So, I didn’t check the news since motzash, BH.

Yesterday night, after I got back from a hectic day out, i went online a little to unwind from the two hour traffic jam I got stuck in, trying to cross Jerusalem, and that’s when I read about what happened at Bondi Beach.

I hope Hashem will give all the wounded a speedy and easy recovery.

What was amazing, to me at least, was that it was dafka a Syrian national, Ahmed al Ahmed, who tackled one of the gunman and saved many lives by doing so.

If you believe that the actions of one individual can change the whole world for good or for bad, then Ahmed al Ahmed put some tremendous ‘good’ into the world with his actions and mesirut nefesh.

==

What struck me as strange, or at least, notable, was that yet again, it’s Pakistani nationals who were attacking Chabad – same as happened at the Mumbai Chabad House.

And if you saw the video of one of those attackers firing off his rounds from the bridge, it’s obvious he got some military training, somewhere.

==

As to whatever else was going on…. I am not going to speculate, because we already know that nothing is at it really seems, these days.

And the truth will eventually come out about everything.

==

Instead, let’s remember the Three Rules of Emuna, encapsulated by Rav Arush, but actually just brought down from the Gemara and other solid Jewish sources.

They are:

1. God is doing everything – Ein Od Milvado.

2. Everything God does is for our ultimate good, or perhaps it’s easier to understand and grasp this point if we rephrase it to say that everything that God does is for our spiritual good, ultimately. More on that below.

3. Everything is a message, a hint, a clue, about what God wants us to work on, fix, change, recognise, acknowledge and make teshuva about.

And the 4th ‘rule’ I’ll add to this, rooted in Breslov sources, is that sometimes, souls come down to this world with very, very difficult tikkunim they need to rectify from previous lifetimes.

Breslov sources and the Rav emphasis that the only way to get a ‘discount’ on past life tikkunim ilke this – which manifest as severe suffering in this world – is to draw close to the True Tzaddikim.

==

Here’s a snippet from Advice (English BRI translation of Rav Natan’s Likutei Etzot[1]), from ‘Tzaddik, #25’:

There are people whose souls are severely damaged.

Even when they come to the Tzaddik they are still sunk in all their bodily desires and have not moved away from the profane and closer to the sacred by even a single hair’s breadth. It might seem an impossible task to elevate these souls and renew them like an unborn child in the womb.

But there is a Tzaddik who has reached the most awesome of levels and who does have the power to elevate even souls which are as severely damaged as these. He can renew them like a newly-formed child growing in the womb.

A person who is aware of what he has done to his soul and who wants to take himself in hand and return to God should plead and beg of God to take pity upon him and make him worthy of drawing close to such a Tzaddik. Happy is he, who finds such a Tzaddik.

==

Many Jews get uncomfortable with this kind of language.

We’ve been in exile so long, specifically, the exile of Edom, where Esav tried to dress up as ‘Yaakov’ and to steal and subvert some of Judaism’s most sublime esoteric teachings about what a True Tzaddik really is, and what he can do, that this stuff gives many of us kind of yucky vibes…

This is the hester b’toch hester – that we can’t even discuss some of these ideas reasonably, especially when so many people today are literally drowning in suffering and heavy tikkunim, despite the fact that in this lifetime they are doing their best to serve God sincerely.

BH, I want to try to open these ideas up more, for discussion, as they are also at the heart of understanding the fundamental difference between Breslov, and other chassiduts.

Amongst many other things.

==

Point is: nothing happens for nothing, down here in this this lowly world.

Everything is a message for change and growth, a life lesson that God is trying to teach us.

It’s when we forget that, and mouth platitudes about ‘no one can understand God’s ways’, blah-di-blah, that we run a very serious spiritual risk of becoming totally disconnected from God on a day-to-day level, just relating to Him as some ‘abstract’ idea, God forbid.

==

God cares about every little detail.

Every little thought, every little action, for the side of good or the opposite, we will be rewarded for the former and ‘punished’ for the latter, if we don’t make sincere teshuva on it.

And there are no ‘bulk discounts’.

A person can’t say I gave a million bucks to charity, God will let me off all the traif and immoral behaviour!!!

That’s not how it works.

A person will get rewarded for their million bucks to charity (assuming it’s real tzedaka, and not just running cover for another massive real estate venture…) – and punished for every detail of every sin they didn’t make real teshuva for.

==

Let’s add another nuance in here.

Xtians, and others, teach that just ‘believing in ‘their tzaddik’ is all it takes to be awarded the ‘get out of gehinnom free’ card.

