘shape changing’ live, on old B+W film, shortly before he died, or whatever, I started to understand that demons are real.

Very real.

Demons pull people away from Hashem, and pull them into acting in despicable, evil ways – i.e. they are influencers par excellence.

That’s part of why almost anything you watch online is literally nauseating – I was thinking it’s just the tech, but I’m coming to the conclusion that engaging with these characters, these actors, these ‘news stories’, these influencers – especially the ones that get an emotional reaction – is actually a short-cut to letting really bad stuff get access to your soul, God forbid.

It’s not for nothing, that the Rav has been influencing shmirat eynayim and how bad the internet really is, for years and years and years now.

==

You might think I’m a little crazy, for talking about demons.

But they are in the Gemara, and Judaism relates to them as being very, very real.

They never went away, just they found new ways of controlling humanity and influencing them to go against Hashem and act in evil ways.

It’s called: TV-movies-internet-youtube-news-politics, etc.

==

So, I want to continue to stay out of all the emotional ferment online that is undoubtedly demonically-inspired – but also, to continue writing.

It’s a narrow bridge, but I have some good ideas now for a derech.

Also, I haven’t being sharing Rav comments, as the Rav has been trying to get to Uman the last couple of weeks, so there hasn’t been anything new.

Nobody knows if he is going to make it this year, I am praying he will.

And I’ll update once we know, either way.

==

But bottom line: stay offline as much as you can, and if you are online, the written word is so much safer than the ‘movie’.

I know that’s such a challenge, for so many reasons.

But the conclusion I’ve come to recently is that all this demonic yucky can literally get access to the soul via a person’s eyes.

It takes guard your eyes to a whole other level…

==

To all the people who are still here with me, after everything we’ve been through here on the blog, in so many different ways – thanks for being part of the journey.

BH, I’m hoping 5786 is going to mark a new start for all of us.

And the beginning of Esav really going down, down, down to the depths, as the see-saw finally tips up in our direction. Holding out for the spell to break has been very, very difficult, but I think that ‘turning point’ was reached recently…

And from here on in, it’s probably going to get even weirder.

But also, we’re finally going to see the true value in all our prayers, mitzvahs, teshuva – and of being in the circle of the True Tzaddikim, while the demons battle it out to the bitter end.

 

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