That’s not authentic Judaism, and it’s certainly not Breslov.

The nuance is this:

We draw to the True Tzaddik not because that guy is going to wave a magic wand, and fix all our issues for us, while we go and watch netflix.

This is not the case at all.

We draw close to the True Tzaddik because then we get the koach we need to keep going to fix our sins, to not give up when it becomes overwhelmingly dark, to keep trying again, to keep standing up when we fall down.

The power of the True Tzaddik is to give his followers the koach to keep going, until they really fix the stuff they need to.

==

So many times the last few years, I’ve been on, or even over, the cusp of despair, about a whole bunch of stuff.

I cannot tell you, how many times a trip to Uman, to Rabbenu, or a visit to the Rav’s prayers on Ido HaNavi, has set me back on my feet, when left to myself, I probably would have given up.

That is a Jewish ‘True Tzaddik’. That is a Breslov ‘True Tzaddik’.

A spiritual coach that encourages you to keep going!!! There is no despair in the world, keep going!!! Keep trying to fix your bad middot, keep talking to God every day, keeping hoping for the world to become a better place!!!

Don’t give up!!!

Not on yourself.

And not on the world either.

==

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Rav Natan wrote Likutey Etzot as an easy-to-grasp digest of many of the main practical points Rabbenu taught in Likutei Moharan.

Shiur from 26th Cheshvan 5786, to the yeshiva in the Old City

[The Rav has been talking about how Leah cried, because she thought she was destined to become the shidduch of Esav. And how people used to make marriage matches between their children as soon as they were born. The Rav continues:]

==

By the Arabs, the moment a person is  born, they already arranged his shidduch, immediately with the cousins from the next sand dunes.

You are going to marry him, you are going to marry her, this is the shidduch.

And after this [her shidduch] turns out to be a murderer, he sits in jail – so this is a problem. So then, you want to get a divorce. If you want this, you’ll receive a beating, you’ll be given murderous blows.

The Jewish women [who married Arabs in Israel] are running away from them now. Out of 10,000, they already helped 50 [women] to escape.

==

[The Rav turns to his son, Nachman Berland, and continues:]

Your mother herself smuggled out [people[1]] there. You were a boy, you were just born, in 5735 (1974) this was. You were then 10 years old. We made a brit in Tivon, we travelled to Tivon, to make him a brit.

He learned in Ponevezh, and then he became one of my chossids.

==

The son of the Rav of Tivon was called Omer. His son went to France, so he came to Yitzhak David Grossman, and begged him to help him rescue his son.

That he should send someone to France to bring him back. I was there then, I was with David Grossman, we were like two brothers. He immediately contacted me to fly to France. I immediately got on a plane.

Where am I going to find him?

The son of the Rav from Tivon had become chiloni, he’d become like that, he’d already been in the mad house, from all the sins [he’d done].

==

Like that one, who killed himself.[2]

The father wasn’t at home, so what is the boy going to do? The father needs to be at home. He is doing kiruv a thousand people in Korea. OK, you did kiruv with a thousand people.

But, come home at night!

Fly to Korea, then come back each day. What’s the worst that can happen? Take a private plane, and fly. Altogether, this is 10,000 km. You can do it in ten minutes, a thousand kilometres an hour.

How are you abandoning your son?!

==

All the peoiple you did kiruv with, you did kiruv with a million people – this doesn’t equate to one son.

It’s written that King Hezekiah brought the whole of Israel back in teshuva – except his own son [Menashe].

The ikker (main thing) is to do kiruv with your own son, to find out what he’s up to, to buy him bon-bons, to take him out for a trip, to take him to Uman, once – so that he should see his Abba!

You can’t desert your own son! Your own son is equal to billions [of people you do kiruv with]. He can bring the geula.

==

A person needs to know that the first priority is to take care of his own son.

He is in Korea for three years already, the boy didn’t see his father, he committed suicide. Because he was alone, he failed. They tripped him up.

Excerpted and translated from Shivivei Or, 436.

==

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Rav appears to be talking about a Jewish mother and child who were smuggled out of an Arab village. The brit being referred to would be that of the boy whose father was an Arab.

[2] The Rav is referring to the bochur, Menachem Mendel Litzman, who apparently jumped off a building during the Million Man gathering to protest the chareidi draft, on October 30th, 2025.

See HERE.

==

THIS is a post from 2008, announcing the new ‘Badd House in South Korea.

Here are some interesting snippets:

With their year-old daughter in tow, Rabbi Osher and Mussia Litzman arrived in Seoul, South Korea, to establish the nation’s first Chabad House…

“This is not my job – to look for religious activities for the Israelis or any Jewish people – [so] I need to ask you,” Yigal B. Caspi, Israel‘s ambassador to Seoul, told three Chabad-Lubavitch rabbinical students who visited the country’s Jewish resident last summer. “We need Judaism here. We need Chabad. I have to ask of you, please do not forget about us.”…

Osher Litzman, who was appointed six months ago, first completed his duties in the Israel Defense Force before moving to South Korea. He and his wife learned Korean from an Internet-based language course.

In addition to local residents, the new Chabad House, which received a grant from the Rohr Family Foundation, will also serve tourists and business.

==

2008 is 17 years ago.

If Mendy Litzman was 20 at the time of his death, as reported he’d be three at the time of his parents going to Seoul, but he’s strangely not mentioned in this press release.

Also, notice the close ties between the State and Chabad, with the State apparently ‘requesting’ ‘Badd houses in different parts of the world, because the State really, really cares about Jewish education, Torah and values, as we see clearly with our own eyes every second in this country. Ahem.

Lastly, HERE is an interview with Sam Rohr, of the Rohr Foundation, who donates so much of the cash for so many of these ‘Badd houses:

==

Last one for now, from the Collive site that routinely blocks my browser… so I have to find creative ways to access their content.

Here is a strange line from this article from 2009:

Rabbi Osher Litzman and his wife have tirelessly worked on uniting the Jewish military and local communities of South Korea. This Tishrei, they are joined by bochurim Avi Lesches, Yossi Goldstein, Levi Pekar, and Shmuly Nadler. Full Story

Let me put this over to you, dear reader: what ‘Jewish military’ is being referred to here, that hangs out in South Korea?

And why would they need a ‘Badd shaliach who served in the IDF to help ‘unite’ them?

Over to you….

BH, while I’ve started to feel better the last couple of days, after a month of snot, headaches, phlegm and funny eyes, I’m still feeling a little ‘off’.

As though I am being ‘irradiated’. Or something.

As of course we all are these days, 24/7. I guess they have another pandemic waiting in the wings, and they are really throwing everything they have at getting it going this winter.

But long story short, after a month of not feeling so hot, I finally started to feel better this week and more upbeat.

==

I went with my husband to get our usual bread for Shabbat this morning, and came away with a huge, huge lesson on life.

The main guy in the bakery, who we’ll call Ron, is a cheerful 50+ chiloni. The guy doesn’t wear a kippa. It took him a while to warm up to us and to not mind wishing us ‘Shabbat shalom’ on a Friday morning.

I had him pegged as a ‘typical chiloni’, whatever that is meant to mean, if I had to guess, I would say he’s a former kibbutznik who moved out to a city.

==

This morning, there was a teenager on the till, who was learning the ropes.

He said something that made me think he was the son of Ron – so me being me, I asked them:

Are you related?

Ron looked at me with a smile, and said Baruch Hashem, I don’t have any kids.

I said back to him not yet…

He looked at me with another smile, and told me:

My wife and I are 57. God decided that we weren’t going to have kids and I have no questions against Him. There are no punishments in this world, just life lessons.

And he smiled again, and went to serve someone else.

==

Me?

I was totally blown away.

I got such a profound lesson in real emuna, from this apparently chiloni guy, who used to struggle to wish me ‘Shabbat shalom’.

I came out of there today muttering to myself who is like your people, Hashem?!

Like, really?

==

What’s a shame, is that there are so many apparently frum people, including yours truly, who don’t have emuna and bitachon in Hashem anywhere near the level of Ron.

Ron is ALWAYS smiling.

Always.

Even during the worst of the war, the worst of the last couple of  years, he’s had a smile on his careworn face, and not because his life is a total garden of roses.

Nobody’s life is a garden of roses these days, no matter how it may appear from outside.

==

It was a very powerful lesson, and so, I thought I’d come and share it with you, dear reader.

I am at a stage in life where having seen so many of these ‘Youtube rabbis’, and other ‘leaders’, who just get the non-stop propaganda befitting deep state actors and agents, I now find it very, very hard to listen to ‘Torah’ from any source that is not actually Rav Berland, or Rav Ofer Erez, or people who are 100% connected to real tzaddikim.

(You can tell who they are, as they usually have very small followings, and lots of ‘obstacles’ put in their way any time they try to branch out.)

==

I am at a stage in life, where the more ‘Youtube videos’ I see people put out, the more ‘hype’ they get, the bigger their social media following, or their exposure on propaganda sites like YWN – the less I want anything to do with them.

BH, I have enough good reading material in Breslov, especially in the Hebrew, to last me a million years. I am not feeling a ‘lack’ in that way.

But sometimes, I am missing these real, practical ‘life lessons’ in emuna that you used to get a lot of, from ‘Youtube rabbis’ who could talk a great game, but sadly, were not practising what they preach.

This morning, I realised that here in Eretz Yisrael, you don’t need ‘Youtube rabbis’ to tell you this stuff.

Hashem serves these lessons up for you with your challah for Shabbos.

If you let Him.

==

BH, I give us all a blessing, that we should feel good and healthy, and be able to repel whatever ‘bad energy’ is currently being directed at us, in any which way.

And, that we should also continue to strengthen our emuna and bitachon in God, to the level where we can be as sincerely happy and  joyful as Ron is, every day.

And, I give us a blessing that we should manage to clear away the klipot, and the lies, at least enough, to be able to discern who the True Tzaddikim are in our world.

And to draw close to them, and follow their advice, on how to draw closer to God, and to emuna, and to our real, happy and holy selves.

Amen.

==

PS: This week, the chemtrail-spraying drones here in Israel got creative – they were mamash drawing menorahs in the sky, with the full complement of 8 candles… Ah, bless.

Even the deep state has its pintele yid.

I woke up today to a text, in Hebrew, from a nice lady which gave me a whole shpiel about ‘Yud tet Kislev’ in Hebrew.

I used to think all this OTT ‘celebration’ of the 19th of Kislev, the day the Alter Rebbe was released from jail (the first time…) was just harmless Chabad ‘bigging themselves up’ stuff. I still think it’s Chabad bigging themselves up, and I no longer think it’s so harmless.

If Breslov celebrated as a ‘holiday’ every time Rav Natan Sternhartz got miraculously released from Russian jail, or R Shmuel Horowitz, or R Levi Yitzhak Bender, let’s just say no-one would get a lot of learning done.

But this is Chabad’s way, to take something, blow it out of all proportion, and then run a big PR campaign, for centuries, that somehow they are better and more important and more ‘special’ than everyone else, and so EVERYONE has to know about the ‘yud tet Kislev’, and EVERYONE has to bend the knee and ‘respect’ the Alter Rebbe for paying a huge bribe to get released from Russian prison.

Okayyy then.

==

Here is what the text I got sent, translated from the original Hebrew:

“Shalom, on the day of the chassidic geula, Yud Tet Kislev, when the Alter Rebbe left prison after 53 days, l’kitrug (‘in accusation against’) the 53rd chapter of his book the Tanya, which is considered as the 53 chapters of Chumash that Moshe received from Sinai.

Bsorot Tovot and geula shleimah to our friends, to family [deleted to maintain privacy] and all of Am Yisrael!

==

Before we continue with a bit of real history, I just wanted to tell you about a conversation I had with a friend of mine who lives on a moshav somewhere southwards.

The first thing she told me is about this divorcee she knows with a few kids, who made teshuva ‘Chabad style’ and is now spending a fortune she doesn’t have trying to follow Chabad minhagim.

This woman has a barmitzvah coming up, and she was told she should buy special ‘Chabad’ tefillin for her son. What’s ‘special’ about Chabad tefillin? You ask. I also did. Apparently, they have much bigger batim to house the klaf – and the klaf itself is written in something called the ‘Alter Rebbe Ktav’, or ‘Alter Rebbe writing’.

I looked into this a little, and it means they have scribes trained to copy the Alter Rebbe of Chabad’s handwriting, and to write the tefillin in ‘his’ writing.

Not only that, where a mechudar set of tefillin will cost you around 3,000 shekels in Israel today, these ‘special Chabad tefillin’ cost 11,000 shekel.

This woman literally is struggling to put bread on the table, but this is what she’s being told she needs to shell out in order for her son to lay tefillin the Chabad way…

==

While we’re talking about Chabad and tefillin…

On my little break this week, we ended up in a yishuv in the Shomron that didn’t have a lot of eating options. Mamash, the last option was a hummus place that had pictures of the Rebbe plastered all over the wall.

I wasn’t so keen, but what can you do.

When I went to wash hands, I noticed there was a ‘Chabad tefillin table’ set up next to the sink, with a pair of tefillin on a surface covered in a huge picture of the Rebbe laying tefillin, that bore these words prominently across the top:

Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu V’Rabbeinu Melech HaMoshiach L’olam Va’ed,

(Translation: Long live our master, our teacher and our rabbi king moshiach forever and ever.)

==

Snippet from HERE:

In the years 5753-5754 (1993-1994), the Rebbe encouraged the niggun “Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu V’Rabbeinu Melech HaMoshiach L’olam Va’ed” at almost every opportunity when he appeared before the public, and as a result, the declaration in this form spread more and more. Chabad Chassidim today proclaim ‘Yechi Adoneinu’ at the end of every prayer and at various events, print the declaration in many publications, and also sing this niggun frequently.

==

BTW, this is not a small fringe sect.

Believing the that Rebbe STILL IS Moshiach is mainstream ‘Badd thought – take a look at THIS, on the Chabadinfo site, from just five months ago.

Snippet:

For several decades now, many Chabad institutions, such as the Vaad L’Hafotzas Sichos as well Beis Moshiach Magazine, refer to the Rebbe with the title “Melech HaMoshiach.” • We asked the Beis Moshiach’s Vaad HaRuchni — Rabbi Zalman Liberow, Rabbi Berel Lipsker, and Rabbi Nachman Shapiro — to explain the importance of referring to the Rebbe with this title and what impact does this have on the readers?

==

All I can tell you, is that my husband started to feel pukey after we left that place.

He’s blaming it on the hummus, but I have my own opinions of what turned his stomach.

==

But enough of all this, let’s get back to some real history, let’s also ‘celebrate’ Yud Tet Kislev, which is apparently the ‘chassidic geula’ because the Alter Rebbe paid a huge bribe to get out of Russian jail…

I decided to look a little bit more into the story, nothing too deep, nothing too heavy, just to see what traces are left of it in ‘real history’.

Here’s what turned up.

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EXHIBIT 1: A ‘loose translation’ (that’s missing so many crucial bits…) of the Alter Rebbe’s interrogation in the Czarist prison, from his ‘Kislev 19’ incarceration in 1798.

(From a ‘badd site HERE.)

Here are the snippets that took my eye:

 

Q: What’s your occupation? Do you pay taxes?

A: I live from my wife’s income. She deals in bread and other goods. I am a member in the guild of businessmen level three. I give a percentage of my income to taxes. I own a tavern.

Q: We received information that you are the leader of a new Jewish sect. Answer properly, what is the difference between this Jewish sect and standard Judaism.

A: Because this is a complicated question, I can’t answer it without a translator.

Q: What is the source of this sect, who is the leader, who are the followers, and who was the leader in the previous generation.

A: There is no new sect to speak of. It’s only a different interpretation of the holy scriptures, and every rabbi interprets according to his level of understanding. The purpose of these new interpretations is to inspire devotion and fervor for G-d and his laws. I have gained my knowledge from the study of books.

Q: What is the importance of the sect, and how do you draw followers?

A: The question is too complicated to answer without a translator.

==

First, let’s give some more background.

This interrogation was happening in 1798 – 40 years after the Baal Shem Tov had died.

Even though things moved so much slower in the old days, to pretend that the BESHT’s chassidut was a ‘new sect’ 40 years later after the BESHT had died, just doesn’t jive with the facts.

The ‘new sect’ was Chabad / Lubavitch, specifically. And the Alter Rebbe effectively dodged the question of how his ‘new sect’ of Chabad / Lubavitch differed from standard Judaism by claiming he needed a translator.

Now, it’s possible that he actually got a translator and answered that question – if you find that info, let me have it.

But I haven’t seen that info published anywhere. Yet.

==

Here is the Wiki page devoted to ‘Kislev 19th’, where we learn more details of what we’re told happened:

The official process began on May 8, 1798, when a defamatory letter, signed by “Hirsch Ben David,” (a pseudonym) was sent to the chief prosecutor of Czar Paul I.

The author of this letter, who was likely acting in concert with the heads of the Mitnagdim in Vilna, leveled three main claims against Rabbi Shneur Zalman (referred to as Rabbi Zalman Ben Baruch):

1. That Rabbi Shneur Zalman was involved in rebellion and conspiracy.
2. Shneur Zalman and his companions were accused of leading a life with no framework of law.
3. They were branded thieves and bribe-takers.

Another aspect of the accusations was the transferring of funds to Israel for poor people in Israel which was at the time under Ottoman rule. Russia and the Ottoman empire were extremely hostile to each other, recently having fought a war. Shneur Zalman was thus accused of supporting the Ottomans.

==

We already went into the sticky question of whether the Alter Rebbe really was transferring money to the Chassidic Aliya in Israel, under the leadership of Avraham Kalisker of Tiberius, HERE.

Snippet:

In the National Library in Israel, there is a doctoral dissertation typewritten (!) that contains excerpts of letters from Avraham Kalisker, head of the Chassidic yishuv in Tiberius, stating clearly that the Alter Rebbe was refusing to release charity funds to R Kalisker, unless R Kalisker wrote in praise of the Tanya.

R Kalisker explains that he is totally unable to do that – and also states that if any of the money from the Alter Rebbe in the past was also given with that condition attached, i.e. that R Kalisker should publically write in support of the Tanya, he wants to repay every penny.

==

Bottom line: By 1798, the Alter Rebbe had been refusing to pass the collected Tzedaka money along to the Chassidic aliya for months because of the dispute of the Tanya…

And that’s how he could ‘prove’ to the Tzar that he wasn’t sending money to Eretz Yisrael.

Because he really wasn’t.

==

Here’s a bit more, about ‘Kislev 19th’ from the Wiki site:

Tachanun is not recited.^[24] The last verses of Psalm 55, “He has redeemed my soul in peace,” are traditionally sung on this day. These verses are a reference to the experienced by the Alter Rebbe on this day. Rabbi Shneur Zalman said: “Whoever participates in my celebration will merit to see nachas from his descendants.”^[25] The day is also marked by many other non-Chabad Chassidic groups.^{[citation needed]}

==

I left the citations in for this snippet, so you can see the propaganda in full flow, especially this bit:

The day is also marked by many other non-Chabad Chassidic groups.^{[citation needed]}

Good luck finding that ‘citation’ for this idea. If you do turn something up, I’d be happy to see it.

==

Now, you might not know this, but Alexander I of Russia and the Alter Rebbe got very cosy, after the Alter Rebbe was ‘miraculously’ freed from prison.

Alexander I was the son and successor of Tzar Paul I, who was murdered in a palace coup in 1801.

 After Alexander I ascended the throne, the Alter Rebbe agreed to go to work for him as a ‘spy’, sending his chassidim into the camp of Napoleon I during the Franco-Russia war.

There is a whole ‘badd story about this, involving Moshe Meisels, who is almost caught red-handed spying for the Tzar, but apparently dodges the bullet because he’d perfected the ability to split his intellect off from his emotions, and so had become a superlative liar.

==

HERE is where you can read the whole story, and where you’ll also learn this:

The Rebbe’s contribution to Russia’s victory was recognized by the Czar, who awarded Rabbi Schneur Zalman descendents the status of “An Honorable Citizen For All Generations.” Five generations of Chabad Rebbes were to make use of this special standing in their work on behalf of the Jews of Russia.

You also might not know this, but that same Alexander I was initially an enthusiastic freemason and ‘mystic’ – take a look at this cover, a contemporary picture of him shaking hands the freemason way, with Napoleon:

==

And then, after Napoleon turned on Russia, and after he saw the destruction atheistic/satanic masonry wrought in France, Alexander ‘made teshuva’.

He became a born-again evangelical, literally.

And then, he started working very closely with the British Bible Society, and Lewis Way, main funder of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews (LJS) to try and a) get Russia’s Jews converted on mass b) become the ‘next Cyrus’ who would lead the converted Jews back to their ancestral homeland, Eretz Yisrael.

==

One of Alexander I’s ‘big plans’ was to encourage conversion by offering converted Jews big tracks of land in Russia.

These converted Jews could even manage their own communal affairs, and maintain their own communal structures, etc.

Bottom line: it was an early attempt at ‘Jews for yeshu’, where the main requirement was baptism and stated belief in Yoshki as the messiah, but then you could carry on wearing your shtreimel, eating your honey cake on Rosh Hashana, and drinking your schnapps on Shabbos.

This bit of Russian-Jewish history has been almost totally scrubbed – but I’ve found it described in missionary journals from 200 years ago, as it was happening.

==

One of the Tzar’s main missionaries was a man called ‘Mr Moritz’, a converted Jews from St Petersburg, who made a lot of trouble.

I’m sure it’s just a CO-IN-CID-ENCE, but this is exactly the same time that ‘Moshe’, the Alter Rebbe’s son, converted to xtianity and apparently went to work for the Tzar as a missionary to the Jews.

That he converted is 100% fact – the documents were found by David Assaf in the Russian archives, and proved that the ‘badd had been lying about Moshe for almost 200 years.

==

To get back to ‘Alexander I’.

(His Wiki page is HERE.)

He created something called The Holy Alliance, which was basically a plan to make Europe totally ‘xtian’ again, ahead of the (second…) coming of Yoshki. This is another part of history that has been almost totally scrubbed.

When The Holy Alliance fell apart, Alexander got so jaded with royal life and politics, that he seems to have faked his own death, and went to live as a wondering monk with a reputation as a holy man and miracle-worker in the Russian Orthodox church.

Take a look at THIS, snippet:

Rumours have long suggested that emperor Alexander I staged his death in 1825 and became holy man Feodor Kuzmich, also known as Feodor Tomsky.

A theory was that he wanted forgiveness for any role he may have played in the assassination of his father Pavel I in 1801, or in benefiting from the work of others in slaying the tsar.

Now analysis by Svetlana Semyonova, president of Russian Graphological Society, suggests strong similarities between the handwritings of Alexander I and the mysterious monk.

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Before Alexander I ‘died’, he made sure that his unsuitable next-in-line heir, Constantine, wrote a formal letter dropping his claim to the Russian throne, which then passed over to the infamous Nicholas I.

Nicholas I is the one who actually implemented the very cruel Cantonist decrees, to try to decimate and ‘force convert’ Russian Jews.

But, that original plan was Alexander I’s, in 1803 – just, Rabbenu managed to push it off 25 years, as the Breslov sources teach explicitly.

And meantime, Alexander I became an evangelical ‘philosemite’ and tried to convert the Jews with kindnesses and big tracts of land, instead of simply murdering them in pogroms and trying to deport them to other countries.

==

So.

‘Yud Tet Kislev’ – what did we learn, now we put all this back into some real, historical context?

Was it really the ‘chassidic geula’?

Was the Alter Rebbe already being suspected of trying to subvert the Baal Shem Tov’s chassidic movement, even during his lifetime, and creating a ‘new Jewish sect’ that actually was NOT ‘standard Judaism’?

How are the Frankists mixed-up in all this?

And the Freemasons?

And the evangelical xtians?

What’s the real reason ‘Alexander’ is such a popular name with the ‘Badd?

How did Moshe Shneuri’s conversion to xtianity affect how the ‘badd community was being treated by the Tzar, particularly in terms of all the massive tracts of land they seem to have had under their control, particularly in and around the Kherson province?

And last but not least: what sort of deal did the Alter Rebbe have to cut with the Tzar, and the Tzar’s secret police, in order to be ‘released miraculously’ from Russian prison?

Questions, questions, questions.

==

I’m sure we’ll come back to this again, sadly.

But in the meantime, let me leave you with this ‘story’ from last week, from the Daniel Amram Telegram Channel:

(This is a screenshot with the English translation:)

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And this is where you can play the video yourself:

Ah bless!

In the true spirit of the interfaith cooperation between the Alter Rebbe and  born-evangelical Alexander I 200 years ago!

Whatever.

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PS: You might also find this interesting, from 2015:

https://forward.com/opinion/323267/why-is-chabad-helping-christian-extremists/

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And this, from 2008:

Chabad and Christian fund team up

Collel Chabad launched a joint project with the International Fellowship of Christians & Jews in aiding Israeli needy families Full Story

Some more very interesting alt-history from the Rav.

Enjoy!

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Zevulun was born ‘without a heart’.

He was born ‘without a heart’![1]

Like the Chacham Tzvi, who permitted a chicken that had no heart.[2] [After this] he had to run away from place to place, because everyone came out against him, about this, that he poskened to permit a chicken without a heart.

So, he ran away from Amsterdam to…[missing in original] From place to place.[3]

==

His father, he was called Yankel.

So, two witnesses came, to say who they’d seen him having his head cut off. They testified!

And his mother, she was called Nechama, she didn’t agree to believe the witnesses, on no account, no! She said:

I feel as though he’s alive!

And her uncle, Rabbi Heshel of Krakow – just now, we were by his kever in Krakow – he ran away from Lublin, to Krakow.

He said to her [to his niece, Nechama] do not cross my threshold again! There are witnesses here, who testified that they saw him dead – that they cut his head off! What, you don’t believe this?!

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She [Nechama] was the daughter of his sister [Reb Heshel’s sister]. And she said:

No! I feel that he’s still alive!

And in truth, after half a year, ‘the dead man appeared on his own legs’. And then he said that in truth, he’d been standing in line…[to have his head chopped off, as the 100th man].

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The Cossacks were very organised, not like in Shuvu Banim, where everything is a balagan (big mess). And they stood everyone in line, and they went along chopping each one’s head off, and he was number 100.

When they got to him, the Cossack had mercy on him. So he told him:

I am going to give you a blow here, in the neck with the sword, and make out like you are going to drop down dead on the floor.

And so, he stayed laying on the floor for eight days. After eight days, he got up and ran away.

And after half a  year, he returned. This was in the year ח”ת, (5408 = 1648) because Avraham bowed to the Children of Heth[4]. And so, there were murders in the year ת”ח, . ‘Heth’ is written eight times, and Avraham already prayed over who would live and who would die, in the years ח”ת.

Excerpted and translated from Shivivei Or 435.

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Ad kan, from the Rav.

The Chacham Tzvi was born in 1658, ten years after the Chielminicki pogroms of 1648-9.

His mother was Nechama Cohen (1630-1690), the daughter of R’ Ephraim ‘Sh’aar Ephraim’ haCohen. She married R Yaakov Ashkenazi of Vilna, or ‘Yankel’, just as the Rav said.

Her mother was Rochel (1619-1685) – although, I personally doubt ‘Rochel’ had a child when she was 11, but who knows.

The Rav tells us that Nechama’s mother was the sister of the Hanukat HaTorah, Avraham Yehoshua Heshel, head of the yeshiva in Krakow, i.e., ‘Rabbi Heshel’, above.

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You will be shocked, shocked!!! To know that on geni, all this information is scrambled.

There, the sister of ‘Reb Heshel of Krakow’ is some anonymous woman who is meant to have married: Benjamin Zev Wolf Ashkenazi. – i.e. the father of the Chacham Tzvi’s father, Yaakov Ashkenazi of Vilna.

So, instead of Nechama (the Chacham Tzvi’s mum) being Reb Heshel’s niece, geni has it that Yaakov Ashkenazi (the Chacham Tzvi’s dad) is Reb Heshel’s nephew, instead.

Why?

It’s not obvious.

==

One possibility, is that the Chacham Tzvi’s mother actually ‘remarried’ before her supposed dead husband showed up again, and that would cause a whole bunch of difficulties, as you might expect.

Another possibility is that according to the Rav’s version, the Chacham Tzvi was actually the first cousin of the leading ‘Sabbatean’ the Meir Panim of Eisenstadt, enthusiastic supporter of the Sabbatean ‘prophet’ Yehuda Leib Prossnitz.

(Remember, we have a theory that Yehuda Leib Prossnitz was also the father of Jacob Frank….) And, he for sure was the teacher of the young Yonatan Eibshitz.

Another Chacham Tzvi first cousin would be yet another Sabbatean ‘false messiah’ called Mordechai Mokiach – the Meir Panim’s brother.

So we see, that the ‘Chacham Tzvi’s close family tree is actually stuffed-full of Sabbateans, his own stance notwithstanding….

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As I mentioned, this happens all the time.

The ‘big sabbatean’ and the ‘anti sabbatean’ are always close family.

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The Sh’aar Ephraim HaKohen (d. 1678) is meant to fit into the Chacham Tzvi’s picture as his grandpa.

This snippet comes from the Jewish Encyclopaedia site:

Lithuanian Talmudist; born at Wilna 1616; died June 3, 1678, at Ofen, Hungary. Driven by the Chmielnicki persecutions from his native city, where he was dayyan, he went to Moravia. He filled the office of rabbi, first at Trebitsch and then at Ofen.

On Geni, the Sha’ar Ephraim is meant to marry Rochel, who is the great-grand-daughter of R Eliyahu, the Baal Shem of Chelm, who makes the golem. According to the Rav’s version, that would make Reb Heshel of Krakow also the great-grandson of R Eliyahu the Baal Shem…

But for now, we will have to wait for the Rav to drop us a few more clues, as to what is really going on here, and why he wants us to know about Reb Yankele, who didn’t get his head cut off by the Cossacks, after all.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] This is a theme that the Rav has mentioned many times previously. One of the explanations is that it denotes a person with no fear, who just does whatever the Tzaddik tells them to do, even if it’s scary.

[2] I.e. ruled that it was kosher to eat.

[3] In ‘official history’, the Chacham Tzvi was hounded out of Amsterdam because of his opposition to the Sabbatean Nehemiah Chiyoun.

[4] See Bereishit 23:7 – when Avraham was buying the Me’arat HaMachpelah.